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"James Dean",
"Cinema and television",
"what did he do in cinema?",
"American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played,"
] |
C_1511e04b866448bab5fa69d23e09c93e_0
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what were some films he was in?
| 2 |
What were some films James was in?
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James Dean
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American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity." Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen. His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine. Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982. On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young. CANNOTANSWER
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Rebel Without a Cause.
|
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).
After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.
Early life and education
James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton Dean. He also claimed that his mother was partly Native American, and that his father belonged to a "line of original settlers that could be traced back to the Mayflower". Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him". In 1938, she was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean's father served in World War II and later remarried.
In his adolescence, Dean sought the counsel and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years". Their alleged sexual relationship was suggested in Paul Alexander's 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean. In 2011, it was reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death. Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was either sexually abused by DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager.
Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMC) and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.
Acting career
Early career
Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola commercial. He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952), and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952).
While struggling to gain roles in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay. Brackett opened doors for Dean and helped him land his first starring role on Broadway in See the Jaguar.
In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett. In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore and the advice of his mentor Rogers Brackett, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg. In 1952 he had a nonspeaking bit part as a pressman in the movie Deadline – U.S.A., starring Humphrey Bogart.
Proud of these accomplishments, Dean referred to the Actors Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as "the greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong." There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, alongside whom he would eventually star in Giant (1956).
Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in the Flower", saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later portray in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This summer 1953 program featured the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll. Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, a pandering homosexual North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist (1902), led to calls from Hollywood. During the production of The Immoralist, Dean had an affair with actress Geraldine Page. Angelica Page said of their relationship, "According to my mother, their affair went on for three-and-a-half months. In many ways my mother never really got over Jimmy. It was not unusual for me to go to her dressing room through the years, obviously many years after Dean was gone, and find pictures of him taped up on her mirror. My mother never forgot about Jimmy -- never. I believe they were artistic soul mates." Page remained friends with Dean until his death and kept a number of personal mementos from the play—including several drawings by him.
East of Eden
In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of 'Cal Trask', for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. This book deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s.
In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.
Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said that he wanted "a Brando" for the role and Osborn suggested Dean, a relatively unknown young actor. Dean met with Steinbeck, who did not like the moody, complex young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.
Much of Dean's performance in the film was unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The best-known improvised sequence of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film.
Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from their fathers.
In recognition of his performance in East of Eden, Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. (Jeanne Eagels was nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.
Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and planned roles
Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. Following East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, Dean wanted to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark, and hence took on the role of Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy, in Giant, a posthumously released 1956 film. The movie portrays a number of decades in the lives of Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher, played by Rock Hudson; his wife, Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor; and Rink. To portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.
Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited.
Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.
Having finished Giant, Dean was set to star as Rocky Graziano in a drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and, according to Nicholas Ray himself, he was going to do a story called Heroic Love with the director. Dean's death terminated any involvement in the projects but Somebody Up There Likes Me still went on to earn both commercial and critical success, winning two Oscars and grossing $3,360,000, with Paul Newman playing the role of Graziano.
Personal life
Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. According to Bast, he was Dean's roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love." They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function.
Bast, who was also Dean's first biographer, would not confirm whether he and Dean had a sexual relationship until 2006. In his book Surviving James Dean, Bast was more open about the nature of his relationship with Dean, writing that they had been lovers one night while staying at a hotel in Borrego Springs. In his book, Bast also described the difficult circumstances of their involvement.
In 1996, actress Liz Sheridan detailed her relationship with Dean in New York in 1952, saying it was "just kind of magical. It was the first love for both of us." Sheridan published her memoir, Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean; A Love Story, in 2000.
While living in New York, Dean was introduced to actress Barbara Glenn by their mutual friend Martin Landau. They dated for two years, often breaking up and getting back together. In 2011, their love letters were sold at auction for $36,000.
Early in Dean's career, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers, the studio's public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean's Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped Dean together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an 'eligible bachelor' who had not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: "They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals."
Dean's best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress Pier Angeli. He met Angeli while she was shooting The Silver Chalice (1954) on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli, during an interview fourteen years after their relationship ended, described their times together:
Dean was quoted saying about Angeli, "Everything about Pier is beautiful, especially her soul. She doesn't have to be all gussied up. She doesn't have to do or say anything. She's just wonderful as she is. She has a rare insight into life."
Those who believed Dean and Angeli were deeply in love claimed that a number of forces led them apart. Angeli's mother disapproved of Dean's casual dress and what were, for her at least, unacceptable behavior traits: his T-shirt attire, late dates, fast cars, drinking, and the fact that he was not a Catholic. Her mother said that such behavior was not acceptable in Italy. In addition, Warner Bros., where he worked, tried to talk him out of marrying and he himself told Angeli that he did not want to get married. Richard Davalos, Dean's East of Eden co-star, claimed that Dean in fact wanted to marry Angeli and was willing to allow their children to be brought up Catholic. An Order for the Solemnization of Marriage pamphlet with the name "Pier" lightly penciled in every place the bride's name is left blank was found amongst Dean's personal effects after his death.
Some commentators, such as William Bast and Paul Alexander, believe the relationship was a mere publicity stunt. In his autobiography, Elia Kazan, the director of East of Eden, dismissed the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, although he remembered hearing Dean and Angeli loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. Kazan was quoted by author Paul Donnelley as saying about Dean, "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends." Pier Angeli talked only once about the relationship in her later life in an interview, giving vivid descriptions of romantic meetings at the beach. Dean biographer John Howlett said these read like wishful fantasies, as Bast claims them to be.
After finishing his role for East of Eden, Dean took a brief trip to New York in October 1954. While he was away, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone. The press was shocked and Dean expressed his irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month. Gossip columnists reported that Dean watched the wedding from across the road on his motorcycle, even gunning the engine during the ceremony, although Dean later denied doing anything so "dumb". Joe Hyams, in his 1992 biography of Dean, James Dean: Little Boy Lost, claims that he visited Dean just as Angeli, then married to Damone, was leaving his home. Dean was crying and allegedly told Hyams she was pregnant, with Hyams concluding that Dean believed the child might be his. Angeli, who divorced Damone and then her second husband, the Italian film composer Armando Trovajoli, was said by friends in the last years of her life to claim that Dean was the love of her life. She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1971, at the age of 39.
Dean also dated Swiss actress Ursula Andress. "She was seen riding around Hollywood on the back of James's motorcycle," writes biographer Darwin Porter. She was also seen with Dean in his sports cars, and was with him on the day he bought the car that he died in.
Death
Auto racing hobby
In 1954, Dean became interested in developing a career in motorsport. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a Triumph Tiger T110 and a Porsche 356. Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class, and second place at the main event. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made it impossible.
Dean's final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955. He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.
Accident and aftermath
Longing to return to the "liberating prospects" of motor racing, Dean traded in his Speedster for a new, more powerful and faster 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder and entered the upcoming Salinas Road Race event scheduled for October 1–2, 1955. Accompanying the actor on his way to the track on September 30 was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Spyder, "Little Bastard" car. Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 p.m., Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car.
As the group was driving westbound on U.S. Route 466 (currently SR 46) near Cholame, California, at approximately 5:45 p.m., a 1950 Ford Tudor, driven by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, was travelling east. Turnupseed made a left turn onto Highway 41 headed north, toward Fresno ahead of the oncoming Porsche.
Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the passenger side of the Ford, resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. Turnupseed exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries.
The accident was witnessed by a number of passersby who stopped to help. Dean's biographer George Perry wrote that a woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, but he also contrarily wrote that "death appeared to have been instantaneous". Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m.
Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean's death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955, at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his severe injuries. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2,400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession. He is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, second road to the right from the main entrance, and up the hill on the right, facing the drive.
An inquest into Dean's death occurred three days later at the council chambers in San Luis Obispo, where the sheriff-coroner's jury delivered a verdict that he was entirely at fault due to speeding, and that Turnupseed was innocent of any criminal act. However, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 2005, a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been called to the scene, Ron Nelson, contradicted reports that Dean had been traveling at 90 mph, stating "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed at the time of the accident was more like 55 mph". A "James Dean Monument" has been placed at Shandon next to Highway 46, and stands to this day.
Legacy and iconic status
Cinema and television
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were first released, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity."
Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen.
Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982.
On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young.
James Dean's estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes magazine. On November 6, 2019, it was announced that Dean's likeness will be used, via CGI, for a Vietnam War film called Finding Jack, based on the Gareth Crocker novel. The movie will be directed by Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh and another actor will voice Dean's part. Although the directors obtained the rights to use Dean's image from his family, the announcement was met with derision by people in the industry.
Martin Sheen has been vocal throughout his career about being influenced by James Dean. Speaking of the impact Dean had on him, Sheen stated, "All of his movies had a profound effect on my life, in my work and all of my generation. He transcended cinema acting. It was no longer acting, it was human behavior." For Terrence Malick's debut film Badlands, Sheen based his characterization of Kit Carruthers, a spree killer loosely inspired by Charles Starkweather, on Dean.
Johnny Depp credited Dean as the catalyst that made him want to become an actor. Nicolas Cage also said he wanted to go into acting because of Dean. "I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me – no rock song, no classical music – the way Dean affected me in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, "That's what I want to do," Cage said. Robert De Niro cited Dean as one of his acting inspirations in an interview. Leonardo DiCaprio also cited Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors. When asked about which performances stayed with him the most in an interview, DiCaprio responded, "I remember being incredibly moved by Jimmy Dean, in East of Eden. There was something so raw and powerful about that performance. His vulnerability…his confusion about his entire history, his identity, his desperation to be loved. That performance just broke my heart."
Youth culture and music
Numerous commentators have asserted that Dean had a singular influence on the development of rock and roll music. According to David R. Shumway, a researcher in American culture and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University, Dean was the first iconic figure of youthful rebellion and "a harbinger of youth-identity politics". The persona Dean projected in his movies, especially Rebel Without a Cause, influenced Elvis Presley and many other musicians who followed, including the American rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
In their book, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel wrote, "Ironically, though Rebel had no rock music on its soundtrack, the film's sensibility—and especially the defiant attitude and effortless cool of James Dean—would have a great impact on rock. The music media would often see Dean and rock as inextricably linked [...] The industry trade magazine Music Connection even went so far as to call Dean 'the first rock star'."
As rock and roll became a revolutionary force that affected the culture of countries around the world, Dean acquired a mythic status that cemented his place as a rock and roll icon. Dean himself listened to music ranging from African tribal music to the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók, as well as to contemporary singers such as Frank Sinatra. While the magnetism and charisma manifested by Dean onscreen appealed to people of all ages and sexuality, his persona of youthful rebellion provided a template for succeeding generations of youth to model themselves on.
In his book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Joel Dinerstein describes how Dean and Marlon Brando eroticized the rebel archetype in film, and how Elvis Presley, following their lead, did the same in music. Dinerstein details the dynamics of this eroticization and its effect on teenage girls with few sexual outlets. Presley said in a 1956 interview with Lloyd Shearer for Parade magazine, "I've made a study of Marlon Brando. And I've made a study of poor Jimmy Dean. I've made a study of myself, and I know why girls, at least the young 'uns, go for us. We're sullen, we're broodin', we're something of a menace. I don't understand it exactly, but that's what the girls like in men. I don't know anything about Hollywood, but I know you can't be sexy if you smile. You can't be a rebel if you grin."
Dean and Presley have often been represented in academic literature and in journalism as embodying the frustration felt by young white Americans with the values of their parents, and depicted as avatars of the youthful unrest endemic to rock and roll style and attitude. The rock historian Greil Marcus characterized them as symbols of tribal teenage identity which provided an image that young people in the 1950s could relate to and imitate. In the book Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema, Paul Anthony Johnson wrote that Dean's acting in Rebel Without a Cause provided a "performance model for Presley, Buddy Holly, and Bob Dylan, all of whom borrowed elements of Dean's performance in their own carefully constructed star personas". Frascella and Weisel wrote, "As rock music became the defining expression of youth in the 1960s, the influence of Rebel was conveyed to a new generation."
Rock musicians as diverse as Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie regarded Dean as a formative influence. The playwright and actor Sam Shepard interviewed Dylan in 1986 and wrote a play based on their conversation, in which Dylan discusses the early influence of Dean on him personally. A young Bob Dylan, still in his folk music period, consciously evoked Dean visually on the cover of his album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), and later on Highway 61 Revisited (1965), cultivating an image that his biographer Bob Spitz called "James Dean with a guitar". Dean has long been invoked in the lyrics of rock songs, famously in songs such as "A Young Man Is Gone" by the Beach Boys (1963), "James Dean" by the Eagles (1974), and "James Dean" by the Goo Goo Dolls (1989). Musician Taylor Swift referenced him in "Style" (2014). Canadian singer The Weeknd mentioned Dean and his early death in "Ordinary Life" (2016).
Sexuality
Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, "No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back."
Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly "for trade", as a means of advancing his career. Some point to Dean's involvement with Rogers Brackett as evidence of this. William Bast referred to Dean as Brackett's "kept boy" and once found a grotesque depiction of a lizard with the head of Brackett in a sketchbook belonging to Dean. Brackett was quoted saying about their relationship,
"My primary interest in Jimmy was as an actor—his talent was so obvious. Secondarily, I loved him, and Jimmy loved me. If it was a father-son relationship, it was also somewhat incestuous." James Bellah, the son of American Western author James Warner Bellah, was a friend of Dean's at UCLA, and later stated, "Dean was a user. I don't think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act....Once...at an agent's office, Dean told me that he had spent the summer as a 'professional house guest' on Fire Island." Mark Rydell also stated, "I don't think he was essentially homosexual. I think that he had very big appetites, and I think he exercised them."
However, the "trade only" notion is contradicted by several Dean biographers. Aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow motorcyclist and "Night Watch" member, John Gilmore, claimed that he and Dean "experimented" with gay sex on multiple occasions in New York, describing their sexual encounters as "Bad boys playing bad boys while opening up the bisexual sides of ourselves." Gilmore later stated that he believed Dean was more gay than bisexual.
On the subject of Dean's sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, "James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there's some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there's some proof for that too, keeping in mind that it's always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?" Martin Landau, a good friend of Dean's whom he met at the Actors Studio, stated, "A lot of people say Jimmy was hell-bent on killing himself. Not true. A lot of gay guys make him out to be gay. Not true. When Jimmy and I were together we'd talk about girls. Actors and girls. We were kids in our early 20s. That was what we aspired to." Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Dean had become friends with while working together on Giant, referred to Dean as gay along with Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000. When questioned about Dean's sexuality by the openly gay journalist Kevin Sessums for POZ Magazine, Taylor responded, "He hadn't made up his mind. He was only 24 when he died. But he was certainly fascinated by women. He flirted around. He and I … twinkled."
Stage credits
Broadway
See the Jaguar (1952)
The Immoralist (1954) – based on the book by André Gide
Off-Broadway
The Metamorphosis (1952) – based on the short story by Franz Kafka
The Scarecrow (1954)
Women of Trachis (1954) – translation by Ezra Pound
Filmography
Film
Television
Biographical films
James Dean also known as James Dean: Portrait of a Friend (1976) with Stephen McHattie as James Dean
James Dean: The First American Teenager (1976), a television biography that includes interviews with Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood and Nicholas Ray.
Forever James Dean (1988), Warner Home Video (1995)
James Dean: The Final Day features interviews with William Bast, Liz Sheridan and Maila Nurmi. Dean's bisexuality is openly discussed. Episode of Naked Hollywood television miniseries produced by The Oxford Film Company in association the BBC, aired in the US on the A&E Network, 1991.
James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) directed by Mardi Rustam, starring Casper Van Dien as James Dean.
James Dean (fictionalized TV biographical film) (2001) with James Franco as James Dean
James Dean – Outside the Lines (2002), episode of Biography, US television documentary includes interviews with Rod Steiger, William Bast, and Martin Landau (2002).
Living Famously: James Dean, Australian television biography includes interviews with Martin Landau, Betsy Palmer, William Bast, and Bob Hinkle (2003, 2006).
James Dean – Kleiner Prinz, Little Bastard aka James Dean – Little Prince, Little Bastard, German television biography, includes interviews with William Bast, Marcus Winslow Jr, Robert Heller (2005)
Sense Memories (PBS American Masters television biography) (2005)
James Dean – Mit Vollgas durchs Leben, Austrian television biography includes interviews with Rolf Weutherich and William Bast (2005).
Two Friendly Ghosts (2012)
Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean (2012), with James Preston as James Dean.
Life (2015). Directed by Anton Corbijn, starring Dane DeHaan as Dean.
See also
List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees – Youngest nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role
List of LGBTQ Academy Award winners and nominees — Best Actor in a Leading Role nominees alleged to be LGBTQ
List of actors with Academy Award nominations
List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories
References
Further reading
Alexander, Paul: Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean . Viking, 1994.
Bast, William: James Dean: A Biography. Ballantine Books, 1956.
Beath, Warren: Death of James Dean. Grove Press, 1986.
Beath, Warren, with Wheeldon, Paula; James Dean in Death: A Popular Encyclopedia of a Celebrity Phenomenon, McFarland & Co., Inc., 2005.
Dalton, David: James Dean-The Mutant King: A Biography. Chicago Review Press, 2001.
Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al: Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005.
Gilmore, John : Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.
Gilmore, John: The Real James Dean. Pyramid Books, 1975.
Heinrichs, Steve; Marinello, Marco; Perrin, Jim; Raskin, Lee; Stoddard, Charles A; Zigg, Donald; Porsche Speedster TYP540: Quintessential Sports Car, 2004, Big Lake Media, Inc.
Turiello, James : 'James Dean The Quest for an Oscar' 360 pages Publisher: Sandy Beach, A (February 26, 2018)
Holley, Val: James Dean: The Biography. St. Martin's Griffin, 1996.
Turiello, James: The James Dean Collection, 1993. Biography on fifty trading cards with photographs from The James Dean Gallery in Fairmount Indiana.
Hopper, Hedda and Brough, James: "James Dean Was a Rebel With a Cause" in The Whole Truth and Nothing But. Doubleday. 1963.
Howell, John: James Dean: A Biography. Plexus Publishing, 1997. Second Revised Edition.
Hyams, Joe; Hyams, Jay: James Dean: Little Boy Lost. Time Warner Publishing, 1992.
Martinetti, Ronald: The James Dean Story, Pinnacle Books, 1975.
Perry, George: James Dean. DK Publishing, 2005.
Riese, Randall: The Unabridged James Dean: His Life from A to Z. Contemporary Books, 1991.
Raskin, Lee: James Dean: At Speed. David Bull Publishing, 2005.
Sheridan, Liz: Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life With James Dean : A Love Story. HarperCollins Canada / Harper Trade, 2000.
Spoto, Donald: Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean. HarperCollins, 1996.
External links
JamesDean.com
James Dean Archives Seita Ohnishi Collection,Kobe Japan
1931 births
1955 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Quakers
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American Quakers
Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Burials in Indiana
LGBT male actors
LGBT people from Indiana
Male actors from Indiana
Method actors
People from Marion, Indiana
Road incident deaths in California
Santa Monica College alumni
UCLA Film School alumni
Warner Bros. contract players
| true |
[
"The Astrologer (also known as Suicide Cult) is a 1975 American horror film directed by James Glickenhaus and starring Bob Byrd, Mark Buntzman, and James Glickenhaus.\n\nPlot\n\nA scientist who is investigating reports of the Second Coming of Christ ends up in conflict with a Satan-worshipping suicide cult.\n\nCast \nBob Byrd as Alexei\nMark Buntzman as Kajerste\nJames Glickenhaus as Spy\nAlison McCarthy\nAl Narcisse\nMonica Tidwell as Kate Abarnel\nIvy White as Indian Maiden\n\nProduction\n\n\"I'd inherited some money,\" Glickenhaus told The New York Times, \"and I took all of it and lost it making a movie called 'The Astrologer.' I'd been to film school, but film school was oriented more toward the avant-garde in those days, and I didn't really know what a master was or a cutaway or a closeup. And I had great trouble conveying ideas, except in dialogue. So 'The Astrologer,' which was about 79 minutes long, was probably 60 minutes of dialogue. I mean, it was interminable. I didn't think it was interminable then. I thought it was great and interesting and fascinating to listen to.\" The film took him two years to produce from start to finish.\n\nThe film's soundtrack was composed by Brad Fiedel, in his debut.\n\nRelease\n\nGlickenhaus convinced some drive-in theaters in the South to show the film. He later recalled, \"Even though it was a terrible movie, people didn't absolutely hate it. But I realized by watching them that the only parts they liked were the parts with action.\"\n\nReception\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1975 films\n1970s supernatural horror films\n1975 independent films\nAmerican films\nAmerican independent films\nAmerican supernatural horror films\n1970s English-language films\nFilms about cults\nFilms about Satanism\nFilms based on American novels\nFilms based on horror novels\nFilms directed by James Glickenhaus\nFilms scored by Brad Fiedel\nFilms set in Bihar\nFilms set in London\nFilms set in Maryland\nFilms set in New York City\nFilms set in Virginia",
"Bandwagon is a 1996 American film by writer/director John Schultz, starring Lee Holmes and Kevin Corrigan.\n\nProduction\nWriter/director John Schultz used to drum for independent band The Connells but left them early on to start a filmmaking career. Bandwagon was not only the first feature film for Schultz but for a lot of the crew members as well. Schultz said, \"On the shoot, we didn't really realize what we were doing right and what we were doing wrong and a lot of the problems we found in the editing room.\" The film was made in 1993 in Schultz's hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina and took six weeks to complete.\n\nGreg Kendall is a singer/guitarist who was hired to write the songs for the band in the film. He was introduced to Schultz by mutual friend Doug MacMillan who plays Linus Tate in the movie. He said, \"They were to have good songs, but they had to be believable. They couldn't be too stupid and they couldn't be too ornate.\" Schultz supplied the titles to the songs and Kendall wrote and sang most of them. They were recorded at Fort Apache Studios in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Eight of his songs appear in the film and he also composed the score. Kendall likes that \"there's nothing MTV about it [the film]. It's naive, some would say to a fault. I would say it's a strength.\"\n\nReaction\nThe film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 1996. It was subsequently picked up by Lakeshore Entertainment, and as a result, is the first film to ever come out of that company.\n\nHome media availability\nThe film was released on VHS in 1998. In 2013, Amazon.com began offering a manufacture on demand DVD release of the film.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1996 films\nFictional musical groups\nAmerican rock music films\nAmerican musical drama films\nAmerican films\nFilms shot in North Carolina\n1990s musical drama films\nFilms directed by John Schultz (director)\nLakeshore Entertainment films\n1996 directorial debut films\n1996 drama films"
] |
[
"James Dean",
"Cinema and television",
"what did he do in cinema?",
"American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played,",
"what were some films he was in?",
"Rebel Without a Cause."
] |
C_1511e04b866448bab5fa69d23e09c93e_0
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did he star in any others?
| 3 |
Did James star in any others?
|
James Dean
|
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity." Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen. His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine. Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982. On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young. CANNOTANSWER
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September 30, 1955 (
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James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).
After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.
Early life and education
James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton Dean. He also claimed that his mother was partly Native American, and that his father belonged to a "line of original settlers that could be traced back to the Mayflower". Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him". In 1938, she was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean's father served in World War II and later remarried.
In his adolescence, Dean sought the counsel and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years". Their alleged sexual relationship was suggested in Paul Alexander's 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean. In 2011, it was reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death. Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was either sexually abused by DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager.
Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMC) and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.
Acting career
Early career
Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola commercial. He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952), and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952).
While struggling to gain roles in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay. Brackett opened doors for Dean and helped him land his first starring role on Broadway in See the Jaguar.
In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett. In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore and the advice of his mentor Rogers Brackett, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg. In 1952 he had a nonspeaking bit part as a pressman in the movie Deadline – U.S.A., starring Humphrey Bogart.
Proud of these accomplishments, Dean referred to the Actors Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as "the greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong." There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, alongside whom he would eventually star in Giant (1956).
Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in the Flower", saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later portray in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This summer 1953 program featured the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll. Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, a pandering homosexual North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist (1902), led to calls from Hollywood. During the production of The Immoralist, Dean had an affair with actress Geraldine Page. Angelica Page said of their relationship, "According to my mother, their affair went on for three-and-a-half months. In many ways my mother never really got over Jimmy. It was not unusual for me to go to her dressing room through the years, obviously many years after Dean was gone, and find pictures of him taped up on her mirror. My mother never forgot about Jimmy -- never. I believe they were artistic soul mates." Page remained friends with Dean until his death and kept a number of personal mementos from the play—including several drawings by him.
East of Eden
In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of 'Cal Trask', for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. This book deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s.
In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.
Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said that he wanted "a Brando" for the role and Osborn suggested Dean, a relatively unknown young actor. Dean met with Steinbeck, who did not like the moody, complex young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.
Much of Dean's performance in the film was unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The best-known improvised sequence of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film.
Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from their fathers.
In recognition of his performance in East of Eden, Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. (Jeanne Eagels was nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.
Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and planned roles
Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. Following East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, Dean wanted to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark, and hence took on the role of Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy, in Giant, a posthumously released 1956 film. The movie portrays a number of decades in the lives of Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher, played by Rock Hudson; his wife, Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor; and Rink. To portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.
Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited.
Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.
Having finished Giant, Dean was set to star as Rocky Graziano in a drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and, according to Nicholas Ray himself, he was going to do a story called Heroic Love with the director. Dean's death terminated any involvement in the projects but Somebody Up There Likes Me still went on to earn both commercial and critical success, winning two Oscars and grossing $3,360,000, with Paul Newman playing the role of Graziano.
Personal life
Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. According to Bast, he was Dean's roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love." They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function.
Bast, who was also Dean's first biographer, would not confirm whether he and Dean had a sexual relationship until 2006. In his book Surviving James Dean, Bast was more open about the nature of his relationship with Dean, writing that they had been lovers one night while staying at a hotel in Borrego Springs. In his book, Bast also described the difficult circumstances of their involvement.
In 1996, actress Liz Sheridan detailed her relationship with Dean in New York in 1952, saying it was "just kind of magical. It was the first love for both of us." Sheridan published her memoir, Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean; A Love Story, in 2000.
While living in New York, Dean was introduced to actress Barbara Glenn by their mutual friend Martin Landau. They dated for two years, often breaking up and getting back together. In 2011, their love letters were sold at auction for $36,000.
Early in Dean's career, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers, the studio's public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean's Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped Dean together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an 'eligible bachelor' who had not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: "They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals."
Dean's best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress Pier Angeli. He met Angeli while she was shooting The Silver Chalice (1954) on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli, during an interview fourteen years after their relationship ended, described their times together:
Dean was quoted saying about Angeli, "Everything about Pier is beautiful, especially her soul. She doesn't have to be all gussied up. She doesn't have to do or say anything. She's just wonderful as she is. She has a rare insight into life."
Those who believed Dean and Angeli were deeply in love claimed that a number of forces led them apart. Angeli's mother disapproved of Dean's casual dress and what were, for her at least, unacceptable behavior traits: his T-shirt attire, late dates, fast cars, drinking, and the fact that he was not a Catholic. Her mother said that such behavior was not acceptable in Italy. In addition, Warner Bros., where he worked, tried to talk him out of marrying and he himself told Angeli that he did not want to get married. Richard Davalos, Dean's East of Eden co-star, claimed that Dean in fact wanted to marry Angeli and was willing to allow their children to be brought up Catholic. An Order for the Solemnization of Marriage pamphlet with the name "Pier" lightly penciled in every place the bride's name is left blank was found amongst Dean's personal effects after his death.
Some commentators, such as William Bast and Paul Alexander, believe the relationship was a mere publicity stunt. In his autobiography, Elia Kazan, the director of East of Eden, dismissed the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, although he remembered hearing Dean and Angeli loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. Kazan was quoted by author Paul Donnelley as saying about Dean, "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends." Pier Angeli talked only once about the relationship in her later life in an interview, giving vivid descriptions of romantic meetings at the beach. Dean biographer John Howlett said these read like wishful fantasies, as Bast claims them to be.
After finishing his role for East of Eden, Dean took a brief trip to New York in October 1954. While he was away, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone. The press was shocked and Dean expressed his irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month. Gossip columnists reported that Dean watched the wedding from across the road on his motorcycle, even gunning the engine during the ceremony, although Dean later denied doing anything so "dumb". Joe Hyams, in his 1992 biography of Dean, James Dean: Little Boy Lost, claims that he visited Dean just as Angeli, then married to Damone, was leaving his home. Dean was crying and allegedly told Hyams she was pregnant, with Hyams concluding that Dean believed the child might be his. Angeli, who divorced Damone and then her second husband, the Italian film composer Armando Trovajoli, was said by friends in the last years of her life to claim that Dean was the love of her life. She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1971, at the age of 39.
Dean also dated Swiss actress Ursula Andress. "She was seen riding around Hollywood on the back of James's motorcycle," writes biographer Darwin Porter. She was also seen with Dean in his sports cars, and was with him on the day he bought the car that he died in.
Death
Auto racing hobby
In 1954, Dean became interested in developing a career in motorsport. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a Triumph Tiger T110 and a Porsche 356. Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class, and second place at the main event. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made it impossible.
Dean's final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955. He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.
Accident and aftermath
Longing to return to the "liberating prospects" of motor racing, Dean traded in his Speedster for a new, more powerful and faster 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder and entered the upcoming Salinas Road Race event scheduled for October 1–2, 1955. Accompanying the actor on his way to the track on September 30 was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Spyder, "Little Bastard" car. Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 p.m., Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car.
As the group was driving westbound on U.S. Route 466 (currently SR 46) near Cholame, California, at approximately 5:45 p.m., a 1950 Ford Tudor, driven by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, was travelling east. Turnupseed made a left turn onto Highway 41 headed north, toward Fresno ahead of the oncoming Porsche.
Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the passenger side of the Ford, resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. Turnupseed exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries.
The accident was witnessed by a number of passersby who stopped to help. Dean's biographer George Perry wrote that a woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, but he also contrarily wrote that "death appeared to have been instantaneous". Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m.
Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean's death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955, at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his severe injuries. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2,400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession. He is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, second road to the right from the main entrance, and up the hill on the right, facing the drive.
An inquest into Dean's death occurred three days later at the council chambers in San Luis Obispo, where the sheriff-coroner's jury delivered a verdict that he was entirely at fault due to speeding, and that Turnupseed was innocent of any criminal act. However, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 2005, a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been called to the scene, Ron Nelson, contradicted reports that Dean had been traveling at 90 mph, stating "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed at the time of the accident was more like 55 mph". A "James Dean Monument" has been placed at Shandon next to Highway 46, and stands to this day.
Legacy and iconic status
Cinema and television
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were first released, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity."
Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen.
Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982.
On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young.
James Dean's estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes magazine. On November 6, 2019, it was announced that Dean's likeness will be used, via CGI, for a Vietnam War film called Finding Jack, based on the Gareth Crocker novel. The movie will be directed by Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh and another actor will voice Dean's part. Although the directors obtained the rights to use Dean's image from his family, the announcement was met with derision by people in the industry.
Martin Sheen has been vocal throughout his career about being influenced by James Dean. Speaking of the impact Dean had on him, Sheen stated, "All of his movies had a profound effect on my life, in my work and all of my generation. He transcended cinema acting. It was no longer acting, it was human behavior." For Terrence Malick's debut film Badlands, Sheen based his characterization of Kit Carruthers, a spree killer loosely inspired by Charles Starkweather, on Dean.
Johnny Depp credited Dean as the catalyst that made him want to become an actor. Nicolas Cage also said he wanted to go into acting because of Dean. "I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me – no rock song, no classical music – the way Dean affected me in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, "That's what I want to do," Cage said. Robert De Niro cited Dean as one of his acting inspirations in an interview. Leonardo DiCaprio also cited Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors. When asked about which performances stayed with him the most in an interview, DiCaprio responded, "I remember being incredibly moved by Jimmy Dean, in East of Eden. There was something so raw and powerful about that performance. His vulnerability…his confusion about his entire history, his identity, his desperation to be loved. That performance just broke my heart."
Youth culture and music
Numerous commentators have asserted that Dean had a singular influence on the development of rock and roll music. According to David R. Shumway, a researcher in American culture and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University, Dean was the first iconic figure of youthful rebellion and "a harbinger of youth-identity politics". The persona Dean projected in his movies, especially Rebel Without a Cause, influenced Elvis Presley and many other musicians who followed, including the American rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
In their book, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel wrote, "Ironically, though Rebel had no rock music on its soundtrack, the film's sensibility—and especially the defiant attitude and effortless cool of James Dean—would have a great impact on rock. The music media would often see Dean and rock as inextricably linked [...] The industry trade magazine Music Connection even went so far as to call Dean 'the first rock star'."
As rock and roll became a revolutionary force that affected the culture of countries around the world, Dean acquired a mythic status that cemented his place as a rock and roll icon. Dean himself listened to music ranging from African tribal music to the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók, as well as to contemporary singers such as Frank Sinatra. While the magnetism and charisma manifested by Dean onscreen appealed to people of all ages and sexuality, his persona of youthful rebellion provided a template for succeeding generations of youth to model themselves on.
In his book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Joel Dinerstein describes how Dean and Marlon Brando eroticized the rebel archetype in film, and how Elvis Presley, following their lead, did the same in music. Dinerstein details the dynamics of this eroticization and its effect on teenage girls with few sexual outlets. Presley said in a 1956 interview with Lloyd Shearer for Parade magazine, "I've made a study of Marlon Brando. And I've made a study of poor Jimmy Dean. I've made a study of myself, and I know why girls, at least the young 'uns, go for us. We're sullen, we're broodin', we're something of a menace. I don't understand it exactly, but that's what the girls like in men. I don't know anything about Hollywood, but I know you can't be sexy if you smile. You can't be a rebel if you grin."
Dean and Presley have often been represented in academic literature and in journalism as embodying the frustration felt by young white Americans with the values of their parents, and depicted as avatars of the youthful unrest endemic to rock and roll style and attitude. The rock historian Greil Marcus characterized them as symbols of tribal teenage identity which provided an image that young people in the 1950s could relate to and imitate. In the book Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema, Paul Anthony Johnson wrote that Dean's acting in Rebel Without a Cause provided a "performance model for Presley, Buddy Holly, and Bob Dylan, all of whom borrowed elements of Dean's performance in their own carefully constructed star personas". Frascella and Weisel wrote, "As rock music became the defining expression of youth in the 1960s, the influence of Rebel was conveyed to a new generation."
Rock musicians as diverse as Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie regarded Dean as a formative influence. The playwright and actor Sam Shepard interviewed Dylan in 1986 and wrote a play based on their conversation, in which Dylan discusses the early influence of Dean on him personally. A young Bob Dylan, still in his folk music period, consciously evoked Dean visually on the cover of his album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), and later on Highway 61 Revisited (1965), cultivating an image that his biographer Bob Spitz called "James Dean with a guitar". Dean has long been invoked in the lyrics of rock songs, famously in songs such as "A Young Man Is Gone" by the Beach Boys (1963), "James Dean" by the Eagles (1974), and "James Dean" by the Goo Goo Dolls (1989). Musician Taylor Swift referenced him in "Style" (2014). Canadian singer The Weeknd mentioned Dean and his early death in "Ordinary Life" (2016).
Sexuality
Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, "No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back."
Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly "for trade", as a means of advancing his career. Some point to Dean's involvement with Rogers Brackett as evidence of this. William Bast referred to Dean as Brackett's "kept boy" and once found a grotesque depiction of a lizard with the head of Brackett in a sketchbook belonging to Dean. Brackett was quoted saying about their relationship,
"My primary interest in Jimmy was as an actor—his talent was so obvious. Secondarily, I loved him, and Jimmy loved me. If it was a father-son relationship, it was also somewhat incestuous." James Bellah, the son of American Western author James Warner Bellah, was a friend of Dean's at UCLA, and later stated, "Dean was a user. I don't think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act....Once...at an agent's office, Dean told me that he had spent the summer as a 'professional house guest' on Fire Island." Mark Rydell also stated, "I don't think he was essentially homosexual. I think that he had very big appetites, and I think he exercised them."
However, the "trade only" notion is contradicted by several Dean biographers. Aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow motorcyclist and "Night Watch" member, John Gilmore, claimed that he and Dean "experimented" with gay sex on multiple occasions in New York, describing their sexual encounters as "Bad boys playing bad boys while opening up the bisexual sides of ourselves." Gilmore later stated that he believed Dean was more gay than bisexual.
On the subject of Dean's sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, "James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there's some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there's some proof for that too, keeping in mind that it's always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?" Martin Landau, a good friend of Dean's whom he met at the Actors Studio, stated, "A lot of people say Jimmy was hell-bent on killing himself. Not true. A lot of gay guys make him out to be gay. Not true. When Jimmy and I were together we'd talk about girls. Actors and girls. We were kids in our early 20s. That was what we aspired to." Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Dean had become friends with while working together on Giant, referred to Dean as gay along with Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000. When questioned about Dean's sexuality by the openly gay journalist Kevin Sessums for POZ Magazine, Taylor responded, "He hadn't made up his mind. He was only 24 when he died. But he was certainly fascinated by women. He flirted around. He and I … twinkled."
Stage credits
Broadway
See the Jaguar (1952)
The Immoralist (1954) – based on the book by André Gide
Off-Broadway
The Metamorphosis (1952) – based on the short story by Franz Kafka
The Scarecrow (1954)
Women of Trachis (1954) – translation by Ezra Pound
Filmography
Film
Television
Biographical films
James Dean also known as James Dean: Portrait of a Friend (1976) with Stephen McHattie as James Dean
James Dean: The First American Teenager (1976), a television biography that includes interviews with Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood and Nicholas Ray.
Forever James Dean (1988), Warner Home Video (1995)
James Dean: The Final Day features interviews with William Bast, Liz Sheridan and Maila Nurmi. Dean's bisexuality is openly discussed. Episode of Naked Hollywood television miniseries produced by The Oxford Film Company in association the BBC, aired in the US on the A&E Network, 1991.
James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) directed by Mardi Rustam, starring Casper Van Dien as James Dean.
James Dean (fictionalized TV biographical film) (2001) with James Franco as James Dean
James Dean – Outside the Lines (2002), episode of Biography, US television documentary includes interviews with Rod Steiger, William Bast, and Martin Landau (2002).
Living Famously: James Dean, Australian television biography includes interviews with Martin Landau, Betsy Palmer, William Bast, and Bob Hinkle (2003, 2006).
James Dean – Kleiner Prinz, Little Bastard aka James Dean – Little Prince, Little Bastard, German television biography, includes interviews with William Bast, Marcus Winslow Jr, Robert Heller (2005)
Sense Memories (PBS American Masters television biography) (2005)
James Dean – Mit Vollgas durchs Leben, Austrian television biography includes interviews with Rolf Weutherich and William Bast (2005).
Two Friendly Ghosts (2012)
Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean (2012), with James Preston as James Dean.
Life (2015). Directed by Anton Corbijn, starring Dane DeHaan as Dean.
See also
List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees – Youngest nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role
List of LGBTQ Academy Award winners and nominees — Best Actor in a Leading Role nominees alleged to be LGBTQ
List of actors with Academy Award nominations
List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories
References
Further reading
Alexander, Paul: Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean . Viking, 1994.
Bast, William: James Dean: A Biography. Ballantine Books, 1956.
Beath, Warren: Death of James Dean. Grove Press, 1986.
Beath, Warren, with Wheeldon, Paula; James Dean in Death: A Popular Encyclopedia of a Celebrity Phenomenon, McFarland & Co., Inc., 2005.
Dalton, David: James Dean-The Mutant King: A Biography. Chicago Review Press, 2001.
Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al: Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005.
Gilmore, John : Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.
Gilmore, John: The Real James Dean. Pyramid Books, 1975.
Heinrichs, Steve; Marinello, Marco; Perrin, Jim; Raskin, Lee; Stoddard, Charles A; Zigg, Donald; Porsche Speedster TYP540: Quintessential Sports Car, 2004, Big Lake Media, Inc.
Turiello, James : 'James Dean The Quest for an Oscar' 360 pages Publisher: Sandy Beach, A (February 26, 2018)
Holley, Val: James Dean: The Biography. St. Martin's Griffin, 1996.
Turiello, James: The James Dean Collection, 1993. Biography on fifty trading cards with photographs from The James Dean Gallery in Fairmount Indiana.
Hopper, Hedda and Brough, James: "James Dean Was a Rebel With a Cause" in The Whole Truth and Nothing But. Doubleday. 1963.
Howell, John: James Dean: A Biography. Plexus Publishing, 1997. Second Revised Edition.
Hyams, Joe; Hyams, Jay: James Dean: Little Boy Lost. Time Warner Publishing, 1992.
Martinetti, Ronald: The James Dean Story, Pinnacle Books, 1975.
Perry, George: James Dean. DK Publishing, 2005.
Riese, Randall: The Unabridged James Dean: His Life from A to Z. Contemporary Books, 1991.
Raskin, Lee: James Dean: At Speed. David Bull Publishing, 2005.
Sheridan, Liz: Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life With James Dean : A Love Story. HarperCollins Canada / Harper Trade, 2000.
Spoto, Donald: Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean. HarperCollins, 1996.
External links
JamesDean.com
James Dean Archives Seita Ohnishi Collection,Kobe Japan
1931 births
1955 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Quakers
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American Quakers
Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Burials in Indiana
LGBT male actors
LGBT people from Indiana
Male actors from Indiana
Method actors
People from Marion, Indiana
Road incident deaths in California
Santa Monica College alumni
UCLA Film School alumni
Warner Bros. contract players
| true |
[
"Jan Cornelis \"Kees\" Douze\" (30 March 1939 in Utrecht – 24 February 2011 in Bilthoven) was a sailor from the Netherlands, who represented his native country at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Kiel, Germany. Kees took the 23rd place in the Finn. Later he specialized in the Star, Dutch national classes as well at the 12 foot dinghy. In 1980 Douze returned to the Olympics as substitute helmsman for the Dutch Star.\n\nControversy\nSeveral countries did boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics, others like France did not go since they found the competition devaluated. As result only half of the expected fleet was present during the Olympic regattas.\n\nSources\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n1939 births\n2011 deaths\nDutch male sailors (sport)\nSportspeople from Utrecht (city)\n12' Dinghy class sailors\nSailors at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Finn\nOlympic sailors of the Netherlands",
"I Am Not Spock is Leonard Nimoy's first autobiography. Published in 1975, between the end of Star Trek: The Animated Series and the production of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the book was criticized by some fans because of the perception that Nimoy was rejecting the character Spock. He maintained he was only clarifying the difference between himself and Spock, whom he always enjoyed playing. However, he later published I Am Spock in an attempt to address the misconceptions.\n\nDevelopment history\nNimoy stated that the title originated from an incident in an airport where a mother introduced him to her daughter as Spock. The child was not convinced, and \"I am not Spock\" subsequently became the title for a chapter in the autobiography that discussed how he went about building the character. In the book he compared Spock's life to his own, in order to explain the differences between the personas of the two. He did state that if he were to portray any fictional character, then he would choose Spock.\n\nThe chapter title became the book title, which Nimoy later called \"a big mistake\" as he felt that people assumed that it was an attack on the character and Star Trek in general, but did not read the book to find out what was really meant. During a discussion with the publishers, they decided that the book needed to have Spock in the title, and they felt that I Am Not Spock would attract attention. Nimoy called the reaction a \"firestorm\".\n\nNimoy later followed up with a second autobiography in 1995, this time entitled I Am Spock, although he also considered the title Maybe I Am Spock. He discussed the response to I Am Not Spock in a feature called \"Reflections on Spock\", which was included in the Star Trek: The Original Series season one HD DVD set, released in 2007.\n\nReception\nNimoy recalled that the fan reaction to the memoir was publicized as being negative and created an assumption that he was no longer interested in playing Spock. He responded to this rumor in his second autobiography, I Am Spock. Based on that rumor, when Star Trek: The Motion Picture was being made, newspapers reported that Nimoy stated in I Am Not Spock that he did not want to be involved with Star Trek any longer.\n\nIn 2002, Star Trek: The Next Generation actor Brent Spiner joked that his autobiography would be entitled I Am Not Spock, Either. Prior to playing the role of Spock in the 2009 film Star Trek, Zachary Quinto read I Am Not Spock for insight about the possibility of being typecast into the role.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1975 non-fiction books\nAmerican autobiographies\nShow business memoirs\nBooks by Leonard Nimoy\nBooks about Star Trek"
] |
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"James Dean",
"Cinema and television",
"what did he do in cinema?",
"American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played,",
"what were some films he was in?",
"Rebel Without a Cause.",
"did he star in any others?",
"September 30, 1955 ("
] |
C_1511e04b866448bab5fa69d23e09c93e_0
|
what happened on that date?
| 4 |
What happened on September 30, 1955?
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James Dean
|
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity." Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen. His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine. Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982. On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young. CANNOTANSWER
|
The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death.
|
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).
After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.
Early life and education
James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton Dean. He also claimed that his mother was partly Native American, and that his father belonged to a "line of original settlers that could be traced back to the Mayflower". Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him". In 1938, she was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean's father served in World War II and later remarried.
In his adolescence, Dean sought the counsel and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years". Their alleged sexual relationship was suggested in Paul Alexander's 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean. In 2011, it was reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death. Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was either sexually abused by DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager.
Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMC) and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.
Acting career
Early career
Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola commercial. He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952), and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952).
While struggling to gain roles in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay. Brackett opened doors for Dean and helped him land his first starring role on Broadway in See the Jaguar.
In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett. In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore and the advice of his mentor Rogers Brackett, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg. In 1952 he had a nonspeaking bit part as a pressman in the movie Deadline – U.S.A., starring Humphrey Bogart.
Proud of these accomplishments, Dean referred to the Actors Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as "the greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong." There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, alongside whom he would eventually star in Giant (1956).
Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in the Flower", saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later portray in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This summer 1953 program featured the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll. Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, a pandering homosexual North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist (1902), led to calls from Hollywood. During the production of The Immoralist, Dean had an affair with actress Geraldine Page. Angelica Page said of their relationship, "According to my mother, their affair went on for three-and-a-half months. In many ways my mother never really got over Jimmy. It was not unusual for me to go to her dressing room through the years, obviously many years after Dean was gone, and find pictures of him taped up on her mirror. My mother never forgot about Jimmy -- never. I believe they were artistic soul mates." Page remained friends with Dean until his death and kept a number of personal mementos from the play—including several drawings by him.
East of Eden
In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of 'Cal Trask', for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. This book deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s.
In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.
Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said that he wanted "a Brando" for the role and Osborn suggested Dean, a relatively unknown young actor. Dean met with Steinbeck, who did not like the moody, complex young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.
Much of Dean's performance in the film was unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The best-known improvised sequence of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film.
Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from their fathers.
In recognition of his performance in East of Eden, Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. (Jeanne Eagels was nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.
Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and planned roles
Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. Following East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, Dean wanted to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark, and hence took on the role of Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy, in Giant, a posthumously released 1956 film. The movie portrays a number of decades in the lives of Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher, played by Rock Hudson; his wife, Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor; and Rink. To portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.
Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited.
Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.
Having finished Giant, Dean was set to star as Rocky Graziano in a drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and, according to Nicholas Ray himself, he was going to do a story called Heroic Love with the director. Dean's death terminated any involvement in the projects but Somebody Up There Likes Me still went on to earn both commercial and critical success, winning two Oscars and grossing $3,360,000, with Paul Newman playing the role of Graziano.
Personal life
Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. According to Bast, he was Dean's roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love." They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function.
Bast, who was also Dean's first biographer, would not confirm whether he and Dean had a sexual relationship until 2006. In his book Surviving James Dean, Bast was more open about the nature of his relationship with Dean, writing that they had been lovers one night while staying at a hotel in Borrego Springs. In his book, Bast also described the difficult circumstances of their involvement.
In 1996, actress Liz Sheridan detailed her relationship with Dean in New York in 1952, saying it was "just kind of magical. It was the first love for both of us." Sheridan published her memoir, Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean; A Love Story, in 2000.
While living in New York, Dean was introduced to actress Barbara Glenn by their mutual friend Martin Landau. They dated for two years, often breaking up and getting back together. In 2011, their love letters were sold at auction for $36,000.
Early in Dean's career, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers, the studio's public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean's Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped Dean together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an 'eligible bachelor' who had not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: "They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals."
Dean's best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress Pier Angeli. He met Angeli while she was shooting The Silver Chalice (1954) on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli, during an interview fourteen years after their relationship ended, described their times together:
Dean was quoted saying about Angeli, "Everything about Pier is beautiful, especially her soul. She doesn't have to be all gussied up. She doesn't have to do or say anything. She's just wonderful as she is. She has a rare insight into life."
Those who believed Dean and Angeli were deeply in love claimed that a number of forces led them apart. Angeli's mother disapproved of Dean's casual dress and what were, for her at least, unacceptable behavior traits: his T-shirt attire, late dates, fast cars, drinking, and the fact that he was not a Catholic. Her mother said that such behavior was not acceptable in Italy. In addition, Warner Bros., where he worked, tried to talk him out of marrying and he himself told Angeli that he did not want to get married. Richard Davalos, Dean's East of Eden co-star, claimed that Dean in fact wanted to marry Angeli and was willing to allow their children to be brought up Catholic. An Order for the Solemnization of Marriage pamphlet with the name "Pier" lightly penciled in every place the bride's name is left blank was found amongst Dean's personal effects after his death.
Some commentators, such as William Bast and Paul Alexander, believe the relationship was a mere publicity stunt. In his autobiography, Elia Kazan, the director of East of Eden, dismissed the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, although he remembered hearing Dean and Angeli loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. Kazan was quoted by author Paul Donnelley as saying about Dean, "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends." Pier Angeli talked only once about the relationship in her later life in an interview, giving vivid descriptions of romantic meetings at the beach. Dean biographer John Howlett said these read like wishful fantasies, as Bast claims them to be.
After finishing his role for East of Eden, Dean took a brief trip to New York in October 1954. While he was away, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone. The press was shocked and Dean expressed his irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month. Gossip columnists reported that Dean watched the wedding from across the road on his motorcycle, even gunning the engine during the ceremony, although Dean later denied doing anything so "dumb". Joe Hyams, in his 1992 biography of Dean, James Dean: Little Boy Lost, claims that he visited Dean just as Angeli, then married to Damone, was leaving his home. Dean was crying and allegedly told Hyams she was pregnant, with Hyams concluding that Dean believed the child might be his. Angeli, who divorced Damone and then her second husband, the Italian film composer Armando Trovajoli, was said by friends in the last years of her life to claim that Dean was the love of her life. She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1971, at the age of 39.
Dean also dated Swiss actress Ursula Andress. "She was seen riding around Hollywood on the back of James's motorcycle," writes biographer Darwin Porter. She was also seen with Dean in his sports cars, and was with him on the day he bought the car that he died in.
Death
Auto racing hobby
In 1954, Dean became interested in developing a career in motorsport. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a Triumph Tiger T110 and a Porsche 356. Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class, and second place at the main event. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made it impossible.
Dean's final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955. He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.
Accident and aftermath
Longing to return to the "liberating prospects" of motor racing, Dean traded in his Speedster for a new, more powerful and faster 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder and entered the upcoming Salinas Road Race event scheduled for October 1–2, 1955. Accompanying the actor on his way to the track on September 30 was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Spyder, "Little Bastard" car. Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 p.m., Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car.
As the group was driving westbound on U.S. Route 466 (currently SR 46) near Cholame, California, at approximately 5:45 p.m., a 1950 Ford Tudor, driven by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, was travelling east. Turnupseed made a left turn onto Highway 41 headed north, toward Fresno ahead of the oncoming Porsche.
Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the passenger side of the Ford, resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. Turnupseed exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries.
The accident was witnessed by a number of passersby who stopped to help. Dean's biographer George Perry wrote that a woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, but he also contrarily wrote that "death appeared to have been instantaneous". Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m.
Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean's death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955, at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his severe injuries. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2,400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession. He is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, second road to the right from the main entrance, and up the hill on the right, facing the drive.
An inquest into Dean's death occurred three days later at the council chambers in San Luis Obispo, where the sheriff-coroner's jury delivered a verdict that he was entirely at fault due to speeding, and that Turnupseed was innocent of any criminal act. However, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 2005, a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been called to the scene, Ron Nelson, contradicted reports that Dean had been traveling at 90 mph, stating "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed at the time of the accident was more like 55 mph". A "James Dean Monument" has been placed at Shandon next to Highway 46, and stands to this day.
Legacy and iconic status
Cinema and television
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were first released, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity."
Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen.
Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982.
On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young.
James Dean's estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes magazine. On November 6, 2019, it was announced that Dean's likeness will be used, via CGI, for a Vietnam War film called Finding Jack, based on the Gareth Crocker novel. The movie will be directed by Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh and another actor will voice Dean's part. Although the directors obtained the rights to use Dean's image from his family, the announcement was met with derision by people in the industry.
Martin Sheen has been vocal throughout his career about being influenced by James Dean. Speaking of the impact Dean had on him, Sheen stated, "All of his movies had a profound effect on my life, in my work and all of my generation. He transcended cinema acting. It was no longer acting, it was human behavior." For Terrence Malick's debut film Badlands, Sheen based his characterization of Kit Carruthers, a spree killer loosely inspired by Charles Starkweather, on Dean.
Johnny Depp credited Dean as the catalyst that made him want to become an actor. Nicolas Cage also said he wanted to go into acting because of Dean. "I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me – no rock song, no classical music – the way Dean affected me in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, "That's what I want to do," Cage said. Robert De Niro cited Dean as one of his acting inspirations in an interview. Leonardo DiCaprio also cited Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors. When asked about which performances stayed with him the most in an interview, DiCaprio responded, "I remember being incredibly moved by Jimmy Dean, in East of Eden. There was something so raw and powerful about that performance. His vulnerability…his confusion about his entire history, his identity, his desperation to be loved. That performance just broke my heart."
Youth culture and music
Numerous commentators have asserted that Dean had a singular influence on the development of rock and roll music. According to David R. Shumway, a researcher in American culture and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University, Dean was the first iconic figure of youthful rebellion and "a harbinger of youth-identity politics". The persona Dean projected in his movies, especially Rebel Without a Cause, influenced Elvis Presley and many other musicians who followed, including the American rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
In their book, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel wrote, "Ironically, though Rebel had no rock music on its soundtrack, the film's sensibility—and especially the defiant attitude and effortless cool of James Dean—would have a great impact on rock. The music media would often see Dean and rock as inextricably linked [...] The industry trade magazine Music Connection even went so far as to call Dean 'the first rock star'."
As rock and roll became a revolutionary force that affected the culture of countries around the world, Dean acquired a mythic status that cemented his place as a rock and roll icon. Dean himself listened to music ranging from African tribal music to the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók, as well as to contemporary singers such as Frank Sinatra. While the magnetism and charisma manifested by Dean onscreen appealed to people of all ages and sexuality, his persona of youthful rebellion provided a template for succeeding generations of youth to model themselves on.
In his book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Joel Dinerstein describes how Dean and Marlon Brando eroticized the rebel archetype in film, and how Elvis Presley, following their lead, did the same in music. Dinerstein details the dynamics of this eroticization and its effect on teenage girls with few sexual outlets. Presley said in a 1956 interview with Lloyd Shearer for Parade magazine, "I've made a study of Marlon Brando. And I've made a study of poor Jimmy Dean. I've made a study of myself, and I know why girls, at least the young 'uns, go for us. We're sullen, we're broodin', we're something of a menace. I don't understand it exactly, but that's what the girls like in men. I don't know anything about Hollywood, but I know you can't be sexy if you smile. You can't be a rebel if you grin."
Dean and Presley have often been represented in academic literature and in journalism as embodying the frustration felt by young white Americans with the values of their parents, and depicted as avatars of the youthful unrest endemic to rock and roll style and attitude. The rock historian Greil Marcus characterized them as symbols of tribal teenage identity which provided an image that young people in the 1950s could relate to and imitate. In the book Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema, Paul Anthony Johnson wrote that Dean's acting in Rebel Without a Cause provided a "performance model for Presley, Buddy Holly, and Bob Dylan, all of whom borrowed elements of Dean's performance in their own carefully constructed star personas". Frascella and Weisel wrote, "As rock music became the defining expression of youth in the 1960s, the influence of Rebel was conveyed to a new generation."
Rock musicians as diverse as Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie regarded Dean as a formative influence. The playwright and actor Sam Shepard interviewed Dylan in 1986 and wrote a play based on their conversation, in which Dylan discusses the early influence of Dean on him personally. A young Bob Dylan, still in his folk music period, consciously evoked Dean visually on the cover of his album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), and later on Highway 61 Revisited (1965), cultivating an image that his biographer Bob Spitz called "James Dean with a guitar". Dean has long been invoked in the lyrics of rock songs, famously in songs such as "A Young Man Is Gone" by the Beach Boys (1963), "James Dean" by the Eagles (1974), and "James Dean" by the Goo Goo Dolls (1989). Musician Taylor Swift referenced him in "Style" (2014). Canadian singer The Weeknd mentioned Dean and his early death in "Ordinary Life" (2016).
Sexuality
Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, "No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back."
Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly "for trade", as a means of advancing his career. Some point to Dean's involvement with Rogers Brackett as evidence of this. William Bast referred to Dean as Brackett's "kept boy" and once found a grotesque depiction of a lizard with the head of Brackett in a sketchbook belonging to Dean. Brackett was quoted saying about their relationship,
"My primary interest in Jimmy was as an actor—his talent was so obvious. Secondarily, I loved him, and Jimmy loved me. If it was a father-son relationship, it was also somewhat incestuous." James Bellah, the son of American Western author James Warner Bellah, was a friend of Dean's at UCLA, and later stated, "Dean was a user. I don't think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act....Once...at an agent's office, Dean told me that he had spent the summer as a 'professional house guest' on Fire Island." Mark Rydell also stated, "I don't think he was essentially homosexual. I think that he had very big appetites, and I think he exercised them."
However, the "trade only" notion is contradicted by several Dean biographers. Aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow motorcyclist and "Night Watch" member, John Gilmore, claimed that he and Dean "experimented" with gay sex on multiple occasions in New York, describing their sexual encounters as "Bad boys playing bad boys while opening up the bisexual sides of ourselves." Gilmore later stated that he believed Dean was more gay than bisexual.
On the subject of Dean's sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, "James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there's some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there's some proof for that too, keeping in mind that it's always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?" Martin Landau, a good friend of Dean's whom he met at the Actors Studio, stated, "A lot of people say Jimmy was hell-bent on killing himself. Not true. A lot of gay guys make him out to be gay. Not true. When Jimmy and I were together we'd talk about girls. Actors and girls. We were kids in our early 20s. That was what we aspired to." Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Dean had become friends with while working together on Giant, referred to Dean as gay along with Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000. When questioned about Dean's sexuality by the openly gay journalist Kevin Sessums for POZ Magazine, Taylor responded, "He hadn't made up his mind. He was only 24 when he died. But he was certainly fascinated by women. He flirted around. He and I … twinkled."
Stage credits
Broadway
See the Jaguar (1952)
The Immoralist (1954) – based on the book by André Gide
Off-Broadway
The Metamorphosis (1952) – based on the short story by Franz Kafka
The Scarecrow (1954)
Women of Trachis (1954) – translation by Ezra Pound
Filmography
Film
Television
Biographical films
James Dean also known as James Dean: Portrait of a Friend (1976) with Stephen McHattie as James Dean
James Dean: The First American Teenager (1976), a television biography that includes interviews with Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood and Nicholas Ray.
Forever James Dean (1988), Warner Home Video (1995)
James Dean: The Final Day features interviews with William Bast, Liz Sheridan and Maila Nurmi. Dean's bisexuality is openly discussed. Episode of Naked Hollywood television miniseries produced by The Oxford Film Company in association the BBC, aired in the US on the A&E Network, 1991.
James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) directed by Mardi Rustam, starring Casper Van Dien as James Dean.
James Dean (fictionalized TV biographical film) (2001) with James Franco as James Dean
James Dean – Outside the Lines (2002), episode of Biography, US television documentary includes interviews with Rod Steiger, William Bast, and Martin Landau (2002).
Living Famously: James Dean, Australian television biography includes interviews with Martin Landau, Betsy Palmer, William Bast, and Bob Hinkle (2003, 2006).
James Dean – Kleiner Prinz, Little Bastard aka James Dean – Little Prince, Little Bastard, German television biography, includes interviews with William Bast, Marcus Winslow Jr, Robert Heller (2005)
Sense Memories (PBS American Masters television biography) (2005)
James Dean – Mit Vollgas durchs Leben, Austrian television biography includes interviews with Rolf Weutherich and William Bast (2005).
Two Friendly Ghosts (2012)
Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean (2012), with James Preston as James Dean.
Life (2015). Directed by Anton Corbijn, starring Dane DeHaan as Dean.
See also
List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees – Youngest nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role
List of LGBTQ Academy Award winners and nominees — Best Actor in a Leading Role nominees alleged to be LGBTQ
List of actors with Academy Award nominations
List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories
References
Further reading
Alexander, Paul: Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean . Viking, 1994.
Bast, William: James Dean: A Biography. Ballantine Books, 1956.
Beath, Warren: Death of James Dean. Grove Press, 1986.
Beath, Warren, with Wheeldon, Paula; James Dean in Death: A Popular Encyclopedia of a Celebrity Phenomenon, McFarland & Co., Inc., 2005.
Dalton, David: James Dean-The Mutant King: A Biography. Chicago Review Press, 2001.
Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al: Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005.
Gilmore, John : Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.
Gilmore, John: The Real James Dean. Pyramid Books, 1975.
Heinrichs, Steve; Marinello, Marco; Perrin, Jim; Raskin, Lee; Stoddard, Charles A; Zigg, Donald; Porsche Speedster TYP540: Quintessential Sports Car, 2004, Big Lake Media, Inc.
Turiello, James : 'James Dean The Quest for an Oscar' 360 pages Publisher: Sandy Beach, A (February 26, 2018)
Holley, Val: James Dean: The Biography. St. Martin's Griffin, 1996.
Turiello, James: The James Dean Collection, 1993. Biography on fifty trading cards with photographs from The James Dean Gallery in Fairmount Indiana.
Hopper, Hedda and Brough, James: "James Dean Was a Rebel With a Cause" in The Whole Truth and Nothing But. Doubleday. 1963.
Howell, John: James Dean: A Biography. Plexus Publishing, 1997. Second Revised Edition.
Hyams, Joe; Hyams, Jay: James Dean: Little Boy Lost. Time Warner Publishing, 1992.
Martinetti, Ronald: The James Dean Story, Pinnacle Books, 1975.
Perry, George: James Dean. DK Publishing, 2005.
Riese, Randall: The Unabridged James Dean: His Life from A to Z. Contemporary Books, 1991.
Raskin, Lee: James Dean: At Speed. David Bull Publishing, 2005.
Sheridan, Liz: Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life With James Dean : A Love Story. HarperCollins Canada / Harper Trade, 2000.
Spoto, Donald: Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean. HarperCollins, 1996.
External links
JamesDean.com
James Dean Archives Seita Ohnishi Collection,Kobe Japan
1931 births
1955 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Quakers
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American Quakers
Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Burials in Indiana
LGBT male actors
LGBT people from Indiana
Male actors from Indiana
Method actors
People from Marion, Indiana
Road incident deaths in California
Santa Monica College alumni
UCLA Film School alumni
Warner Bros. contract players
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"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? may refer to:\n\nWhat Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (novel), a 1960 suspense novel by Henry Farrell\n What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (film), a 1962 American psychological thriller, based on the novel.\n What Ever Happened to..., a 1991 ABC television film, based on the novel",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"James Dean",
"Cinema and television",
"what did he do in cinema?",
"American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played,",
"what were some films he was in?",
"Rebel Without a Cause.",
"did he star in any others?",
"September 30, 1955 (",
"what happened on that date?",
"The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death."
] |
C_1511e04b866448bab5fa69d23e09c93e_0
|
did he win any awards?
| 5 |
Did James win any awards?
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James Dean
|
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity." Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen. His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine. Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982. On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).
After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.
Early life and education
James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton Dean. He also claimed that his mother was partly Native American, and that his father belonged to a "line of original settlers that could be traced back to the Mayflower". Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him". In 1938, she was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean's father served in World War II and later remarried.
In his adolescence, Dean sought the counsel and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years". Their alleged sexual relationship was suggested in Paul Alexander's 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean. In 2011, it was reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death. Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was either sexually abused by DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager.
Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMC) and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.
Acting career
Early career
Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola commercial. He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952), and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952).
While struggling to gain roles in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay. Brackett opened doors for Dean and helped him land his first starring role on Broadway in See the Jaguar.
In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett. In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore and the advice of his mentor Rogers Brackett, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg. In 1952 he had a nonspeaking bit part as a pressman in the movie Deadline – U.S.A., starring Humphrey Bogart.
Proud of these accomplishments, Dean referred to the Actors Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as "the greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong." There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, alongside whom he would eventually star in Giant (1956).
Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in the Flower", saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later portray in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This summer 1953 program featured the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll. Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, a pandering homosexual North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist (1902), led to calls from Hollywood. During the production of The Immoralist, Dean had an affair with actress Geraldine Page. Angelica Page said of their relationship, "According to my mother, their affair went on for three-and-a-half months. In many ways my mother never really got over Jimmy. It was not unusual for me to go to her dressing room through the years, obviously many years after Dean was gone, and find pictures of him taped up on her mirror. My mother never forgot about Jimmy -- never. I believe they were artistic soul mates." Page remained friends with Dean until his death and kept a number of personal mementos from the play—including several drawings by him.
East of Eden
In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of 'Cal Trask', for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. This book deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s.
In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.
Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said that he wanted "a Brando" for the role and Osborn suggested Dean, a relatively unknown young actor. Dean met with Steinbeck, who did not like the moody, complex young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.
Much of Dean's performance in the film was unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The best-known improvised sequence of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film.
Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from their fathers.
In recognition of his performance in East of Eden, Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. (Jeanne Eagels was nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.
Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and planned roles
Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. Following East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, Dean wanted to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark, and hence took on the role of Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy, in Giant, a posthumously released 1956 film. The movie portrays a number of decades in the lives of Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher, played by Rock Hudson; his wife, Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor; and Rink. To portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.
Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited.
Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.
Having finished Giant, Dean was set to star as Rocky Graziano in a drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and, according to Nicholas Ray himself, he was going to do a story called Heroic Love with the director. Dean's death terminated any involvement in the projects but Somebody Up There Likes Me still went on to earn both commercial and critical success, winning two Oscars and grossing $3,360,000, with Paul Newman playing the role of Graziano.
Personal life
Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. According to Bast, he was Dean's roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love." They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function.
Bast, who was also Dean's first biographer, would not confirm whether he and Dean had a sexual relationship until 2006. In his book Surviving James Dean, Bast was more open about the nature of his relationship with Dean, writing that they had been lovers one night while staying at a hotel in Borrego Springs. In his book, Bast also described the difficult circumstances of their involvement.
In 1996, actress Liz Sheridan detailed her relationship with Dean in New York in 1952, saying it was "just kind of magical. It was the first love for both of us." Sheridan published her memoir, Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean; A Love Story, in 2000.
While living in New York, Dean was introduced to actress Barbara Glenn by their mutual friend Martin Landau. They dated for two years, often breaking up and getting back together. In 2011, their love letters were sold at auction for $36,000.
Early in Dean's career, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers, the studio's public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean's Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped Dean together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an 'eligible bachelor' who had not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: "They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals."
Dean's best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress Pier Angeli. He met Angeli while she was shooting The Silver Chalice (1954) on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli, during an interview fourteen years after their relationship ended, described their times together:
Dean was quoted saying about Angeli, "Everything about Pier is beautiful, especially her soul. She doesn't have to be all gussied up. She doesn't have to do or say anything. She's just wonderful as she is. She has a rare insight into life."
Those who believed Dean and Angeli were deeply in love claimed that a number of forces led them apart. Angeli's mother disapproved of Dean's casual dress and what were, for her at least, unacceptable behavior traits: his T-shirt attire, late dates, fast cars, drinking, and the fact that he was not a Catholic. Her mother said that such behavior was not acceptable in Italy. In addition, Warner Bros., where he worked, tried to talk him out of marrying and he himself told Angeli that he did not want to get married. Richard Davalos, Dean's East of Eden co-star, claimed that Dean in fact wanted to marry Angeli and was willing to allow their children to be brought up Catholic. An Order for the Solemnization of Marriage pamphlet with the name "Pier" lightly penciled in every place the bride's name is left blank was found amongst Dean's personal effects after his death.
Some commentators, such as William Bast and Paul Alexander, believe the relationship was a mere publicity stunt. In his autobiography, Elia Kazan, the director of East of Eden, dismissed the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, although he remembered hearing Dean and Angeli loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. Kazan was quoted by author Paul Donnelley as saying about Dean, "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends." Pier Angeli talked only once about the relationship in her later life in an interview, giving vivid descriptions of romantic meetings at the beach. Dean biographer John Howlett said these read like wishful fantasies, as Bast claims them to be.
After finishing his role for East of Eden, Dean took a brief trip to New York in October 1954. While he was away, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone. The press was shocked and Dean expressed his irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month. Gossip columnists reported that Dean watched the wedding from across the road on his motorcycle, even gunning the engine during the ceremony, although Dean later denied doing anything so "dumb". Joe Hyams, in his 1992 biography of Dean, James Dean: Little Boy Lost, claims that he visited Dean just as Angeli, then married to Damone, was leaving his home. Dean was crying and allegedly told Hyams she was pregnant, with Hyams concluding that Dean believed the child might be his. Angeli, who divorced Damone and then her second husband, the Italian film composer Armando Trovajoli, was said by friends in the last years of her life to claim that Dean was the love of her life. She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1971, at the age of 39.
Dean also dated Swiss actress Ursula Andress. "She was seen riding around Hollywood on the back of James's motorcycle," writes biographer Darwin Porter. She was also seen with Dean in his sports cars, and was with him on the day he bought the car that he died in.
Death
Auto racing hobby
In 1954, Dean became interested in developing a career in motorsport. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a Triumph Tiger T110 and a Porsche 356. Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class, and second place at the main event. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made it impossible.
Dean's final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955. He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.
Accident and aftermath
Longing to return to the "liberating prospects" of motor racing, Dean traded in his Speedster for a new, more powerful and faster 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder and entered the upcoming Salinas Road Race event scheduled for October 1–2, 1955. Accompanying the actor on his way to the track on September 30 was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Spyder, "Little Bastard" car. Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 p.m., Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car.
As the group was driving westbound on U.S. Route 466 (currently SR 46) near Cholame, California, at approximately 5:45 p.m., a 1950 Ford Tudor, driven by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, was travelling east. Turnupseed made a left turn onto Highway 41 headed north, toward Fresno ahead of the oncoming Porsche.
Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the passenger side of the Ford, resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. Turnupseed exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries.
The accident was witnessed by a number of passersby who stopped to help. Dean's biographer George Perry wrote that a woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, but he also contrarily wrote that "death appeared to have been instantaneous". Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m.
Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean's death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955, at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his severe injuries. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2,400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession. He is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, second road to the right from the main entrance, and up the hill on the right, facing the drive.
An inquest into Dean's death occurred three days later at the council chambers in San Luis Obispo, where the sheriff-coroner's jury delivered a verdict that he was entirely at fault due to speeding, and that Turnupseed was innocent of any criminal act. However, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 2005, a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been called to the scene, Ron Nelson, contradicted reports that Dean had been traveling at 90 mph, stating "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed at the time of the accident was more like 55 mph". A "James Dean Monument" has been placed at Shandon next to Highway 46, and stands to this day.
Legacy and iconic status
Cinema and television
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were first released, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity."
Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen.
Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982.
On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young.
James Dean's estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes magazine. On November 6, 2019, it was announced that Dean's likeness will be used, via CGI, for a Vietnam War film called Finding Jack, based on the Gareth Crocker novel. The movie will be directed by Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh and another actor will voice Dean's part. Although the directors obtained the rights to use Dean's image from his family, the announcement was met with derision by people in the industry.
Martin Sheen has been vocal throughout his career about being influenced by James Dean. Speaking of the impact Dean had on him, Sheen stated, "All of his movies had a profound effect on my life, in my work and all of my generation. He transcended cinema acting. It was no longer acting, it was human behavior." For Terrence Malick's debut film Badlands, Sheen based his characterization of Kit Carruthers, a spree killer loosely inspired by Charles Starkweather, on Dean.
Johnny Depp credited Dean as the catalyst that made him want to become an actor. Nicolas Cage also said he wanted to go into acting because of Dean. "I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me – no rock song, no classical music – the way Dean affected me in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, "That's what I want to do," Cage said. Robert De Niro cited Dean as one of his acting inspirations in an interview. Leonardo DiCaprio also cited Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors. When asked about which performances stayed with him the most in an interview, DiCaprio responded, "I remember being incredibly moved by Jimmy Dean, in East of Eden. There was something so raw and powerful about that performance. His vulnerability…his confusion about his entire history, his identity, his desperation to be loved. That performance just broke my heart."
Youth culture and music
Numerous commentators have asserted that Dean had a singular influence on the development of rock and roll music. According to David R. Shumway, a researcher in American culture and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University, Dean was the first iconic figure of youthful rebellion and "a harbinger of youth-identity politics". The persona Dean projected in his movies, especially Rebel Without a Cause, influenced Elvis Presley and many other musicians who followed, including the American rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
In their book, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel wrote, "Ironically, though Rebel had no rock music on its soundtrack, the film's sensibility—and especially the defiant attitude and effortless cool of James Dean—would have a great impact on rock. The music media would often see Dean and rock as inextricably linked [...] The industry trade magazine Music Connection even went so far as to call Dean 'the first rock star'."
As rock and roll became a revolutionary force that affected the culture of countries around the world, Dean acquired a mythic status that cemented his place as a rock and roll icon. Dean himself listened to music ranging from African tribal music to the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók, as well as to contemporary singers such as Frank Sinatra. While the magnetism and charisma manifested by Dean onscreen appealed to people of all ages and sexuality, his persona of youthful rebellion provided a template for succeeding generations of youth to model themselves on.
In his book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Joel Dinerstein describes how Dean and Marlon Brando eroticized the rebel archetype in film, and how Elvis Presley, following their lead, did the same in music. Dinerstein details the dynamics of this eroticization and its effect on teenage girls with few sexual outlets. Presley said in a 1956 interview with Lloyd Shearer for Parade magazine, "I've made a study of Marlon Brando. And I've made a study of poor Jimmy Dean. I've made a study of myself, and I know why girls, at least the young 'uns, go for us. We're sullen, we're broodin', we're something of a menace. I don't understand it exactly, but that's what the girls like in men. I don't know anything about Hollywood, but I know you can't be sexy if you smile. You can't be a rebel if you grin."
Dean and Presley have often been represented in academic literature and in journalism as embodying the frustration felt by young white Americans with the values of their parents, and depicted as avatars of the youthful unrest endemic to rock and roll style and attitude. The rock historian Greil Marcus characterized them as symbols of tribal teenage identity which provided an image that young people in the 1950s could relate to and imitate. In the book Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema, Paul Anthony Johnson wrote that Dean's acting in Rebel Without a Cause provided a "performance model for Presley, Buddy Holly, and Bob Dylan, all of whom borrowed elements of Dean's performance in their own carefully constructed star personas". Frascella and Weisel wrote, "As rock music became the defining expression of youth in the 1960s, the influence of Rebel was conveyed to a new generation."
Rock musicians as diverse as Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie regarded Dean as a formative influence. The playwright and actor Sam Shepard interviewed Dylan in 1986 and wrote a play based on their conversation, in which Dylan discusses the early influence of Dean on him personally. A young Bob Dylan, still in his folk music period, consciously evoked Dean visually on the cover of his album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), and later on Highway 61 Revisited (1965), cultivating an image that his biographer Bob Spitz called "James Dean with a guitar". Dean has long been invoked in the lyrics of rock songs, famously in songs such as "A Young Man Is Gone" by the Beach Boys (1963), "James Dean" by the Eagles (1974), and "James Dean" by the Goo Goo Dolls (1989). Musician Taylor Swift referenced him in "Style" (2014). Canadian singer The Weeknd mentioned Dean and his early death in "Ordinary Life" (2016).
Sexuality
Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, "No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back."
Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly "for trade", as a means of advancing his career. Some point to Dean's involvement with Rogers Brackett as evidence of this. William Bast referred to Dean as Brackett's "kept boy" and once found a grotesque depiction of a lizard with the head of Brackett in a sketchbook belonging to Dean. Brackett was quoted saying about their relationship,
"My primary interest in Jimmy was as an actor—his talent was so obvious. Secondarily, I loved him, and Jimmy loved me. If it was a father-son relationship, it was also somewhat incestuous." James Bellah, the son of American Western author James Warner Bellah, was a friend of Dean's at UCLA, and later stated, "Dean was a user. I don't think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act....Once...at an agent's office, Dean told me that he had spent the summer as a 'professional house guest' on Fire Island." Mark Rydell also stated, "I don't think he was essentially homosexual. I think that he had very big appetites, and I think he exercised them."
However, the "trade only" notion is contradicted by several Dean biographers. Aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow motorcyclist and "Night Watch" member, John Gilmore, claimed that he and Dean "experimented" with gay sex on multiple occasions in New York, describing their sexual encounters as "Bad boys playing bad boys while opening up the bisexual sides of ourselves." Gilmore later stated that he believed Dean was more gay than bisexual.
On the subject of Dean's sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, "James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there's some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there's some proof for that too, keeping in mind that it's always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?" Martin Landau, a good friend of Dean's whom he met at the Actors Studio, stated, "A lot of people say Jimmy was hell-bent on killing himself. Not true. A lot of gay guys make him out to be gay. Not true. When Jimmy and I were together we'd talk about girls. Actors and girls. We were kids in our early 20s. That was what we aspired to." Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Dean had become friends with while working together on Giant, referred to Dean as gay along with Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000. When questioned about Dean's sexuality by the openly gay journalist Kevin Sessums for POZ Magazine, Taylor responded, "He hadn't made up his mind. He was only 24 when he died. But he was certainly fascinated by women. He flirted around. He and I … twinkled."
Stage credits
Broadway
See the Jaguar (1952)
The Immoralist (1954) – based on the book by André Gide
Off-Broadway
The Metamorphosis (1952) – based on the short story by Franz Kafka
The Scarecrow (1954)
Women of Trachis (1954) – translation by Ezra Pound
Filmography
Film
Television
Biographical films
James Dean also known as James Dean: Portrait of a Friend (1976) with Stephen McHattie as James Dean
James Dean: The First American Teenager (1976), a television biography that includes interviews with Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood and Nicholas Ray.
Forever James Dean (1988), Warner Home Video (1995)
James Dean: The Final Day features interviews with William Bast, Liz Sheridan and Maila Nurmi. Dean's bisexuality is openly discussed. Episode of Naked Hollywood television miniseries produced by The Oxford Film Company in association the BBC, aired in the US on the A&E Network, 1991.
James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) directed by Mardi Rustam, starring Casper Van Dien as James Dean.
James Dean (fictionalized TV biographical film) (2001) with James Franco as James Dean
James Dean – Outside the Lines (2002), episode of Biography, US television documentary includes interviews with Rod Steiger, William Bast, and Martin Landau (2002).
Living Famously: James Dean, Australian television biography includes interviews with Martin Landau, Betsy Palmer, William Bast, and Bob Hinkle (2003, 2006).
James Dean – Kleiner Prinz, Little Bastard aka James Dean – Little Prince, Little Bastard, German television biography, includes interviews with William Bast, Marcus Winslow Jr, Robert Heller (2005)
Sense Memories (PBS American Masters television biography) (2005)
James Dean – Mit Vollgas durchs Leben, Austrian television biography includes interviews with Rolf Weutherich and William Bast (2005).
Two Friendly Ghosts (2012)
Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean (2012), with James Preston as James Dean.
Life (2015). Directed by Anton Corbijn, starring Dane DeHaan as Dean.
See also
List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees – Youngest nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role
List of LGBTQ Academy Award winners and nominees — Best Actor in a Leading Role nominees alleged to be LGBTQ
List of actors with Academy Award nominations
List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories
References
Further reading
Alexander, Paul: Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean . Viking, 1994.
Bast, William: James Dean: A Biography. Ballantine Books, 1956.
Beath, Warren: Death of James Dean. Grove Press, 1986.
Beath, Warren, with Wheeldon, Paula; James Dean in Death: A Popular Encyclopedia of a Celebrity Phenomenon, McFarland & Co., Inc., 2005.
Dalton, David: James Dean-The Mutant King: A Biography. Chicago Review Press, 2001.
Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al: Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005.
Gilmore, John : Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.
Gilmore, John: The Real James Dean. Pyramid Books, 1975.
Heinrichs, Steve; Marinello, Marco; Perrin, Jim; Raskin, Lee; Stoddard, Charles A; Zigg, Donald; Porsche Speedster TYP540: Quintessential Sports Car, 2004, Big Lake Media, Inc.
Turiello, James : 'James Dean The Quest for an Oscar' 360 pages Publisher: Sandy Beach, A (February 26, 2018)
Holley, Val: James Dean: The Biography. St. Martin's Griffin, 1996.
Turiello, James: The James Dean Collection, 1993. Biography on fifty trading cards with photographs from The James Dean Gallery in Fairmount Indiana.
Hopper, Hedda and Brough, James: "James Dean Was a Rebel With a Cause" in The Whole Truth and Nothing But. Doubleday. 1963.
Howell, John: James Dean: A Biography. Plexus Publishing, 1997. Second Revised Edition.
Hyams, Joe; Hyams, Jay: James Dean: Little Boy Lost. Time Warner Publishing, 1992.
Martinetti, Ronald: The James Dean Story, Pinnacle Books, 1975.
Perry, George: James Dean. DK Publishing, 2005.
Riese, Randall: The Unabridged James Dean: His Life from A to Z. Contemporary Books, 1991.
Raskin, Lee: James Dean: At Speed. David Bull Publishing, 2005.
Sheridan, Liz: Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life With James Dean : A Love Story. HarperCollins Canada / Harper Trade, 2000.
Spoto, Donald: Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean. HarperCollins, 1996.
External links
JamesDean.com
James Dean Archives Seita Ohnishi Collection,Kobe Japan
1931 births
1955 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Quakers
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American Quakers
Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Burials in Indiana
LGBT male actors
LGBT people from Indiana
Male actors from Indiana
Method actors
People from Marion, Indiana
Road incident deaths in California
Santa Monica College alumni
UCLA Film School alumni
Warner Bros. contract players
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"Le Cousin is a 1997 French film directed by Alain Corneau.\n\nPlot \nThe film deals with the relationship of the police and an informant in the drug scene.\n\nAwards and nominations\nLe Cousin was nominated for 5 César Awards but did not win in any category.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1997 films\n1997 crime films\nFilms about drugs\nFilms directed by Alain Corneau\nFrench crime films\nFrench films\nFrench-language films",
"The 23rd Fangoria Chainsaw Awards is an award ceremony presented for horror films that were released in 2020. The nominees were announced on January 20, 2021. The film The Invisible Man won five of its five nominations, including Best Wide Release, as well as the write-in poll of Best Kill. Color Out Of Space and Possessor each took two awards. His House did not win any of its seven nominations. The ceremony was exclusively livestreamed for the first time on the SHUDDER horror streaming service.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\nReferences\n\nFangoria Chainsaw Awards"
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[
"James Dean",
"Cinema and television",
"what did he do in cinema?",
"American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played,",
"what were some films he was in?",
"Rebel Without a Cause.",
"did he star in any others?",
"September 30, 1955 (",
"what happened on that date?",
"The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death.",
"did he win any awards?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_1511e04b866448bab5fa69d23e09c93e_0
|
did he work in any other movies?
| 6 |
Did James work in any other movies besides Rebel Without a Cause?
|
James Dean
|
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity." Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen. His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine. Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982. On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young. CANNOTANSWER
|
On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan
|
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).
After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.
Early life and education
James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton Dean. He also claimed that his mother was partly Native American, and that his father belonged to a "line of original settlers that could be traced back to the Mayflower". Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him". In 1938, she was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean's father served in World War II and later remarried.
In his adolescence, Dean sought the counsel and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years". Their alleged sexual relationship was suggested in Paul Alexander's 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean. In 2011, it was reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death. Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was either sexually abused by DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager.
Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMC) and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.
Acting career
Early career
Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola commercial. He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952), and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952).
While struggling to gain roles in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay. Brackett opened doors for Dean and helped him land his first starring role on Broadway in See the Jaguar.
In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett. In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore and the advice of his mentor Rogers Brackett, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg. In 1952 he had a nonspeaking bit part as a pressman in the movie Deadline – U.S.A., starring Humphrey Bogart.
Proud of these accomplishments, Dean referred to the Actors Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as "the greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong." There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, alongside whom he would eventually star in Giant (1956).
Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in the Flower", saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later portray in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This summer 1953 program featured the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll. Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, a pandering homosexual North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist (1902), led to calls from Hollywood. During the production of The Immoralist, Dean had an affair with actress Geraldine Page. Angelica Page said of their relationship, "According to my mother, their affair went on for three-and-a-half months. In many ways my mother never really got over Jimmy. It was not unusual for me to go to her dressing room through the years, obviously many years after Dean was gone, and find pictures of him taped up on her mirror. My mother never forgot about Jimmy -- never. I believe they were artistic soul mates." Page remained friends with Dean until his death and kept a number of personal mementos from the play—including several drawings by him.
East of Eden
In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of 'Cal Trask', for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. This book deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s.
In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.
Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said that he wanted "a Brando" for the role and Osborn suggested Dean, a relatively unknown young actor. Dean met with Steinbeck, who did not like the moody, complex young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.
Much of Dean's performance in the film was unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The best-known improvised sequence of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film.
Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from their fathers.
In recognition of his performance in East of Eden, Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. (Jeanne Eagels was nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.
Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and planned roles
Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. Following East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, Dean wanted to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark, and hence took on the role of Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy, in Giant, a posthumously released 1956 film. The movie portrays a number of decades in the lives of Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher, played by Rock Hudson; his wife, Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor; and Rink. To portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.
Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited.
Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.
Having finished Giant, Dean was set to star as Rocky Graziano in a drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and, according to Nicholas Ray himself, he was going to do a story called Heroic Love with the director. Dean's death terminated any involvement in the projects but Somebody Up There Likes Me still went on to earn both commercial and critical success, winning two Oscars and grossing $3,360,000, with Paul Newman playing the role of Graziano.
Personal life
Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. According to Bast, he was Dean's roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love." They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function.
Bast, who was also Dean's first biographer, would not confirm whether he and Dean had a sexual relationship until 2006. In his book Surviving James Dean, Bast was more open about the nature of his relationship with Dean, writing that they had been lovers one night while staying at a hotel in Borrego Springs. In his book, Bast also described the difficult circumstances of their involvement.
In 1996, actress Liz Sheridan detailed her relationship with Dean in New York in 1952, saying it was "just kind of magical. It was the first love for both of us." Sheridan published her memoir, Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean; A Love Story, in 2000.
While living in New York, Dean was introduced to actress Barbara Glenn by their mutual friend Martin Landau. They dated for two years, often breaking up and getting back together. In 2011, their love letters were sold at auction for $36,000.
Early in Dean's career, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers, the studio's public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean's Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped Dean together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an 'eligible bachelor' who had not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: "They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals."
Dean's best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress Pier Angeli. He met Angeli while she was shooting The Silver Chalice (1954) on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli, during an interview fourteen years after their relationship ended, described their times together:
Dean was quoted saying about Angeli, "Everything about Pier is beautiful, especially her soul. She doesn't have to be all gussied up. She doesn't have to do or say anything. She's just wonderful as she is. She has a rare insight into life."
Those who believed Dean and Angeli were deeply in love claimed that a number of forces led them apart. Angeli's mother disapproved of Dean's casual dress and what were, for her at least, unacceptable behavior traits: his T-shirt attire, late dates, fast cars, drinking, and the fact that he was not a Catholic. Her mother said that such behavior was not acceptable in Italy. In addition, Warner Bros., where he worked, tried to talk him out of marrying and he himself told Angeli that he did not want to get married. Richard Davalos, Dean's East of Eden co-star, claimed that Dean in fact wanted to marry Angeli and was willing to allow their children to be brought up Catholic. An Order for the Solemnization of Marriage pamphlet with the name "Pier" lightly penciled in every place the bride's name is left blank was found amongst Dean's personal effects after his death.
Some commentators, such as William Bast and Paul Alexander, believe the relationship was a mere publicity stunt. In his autobiography, Elia Kazan, the director of East of Eden, dismissed the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, although he remembered hearing Dean and Angeli loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. Kazan was quoted by author Paul Donnelley as saying about Dean, "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends." Pier Angeli talked only once about the relationship in her later life in an interview, giving vivid descriptions of romantic meetings at the beach. Dean biographer John Howlett said these read like wishful fantasies, as Bast claims them to be.
After finishing his role for East of Eden, Dean took a brief trip to New York in October 1954. While he was away, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone. The press was shocked and Dean expressed his irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month. Gossip columnists reported that Dean watched the wedding from across the road on his motorcycle, even gunning the engine during the ceremony, although Dean later denied doing anything so "dumb". Joe Hyams, in his 1992 biography of Dean, James Dean: Little Boy Lost, claims that he visited Dean just as Angeli, then married to Damone, was leaving his home. Dean was crying and allegedly told Hyams she was pregnant, with Hyams concluding that Dean believed the child might be his. Angeli, who divorced Damone and then her second husband, the Italian film composer Armando Trovajoli, was said by friends in the last years of her life to claim that Dean was the love of her life. She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1971, at the age of 39.
Dean also dated Swiss actress Ursula Andress. "She was seen riding around Hollywood on the back of James's motorcycle," writes biographer Darwin Porter. She was also seen with Dean in his sports cars, and was with him on the day he bought the car that he died in.
Death
Auto racing hobby
In 1954, Dean became interested in developing a career in motorsport. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a Triumph Tiger T110 and a Porsche 356. Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class, and second place at the main event. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made it impossible.
Dean's final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955. He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.
Accident and aftermath
Longing to return to the "liberating prospects" of motor racing, Dean traded in his Speedster for a new, more powerful and faster 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder and entered the upcoming Salinas Road Race event scheduled for October 1–2, 1955. Accompanying the actor on his way to the track on September 30 was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Spyder, "Little Bastard" car. Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 p.m., Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car.
As the group was driving westbound on U.S. Route 466 (currently SR 46) near Cholame, California, at approximately 5:45 p.m., a 1950 Ford Tudor, driven by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, was travelling east. Turnupseed made a left turn onto Highway 41 headed north, toward Fresno ahead of the oncoming Porsche.
Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the passenger side of the Ford, resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. Turnupseed exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries.
The accident was witnessed by a number of passersby who stopped to help. Dean's biographer George Perry wrote that a woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, but he also contrarily wrote that "death appeared to have been instantaneous". Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m.
Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean's death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955, at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his severe injuries. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2,400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession. He is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, second road to the right from the main entrance, and up the hill on the right, facing the drive.
An inquest into Dean's death occurred three days later at the council chambers in San Luis Obispo, where the sheriff-coroner's jury delivered a verdict that he was entirely at fault due to speeding, and that Turnupseed was innocent of any criminal act. However, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 2005, a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been called to the scene, Ron Nelson, contradicted reports that Dean had been traveling at 90 mph, stating "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed at the time of the accident was more like 55 mph". A "James Dean Monument" has been placed at Shandon next to Highway 46, and stands to this day.
Legacy and iconic status
Cinema and television
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were first released, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity."
Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen.
Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982.
On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young.
James Dean's estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes magazine. On November 6, 2019, it was announced that Dean's likeness will be used, via CGI, for a Vietnam War film called Finding Jack, based on the Gareth Crocker novel. The movie will be directed by Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh and another actor will voice Dean's part. Although the directors obtained the rights to use Dean's image from his family, the announcement was met with derision by people in the industry.
Martin Sheen has been vocal throughout his career about being influenced by James Dean. Speaking of the impact Dean had on him, Sheen stated, "All of his movies had a profound effect on my life, in my work and all of my generation. He transcended cinema acting. It was no longer acting, it was human behavior." For Terrence Malick's debut film Badlands, Sheen based his characterization of Kit Carruthers, a spree killer loosely inspired by Charles Starkweather, on Dean.
Johnny Depp credited Dean as the catalyst that made him want to become an actor. Nicolas Cage also said he wanted to go into acting because of Dean. "I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me – no rock song, no classical music – the way Dean affected me in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, "That's what I want to do," Cage said. Robert De Niro cited Dean as one of his acting inspirations in an interview. Leonardo DiCaprio also cited Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors. When asked about which performances stayed with him the most in an interview, DiCaprio responded, "I remember being incredibly moved by Jimmy Dean, in East of Eden. There was something so raw and powerful about that performance. His vulnerability…his confusion about his entire history, his identity, his desperation to be loved. That performance just broke my heart."
Youth culture and music
Numerous commentators have asserted that Dean had a singular influence on the development of rock and roll music. According to David R. Shumway, a researcher in American culture and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University, Dean was the first iconic figure of youthful rebellion and "a harbinger of youth-identity politics". The persona Dean projected in his movies, especially Rebel Without a Cause, influenced Elvis Presley and many other musicians who followed, including the American rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
In their book, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel wrote, "Ironically, though Rebel had no rock music on its soundtrack, the film's sensibility—and especially the defiant attitude and effortless cool of James Dean—would have a great impact on rock. The music media would often see Dean and rock as inextricably linked [...] The industry trade magazine Music Connection even went so far as to call Dean 'the first rock star'."
As rock and roll became a revolutionary force that affected the culture of countries around the world, Dean acquired a mythic status that cemented his place as a rock and roll icon. Dean himself listened to music ranging from African tribal music to the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók, as well as to contemporary singers such as Frank Sinatra. While the magnetism and charisma manifested by Dean onscreen appealed to people of all ages and sexuality, his persona of youthful rebellion provided a template for succeeding generations of youth to model themselves on.
In his book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Joel Dinerstein describes how Dean and Marlon Brando eroticized the rebel archetype in film, and how Elvis Presley, following their lead, did the same in music. Dinerstein details the dynamics of this eroticization and its effect on teenage girls with few sexual outlets. Presley said in a 1956 interview with Lloyd Shearer for Parade magazine, "I've made a study of Marlon Brando. And I've made a study of poor Jimmy Dean. I've made a study of myself, and I know why girls, at least the young 'uns, go for us. We're sullen, we're broodin', we're something of a menace. I don't understand it exactly, but that's what the girls like in men. I don't know anything about Hollywood, but I know you can't be sexy if you smile. You can't be a rebel if you grin."
Dean and Presley have often been represented in academic literature and in journalism as embodying the frustration felt by young white Americans with the values of their parents, and depicted as avatars of the youthful unrest endemic to rock and roll style and attitude. The rock historian Greil Marcus characterized them as symbols of tribal teenage identity which provided an image that young people in the 1950s could relate to and imitate. In the book Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema, Paul Anthony Johnson wrote that Dean's acting in Rebel Without a Cause provided a "performance model for Presley, Buddy Holly, and Bob Dylan, all of whom borrowed elements of Dean's performance in their own carefully constructed star personas". Frascella and Weisel wrote, "As rock music became the defining expression of youth in the 1960s, the influence of Rebel was conveyed to a new generation."
Rock musicians as diverse as Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie regarded Dean as a formative influence. The playwright and actor Sam Shepard interviewed Dylan in 1986 and wrote a play based on their conversation, in which Dylan discusses the early influence of Dean on him personally. A young Bob Dylan, still in his folk music period, consciously evoked Dean visually on the cover of his album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), and later on Highway 61 Revisited (1965), cultivating an image that his biographer Bob Spitz called "James Dean with a guitar". Dean has long been invoked in the lyrics of rock songs, famously in songs such as "A Young Man Is Gone" by the Beach Boys (1963), "James Dean" by the Eagles (1974), and "James Dean" by the Goo Goo Dolls (1989). Musician Taylor Swift referenced him in "Style" (2014). Canadian singer The Weeknd mentioned Dean and his early death in "Ordinary Life" (2016).
Sexuality
Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, "No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back."
Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly "for trade", as a means of advancing his career. Some point to Dean's involvement with Rogers Brackett as evidence of this. William Bast referred to Dean as Brackett's "kept boy" and once found a grotesque depiction of a lizard with the head of Brackett in a sketchbook belonging to Dean. Brackett was quoted saying about their relationship,
"My primary interest in Jimmy was as an actor—his talent was so obvious. Secondarily, I loved him, and Jimmy loved me. If it was a father-son relationship, it was also somewhat incestuous." James Bellah, the son of American Western author James Warner Bellah, was a friend of Dean's at UCLA, and later stated, "Dean was a user. I don't think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act....Once...at an agent's office, Dean told me that he had spent the summer as a 'professional house guest' on Fire Island." Mark Rydell also stated, "I don't think he was essentially homosexual. I think that he had very big appetites, and I think he exercised them."
However, the "trade only" notion is contradicted by several Dean biographers. Aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow motorcyclist and "Night Watch" member, John Gilmore, claimed that he and Dean "experimented" with gay sex on multiple occasions in New York, describing their sexual encounters as "Bad boys playing bad boys while opening up the bisexual sides of ourselves." Gilmore later stated that he believed Dean was more gay than bisexual.
On the subject of Dean's sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, "James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there's some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there's some proof for that too, keeping in mind that it's always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?" Martin Landau, a good friend of Dean's whom he met at the Actors Studio, stated, "A lot of people say Jimmy was hell-bent on killing himself. Not true. A lot of gay guys make him out to be gay. Not true. When Jimmy and I were together we'd talk about girls. Actors and girls. We were kids in our early 20s. That was what we aspired to." Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Dean had become friends with while working together on Giant, referred to Dean as gay along with Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000. When questioned about Dean's sexuality by the openly gay journalist Kevin Sessums for POZ Magazine, Taylor responded, "He hadn't made up his mind. He was only 24 when he died. But he was certainly fascinated by women. He flirted around. He and I … twinkled."
Stage credits
Broadway
See the Jaguar (1952)
The Immoralist (1954) – based on the book by André Gide
Off-Broadway
The Metamorphosis (1952) – based on the short story by Franz Kafka
The Scarecrow (1954)
Women of Trachis (1954) – translation by Ezra Pound
Filmography
Film
Television
Biographical films
James Dean also known as James Dean: Portrait of a Friend (1976) with Stephen McHattie as James Dean
James Dean: The First American Teenager (1976), a television biography that includes interviews with Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood and Nicholas Ray.
Forever James Dean (1988), Warner Home Video (1995)
James Dean: The Final Day features interviews with William Bast, Liz Sheridan and Maila Nurmi. Dean's bisexuality is openly discussed. Episode of Naked Hollywood television miniseries produced by The Oxford Film Company in association the BBC, aired in the US on the A&E Network, 1991.
James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) directed by Mardi Rustam, starring Casper Van Dien as James Dean.
James Dean (fictionalized TV biographical film) (2001) with James Franco as James Dean
James Dean – Outside the Lines (2002), episode of Biography, US television documentary includes interviews with Rod Steiger, William Bast, and Martin Landau (2002).
Living Famously: James Dean, Australian television biography includes interviews with Martin Landau, Betsy Palmer, William Bast, and Bob Hinkle (2003, 2006).
James Dean – Kleiner Prinz, Little Bastard aka James Dean – Little Prince, Little Bastard, German television biography, includes interviews with William Bast, Marcus Winslow Jr, Robert Heller (2005)
Sense Memories (PBS American Masters television biography) (2005)
James Dean – Mit Vollgas durchs Leben, Austrian television biography includes interviews with Rolf Weutherich and William Bast (2005).
Two Friendly Ghosts (2012)
Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean (2012), with James Preston as James Dean.
Life (2015). Directed by Anton Corbijn, starring Dane DeHaan as Dean.
See also
List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees – Youngest nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role
List of LGBTQ Academy Award winners and nominees — Best Actor in a Leading Role nominees alleged to be LGBTQ
List of actors with Academy Award nominations
List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories
References
Further reading
Alexander, Paul: Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean . Viking, 1994.
Bast, William: James Dean: A Biography. Ballantine Books, 1956.
Beath, Warren: Death of James Dean. Grove Press, 1986.
Beath, Warren, with Wheeldon, Paula; James Dean in Death: A Popular Encyclopedia of a Celebrity Phenomenon, McFarland & Co., Inc., 2005.
Dalton, David: James Dean-The Mutant King: A Biography. Chicago Review Press, 2001.
Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al: Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005.
Gilmore, John : Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.
Gilmore, John: The Real James Dean. Pyramid Books, 1975.
Heinrichs, Steve; Marinello, Marco; Perrin, Jim; Raskin, Lee; Stoddard, Charles A; Zigg, Donald; Porsche Speedster TYP540: Quintessential Sports Car, 2004, Big Lake Media, Inc.
Turiello, James : 'James Dean The Quest for an Oscar' 360 pages Publisher: Sandy Beach, A (February 26, 2018)
Holley, Val: James Dean: The Biography. St. Martin's Griffin, 1996.
Turiello, James: The James Dean Collection, 1993. Biography on fifty trading cards with photographs from The James Dean Gallery in Fairmount Indiana.
Hopper, Hedda and Brough, James: "James Dean Was a Rebel With a Cause" in The Whole Truth and Nothing But. Doubleday. 1963.
Howell, John: James Dean: A Biography. Plexus Publishing, 1997. Second Revised Edition.
Hyams, Joe; Hyams, Jay: James Dean: Little Boy Lost. Time Warner Publishing, 1992.
Martinetti, Ronald: The James Dean Story, Pinnacle Books, 1975.
Perry, George: James Dean. DK Publishing, 2005.
Riese, Randall: The Unabridged James Dean: His Life from A to Z. Contemporary Books, 1991.
Raskin, Lee: James Dean: At Speed. David Bull Publishing, 2005.
Sheridan, Liz: Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life With James Dean : A Love Story. HarperCollins Canada / Harper Trade, 2000.
Spoto, Donald: Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean. HarperCollins, 1996.
External links
JamesDean.com
James Dean Archives Seita Ohnishi Collection,Kobe Japan
1931 births
1955 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Quakers
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American Quakers
Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Burials in Indiana
LGBT male actors
LGBT people from Indiana
Male actors from Indiana
Method actors
People from Marion, Indiana
Road incident deaths in California
Santa Monica College alumni
UCLA Film School alumni
Warner Bros. contract players
| true |
[
"True Movies 2 was a British free-to-air television channel that was owned by Moving Movies Ltd., majority owned by CSC Media Group (formerly Chart Show Channels). It was launched on 20 March 2006 and was a sister channel from True Movies which was launched on 29 April 2005. True Movies 2 initially broadcast for two hours in the early morning, from 4am to 6am by timesharing with Pop, a children's cartoon channel. The service was later extended to 24 hours a day.\n\nTrue Movies 2 was aimed especially at a female audience with its movies dedicated to true life dramas, which are mostly made-for-TV movies.\n\nReception of the channel did not require any special Sky or Freesat equipment nor subscription, any free to air receiver can pick up the channel.\nThe channel was temporarily rebranded from 19 May to 2 June 2014 as True Murder. From 30 September 2016, the channel was replaced by True Movies +1.\n\nEnglish-language television stations in the United Kingdom\nMovie channels in the United Kingdom\nCSC Media Group\nSony Pictures Television\nTelevision channels and stations established in 2006\nTelevision channels and stations disestablished in 2016",
"Mark Buntzman (July 31, 1949 – June 8, 2018) was the film director, writer, producer and actor of the cult classic movie Exterminator 2. He was also the producer of its predecessor The Exterminator. Other than those two movies, he hasn't produced, directed, or written any other prominent films. He did, though, have a cameo in the 1993 movie Posse as Deputy Buntzman, as well as playing a reporter in the 1995 movie Panther. Both movies starred Mario Van Peebles, who also played a large role in Exterminator 2.\n\nFilmography\n Standing Knockdown (1999) [Producer]\n Love Kills (1998) [Producer] [Actor....The Accountant]\n Panther (1995) [Actor....Pushy reporter]\n Posse (1993) [Actor....Deputy Buntzman]\n Exterminator 2 (1984) [Producer] [Director] [Writer]\n The Exterminator (1980) [Producer] [Actor...Burping Ghoul]\n Suicide Cult (1975) [Producer] [Actor....Kajerste]\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1949 births\n2018 deaths\nAmerican film producers\nAmerican film directors\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican male screenwriters"
] |
[
"James Dean",
"Cinema and television",
"what did he do in cinema?",
"American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played,",
"what were some films he was in?",
"Rebel Without a Cause.",
"did he star in any others?",
"September 30, 1955 (",
"what happened on that date?",
"The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death.",
"did he win any awards?",
"I don't know.",
"did he work in any other movies?",
"On April 20, 2010, a long \"lost\" live episode of the General Electric Theater called \"The Dark, Dark Hours\" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan"
] |
C_1511e04b866448bab5fa69d23e09c93e_0
|
what tv shows did he do?
| 7 |
What tv shows did James do?
|
James Dean
|
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity." Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen. His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine. Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982. On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young. CANNOTANSWER
|
General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours
|
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).
After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.
Early life and education
James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton Dean. He also claimed that his mother was partly Native American, and that his father belonged to a "line of original settlers that could be traced back to the Mayflower". Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him". In 1938, she was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean's father served in World War II and later remarried.
In his adolescence, Dean sought the counsel and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years". Their alleged sexual relationship was suggested in Paul Alexander's 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean. In 2011, it was reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death. Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was either sexually abused by DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager.
Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMC) and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.
Acting career
Early career
Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola commercial. He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952), and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952).
While struggling to gain roles in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay. Brackett opened doors for Dean and helped him land his first starring role on Broadway in See the Jaguar.
In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett. In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore and the advice of his mentor Rogers Brackett, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg. In 1952 he had a nonspeaking bit part as a pressman in the movie Deadline – U.S.A., starring Humphrey Bogart.
Proud of these accomplishments, Dean referred to the Actors Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as "the greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong." There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, alongside whom he would eventually star in Giant (1956).
Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in the Flower", saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later portray in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This summer 1953 program featured the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll. Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, a pandering homosexual North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist (1902), led to calls from Hollywood. During the production of The Immoralist, Dean had an affair with actress Geraldine Page. Angelica Page said of their relationship, "According to my mother, their affair went on for three-and-a-half months. In many ways my mother never really got over Jimmy. It was not unusual for me to go to her dressing room through the years, obviously many years after Dean was gone, and find pictures of him taped up on her mirror. My mother never forgot about Jimmy -- never. I believe they were artistic soul mates." Page remained friends with Dean until his death and kept a number of personal mementos from the play—including several drawings by him.
East of Eden
In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of 'Cal Trask', for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. This book deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s.
In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.
Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said that he wanted "a Brando" for the role and Osborn suggested Dean, a relatively unknown young actor. Dean met with Steinbeck, who did not like the moody, complex young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.
Much of Dean's performance in the film was unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The best-known improvised sequence of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film.
Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from their fathers.
In recognition of his performance in East of Eden, Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. (Jeanne Eagels was nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.
Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and planned roles
Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. Following East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, Dean wanted to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark, and hence took on the role of Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy, in Giant, a posthumously released 1956 film. The movie portrays a number of decades in the lives of Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher, played by Rock Hudson; his wife, Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor; and Rink. To portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.
Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited.
Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.
Having finished Giant, Dean was set to star as Rocky Graziano in a drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and, according to Nicholas Ray himself, he was going to do a story called Heroic Love with the director. Dean's death terminated any involvement in the projects but Somebody Up There Likes Me still went on to earn both commercial and critical success, winning two Oscars and grossing $3,360,000, with Paul Newman playing the role of Graziano.
Personal life
Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. According to Bast, he was Dean's roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love." They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function.
Bast, who was also Dean's first biographer, would not confirm whether he and Dean had a sexual relationship until 2006. In his book Surviving James Dean, Bast was more open about the nature of his relationship with Dean, writing that they had been lovers one night while staying at a hotel in Borrego Springs. In his book, Bast also described the difficult circumstances of their involvement.
In 1996, actress Liz Sheridan detailed her relationship with Dean in New York in 1952, saying it was "just kind of magical. It was the first love for both of us." Sheridan published her memoir, Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean; A Love Story, in 2000.
While living in New York, Dean was introduced to actress Barbara Glenn by their mutual friend Martin Landau. They dated for two years, often breaking up and getting back together. In 2011, their love letters were sold at auction for $36,000.
Early in Dean's career, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers, the studio's public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean's Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped Dean together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an 'eligible bachelor' who had not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: "They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals."
Dean's best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress Pier Angeli. He met Angeli while she was shooting The Silver Chalice (1954) on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli, during an interview fourteen years after their relationship ended, described their times together:
Dean was quoted saying about Angeli, "Everything about Pier is beautiful, especially her soul. She doesn't have to be all gussied up. She doesn't have to do or say anything. She's just wonderful as she is. She has a rare insight into life."
Those who believed Dean and Angeli were deeply in love claimed that a number of forces led them apart. Angeli's mother disapproved of Dean's casual dress and what were, for her at least, unacceptable behavior traits: his T-shirt attire, late dates, fast cars, drinking, and the fact that he was not a Catholic. Her mother said that such behavior was not acceptable in Italy. In addition, Warner Bros., where he worked, tried to talk him out of marrying and he himself told Angeli that he did not want to get married. Richard Davalos, Dean's East of Eden co-star, claimed that Dean in fact wanted to marry Angeli and was willing to allow their children to be brought up Catholic. An Order for the Solemnization of Marriage pamphlet with the name "Pier" lightly penciled in every place the bride's name is left blank was found amongst Dean's personal effects after his death.
Some commentators, such as William Bast and Paul Alexander, believe the relationship was a mere publicity stunt. In his autobiography, Elia Kazan, the director of East of Eden, dismissed the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, although he remembered hearing Dean and Angeli loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. Kazan was quoted by author Paul Donnelley as saying about Dean, "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends." Pier Angeli talked only once about the relationship in her later life in an interview, giving vivid descriptions of romantic meetings at the beach. Dean biographer John Howlett said these read like wishful fantasies, as Bast claims them to be.
After finishing his role for East of Eden, Dean took a brief trip to New York in October 1954. While he was away, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone. The press was shocked and Dean expressed his irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month. Gossip columnists reported that Dean watched the wedding from across the road on his motorcycle, even gunning the engine during the ceremony, although Dean later denied doing anything so "dumb". Joe Hyams, in his 1992 biography of Dean, James Dean: Little Boy Lost, claims that he visited Dean just as Angeli, then married to Damone, was leaving his home. Dean was crying and allegedly told Hyams she was pregnant, with Hyams concluding that Dean believed the child might be his. Angeli, who divorced Damone and then her second husband, the Italian film composer Armando Trovajoli, was said by friends in the last years of her life to claim that Dean was the love of her life. She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1971, at the age of 39.
Dean also dated Swiss actress Ursula Andress. "She was seen riding around Hollywood on the back of James's motorcycle," writes biographer Darwin Porter. She was also seen with Dean in his sports cars, and was with him on the day he bought the car that he died in.
Death
Auto racing hobby
In 1954, Dean became interested in developing a career in motorsport. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a Triumph Tiger T110 and a Porsche 356. Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class, and second place at the main event. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made it impossible.
Dean's final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955. He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.
Accident and aftermath
Longing to return to the "liberating prospects" of motor racing, Dean traded in his Speedster for a new, more powerful and faster 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder and entered the upcoming Salinas Road Race event scheduled for October 1–2, 1955. Accompanying the actor on his way to the track on September 30 was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Spyder, "Little Bastard" car. Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 p.m., Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car.
As the group was driving westbound on U.S. Route 466 (currently SR 46) near Cholame, California, at approximately 5:45 p.m., a 1950 Ford Tudor, driven by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, was travelling east. Turnupseed made a left turn onto Highway 41 headed north, toward Fresno ahead of the oncoming Porsche.
Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the passenger side of the Ford, resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. Turnupseed exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries.
The accident was witnessed by a number of passersby who stopped to help. Dean's biographer George Perry wrote that a woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, but he also contrarily wrote that "death appeared to have been instantaneous". Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m.
Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean's death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955, at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his severe injuries. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2,400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession. He is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, second road to the right from the main entrance, and up the hill on the right, facing the drive.
An inquest into Dean's death occurred three days later at the council chambers in San Luis Obispo, where the sheriff-coroner's jury delivered a verdict that he was entirely at fault due to speeding, and that Turnupseed was innocent of any criminal act. However, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 2005, a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been called to the scene, Ron Nelson, contradicted reports that Dean had been traveling at 90 mph, stating "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed at the time of the accident was more like 55 mph". A "James Dean Monument" has been placed at Shandon next to Highway 46, and stands to this day.
Legacy and iconic status
Cinema and television
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were first released, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity."
Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen.
Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982.
On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young.
James Dean's estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes magazine. On November 6, 2019, it was announced that Dean's likeness will be used, via CGI, for a Vietnam War film called Finding Jack, based on the Gareth Crocker novel. The movie will be directed by Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh and another actor will voice Dean's part. Although the directors obtained the rights to use Dean's image from his family, the announcement was met with derision by people in the industry.
Martin Sheen has been vocal throughout his career about being influenced by James Dean. Speaking of the impact Dean had on him, Sheen stated, "All of his movies had a profound effect on my life, in my work and all of my generation. He transcended cinema acting. It was no longer acting, it was human behavior." For Terrence Malick's debut film Badlands, Sheen based his characterization of Kit Carruthers, a spree killer loosely inspired by Charles Starkweather, on Dean.
Johnny Depp credited Dean as the catalyst that made him want to become an actor. Nicolas Cage also said he wanted to go into acting because of Dean. "I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me – no rock song, no classical music – the way Dean affected me in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, "That's what I want to do," Cage said. Robert De Niro cited Dean as one of his acting inspirations in an interview. Leonardo DiCaprio also cited Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors. When asked about which performances stayed with him the most in an interview, DiCaprio responded, "I remember being incredibly moved by Jimmy Dean, in East of Eden. There was something so raw and powerful about that performance. His vulnerability…his confusion about his entire history, his identity, his desperation to be loved. That performance just broke my heart."
Youth culture and music
Numerous commentators have asserted that Dean had a singular influence on the development of rock and roll music. According to David R. Shumway, a researcher in American culture and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University, Dean was the first iconic figure of youthful rebellion and "a harbinger of youth-identity politics". The persona Dean projected in his movies, especially Rebel Without a Cause, influenced Elvis Presley and many other musicians who followed, including the American rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
In their book, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel wrote, "Ironically, though Rebel had no rock music on its soundtrack, the film's sensibility—and especially the defiant attitude and effortless cool of James Dean—would have a great impact on rock. The music media would often see Dean and rock as inextricably linked [...] The industry trade magazine Music Connection even went so far as to call Dean 'the first rock star'."
As rock and roll became a revolutionary force that affected the culture of countries around the world, Dean acquired a mythic status that cemented his place as a rock and roll icon. Dean himself listened to music ranging from African tribal music to the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók, as well as to contemporary singers such as Frank Sinatra. While the magnetism and charisma manifested by Dean onscreen appealed to people of all ages and sexuality, his persona of youthful rebellion provided a template for succeeding generations of youth to model themselves on.
In his book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Joel Dinerstein describes how Dean and Marlon Brando eroticized the rebel archetype in film, and how Elvis Presley, following their lead, did the same in music. Dinerstein details the dynamics of this eroticization and its effect on teenage girls with few sexual outlets. Presley said in a 1956 interview with Lloyd Shearer for Parade magazine, "I've made a study of Marlon Brando. And I've made a study of poor Jimmy Dean. I've made a study of myself, and I know why girls, at least the young 'uns, go for us. We're sullen, we're broodin', we're something of a menace. I don't understand it exactly, but that's what the girls like in men. I don't know anything about Hollywood, but I know you can't be sexy if you smile. You can't be a rebel if you grin."
Dean and Presley have often been represented in academic literature and in journalism as embodying the frustration felt by young white Americans with the values of their parents, and depicted as avatars of the youthful unrest endemic to rock and roll style and attitude. The rock historian Greil Marcus characterized them as symbols of tribal teenage identity which provided an image that young people in the 1950s could relate to and imitate. In the book Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema, Paul Anthony Johnson wrote that Dean's acting in Rebel Without a Cause provided a "performance model for Presley, Buddy Holly, and Bob Dylan, all of whom borrowed elements of Dean's performance in their own carefully constructed star personas". Frascella and Weisel wrote, "As rock music became the defining expression of youth in the 1960s, the influence of Rebel was conveyed to a new generation."
Rock musicians as diverse as Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie regarded Dean as a formative influence. The playwright and actor Sam Shepard interviewed Dylan in 1986 and wrote a play based on their conversation, in which Dylan discusses the early influence of Dean on him personally. A young Bob Dylan, still in his folk music period, consciously evoked Dean visually on the cover of his album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), and later on Highway 61 Revisited (1965), cultivating an image that his biographer Bob Spitz called "James Dean with a guitar". Dean has long been invoked in the lyrics of rock songs, famously in songs such as "A Young Man Is Gone" by the Beach Boys (1963), "James Dean" by the Eagles (1974), and "James Dean" by the Goo Goo Dolls (1989). Musician Taylor Swift referenced him in "Style" (2014). Canadian singer The Weeknd mentioned Dean and his early death in "Ordinary Life" (2016).
Sexuality
Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, "No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back."
Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly "for trade", as a means of advancing his career. Some point to Dean's involvement with Rogers Brackett as evidence of this. William Bast referred to Dean as Brackett's "kept boy" and once found a grotesque depiction of a lizard with the head of Brackett in a sketchbook belonging to Dean. Brackett was quoted saying about their relationship,
"My primary interest in Jimmy was as an actor—his talent was so obvious. Secondarily, I loved him, and Jimmy loved me. If it was a father-son relationship, it was also somewhat incestuous." James Bellah, the son of American Western author James Warner Bellah, was a friend of Dean's at UCLA, and later stated, "Dean was a user. I don't think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act....Once...at an agent's office, Dean told me that he had spent the summer as a 'professional house guest' on Fire Island." Mark Rydell also stated, "I don't think he was essentially homosexual. I think that he had very big appetites, and I think he exercised them."
However, the "trade only" notion is contradicted by several Dean biographers. Aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow motorcyclist and "Night Watch" member, John Gilmore, claimed that he and Dean "experimented" with gay sex on multiple occasions in New York, describing their sexual encounters as "Bad boys playing bad boys while opening up the bisexual sides of ourselves." Gilmore later stated that he believed Dean was more gay than bisexual.
On the subject of Dean's sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, "James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there's some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there's some proof for that too, keeping in mind that it's always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?" Martin Landau, a good friend of Dean's whom he met at the Actors Studio, stated, "A lot of people say Jimmy was hell-bent on killing himself. Not true. A lot of gay guys make him out to be gay. Not true. When Jimmy and I were together we'd talk about girls. Actors and girls. We were kids in our early 20s. That was what we aspired to." Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Dean had become friends with while working together on Giant, referred to Dean as gay along with Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000. When questioned about Dean's sexuality by the openly gay journalist Kevin Sessums for POZ Magazine, Taylor responded, "He hadn't made up his mind. He was only 24 when he died. But he was certainly fascinated by women. He flirted around. He and I … twinkled."
Stage credits
Broadway
See the Jaguar (1952)
The Immoralist (1954) – based on the book by André Gide
Off-Broadway
The Metamorphosis (1952) – based on the short story by Franz Kafka
The Scarecrow (1954)
Women of Trachis (1954) – translation by Ezra Pound
Filmography
Film
Television
Biographical films
James Dean also known as James Dean: Portrait of a Friend (1976) with Stephen McHattie as James Dean
James Dean: The First American Teenager (1976), a television biography that includes interviews with Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood and Nicholas Ray.
Forever James Dean (1988), Warner Home Video (1995)
James Dean: The Final Day features interviews with William Bast, Liz Sheridan and Maila Nurmi. Dean's bisexuality is openly discussed. Episode of Naked Hollywood television miniseries produced by The Oxford Film Company in association the BBC, aired in the US on the A&E Network, 1991.
James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) directed by Mardi Rustam, starring Casper Van Dien as James Dean.
James Dean (fictionalized TV biographical film) (2001) with James Franco as James Dean
James Dean – Outside the Lines (2002), episode of Biography, US television documentary includes interviews with Rod Steiger, William Bast, and Martin Landau (2002).
Living Famously: James Dean, Australian television biography includes interviews with Martin Landau, Betsy Palmer, William Bast, and Bob Hinkle (2003, 2006).
James Dean – Kleiner Prinz, Little Bastard aka James Dean – Little Prince, Little Bastard, German television biography, includes interviews with William Bast, Marcus Winslow Jr, Robert Heller (2005)
Sense Memories (PBS American Masters television biography) (2005)
James Dean – Mit Vollgas durchs Leben, Austrian television biography includes interviews with Rolf Weutherich and William Bast (2005).
Two Friendly Ghosts (2012)
Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean (2012), with James Preston as James Dean.
Life (2015). Directed by Anton Corbijn, starring Dane DeHaan as Dean.
See also
List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees – Youngest nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role
List of LGBTQ Academy Award winners and nominees — Best Actor in a Leading Role nominees alleged to be LGBTQ
List of actors with Academy Award nominations
List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories
References
Further reading
Alexander, Paul: Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean . Viking, 1994.
Bast, William: James Dean: A Biography. Ballantine Books, 1956.
Beath, Warren: Death of James Dean. Grove Press, 1986.
Beath, Warren, with Wheeldon, Paula; James Dean in Death: A Popular Encyclopedia of a Celebrity Phenomenon, McFarland & Co., Inc., 2005.
Dalton, David: James Dean-The Mutant King: A Biography. Chicago Review Press, 2001.
Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al: Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005.
Gilmore, John : Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.
Gilmore, John: The Real James Dean. Pyramid Books, 1975.
Heinrichs, Steve; Marinello, Marco; Perrin, Jim; Raskin, Lee; Stoddard, Charles A; Zigg, Donald; Porsche Speedster TYP540: Quintessential Sports Car, 2004, Big Lake Media, Inc.
Turiello, James : 'James Dean The Quest for an Oscar' 360 pages Publisher: Sandy Beach, A (February 26, 2018)
Holley, Val: James Dean: The Biography. St. Martin's Griffin, 1996.
Turiello, James: The James Dean Collection, 1993. Biography on fifty trading cards with photographs from The James Dean Gallery in Fairmount Indiana.
Hopper, Hedda and Brough, James: "James Dean Was a Rebel With a Cause" in The Whole Truth and Nothing But. Doubleday. 1963.
Howell, John: James Dean: A Biography. Plexus Publishing, 1997. Second Revised Edition.
Hyams, Joe; Hyams, Jay: James Dean: Little Boy Lost. Time Warner Publishing, 1992.
Martinetti, Ronald: The James Dean Story, Pinnacle Books, 1975.
Perry, George: James Dean. DK Publishing, 2005.
Riese, Randall: The Unabridged James Dean: His Life from A to Z. Contemporary Books, 1991.
Raskin, Lee: James Dean: At Speed. David Bull Publishing, 2005.
Sheridan, Liz: Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life With James Dean : A Love Story. HarperCollins Canada / Harper Trade, 2000.
Spoto, Donald: Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean. HarperCollins, 1996.
External links
JamesDean.com
James Dean Archives Seita Ohnishi Collection,Kobe Japan
1931 births
1955 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Quakers
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American Quakers
Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Burials in Indiana
LGBT male actors
LGBT people from Indiana
Male actors from Indiana
Method actors
People from Marion, Indiana
Road incident deaths in California
Santa Monica College alumni
UCLA Film School alumni
Warner Bros. contract players
| true |
[
"What's Up Doods? is a late night talk show hosted by veteran TV host/actor Edu Manzano produced by the TV5 Entertainment Group in cooperation with Tentra, Inc. and it is aired every Saturday at 9:00 pm (UTC +8 21:00) on TV5.\n\nLaunched on September 14, 2013, What's Up Doods? is one of the 8 newly launched weekend programs under the \"Weekend Do It Better\" block of the network.\n\nThe show ends its Season 1 last December 21, 2013 with the episode feature some of the interviews from prominent personalities on the show.\n\nSegments\nKaya Mo Doods?\nVidJoker\nPraisebook\nBwitter\n\nSee also\nTV5\nList of programs broadcast by The 5 Network\nList of Philippine television shows\n\nExternal links\nWhat's Up Doods? Website\n\nReferences\n\nTV5 (Philippine TV network) original programming\n2013 Philippine television series debuts\n2013 Philippine television series endings\nPhilippine television talk shows\nFilipino-language television shows",
"I Know What You Did Last Summer is a 1997 American slasher film based on the 1973 novel.\n\nI Know What You Did Last Summer may also refer to:\n\nFranchise\nI Know What You Did Last Summer (novel), a 1973 suspense novel for young adults by Lois Duncan\nI Know What You Did Last Summer (franchise)\nI Still Know What You Did Last Summer, a 1998 slasher film and a sequel to the 1997 film\nI'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, a 2006 horror film released straight to DVD and the third installment in the series\nI Know What You Did Last Summer (TV series), a 2021 Amazon Prime TV series\n\nOther uses\n\"I Know What You Did Last Summer\" (Supernatural), an episode of the TV series Supernatural\n\"I Know What You Did Last Summer\" (The Vampire Diaries), an episode of the TV series The Vampire Diaries\n\"I Know What You Did Last Summer\" (Scream), an episode of the TV series Scream\n\"I Know What You Did Last Summer (song)\", a 2015 song by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello\n\"I Know What You Did Last Summer\", a 2015 song by Jacob Whitesides featuring Kelly Rowland\n\nSee also\nI Know What You'll Do Next Summer, a third-season episode of the mystery series Veronica Mars"
] |
[
"James Dean",
"Cinema and television",
"what did he do in cinema?",
"American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played,",
"what were some films he was in?",
"Rebel Without a Cause.",
"did he star in any others?",
"September 30, 1955 (",
"what happened on that date?",
"The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death.",
"did he win any awards?",
"I don't know.",
"did he work in any other movies?",
"On April 20, 2010, a long \"lost\" live episode of the General Electric Theater called \"The Dark, Dark Hours\" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan",
"what tv shows did he do?",
"General Electric Theater called \"The Dark, Dark Hours"
] |
C_1511e04b866448bab5fa69d23e09c93e_0
|
any others?
| 8 |
Did James do any other tv shows?
|
James Dean
|
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were made, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity." Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen. His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine. Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982. On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young. CANNOTANSWER
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Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays.
|
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956).
After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.
Early life and education
James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton Dean. He also claimed that his mother was partly Native American, and that his father belonged to a "line of original settlers that could be traced back to the Mayflower". Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean moved with his family to Santa Monica, California. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, but transferred soon afterward to the McKinley Elementary School. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him". In 1938, she was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean's father served in World War II and later remarried.
In his adolescence, Dean sought the counsel and friendship of a local Methodist pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who seems to have had a formative influence upon Dean, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and theater. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had "an intimate relationship with his pastor, which began in his senior year of high school and endured for many years". Their alleged sexual relationship was suggested in Paul Alexander's 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean. In 2011, it was reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mother's death. Other reports on Dean's life also suggest that he was either sexually abused by DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager.
Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMC) and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor.
Acting career
Early career
Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola commercial. He quit college to act full-time and was cast in his first speaking part, as John the Beloved Disciple in Hill Number One, an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus. Dean worked at the widely filmed Iverson Movie Ranch in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles during production of the program, for which a replica of the tomb of Jesus was built on location at the ranch. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in movies: as a soldier in Fixed Bayonets! (1951), a boxing cornerman in Sailor Beware (1952), and a youth in Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952).
While struggling to gain roles in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay. Brackett opened doors for Dean and helped him land his first starring role on Broadway in See the Jaguar.
In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett. In October 1951, following the encouragement of actor James Whitmore and the advice of his mentor Rogers Brackett, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg. In 1952 he had a nonspeaking bit part as a pressman in the movie Deadline – U.S.A., starring Humphrey Bogart.
Proud of these accomplishments, Dean referred to the Actors Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as "the greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong." There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, alongside whom he would eventually star in Giant (1956).
Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, The United States Steel Hour, Danger, and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode "Glory in the Flower", saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later portray in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This summer 1953 program featured the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll. Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, a pandering homosexual North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist (1902), led to calls from Hollywood. During the production of The Immoralist, Dean had an affair with actress Geraldine Page. Angelica Page said of their relationship, "According to my mother, their affair went on for three-and-a-half months. In many ways my mother never really got over Jimmy. It was not unusual for me to go to her dressing room through the years, obviously many years after Dean was gone, and find pictures of him taped up on her mirror. My mother never forgot about Jimmy -- never. I believe they were artistic soul mates." Page remained friends with Dean until his death and kept a number of personal mementos from the play—including several drawings by him.
East of Eden
In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for a substantive actor to play the emotionally complex role of 'Cal Trask', for screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. This book deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s.
In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron, Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (played by Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet.
Before casting Cal, Elia Kazan said that he wanted "a Brando" for the role and Osborn suggested Dean, a relatively unknown young actor. Dean met with Steinbeck, who did not like the moody, complex young man personally, but thought him to be perfect for the part. Dean was cast in the role and on April 8, 1954, left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting.
Much of Dean's performance in the film was unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The best-known improvised sequence of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film.
Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from their fathers.
In recognition of his performance in East of Eden, Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. (Jeanne Eagels was nominated for Best Actress in 1929, when the rules for selection of the winner were different.) East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.
Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and planned roles
Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film has been cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. Following East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, Dean wanted to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark, and hence took on the role of Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy, in Giant, a posthumously released 1956 film. The movie portrays a number of decades in the lives of Bick Benedict, a Texas rancher, played by Rock Hudson; his wife, Leslie, played by Elizabeth Taylor; and Rink. To portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.
Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited.
Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.
Having finished Giant, Dean was set to star as Rocky Graziano in a drama film, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and, according to Nicholas Ray himself, he was going to do a story called Heroic Love with the director. Dean's death terminated any involvement in the projects but Somebody Up There Likes Me still went on to earn both commercial and critical success, winning two Oscars and grossing $3,360,000, with Paul Newman playing the role of Graziano.
Personal life
Screenwriter William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family. According to Bast, he was Dean's roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. While at UCLA, Dean dated Beverly Wills, an actress with CBS, and Jeanette Lewis, a classmate. Bast and Dean often double-dated with them. Wills began dating Dean alone, later telling Bast, "Bill, there's something we have to tell you. It's Jimmy and me. I mean, we're in love." They broke up after Dean "exploded" when another man asked her to dance while they were at a function.
Bast, who was also Dean's first biographer, would not confirm whether he and Dean had a sexual relationship until 2006. In his book Surviving James Dean, Bast was more open about the nature of his relationship with Dean, writing that they had been lovers one night while staying at a hotel in Borrego Springs. In his book, Bast also described the difficult circumstances of their involvement.
In 1996, actress Liz Sheridan detailed her relationship with Dean in New York in 1952, saying it was "just kind of magical. It was the first love for both of us." Sheridan published her memoir, Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean; A Love Story, in 2000.
While living in New York, Dean was introduced to actress Barbara Glenn by their mutual friend Martin Landau. They dated for two years, often breaking up and getting back together. In 2011, their love letters were sold at auction for $36,000.
Early in Dean's career, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers, the studio's public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean's Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped Dean together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an 'eligible bachelor' who had not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: "They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals."
Dean's best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress Pier Angeli. He met Angeli while she was shooting The Silver Chalice (1954) on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli, during an interview fourteen years after their relationship ended, described their times together:
Dean was quoted saying about Angeli, "Everything about Pier is beautiful, especially her soul. She doesn't have to be all gussied up. She doesn't have to do or say anything. She's just wonderful as she is. She has a rare insight into life."
Those who believed Dean and Angeli were deeply in love claimed that a number of forces led them apart. Angeli's mother disapproved of Dean's casual dress and what were, for her at least, unacceptable behavior traits: his T-shirt attire, late dates, fast cars, drinking, and the fact that he was not a Catholic. Her mother said that such behavior was not acceptable in Italy. In addition, Warner Bros., where he worked, tried to talk him out of marrying and he himself told Angeli that he did not want to get married. Richard Davalos, Dean's East of Eden co-star, claimed that Dean in fact wanted to marry Angeli and was willing to allow their children to be brought up Catholic. An Order for the Solemnization of Marriage pamphlet with the name "Pier" lightly penciled in every place the bride's name is left blank was found amongst Dean's personal effects after his death.
Some commentators, such as William Bast and Paul Alexander, believe the relationship was a mere publicity stunt. In his autobiography, Elia Kazan, the director of East of Eden, dismissed the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, although he remembered hearing Dean and Angeli loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. Kazan was quoted by author Paul Donnelley as saying about Dean, "He always had uncertain relations with girlfriends." Pier Angeli talked only once about the relationship in her later life in an interview, giving vivid descriptions of romantic meetings at the beach. Dean biographer John Howlett said these read like wishful fantasies, as Bast claims them to be.
After finishing his role for East of Eden, Dean took a brief trip to New York in October 1954. While he was away, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone. The press was shocked and Dean expressed his irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month. Gossip columnists reported that Dean watched the wedding from across the road on his motorcycle, even gunning the engine during the ceremony, although Dean later denied doing anything so "dumb". Joe Hyams, in his 1992 biography of Dean, James Dean: Little Boy Lost, claims that he visited Dean just as Angeli, then married to Damone, was leaving his home. Dean was crying and allegedly told Hyams she was pregnant, with Hyams concluding that Dean believed the child might be his. Angeli, who divorced Damone and then her second husband, the Italian film composer Armando Trovajoli, was said by friends in the last years of her life to claim that Dean was the love of her life. She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1971, at the age of 39.
Dean also dated Swiss actress Ursula Andress. "She was seen riding around Hollywood on the back of James's motorcycle," writes biographer Darwin Porter. She was also seen with Dean in his sports cars, and was with him on the day he bought the car that he died in.
Death
Auto racing hobby
In 1954, Dean became interested in developing a career in motorsport. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a Triumph Tiger T110 and a Porsche 356. Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class, and second place at the main event. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made it impossible.
Dean's final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, May 30, 1955. He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again.
Accident and aftermath
Longing to return to the "liberating prospects" of motor racing, Dean traded in his Speedster for a new, more powerful and faster 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder and entered the upcoming Salinas Road Race event scheduled for October 1–2, 1955. Accompanying the actor on his way to the track on September 30 was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Spyder, "Little Bastard" car. Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 p.m., Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car.
As the group was driving westbound on U.S. Route 466 (currently SR 46) near Cholame, California, at approximately 5:45 p.m., a 1950 Ford Tudor, driven by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, was travelling east. Turnupseed made a left turn onto Highway 41 headed north, toward Fresno ahead of the oncoming Porsche.
Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the passenger side of the Ford, resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. Turnupseed exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries.
The accident was witnessed by a number of passersby who stopped to help. Dean's biographer George Perry wrote that a woman with nursing experience attended to Dean and detected a weak pulse, but he also contrarily wrote that "death appeared to have been instantaneous". Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m.
Though initially slow to reach newspapers in the Eastern United States, details of Dean's death rapidly spread via radio and television. By October 2, his death had received significant coverage from domestic and foreign media outlets. Dean's funeral was held on October 8, 1955, at the Fairmount Friends Church in Fairmount, Indiana. The coffin remained closed to conceal his severe injuries. An estimated 600 mourners were in attendance, while another 2,400 fans gathered outside of the building during the procession. He is buried at Park Cemetery in Fairmount, second road to the right from the main entrance, and up the hill on the right, facing the drive.
An inquest into Dean's death occurred three days later at the council chambers in San Luis Obispo, where the sheriff-coroner's jury delivered a verdict that he was entirely at fault due to speeding, and that Turnupseed was innocent of any criminal act. However, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 2005, a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been called to the scene, Ron Nelson, contradicted reports that Dean had been traveling at 90 mph, stating "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed at the time of the accident was more like 55 mph". A "James Dean Monument" has been placed at Shandon next to Highway 46, and stands to this day.
Legacy and iconic status
Cinema and television
American teenagers of the mid-1950s, when Dean's major films were first released, identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially that of Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. Humphrey Bogart commented after Dean's death about his public image and legacy: "Dean died at just the right time. He left behind a legend. If he had lived, he'd never have been able to live up to his publicity."
Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, whom both men and women find sexy". According to Marjorie Garber, this quality is "the undefinable extra something that makes a star". Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era, and to the air of androgyny that he projected onscreen.
Dean has been a touchstone of many television shows, films, books and plays. The film September 30, 1955 (1977) depicts the ways various characters in a small Southern town in the US react to Dean's death. The play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, written by Ed Graczyk, depicts a reunion of Dean fans on the 20th anniversary of his death. It was staged by the director Robert Altman in 1982, but was poorly received and closed after only 52 performances. While the play was still running on Broadway, Altman shot a film adaptation that was released by Cinecom Pictures in November 1982.
On April 20, 2010, a long "lost" live episode of the General Electric Theater called "The Dark, Dark Hours" featuring Dean in a performance with Ronald Reagan was uncovered by NBC writer Wayne Federman while working on a Ronald Reagan television retrospective. The episode, originally broadcast December 12, 1954, drew international attention and highlights were featured on numerous national media outlets including: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America. It was later revealed that some footage from the episode was first featured in the 2005 documentary, James Dean: Forever Young.
James Dean's estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes magazine. On November 6, 2019, it was announced that Dean's likeness will be used, via CGI, for a Vietnam War film called Finding Jack, based on the Gareth Crocker novel. The movie will be directed by Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh and another actor will voice Dean's part. Although the directors obtained the rights to use Dean's image from his family, the announcement was met with derision by people in the industry.
Martin Sheen has been vocal throughout his career about being influenced by James Dean. Speaking of the impact Dean had on him, Sheen stated, "All of his movies had a profound effect on my life, in my work and all of my generation. He transcended cinema acting. It was no longer acting, it was human behavior." For Terrence Malick's debut film Badlands, Sheen based his characterization of Kit Carruthers, a spree killer loosely inspired by Charles Starkweather, on Dean.
Johnny Depp credited Dean as the catalyst that made him want to become an actor. Nicolas Cage also said he wanted to go into acting because of Dean. "I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me – no rock song, no classical music – the way Dean affected me in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, "That's what I want to do," Cage said. Robert De Niro cited Dean as one of his acting inspirations in an interview. Leonardo DiCaprio also cited Dean as one of his favorite and most influential actors. When asked about which performances stayed with him the most in an interview, DiCaprio responded, "I remember being incredibly moved by Jimmy Dean, in East of Eden. There was something so raw and powerful about that performance. His vulnerability…his confusion about his entire history, his identity, his desperation to be loved. That performance just broke my heart."
Youth culture and music
Numerous commentators have asserted that Dean had a singular influence on the development of rock and roll music. According to David R. Shumway, a researcher in American culture and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University, Dean was the first iconic figure of youthful rebellion and "a harbinger of youth-identity politics". The persona Dean projected in his movies, especially Rebel Without a Cause, influenced Elvis Presley and many other musicians who followed, including the American rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
In their book, Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel wrote, "Ironically, though Rebel had no rock music on its soundtrack, the film's sensibility—and especially the defiant attitude and effortless cool of James Dean—would have a great impact on rock. The music media would often see Dean and rock as inextricably linked [...] The industry trade magazine Music Connection even went so far as to call Dean 'the first rock star'."
As rock and roll became a revolutionary force that affected the culture of countries around the world, Dean acquired a mythic status that cemented his place as a rock and roll icon. Dean himself listened to music ranging from African tribal music to the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók, as well as to contemporary singers such as Frank Sinatra. While the magnetism and charisma manifested by Dean onscreen appealed to people of all ages and sexuality, his persona of youthful rebellion provided a template for succeeding generations of youth to model themselves on.
In his book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, Joel Dinerstein describes how Dean and Marlon Brando eroticized the rebel archetype in film, and how Elvis Presley, following their lead, did the same in music. Dinerstein details the dynamics of this eroticization and its effect on teenage girls with few sexual outlets. Presley said in a 1956 interview with Lloyd Shearer for Parade magazine, "I've made a study of Marlon Brando. And I've made a study of poor Jimmy Dean. I've made a study of myself, and I know why girls, at least the young 'uns, go for us. We're sullen, we're broodin', we're something of a menace. I don't understand it exactly, but that's what the girls like in men. I don't know anything about Hollywood, but I know you can't be sexy if you smile. You can't be a rebel if you grin."
Dean and Presley have often been represented in academic literature and in journalism as embodying the frustration felt by young white Americans with the values of their parents, and depicted as avatars of the youthful unrest endemic to rock and roll style and attitude. The rock historian Greil Marcus characterized them as symbols of tribal teenage identity which provided an image that young people in the 1950s could relate to and imitate. In the book Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema, Paul Anthony Johnson wrote that Dean's acting in Rebel Without a Cause provided a "performance model for Presley, Buddy Holly, and Bob Dylan, all of whom borrowed elements of Dean's performance in their own carefully constructed star personas". Frascella and Weisel wrote, "As rock music became the defining expression of youth in the 1960s, the influence of Rebel was conveyed to a new generation."
Rock musicians as diverse as Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie regarded Dean as a formative influence. The playwright and actor Sam Shepard interviewed Dylan in 1986 and wrote a play based on their conversation, in which Dylan discusses the early influence of Dean on him personally. A young Bob Dylan, still in his folk music period, consciously evoked Dean visually on the cover of his album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), and later on Highway 61 Revisited (1965), cultivating an image that his biographer Bob Spitz called "James Dean with a guitar". Dean has long been invoked in the lyrics of rock songs, famously in songs such as "A Young Man Is Gone" by the Beach Boys (1963), "James Dean" by the Eagles (1974), and "James Dean" by the Goo Goo Dolls (1989). Musician Taylor Swift referenced him in "Style" (2014). Canadian singer The Weeknd mentioned Dean and his early death in "Ordinary Life" (2016).
Sexuality
Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, "No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back."
Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly "for trade", as a means of advancing his career. Some point to Dean's involvement with Rogers Brackett as evidence of this. William Bast referred to Dean as Brackett's "kept boy" and once found a grotesque depiction of a lizard with the head of Brackett in a sketchbook belonging to Dean. Brackett was quoted saying about their relationship,
"My primary interest in Jimmy was as an actor—his talent was so obvious. Secondarily, I loved him, and Jimmy loved me. If it was a father-son relationship, it was also somewhat incestuous." James Bellah, the son of American Western author James Warner Bellah, was a friend of Dean's at UCLA, and later stated, "Dean was a user. I don't think he was homosexual. But if he could get something by performing an act....Once...at an agent's office, Dean told me that he had spent the summer as a 'professional house guest' on Fire Island." Mark Rydell also stated, "I don't think he was essentially homosexual. I think that he had very big appetites, and I think he exercised them."
However, the "trade only" notion is contradicted by several Dean biographers. Aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow motorcyclist and "Night Watch" member, John Gilmore, claimed that he and Dean "experimented" with gay sex on multiple occasions in New York, describing their sexual encounters as "Bad boys playing bad boys while opening up the bisexual sides of ourselves." Gilmore later stated that he believed Dean was more gay than bisexual.
On the subject of Dean's sexuality, Rebel director Nicholas Ray is on record saying, "James Dean was not straight, he was not gay, he was bisexual. That seems to confuse people, or they just ignore the facts. Some—most—will say he was heterosexual, and there's some proof for that, apart from the usual dating of actresses his age. Others will say no, he was gay, and there's some proof for that too, keeping in mind that it's always tougher to get that kind of proof. But Jimmy himself said more than once that he swung both ways, so why all the mystery or confusion?" Martin Landau, a good friend of Dean's whom he met at the Actors Studio, stated, "A lot of people say Jimmy was hell-bent on killing himself. Not true. A lot of gay guys make him out to be gay. Not true. When Jimmy and I were together we'd talk about girls. Actors and girls. We were kids in our early 20s. That was what we aspired to." Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Dean had become friends with while working together on Giant, referred to Dean as gay along with Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson during a speech at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2000. When questioned about Dean's sexuality by the openly gay journalist Kevin Sessums for POZ Magazine, Taylor responded, "He hadn't made up his mind. He was only 24 when he died. But he was certainly fascinated by women. He flirted around. He and I … twinkled."
Stage credits
Broadway
See the Jaguar (1952)
The Immoralist (1954) – based on the book by André Gide
Off-Broadway
The Metamorphosis (1952) – based on the short story by Franz Kafka
The Scarecrow (1954)
Women of Trachis (1954) – translation by Ezra Pound
Filmography
Film
Television
Biographical films
James Dean also known as James Dean: Portrait of a Friend (1976) with Stephen McHattie as James Dean
James Dean: The First American Teenager (1976), a television biography that includes interviews with Sal Mineo, Natalie Wood and Nicholas Ray.
Forever James Dean (1988), Warner Home Video (1995)
James Dean: The Final Day features interviews with William Bast, Liz Sheridan and Maila Nurmi. Dean's bisexuality is openly discussed. Episode of Naked Hollywood television miniseries produced by The Oxford Film Company in association the BBC, aired in the US on the A&E Network, 1991.
James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) directed by Mardi Rustam, starring Casper Van Dien as James Dean.
James Dean (fictionalized TV biographical film) (2001) with James Franco as James Dean
James Dean – Outside the Lines (2002), episode of Biography, US television documentary includes interviews with Rod Steiger, William Bast, and Martin Landau (2002).
Living Famously: James Dean, Australian television biography includes interviews with Martin Landau, Betsy Palmer, William Bast, and Bob Hinkle (2003, 2006).
James Dean – Kleiner Prinz, Little Bastard aka James Dean – Little Prince, Little Bastard, German television biography, includes interviews with William Bast, Marcus Winslow Jr, Robert Heller (2005)
Sense Memories (PBS American Masters television biography) (2005)
James Dean – Mit Vollgas durchs Leben, Austrian television biography includes interviews with Rolf Weutherich and William Bast (2005).
Two Friendly Ghosts (2012)
Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean (2012), with James Preston as James Dean.
Life (2015). Directed by Anton Corbijn, starring Dane DeHaan as Dean.
See also
List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees – Youngest nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role
List of LGBTQ Academy Award winners and nominees — Best Actor in a Leading Role nominees alleged to be LGBTQ
List of actors with Academy Award nominations
List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories
References
Further reading
Alexander, Paul: Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean . Viking, 1994.
Bast, William: James Dean: A Biography. Ballantine Books, 1956.
Beath, Warren: Death of James Dean. Grove Press, 1986.
Beath, Warren, with Wheeldon, Paula; James Dean in Death: A Popular Encyclopedia of a Celebrity Phenomenon, McFarland & Co., Inc., 2005.
Dalton, David: James Dean-The Mutant King: A Biography. Chicago Review Press, 2001.
Frascella, Lawrence and Weisel, Al: Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause. Touchstone, 2005.
Gilmore, John : Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.
Gilmore, John: The Real James Dean. Pyramid Books, 1975.
Heinrichs, Steve; Marinello, Marco; Perrin, Jim; Raskin, Lee; Stoddard, Charles A; Zigg, Donald; Porsche Speedster TYP540: Quintessential Sports Car, 2004, Big Lake Media, Inc.
Turiello, James : 'James Dean The Quest for an Oscar' 360 pages Publisher: Sandy Beach, A (February 26, 2018)
Holley, Val: James Dean: The Biography. St. Martin's Griffin, 1996.
Turiello, James: The James Dean Collection, 1993. Biography on fifty trading cards with photographs from The James Dean Gallery in Fairmount Indiana.
Hopper, Hedda and Brough, James: "James Dean Was a Rebel With a Cause" in The Whole Truth and Nothing But. Doubleday. 1963.
Howell, John: James Dean: A Biography. Plexus Publishing, 1997. Second Revised Edition.
Hyams, Joe; Hyams, Jay: James Dean: Little Boy Lost. Time Warner Publishing, 1992.
Martinetti, Ronald: The James Dean Story, Pinnacle Books, 1975.
Perry, George: James Dean. DK Publishing, 2005.
Riese, Randall: The Unabridged James Dean: His Life from A to Z. Contemporary Books, 1991.
Raskin, Lee: James Dean: At Speed. David Bull Publishing, 2005.
Sheridan, Liz: Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life With James Dean : A Love Story. HarperCollins Canada / Harper Trade, 2000.
Spoto, Donald: Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean. HarperCollins, 1996.
External links
JamesDean.com
James Dean Archives Seita Ohnishi Collection,Kobe Japan
1931 births
1955 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century Quakers
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American Quakers
Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Burials in Indiana
LGBT male actors
LGBT people from Indiana
Male actors from Indiana
Method actors
People from Marion, Indiana
Road incident deaths in California
Santa Monica College alumni
UCLA Film School alumni
Warner Bros. contract players
| true |
[
"By any means necessary is a phrase used by Jean-Paul Sartre and Malcolm X.\n\nBy any means necessary may also refer to:\n\nMusic\nBy Any Means Necessary (Gary Thomas album), 1989\nBy Any Means Necessary (Pastor Troy album), 2004\n\nOthers\n\"By Any Means Necessary\" (Babylon 5), an episode of the television series Babylon 5\nBAMN, or By Any Means Necessary, an American militant left-wing civil rights group\n\nSee also\nBy Any Means (2008 TV series), a travel documentary series\nBy Any Means (2013 TV series), a crime drama series",
"Paul Gillard was a British television actor. He appeared in British television series Crane, Knock on Any Door, The Avengers, UFO and others.\n\nActing credits\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nBritish male television actors\nPossibly living people\nYear of birth missing"
] |
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"Buck Owens",
"Early career"
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What was his first gig?
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What was Buck Owens first gig?
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Buck Owens
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Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945. In the late 1940s he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California. He was impressed by Bakersfield, where he and his wife settled in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others. Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label, using the pseudonym Corky Jones because he did not want the fact he recorded a rock n' roll tune to hurt his country music career. Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band. In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90's restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows, and immediately went to speak with him. Rich started to play fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. Owens' career took off in 1959, when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California. Owens tried to convince Rich to go with him to Bakersfield, but to no avail. Rich opted to go to Centralia College so that he could become a music teacher while tutoring and playing local venues, but after a year of college, he decided to drop out and join Owens in Bakersfield in December 1960. "Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960 he performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee. CANNOTANSWER
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Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens' adopted home, and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".
While the Buckaroos originally featured a fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, their sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental. The band's signature style was based on simple story lines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a prominent drum track, and high, two-part vocal harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.
From 1969 to 1986, Owens co-hosted the popular CBS television variety show Hee Haw with Roy Clark (syndicated beginning in 1971). According to his son, Buddy Alan (Owens), the accidental 1974 death of Rich, his best friend, devastated him for years and impacted his creative efforts until he performed with Dwight Yoakam in 1988.
Owens is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Owens was born on a farm in Sherman, Texas, United States, to Alvis Edgar Owens Sr. and Maicie Azel (née Ellington) Owens.
In the biography About Buck., Rich Kienzle writes: "'Buck' was a donkey on the Owens farm." "When Alvis Jr. was three or four years old, he walked into the house and announced that his name also was "Buck." That was fine with the family, and the boy's name became "Buck" from then on." He attended public school for grades 1–3 in Garland, Texas.
Owens' family moved to Mesa, Arizona, in 1937 during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. While attending school in Arizona, Owens found that while he disliked formal schoolwork, he could often satisfy class requirements by singing or performing in school plays. As a result, he began to take part in such activities whenever he could.
Early career
A self-taught musician and singer, Owens became proficient on guitar, mandolin, horns, and drums. When he obtained his first electric steel guitar, he taught himself to play it after his father adapted an old radio into an amplifier. Owens quit school in the ninth grade in order to help work on his father's farm and pursue a music career. In 1945, he co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt. Co-host Theryl Ray Britten and Owens also played at local bars, where owners usually allowed them and a third member of their band to pass the hat during a show and keep ten percent of the take. They eventually became the resident musicians at a Phoenix bar called the Romo Buffet.
In the late 1940s, Owens became a truck driver, a job which took him through the San Joaquin Valley of California, where he first experienced and was impressed by the town of Bakersfield. He and his first wife eventually settled there in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others.
Using the pseudonym "Corky Jones" to prevent the recording of a rock 'n' roll tune from hurting his aspiring Country Music career, Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label. Some time in the 1950s he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.
In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90s Restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows and immediately approached him about collaborating, after which Rich began playing fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. In 1959, Owens' career took off when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California.
Following their success, Owens tried unsuccessfully to convince Rich to accompany him to Bakersfield. Instead, Rich opted to go to become a music teacher at Centralia College. While there, he tutored on the side but continued playing local venues. In December 1960, however, he left to rejoin Owens in Bakersfield.
"Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960, Owens performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.
Career peak
In early 1963, the Johnny Russell song "Act Naturally" was pitched to Owens, who initially didn't like it. His guitarist and longtime collaborator Don Rich, however, enjoyed it and convinced Owens to record it with the Buckaroos. Laid down on February 12, 1963, it was released on March 11 and entered the charts of April 13. By June 15 the single began its first of four non-consecutive weeks at the No. 1 position, Owens' first top hit. The Beatles recorded a cover of it in 1965 with Ringo Starr as lead singer. Starr later recorded a duet of it with Owens in 1988.
The 1966 album Carnegie Hall Concert was a smash hit and further cemented Buck Owens as a top country band. It achieved crossover success on to the pop charts, reinforced by R&B singer Ray Charles releasing cover versions of two of Owens' songs that became pop hits that year: "Crying Time" and "Together Again".
In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, a then-rare occurrence for a country act. The subsequent live album, Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan, was an early example of a country band recording outside the United States.
Owens and the Buckaroos performed at the White House for President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, which was later released as a live album.
Between 1968 and 1969, pedal steel guitar player Tom Brumley and drummer Willie Cantu left the band, replaced by Jay Dee Maness and Jerry Wiggins. Owens and the Buckaroos had two songs reach No. 1 on the country music charts in 1969, "Tall Dark Stranger" and "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass". In 1969, they recorded a live album, Live in London, where they premiered their rock song "A Happening In London Town" and their version of Chuck Berry's song "Johnny B. Goode".
During this time Hee Haw, starring Owens and the Buckaroos, was at its height of popularity. The series, originally envisioned as a country music's version of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, went on to run in various incarnations for 231 episodes over 24 seasons. Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Owens by name in their 1970 single "Lookin' Out My Back Door".
Also between 1968 and 1970, Owens made guest appearances on top TV variety programs, including The Dean Martin Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jackie Gleason Show and seven times on The Jimmy Dean Show.
In the early 1970s, Owens and the Buckaroos enjoyed a string of hit duets with his protege Susan Raye, who subsequently became a popular solo artist with Owens as her producer.
In 1971, the Buckaroos' bass guitarist Doyle Holly left the band to pursue a solo career. Holly was known for his booming deep voice on solo ballads. His departure was a setback to the band, as Doyle had received the Bass Player of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music the year before and served as co-lead vocalist (along with Don Rich) of the Buckaroos. Holly went on to record two solo records in the early 1970s, both were top 20 hits.
Owens and Rich were the only members left of the original band, and in the 1970s they struggled to top the country music charts. However, the popularity of Hee Haw was allowing them to enjoy large crowds at indoor arenas.
After three years of not having a number one song Owens and the Buckaroos finally had another No. 1 hit, "Made in Japan", in 1972. The band had been without pedal steel since late in 1969 when Maness departed. In April he added pedal steel guitarist, Jerry Brightman, and Owens returned to his grassroots sound of fiddle, steel, and electric guitars, releasing a string of singles including "Arms Full of Empty", "Ain't it Amazing Gracie" and "Ain't Gonna Have Ole Buck (to Kick Around no More)". Owens' original version of "Streets of Bakersfield" was released in 1972.
Death of Don Rich
On July 17, 1974, Owens' best friend and Buckaroos' guitarist Don Rich was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle and struck a guard rail on Highway 1 in Morro Bay, where he was to have joined his family for vacation. Owens was devastated. "He was like a brother, a son and a best friend," he said in the late 1990s. "Something I never said before, maybe I couldn't, but I think my music life ended when he died. Oh yeah, I carried on and I existed, but the real joy and love, the real lightning and thunder is gone forever." Owens would never fully recover from the tragedy, either emotionally or professionally.
Business ventures
Before the 1960s ended, Owens and manager Jack McFadden began to concentrate on Owens' financial future. He bought several radio stations, including KNIX (AM) (later KCWW) and KNIX-FM in Phoenix and KUZZ-FM in Bakersfield. During the 1990s, Owens was co-owner of the country music network Real Country, of which, the Owens-owned station KCWW was the flagship station. In 1998, Owens sold KCWW to ABC/Disney for $8,850,000 and sold KNIX-FM to Clear Channel Communications, but he maintained ownership of KUZZ until his death.
Owens established Buck Owens Enterprises and produced records by several artists. He recorded for Warner Bros. Records, but by the 1980s he was no longer recording, instead devoting his time to overseeing his business empire from Bakersfield. He left Hee Haw in 1986.
Later career
Country artist Dwight Yoakam was largely influenced by Owens' style of music and teamed up with him for a duet of "Streets of Bakersfield" in 1988. It was Owens' first No. 1 single in 16 years. In an interview, Yoakam described the first time he met with Owens:
We sat there that day in 1987 and talked about my music to that point, my short career, and what I'd been doing and how he'd been watching me. I was really flattered and thrilled to know that this legend had been keeping an eye on me.
Owens also collaborated with Cledus T. Judd on the song "The First Redneck On The Internet" in 1998, in which Owens also appears in the music video.
The 1990s saw a flood of reissues of Owens' Capitol recordings on compact disc, the publishing rights to which Owens had bought back in 1974 as part of his final contract with the label. His albums had been out of print for nearly 15 years when he released a retrospective box set in 1990. Encouraged by brisk sales, Owens struck a distribution deal with Sundazed Records of New York, which specializes in reissuing obscure recordings. The bulk of his Capitol catalog was reissued on CD in 1995, 1997 and in 2005. Sometime in the 1970s, Owens had also purchased the remaining copies of his original LP albums from Capitol's distribution warehouses across the country. Many of those records (still in the shrinkwrap) were stored by Owens for decades. He often gave them away as gifts and sold them at his nightclub for a premium price some 35 years later.
In August 1999, Owens brought back together the remaining members of his original Buckaroo Band to help him celebrate his 70th birthday at his Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. Owens, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley, and Wille Cantu performed old hits from their heyday including "Tiger by the Tail" and "Act Naturally."
Long before Owens became the famous co-host of Hee Haw, his band became known for their signature Bakersfield sound, later emulated by artists such as Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, and Brad Paisley. Buck inspired indie country songwriter and friend Terry Fraley, whose band "The Nudie Cowboys" possessed a similar sound. This sound was originally made possible with two trademark silver-sparkle Fender Telecaster guitars, often played simultaneously by Owens and longtime lead guitarist Don Rich. Fender had made a "Buck Owens signature Telecaster," and after his death paid tribute to him. In 2003, Paisley blended creative styles with this guitar and his own Paisley Telecaster, creating what became known as the Buck-O-Caster. Initially, only two were made; one for Paisley himself and the other presented to Owens during a New Year's celebration that Paisley attended in 2004.
Following the death of Rich, Owens' latter trademark became a red, white and blue acoustic guitar, along with a 1974 Pontiac convertible "Nudiemobile", adorned with pistols and silver dollars. A similar car, created by Nudie Cohn for Elvis Presley and later won by Owens in a bet, is now enshrined behind the bar at Owens' Crystal Palace Nightclub in Bakersfield.
Owens would hand out replicas of his trademark acoustic guitar to friends, acquaintances, and fans. Each would contain a gold plaque with the name of the recipient. Some of these guitars cost $1000 and up.
Personal life
Owens was married four times, three ending in divorce and one in annulment. He married country singer Bonnie Campbell Owens in 1948. The couple had two sons, one of which was Buddy Alan, and separated in 1951, and later divorced.
Owens married Phyllis Buford in 1956, with whom he had a third son. In 1977 he wed Buckaroos fiddle player Jana Jae Greif. Within a few days he filed for annulment, then changed his mind; the couple continued the on-and-off marriage for a year before divorcing. In 1979 he married Jennifer Smith.
Owens had three sons: Buddy Alan (who charted several hits as a Capitol recording artist in the early 1970s and appeared with his father numerous times on Hee Haw), Johnny, and Michael Owens.
Owens successfully recovered from oral cancer in the early 1990s, but had additional health problems near the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, including pneumonia and a minor stroke in 2004. These health problems had forced him to curtail his regular weekly performances with the Buckaroos at his Crystal Palace. Owens died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack at his ranch just north of Bakersfield on March 25, 2006, only hours after performing at his club. He was 76 years old.
Owens was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He was ranked No. 12 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. In addition, CMT also ranked the Buckaroos No. 2 in the network's 20 Greatest Bands in 2005. He was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The stretch of US Highway 82 in Sherman is named the Buck Owens Freeway in his honor.
Biographies
In November 2013, Buck Owens' posthumous autobiography Buck 'Em! The Autobiography of Buck Owens by Buck Owens with Randy Poe was released. The book has a foreword by Brad Paisley and a preface by Dwight Yoakam.
In a 2007 authorized biography Buck, historian Kathryn Burke gives a positive account of Owens.
In Buck Owens: The Biography (2010) investigative journalist Eileen Sisk offers a critical account of Owens and the shortcomings in his private life.
Discography
Covers of Owens songs
Vocalist–guitarist Johnny Rivers recorded a rock version of Owens's "Under Your Spell Again" on his album Meanwhile, Back at the Whiskey A GoGo in 1965.
Country music singer Emmylou Harris recorded a version of Owens's "Together Again", which was released on her 1976 album Elite Hotel.
The Beatles and, later, Ringo Starr recorded versions of "Act Naturally". The Beatles recorded the song in 1965, two years after Owens released it. Starr recorded it as a duet with Owens in 1988, which received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration in 1989.
After his death in 2006, a medley was played by the Buck Owens All Star Tribute, which included Billy Gibbons, Chris Hillman, Brad Paisley and Travis Barker.
Country artist Dwight Yoakam has cited Owens as an early influence in his career and recorded several of Owens's songs. He recorded a duet with Owens of the song "Streets of Bakersfield", originally recorded by Owens in 1973. In 2007, Yoakam released a tribute album, Dwight Sings Buck.
Mark Lanegan included a cover of "Together Again" on his 1999 cover album, I'll Take Care of You.
Cake covered "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)" on its album B-Sides and Rarities.
In 2007, Austin-San Marcos, Texas band The Derailers released Under The Influence of Buck, which featured 12 covers of Owens songs, including "Under the Influence of Love".
In 2011, Ben Gibbard covered "Love's Gonna Live Here".
In 2011, country singer and songwriter Brad Paisley covered "Tiger by The Tail" for his studio album This Is Country Music.
Footnotes
References
Fenster, Mark. (1998). "Buck Owens". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 399–400.
Flippo, Chet: "NASHVILLE SKYLINE: Buck Owens' Supercharged Music"' cmt.com, March 30, 2006
External links
Original site of Buck Owens' studio to close on 4/1/08
BuckOwensFan
Buck Owens at Country Music Hall of Fame
Buck Owens Sears-sold 'American' model guitar at Silvertone World
1929 births
2006 deaths
American country guitarists
American male guitarists
American country singer-songwriters
American male singer-songwriters
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Singer-songwriters from Texas
People from Sherman, Texas
Starday Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Bakersfield sound
Musicians from Mesa, Arizona
Musicians from Phoenix, Arizona
20th-century American singers
Musicians from Bakersfield, California
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from California
Guitarists from Arizona
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Texas
Country musicians from California
Country musicians from Texas
Country musicians from Arizona
20th-century American male singers
Singer-songwriters from Arizona
| false |
[
"The year 2001 is the 13th year in the history of Shooto, a mixed martial arts promotion based in the Japan. In 2001 Shooto held 21 events beginning with, Shooto: To The Top 1.\n\nTitle fights\n\nEvents list\n\nShooto: To The Top 1\n\nShooto: To The Top 1 was an event held on January 19, 2001, at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig West 1\n\nShooto: Gig West 1 was an event held on February 18, 2001, at the Namba Grand Kagetsu Studio in Osaka, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: To The Top 2\n\nShooto: To The Top 2 was an event held on March 2, 2001, at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: To The Top 3\n\nShooto: To The Top 3 was an event held on March 21, 2001, at Kitazawa Town Hall in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Wanna Shooto 2001\n\nShooto: Wanna Shooto 2001 was an event held on April 8, 2001, at Kitazawa Town Hall in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig East 1\n\nShooto: Gig East 1 was an event held on April 28, 2001, at Kitazawa Town Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: To The Top 4\n\nShooto: To The Top 4 was an event held on May 1, 2001, at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig East 2\n\nShooto: Gig East 2 was an event held on May 22, 2001, at Kitazawa Town Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig East 3\n\nShooto: Gig East 3 was an event held on December 17, 2001, at Kitazawa Town Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: To The Top 5\n\nShooto: To The Top 5 was an event held on June 30, 2001, at Kitazawa Town Hall in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: To The Top 6\n\nShooto: To The Top 6 was an event held on July 6, 2001, at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig East 4\n\nShooto: Gig East 4 was an event held on July 27, 2001, at Kitazawa Town Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig East 5\n\nShooto: Gig East 5 was an event held on August 15, 2001, at The Kitazawa Town Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: To The Top 7\n\nShooto: To The Top 7 was an event held on August 26, 2001, at The Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium in Osaka, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: To The Top 8\n\nShooto: To The Top 8 was an event held on September 2, 2001, at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig West 2\n\nShooto: Gig West 2 was an event held on September 23, 2001, at The Namba Grand Kagetsu Studio in Osaka, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: To The Top 9\n\nShooto: To The Top 9 was an event held on September 27, 2001, at The Kitazawa Town Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig East 6\n\nShooto: Gig East 6 was an event held on October 23, 2001, at The Kitazawa Town Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: To The Top 10\n\nShooto: To The Top 10 was an event held on November 25, 2001, at The Differ Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig East 7\n\nShooto: Gig East 7 was an event held on November 26, 2001, at The Kitazawa Town Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: To The Top Final Act\n\nShooto: To The Top Final Act was an event held on December 16, 2001, at The Tokyo Bay NK Hall in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nSee also \n Shooto\n List of Shooto champions\n List of Shooto Events\n\nReferences\n\nShooto events\n2001 in mixed martial arts",
"The year 2009 is the 21st year in the history of Shooto, a mixed martial arts promotion based in Japan. In 2009 Shooto held 30 events beginning with, Shooto: Shooto Tradition 5.\n\nTitle fights\n\nEvents list\n\nShooto: Shooto Tradition 5\n\nShooto: Shooto Tradition 5 was an event held on January 18, 2009 at Differ Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Shooting Disco 7: Young Man\n\nShooto: Shooting Disco 7: Young Man was an event held on January 31, 2009 at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig Tokyo 1\n\nShooto: Gig Tokyo 1 was an event held on February 28, 2009 at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Border: Season 1: Outbreak\n\nShooto: Border: Season 1: Outbreak was an event held on March 8, 2009 at Hirano Ward Community Hall in Osaka, Kansai, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Shooto Tradition 6\n\nShooto: Shooto Tradition 6 was an event held on March 20, 2009 at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig Torao 2\n\nShooto: Gig Torao 2 was an event held on March 22, 2009 at The Fukuyama Industrial Exchange Center in Fukuyama, Hiroshima, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Shooting Disco 8: We Are Tarzan!\n\nShooto: Shooting Disco 8: We Are Tarzan! was an event held on April 10, 2009 at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig Central 17\n\nShooto: Gig Central 17 was an event held on April 12, 2009 at Asunal Kanayama Hall in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig Tokyo 2\n\nShooto: Gig Tokyo 2 was an event held on April 19, 2009 at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig West 11\n\nShooto: Gig West 11 was an event held on April 29, 2009 at Azalea Taisho Hall in Osaka, Kansai, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Shooto Tradition Final\n\nShooto: Shooto Tradition Final was an event held on May 10, 2009 at Tokyo Dome City Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Grapplingman 8\n\nShooto: Grapplingman 8 was an event held on May 17, 2009 at Hiroshima Industrial Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Kitazawa Shooto 2009 Vol. 1\n\nShooto: Kitazawa Shooto 2009 Vol. 1 was an event held on May 20, 2009 at Kitazawa Town Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Spirit 2009\n\nShooto: Spirit 2009 was an event held on May 24, 2009 at Accel Hall in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Shooting Disco 9: Superman\n\nShooto: Shooting Disco 9: Superman was an event held on June 6, 2009 at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig North 4\n\nShooto: Gig North 4 was an event held on June 7, 2009 at Zepp Sapporo in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Revolutionary Exchanges 1: Undefeated\n\nShooto: Revolutionary Exchanges 1: Undefeated was an event held on July 19, 2009 at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig Saitama 1\n\nShooto: Gig Saitama 1 was an event held on August 9, 2009 at Fujimi Culture Hall in Fujimi, Saitama, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Border: Season 1: Advance\n\nShooto: Border: Season 1: Advance was an event held on August 16, 2009 at Hirano Ward Community Hall in Osaka, Kansai, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig Central 18\n\nShooto: Gig Central 18 was an event held on August 30, 2009 at Asunal Kanayama Hall in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Kitazawa Shooto 2009 Vol. 2\n\nShooto: Kitazawa Shooto 2009 Vol. 2 was an event held on September 4, 2009 at Kitazawa Town Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Shooting Disco 10: Twist and Shooto\n\nShooto: Shooting Disco 10: Twist and Shooto was an event held on September 20, 2009 at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Revolutionary Exchanges 2\n\nShooto: Revolutionary Exchanges 2 was an event held on September 22, 2009 at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Border: Season 1: Clash\n\nShooto: Border: Season 1: Clash was an event held on October 4, 2009 at Hirano Ward Community Hall in Osaka, Kansai, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig Tokyo 3\n\nShooto: Gig Tokyo 3 was an event held on October 18, 2009 at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Gig Central 19\n\nShooto: Gig Central 19 was an event held on October 25, 2009 at Asunal Kanayama Hall in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Revolutionary Exchanges 3\n\nShooto: Revolutionary Exchanges 3 was an event held on November 23, 2009 at Tokyo Dome City Hall in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Grapplingman 9\n\nShooto: Grapplingman 9 was an event held on November 29, 2009 at Kitajima North Park General Fitness Center in Kitajima, Tokushima, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: The Rookie Tournament 2009 Final\n\nShooto: The Rookie Tournament 2009 Final was an event held on December 13, 2009 at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nShooto: Alternative 1\n\nShooto: Alternative 1 was an event held on December 23, 2009 at Sumiyoshi Community Center Hall in Osaka, Kansai, Japan.\n\nResults\n\nSee also \n Shooto\n List of Shooto champions\n List of Shooto Events\n\nReferences\n\nShooto events\n2009 in mixed martial arts"
] |
[
"Buck Owens",
"Early career",
"What was his first gig?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_3fd85ab959f745e6b629ab9f0215b10b_1
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What started off his career?
| 2 |
What started off Buck Owens' career?
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Buck Owens
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Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945. In the late 1940s he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California. He was impressed by Bakersfield, where he and his wife settled in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others. Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label, using the pseudonym Corky Jones because he did not want the fact he recorded a rock n' roll tune to hurt his country music career. Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band. In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90's restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows, and immediately went to speak with him. Rich started to play fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. Owens' career took off in 1959, when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California. Owens tried to convince Rich to go with him to Bakersfield, but to no avail. Rich opted to go to Centralia College so that he could become a music teacher while tutoring and playing local venues, but after a year of college, he decided to drop out and join Owens in Bakersfield in December 1960. "Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960 he performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee. CANNOTANSWER
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Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945.
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Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens' adopted home, and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".
While the Buckaroos originally featured a fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, their sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental. The band's signature style was based on simple story lines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a prominent drum track, and high, two-part vocal harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.
From 1969 to 1986, Owens co-hosted the popular CBS television variety show Hee Haw with Roy Clark (syndicated beginning in 1971). According to his son, Buddy Alan (Owens), the accidental 1974 death of Rich, his best friend, devastated him for years and impacted his creative efforts until he performed with Dwight Yoakam in 1988.
Owens is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Owens was born on a farm in Sherman, Texas, United States, to Alvis Edgar Owens Sr. and Maicie Azel (née Ellington) Owens.
In the biography About Buck., Rich Kienzle writes: "'Buck' was a donkey on the Owens farm." "When Alvis Jr. was three or four years old, he walked into the house and announced that his name also was "Buck." That was fine with the family, and the boy's name became "Buck" from then on." He attended public school for grades 1–3 in Garland, Texas.
Owens' family moved to Mesa, Arizona, in 1937 during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. While attending school in Arizona, Owens found that while he disliked formal schoolwork, he could often satisfy class requirements by singing or performing in school plays. As a result, he began to take part in such activities whenever he could.
Early career
A self-taught musician and singer, Owens became proficient on guitar, mandolin, horns, and drums. When he obtained his first electric steel guitar, he taught himself to play it after his father adapted an old radio into an amplifier. Owens quit school in the ninth grade in order to help work on his father's farm and pursue a music career. In 1945, he co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt. Co-host Theryl Ray Britten and Owens also played at local bars, where owners usually allowed them and a third member of their band to pass the hat during a show and keep ten percent of the take. They eventually became the resident musicians at a Phoenix bar called the Romo Buffet.
In the late 1940s, Owens became a truck driver, a job which took him through the San Joaquin Valley of California, where he first experienced and was impressed by the town of Bakersfield. He and his first wife eventually settled there in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others.
Using the pseudonym "Corky Jones" to prevent the recording of a rock 'n' roll tune from hurting his aspiring Country Music career, Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label. Some time in the 1950s he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.
In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90s Restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows and immediately approached him about collaborating, after which Rich began playing fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. In 1959, Owens' career took off when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California.
Following their success, Owens tried unsuccessfully to convince Rich to accompany him to Bakersfield. Instead, Rich opted to go to become a music teacher at Centralia College. While there, he tutored on the side but continued playing local venues. In December 1960, however, he left to rejoin Owens in Bakersfield.
"Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960, Owens performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.
Career peak
In early 1963, the Johnny Russell song "Act Naturally" was pitched to Owens, who initially didn't like it. His guitarist and longtime collaborator Don Rich, however, enjoyed it and convinced Owens to record it with the Buckaroos. Laid down on February 12, 1963, it was released on March 11 and entered the charts of April 13. By June 15 the single began its first of four non-consecutive weeks at the No. 1 position, Owens' first top hit. The Beatles recorded a cover of it in 1965 with Ringo Starr as lead singer. Starr later recorded a duet of it with Owens in 1988.
The 1966 album Carnegie Hall Concert was a smash hit and further cemented Buck Owens as a top country band. It achieved crossover success on to the pop charts, reinforced by R&B singer Ray Charles releasing cover versions of two of Owens' songs that became pop hits that year: "Crying Time" and "Together Again".
In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, a then-rare occurrence for a country act. The subsequent live album, Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan, was an early example of a country band recording outside the United States.
Owens and the Buckaroos performed at the White House for President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, which was later released as a live album.
Between 1968 and 1969, pedal steel guitar player Tom Brumley and drummer Willie Cantu left the band, replaced by Jay Dee Maness and Jerry Wiggins. Owens and the Buckaroos had two songs reach No. 1 on the country music charts in 1969, "Tall Dark Stranger" and "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass". In 1969, they recorded a live album, Live in London, where they premiered their rock song "A Happening In London Town" and their version of Chuck Berry's song "Johnny B. Goode".
During this time Hee Haw, starring Owens and the Buckaroos, was at its height of popularity. The series, originally envisioned as a country music's version of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, went on to run in various incarnations for 231 episodes over 24 seasons. Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Owens by name in their 1970 single "Lookin' Out My Back Door".
Also between 1968 and 1970, Owens made guest appearances on top TV variety programs, including The Dean Martin Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jackie Gleason Show and seven times on The Jimmy Dean Show.
In the early 1970s, Owens and the Buckaroos enjoyed a string of hit duets with his protege Susan Raye, who subsequently became a popular solo artist with Owens as her producer.
In 1971, the Buckaroos' bass guitarist Doyle Holly left the band to pursue a solo career. Holly was known for his booming deep voice on solo ballads. His departure was a setback to the band, as Doyle had received the Bass Player of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music the year before and served as co-lead vocalist (along with Don Rich) of the Buckaroos. Holly went on to record two solo records in the early 1970s, both were top 20 hits.
Owens and Rich were the only members left of the original band, and in the 1970s they struggled to top the country music charts. However, the popularity of Hee Haw was allowing them to enjoy large crowds at indoor arenas.
After three years of not having a number one song Owens and the Buckaroos finally had another No. 1 hit, "Made in Japan", in 1972. The band had been without pedal steel since late in 1969 when Maness departed. In April he added pedal steel guitarist, Jerry Brightman, and Owens returned to his grassroots sound of fiddle, steel, and electric guitars, releasing a string of singles including "Arms Full of Empty", "Ain't it Amazing Gracie" and "Ain't Gonna Have Ole Buck (to Kick Around no More)". Owens' original version of "Streets of Bakersfield" was released in 1972.
Death of Don Rich
On July 17, 1974, Owens' best friend and Buckaroos' guitarist Don Rich was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle and struck a guard rail on Highway 1 in Morro Bay, where he was to have joined his family for vacation. Owens was devastated. "He was like a brother, a son and a best friend," he said in the late 1990s. "Something I never said before, maybe I couldn't, but I think my music life ended when he died. Oh yeah, I carried on and I existed, but the real joy and love, the real lightning and thunder is gone forever." Owens would never fully recover from the tragedy, either emotionally or professionally.
Business ventures
Before the 1960s ended, Owens and manager Jack McFadden began to concentrate on Owens' financial future. He bought several radio stations, including KNIX (AM) (later KCWW) and KNIX-FM in Phoenix and KUZZ-FM in Bakersfield. During the 1990s, Owens was co-owner of the country music network Real Country, of which, the Owens-owned station KCWW was the flagship station. In 1998, Owens sold KCWW to ABC/Disney for $8,850,000 and sold KNIX-FM to Clear Channel Communications, but he maintained ownership of KUZZ until his death.
Owens established Buck Owens Enterprises and produced records by several artists. He recorded for Warner Bros. Records, but by the 1980s he was no longer recording, instead devoting his time to overseeing his business empire from Bakersfield. He left Hee Haw in 1986.
Later career
Country artist Dwight Yoakam was largely influenced by Owens' style of music and teamed up with him for a duet of "Streets of Bakersfield" in 1988. It was Owens' first No. 1 single in 16 years. In an interview, Yoakam described the first time he met with Owens:
We sat there that day in 1987 and talked about my music to that point, my short career, and what I'd been doing and how he'd been watching me. I was really flattered and thrilled to know that this legend had been keeping an eye on me.
Owens also collaborated with Cledus T. Judd on the song "The First Redneck On The Internet" in 1998, in which Owens also appears in the music video.
The 1990s saw a flood of reissues of Owens' Capitol recordings on compact disc, the publishing rights to which Owens had bought back in 1974 as part of his final contract with the label. His albums had been out of print for nearly 15 years when he released a retrospective box set in 1990. Encouraged by brisk sales, Owens struck a distribution deal with Sundazed Records of New York, which specializes in reissuing obscure recordings. The bulk of his Capitol catalog was reissued on CD in 1995, 1997 and in 2005. Sometime in the 1970s, Owens had also purchased the remaining copies of his original LP albums from Capitol's distribution warehouses across the country. Many of those records (still in the shrinkwrap) were stored by Owens for decades. He often gave them away as gifts and sold them at his nightclub for a premium price some 35 years later.
In August 1999, Owens brought back together the remaining members of his original Buckaroo Band to help him celebrate his 70th birthday at his Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. Owens, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley, and Wille Cantu performed old hits from their heyday including "Tiger by the Tail" and "Act Naturally."
Long before Owens became the famous co-host of Hee Haw, his band became known for their signature Bakersfield sound, later emulated by artists such as Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, and Brad Paisley. Buck inspired indie country songwriter and friend Terry Fraley, whose band "The Nudie Cowboys" possessed a similar sound. This sound was originally made possible with two trademark silver-sparkle Fender Telecaster guitars, often played simultaneously by Owens and longtime lead guitarist Don Rich. Fender had made a "Buck Owens signature Telecaster," and after his death paid tribute to him. In 2003, Paisley blended creative styles with this guitar and his own Paisley Telecaster, creating what became known as the Buck-O-Caster. Initially, only two were made; one for Paisley himself and the other presented to Owens during a New Year's celebration that Paisley attended in 2004.
Following the death of Rich, Owens' latter trademark became a red, white and blue acoustic guitar, along with a 1974 Pontiac convertible "Nudiemobile", adorned with pistols and silver dollars. A similar car, created by Nudie Cohn for Elvis Presley and later won by Owens in a bet, is now enshrined behind the bar at Owens' Crystal Palace Nightclub in Bakersfield.
Owens would hand out replicas of his trademark acoustic guitar to friends, acquaintances, and fans. Each would contain a gold plaque with the name of the recipient. Some of these guitars cost $1000 and up.
Personal life
Owens was married four times, three ending in divorce and one in annulment. He married country singer Bonnie Campbell Owens in 1948. The couple had two sons, one of which was Buddy Alan, and separated in 1951, and later divorced.
Owens married Phyllis Buford in 1956, with whom he had a third son. In 1977 he wed Buckaroos fiddle player Jana Jae Greif. Within a few days he filed for annulment, then changed his mind; the couple continued the on-and-off marriage for a year before divorcing. In 1979 he married Jennifer Smith.
Owens had three sons: Buddy Alan (who charted several hits as a Capitol recording artist in the early 1970s and appeared with his father numerous times on Hee Haw), Johnny, and Michael Owens.
Owens successfully recovered from oral cancer in the early 1990s, but had additional health problems near the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, including pneumonia and a minor stroke in 2004. These health problems had forced him to curtail his regular weekly performances with the Buckaroos at his Crystal Palace. Owens died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack at his ranch just north of Bakersfield on March 25, 2006, only hours after performing at his club. He was 76 years old.
Owens was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He was ranked No. 12 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. In addition, CMT also ranked the Buckaroos No. 2 in the network's 20 Greatest Bands in 2005. He was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The stretch of US Highway 82 in Sherman is named the Buck Owens Freeway in his honor.
Biographies
In November 2013, Buck Owens' posthumous autobiography Buck 'Em! The Autobiography of Buck Owens by Buck Owens with Randy Poe was released. The book has a foreword by Brad Paisley and a preface by Dwight Yoakam.
In a 2007 authorized biography Buck, historian Kathryn Burke gives a positive account of Owens.
In Buck Owens: The Biography (2010) investigative journalist Eileen Sisk offers a critical account of Owens and the shortcomings in his private life.
Discography
Covers of Owens songs
Vocalist–guitarist Johnny Rivers recorded a rock version of Owens's "Under Your Spell Again" on his album Meanwhile, Back at the Whiskey A GoGo in 1965.
Country music singer Emmylou Harris recorded a version of Owens's "Together Again", which was released on her 1976 album Elite Hotel.
The Beatles and, later, Ringo Starr recorded versions of "Act Naturally". The Beatles recorded the song in 1965, two years after Owens released it. Starr recorded it as a duet with Owens in 1988, which received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration in 1989.
After his death in 2006, a medley was played by the Buck Owens All Star Tribute, which included Billy Gibbons, Chris Hillman, Brad Paisley and Travis Barker.
Country artist Dwight Yoakam has cited Owens as an early influence in his career and recorded several of Owens's songs. He recorded a duet with Owens of the song "Streets of Bakersfield", originally recorded by Owens in 1973. In 2007, Yoakam released a tribute album, Dwight Sings Buck.
Mark Lanegan included a cover of "Together Again" on his 1999 cover album, I'll Take Care of You.
Cake covered "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)" on its album B-Sides and Rarities.
In 2007, Austin-San Marcos, Texas band The Derailers released Under The Influence of Buck, which featured 12 covers of Owens songs, including "Under the Influence of Love".
In 2011, Ben Gibbard covered "Love's Gonna Live Here".
In 2011, country singer and songwriter Brad Paisley covered "Tiger by The Tail" for his studio album This Is Country Music.
Footnotes
References
Fenster, Mark. (1998). "Buck Owens". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 399–400.
Flippo, Chet: "NASHVILLE SKYLINE: Buck Owens' Supercharged Music"' cmt.com, March 30, 2006
External links
Original site of Buck Owens' studio to close on 4/1/08
BuckOwensFan
Buck Owens at Country Music Hall of Fame
Buck Owens Sears-sold 'American' model guitar at Silvertone World
1929 births
2006 deaths
American country guitarists
American male guitarists
American country singer-songwriters
American male singer-songwriters
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Singer-songwriters from Texas
People from Sherman, Texas
Starday Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Bakersfield sound
Musicians from Mesa, Arizona
Musicians from Phoenix, Arizona
20th-century American singers
Musicians from Bakersfield, California
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from California
Guitarists from Arizona
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Texas
Country musicians from California
Country musicians from Texas
Country musicians from Arizona
20th-century American male singers
Singer-songwriters from Arizona
| false |
[
"Peter Phillips (born 1 January 1969) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s.\n\nPlaying career \nPhillips began his career at the Illawarra Steelers in the 1987 NSWRL season. He made his debut in round 1 as the Steelers defeated the South Sydney Rabbitohs 25–2. He came off the bench and contributed two tries. He started his first game in a 32–12 win against the Western Suburbs Magpies and overall, he played 20 matches in his rookie season. The following season, he played another 20 games for the Steelers, scoring tries in three of those matches. The next year, he played just six matches for the Steelers, in what would be his last season in that tenure with the Illawarra club.\n\nFor the 1990 premiership season, he signed with the Balmain Tigers. He, however, only played one match in his first year with the team. In the following year's competition, he played 13 matches. mostly off the bench. The next season, he played three matches for the Balmain outfit in what would become his last season with the side.\n\nFor the 1994 competition, he signed with the St. George Dragons. He only ended up playing one match for the Kogarah-based club, coming off the bench in a 24–6 loss against Canterbury.\n\nIn his last year, he rejoined the Steelers. In his first match back, he again scored a try against South Sydney to gift his side the win 20–16. He played six matches, all off the bench, before retiring from rugby league.\n\nPersonal life \nHe is the uncle of current representative hooker Damien Cook.\n\nReferences \n\nLiving people\nRugby league five-eighths\nRugby league centres\nRugby league halfbacks\nRugby league wingers\nRugby league fullbacks\nRugby league hookers\nRugby league utility players\nAustralian rugby league players\nIllawarra Steelers players\nBalmain Tigers players\nSt. George Dragons players\n1969 births",
"Danial Farhan Tan is a Singaporean footballer who plays for Balestier Khalsa FC as a forward. He started his career with Woodlands Wellington in 2012.\n\nClub career\nTan started off his professional footballing career in 2012, signing for Woodands Wellington. However, he did not made any appearances for the club. He later went on to Tampines Rovers in 2013 and too, made zero appearances. He was clubless in 2014 but sign for Balestier Khalsa in 2015.\n\nCareer statistics\n\nClub\n\n. Caps and goals may not be correct.\n\nReferences\n\n1994 births\nLiving people\nSingaporean footballers\nAssociation football forwards\nBalestier Khalsa FC players"
] |
[
"Buck Owens",
"Early career",
"What was his first gig?",
"I don't know.",
"What started off his career?",
"Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945."
] |
C_3fd85ab959f745e6b629ab9f0215b10b_1
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 3 |
Other than Buck Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945, Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
|
Buck Owens
|
Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945. In the late 1940s he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California. He was impressed by Bakersfield, where he and his wife settled in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others. Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label, using the pseudonym Corky Jones because he did not want the fact he recorded a rock n' roll tune to hurt his country music career. Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band. In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90's restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows, and immediately went to speak with him. Rich started to play fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. Owens' career took off in 1959, when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California. Owens tried to convince Rich to go with him to Bakersfield, but to no avail. Rich opted to go to Centralia College so that he could become a music teacher while tutoring and playing local venues, but after a year of college, he decided to drop out and join Owens in Bakersfield in December 1960. "Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960 he performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee. CANNOTANSWER
|
he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California.
|
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens' adopted home, and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".
While the Buckaroos originally featured a fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, their sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental. The band's signature style was based on simple story lines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a prominent drum track, and high, two-part vocal harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.
From 1969 to 1986, Owens co-hosted the popular CBS television variety show Hee Haw with Roy Clark (syndicated beginning in 1971). According to his son, Buddy Alan (Owens), the accidental 1974 death of Rich, his best friend, devastated him for years and impacted his creative efforts until he performed with Dwight Yoakam in 1988.
Owens is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Owens was born on a farm in Sherman, Texas, United States, to Alvis Edgar Owens Sr. and Maicie Azel (née Ellington) Owens.
In the biography About Buck., Rich Kienzle writes: "'Buck' was a donkey on the Owens farm." "When Alvis Jr. was three or four years old, he walked into the house and announced that his name also was "Buck." That was fine with the family, and the boy's name became "Buck" from then on." He attended public school for grades 1–3 in Garland, Texas.
Owens' family moved to Mesa, Arizona, in 1937 during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. While attending school in Arizona, Owens found that while he disliked formal schoolwork, he could often satisfy class requirements by singing or performing in school plays. As a result, he began to take part in such activities whenever he could.
Early career
A self-taught musician and singer, Owens became proficient on guitar, mandolin, horns, and drums. When he obtained his first electric steel guitar, he taught himself to play it after his father adapted an old radio into an amplifier. Owens quit school in the ninth grade in order to help work on his father's farm and pursue a music career. In 1945, he co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt. Co-host Theryl Ray Britten and Owens also played at local bars, where owners usually allowed them and a third member of their band to pass the hat during a show and keep ten percent of the take. They eventually became the resident musicians at a Phoenix bar called the Romo Buffet.
In the late 1940s, Owens became a truck driver, a job which took him through the San Joaquin Valley of California, where he first experienced and was impressed by the town of Bakersfield. He and his first wife eventually settled there in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others.
Using the pseudonym "Corky Jones" to prevent the recording of a rock 'n' roll tune from hurting his aspiring Country Music career, Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label. Some time in the 1950s he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.
In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90s Restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows and immediately approached him about collaborating, after which Rich began playing fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. In 1959, Owens' career took off when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California.
Following their success, Owens tried unsuccessfully to convince Rich to accompany him to Bakersfield. Instead, Rich opted to go to become a music teacher at Centralia College. While there, he tutored on the side but continued playing local venues. In December 1960, however, he left to rejoin Owens in Bakersfield.
"Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960, Owens performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.
Career peak
In early 1963, the Johnny Russell song "Act Naturally" was pitched to Owens, who initially didn't like it. His guitarist and longtime collaborator Don Rich, however, enjoyed it and convinced Owens to record it with the Buckaroos. Laid down on February 12, 1963, it was released on March 11 and entered the charts of April 13. By June 15 the single began its first of four non-consecutive weeks at the No. 1 position, Owens' first top hit. The Beatles recorded a cover of it in 1965 with Ringo Starr as lead singer. Starr later recorded a duet of it with Owens in 1988.
The 1966 album Carnegie Hall Concert was a smash hit and further cemented Buck Owens as a top country band. It achieved crossover success on to the pop charts, reinforced by R&B singer Ray Charles releasing cover versions of two of Owens' songs that became pop hits that year: "Crying Time" and "Together Again".
In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, a then-rare occurrence for a country act. The subsequent live album, Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan, was an early example of a country band recording outside the United States.
Owens and the Buckaroos performed at the White House for President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, which was later released as a live album.
Between 1968 and 1969, pedal steel guitar player Tom Brumley and drummer Willie Cantu left the band, replaced by Jay Dee Maness and Jerry Wiggins. Owens and the Buckaroos had two songs reach No. 1 on the country music charts in 1969, "Tall Dark Stranger" and "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass". In 1969, they recorded a live album, Live in London, where they premiered their rock song "A Happening In London Town" and their version of Chuck Berry's song "Johnny B. Goode".
During this time Hee Haw, starring Owens and the Buckaroos, was at its height of popularity. The series, originally envisioned as a country music's version of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, went on to run in various incarnations for 231 episodes over 24 seasons. Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Owens by name in their 1970 single "Lookin' Out My Back Door".
Also between 1968 and 1970, Owens made guest appearances on top TV variety programs, including The Dean Martin Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jackie Gleason Show and seven times on The Jimmy Dean Show.
In the early 1970s, Owens and the Buckaroos enjoyed a string of hit duets with his protege Susan Raye, who subsequently became a popular solo artist with Owens as her producer.
In 1971, the Buckaroos' bass guitarist Doyle Holly left the band to pursue a solo career. Holly was known for his booming deep voice on solo ballads. His departure was a setback to the band, as Doyle had received the Bass Player of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music the year before and served as co-lead vocalist (along with Don Rich) of the Buckaroos. Holly went on to record two solo records in the early 1970s, both were top 20 hits.
Owens and Rich were the only members left of the original band, and in the 1970s they struggled to top the country music charts. However, the popularity of Hee Haw was allowing them to enjoy large crowds at indoor arenas.
After three years of not having a number one song Owens and the Buckaroos finally had another No. 1 hit, "Made in Japan", in 1972. The band had been without pedal steel since late in 1969 when Maness departed. In April he added pedal steel guitarist, Jerry Brightman, and Owens returned to his grassroots sound of fiddle, steel, and electric guitars, releasing a string of singles including "Arms Full of Empty", "Ain't it Amazing Gracie" and "Ain't Gonna Have Ole Buck (to Kick Around no More)". Owens' original version of "Streets of Bakersfield" was released in 1972.
Death of Don Rich
On July 17, 1974, Owens' best friend and Buckaroos' guitarist Don Rich was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle and struck a guard rail on Highway 1 in Morro Bay, where he was to have joined his family for vacation. Owens was devastated. "He was like a brother, a son and a best friend," he said in the late 1990s. "Something I never said before, maybe I couldn't, but I think my music life ended when he died. Oh yeah, I carried on and I existed, but the real joy and love, the real lightning and thunder is gone forever." Owens would never fully recover from the tragedy, either emotionally or professionally.
Business ventures
Before the 1960s ended, Owens and manager Jack McFadden began to concentrate on Owens' financial future. He bought several radio stations, including KNIX (AM) (later KCWW) and KNIX-FM in Phoenix and KUZZ-FM in Bakersfield. During the 1990s, Owens was co-owner of the country music network Real Country, of which, the Owens-owned station KCWW was the flagship station. In 1998, Owens sold KCWW to ABC/Disney for $8,850,000 and sold KNIX-FM to Clear Channel Communications, but he maintained ownership of KUZZ until his death.
Owens established Buck Owens Enterprises and produced records by several artists. He recorded for Warner Bros. Records, but by the 1980s he was no longer recording, instead devoting his time to overseeing his business empire from Bakersfield. He left Hee Haw in 1986.
Later career
Country artist Dwight Yoakam was largely influenced by Owens' style of music and teamed up with him for a duet of "Streets of Bakersfield" in 1988. It was Owens' first No. 1 single in 16 years. In an interview, Yoakam described the first time he met with Owens:
We sat there that day in 1987 and talked about my music to that point, my short career, and what I'd been doing and how he'd been watching me. I was really flattered and thrilled to know that this legend had been keeping an eye on me.
Owens also collaborated with Cledus T. Judd on the song "The First Redneck On The Internet" in 1998, in which Owens also appears in the music video.
The 1990s saw a flood of reissues of Owens' Capitol recordings on compact disc, the publishing rights to which Owens had bought back in 1974 as part of his final contract with the label. His albums had been out of print for nearly 15 years when he released a retrospective box set in 1990. Encouraged by brisk sales, Owens struck a distribution deal with Sundazed Records of New York, which specializes in reissuing obscure recordings. The bulk of his Capitol catalog was reissued on CD in 1995, 1997 and in 2005. Sometime in the 1970s, Owens had also purchased the remaining copies of his original LP albums from Capitol's distribution warehouses across the country. Many of those records (still in the shrinkwrap) were stored by Owens for decades. He often gave them away as gifts and sold them at his nightclub for a premium price some 35 years later.
In August 1999, Owens brought back together the remaining members of his original Buckaroo Band to help him celebrate his 70th birthday at his Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. Owens, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley, and Wille Cantu performed old hits from their heyday including "Tiger by the Tail" and "Act Naturally."
Long before Owens became the famous co-host of Hee Haw, his band became known for their signature Bakersfield sound, later emulated by artists such as Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, and Brad Paisley. Buck inspired indie country songwriter and friend Terry Fraley, whose band "The Nudie Cowboys" possessed a similar sound. This sound was originally made possible with two trademark silver-sparkle Fender Telecaster guitars, often played simultaneously by Owens and longtime lead guitarist Don Rich. Fender had made a "Buck Owens signature Telecaster," and after his death paid tribute to him. In 2003, Paisley blended creative styles with this guitar and his own Paisley Telecaster, creating what became known as the Buck-O-Caster. Initially, only two were made; one for Paisley himself and the other presented to Owens during a New Year's celebration that Paisley attended in 2004.
Following the death of Rich, Owens' latter trademark became a red, white and blue acoustic guitar, along with a 1974 Pontiac convertible "Nudiemobile", adorned with pistols and silver dollars. A similar car, created by Nudie Cohn for Elvis Presley and later won by Owens in a bet, is now enshrined behind the bar at Owens' Crystal Palace Nightclub in Bakersfield.
Owens would hand out replicas of his trademark acoustic guitar to friends, acquaintances, and fans. Each would contain a gold plaque with the name of the recipient. Some of these guitars cost $1000 and up.
Personal life
Owens was married four times, three ending in divorce and one in annulment. He married country singer Bonnie Campbell Owens in 1948. The couple had two sons, one of which was Buddy Alan, and separated in 1951, and later divorced.
Owens married Phyllis Buford in 1956, with whom he had a third son. In 1977 he wed Buckaroos fiddle player Jana Jae Greif. Within a few days he filed for annulment, then changed his mind; the couple continued the on-and-off marriage for a year before divorcing. In 1979 he married Jennifer Smith.
Owens had three sons: Buddy Alan (who charted several hits as a Capitol recording artist in the early 1970s and appeared with his father numerous times on Hee Haw), Johnny, and Michael Owens.
Owens successfully recovered from oral cancer in the early 1990s, but had additional health problems near the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, including pneumonia and a minor stroke in 2004. These health problems had forced him to curtail his regular weekly performances with the Buckaroos at his Crystal Palace. Owens died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack at his ranch just north of Bakersfield on March 25, 2006, only hours after performing at his club. He was 76 years old.
Owens was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He was ranked No. 12 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. In addition, CMT also ranked the Buckaroos No. 2 in the network's 20 Greatest Bands in 2005. He was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The stretch of US Highway 82 in Sherman is named the Buck Owens Freeway in his honor.
Biographies
In November 2013, Buck Owens' posthumous autobiography Buck 'Em! The Autobiography of Buck Owens by Buck Owens with Randy Poe was released. The book has a foreword by Brad Paisley and a preface by Dwight Yoakam.
In a 2007 authorized biography Buck, historian Kathryn Burke gives a positive account of Owens.
In Buck Owens: The Biography (2010) investigative journalist Eileen Sisk offers a critical account of Owens and the shortcomings in his private life.
Discography
Covers of Owens songs
Vocalist–guitarist Johnny Rivers recorded a rock version of Owens's "Under Your Spell Again" on his album Meanwhile, Back at the Whiskey A GoGo in 1965.
Country music singer Emmylou Harris recorded a version of Owens's "Together Again", which was released on her 1976 album Elite Hotel.
The Beatles and, later, Ringo Starr recorded versions of "Act Naturally". The Beatles recorded the song in 1965, two years after Owens released it. Starr recorded it as a duet with Owens in 1988, which received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration in 1989.
After his death in 2006, a medley was played by the Buck Owens All Star Tribute, which included Billy Gibbons, Chris Hillman, Brad Paisley and Travis Barker.
Country artist Dwight Yoakam has cited Owens as an early influence in his career and recorded several of Owens's songs. He recorded a duet with Owens of the song "Streets of Bakersfield", originally recorded by Owens in 1973. In 2007, Yoakam released a tribute album, Dwight Sings Buck.
Mark Lanegan included a cover of "Together Again" on his 1999 cover album, I'll Take Care of You.
Cake covered "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)" on its album B-Sides and Rarities.
In 2007, Austin-San Marcos, Texas band The Derailers released Under The Influence of Buck, which featured 12 covers of Owens songs, including "Under the Influence of Love".
In 2011, Ben Gibbard covered "Love's Gonna Live Here".
In 2011, country singer and songwriter Brad Paisley covered "Tiger by The Tail" for his studio album This Is Country Music.
Footnotes
References
Fenster, Mark. (1998). "Buck Owens". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 399–400.
Flippo, Chet: "NASHVILLE SKYLINE: Buck Owens' Supercharged Music"' cmt.com, March 30, 2006
External links
Original site of Buck Owens' studio to close on 4/1/08
BuckOwensFan
Buck Owens at Country Music Hall of Fame
Buck Owens Sears-sold 'American' model guitar at Silvertone World
1929 births
2006 deaths
American country guitarists
American male guitarists
American country singer-songwriters
American male singer-songwriters
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Singer-songwriters from Texas
People from Sherman, Texas
Starday Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Bakersfield sound
Musicians from Mesa, Arizona
Musicians from Phoenix, Arizona
20th-century American singers
Musicians from Bakersfield, California
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from California
Guitarists from Arizona
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Texas
Country musicians from California
Country musicians from Texas
Country musicians from Arizona
20th-century American male singers
Singer-songwriters from Arizona
| false |
[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Buck Owens",
"Early career",
"What was his first gig?",
"I don't know.",
"What started off his career?",
"Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California."
] |
C_3fd85ab959f745e6b629ab9f0215b10b_1
|
How long was he a trucker?
| 4 |
How long was Buck Owens a trucker?
|
Buck Owens
|
Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945. In the late 1940s he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California. He was impressed by Bakersfield, where he and his wife settled in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others. Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label, using the pseudonym Corky Jones because he did not want the fact he recorded a rock n' roll tune to hurt his country music career. Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band. In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90's restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows, and immediately went to speak with him. Rich started to play fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. Owens' career took off in 1959, when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California. Owens tried to convince Rich to go with him to Bakersfield, but to no avail. Rich opted to go to Centralia College so that he could become a music teacher while tutoring and playing local venues, but after a year of college, he decided to drop out and join Owens in Bakersfield in December 1960. "Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960 he performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee. CANNOTANSWER
|
Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.
|
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens' adopted home, and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".
While the Buckaroos originally featured a fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, their sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental. The band's signature style was based on simple story lines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a prominent drum track, and high, two-part vocal harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.
From 1969 to 1986, Owens co-hosted the popular CBS television variety show Hee Haw with Roy Clark (syndicated beginning in 1971). According to his son, Buddy Alan (Owens), the accidental 1974 death of Rich, his best friend, devastated him for years and impacted his creative efforts until he performed with Dwight Yoakam in 1988.
Owens is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Owens was born on a farm in Sherman, Texas, United States, to Alvis Edgar Owens Sr. and Maicie Azel (née Ellington) Owens.
In the biography About Buck., Rich Kienzle writes: "'Buck' was a donkey on the Owens farm." "When Alvis Jr. was three or four years old, he walked into the house and announced that his name also was "Buck." That was fine with the family, and the boy's name became "Buck" from then on." He attended public school for grades 1–3 in Garland, Texas.
Owens' family moved to Mesa, Arizona, in 1937 during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. While attending school in Arizona, Owens found that while he disliked formal schoolwork, he could often satisfy class requirements by singing or performing in school plays. As a result, he began to take part in such activities whenever he could.
Early career
A self-taught musician and singer, Owens became proficient on guitar, mandolin, horns, and drums. When he obtained his first electric steel guitar, he taught himself to play it after his father adapted an old radio into an amplifier. Owens quit school in the ninth grade in order to help work on his father's farm and pursue a music career. In 1945, he co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt. Co-host Theryl Ray Britten and Owens also played at local bars, where owners usually allowed them and a third member of their band to pass the hat during a show and keep ten percent of the take. They eventually became the resident musicians at a Phoenix bar called the Romo Buffet.
In the late 1940s, Owens became a truck driver, a job which took him through the San Joaquin Valley of California, where he first experienced and was impressed by the town of Bakersfield. He and his first wife eventually settled there in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others.
Using the pseudonym "Corky Jones" to prevent the recording of a rock 'n' roll tune from hurting his aspiring Country Music career, Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label. Some time in the 1950s he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.
In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90s Restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows and immediately approached him about collaborating, after which Rich began playing fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. In 1959, Owens' career took off when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California.
Following their success, Owens tried unsuccessfully to convince Rich to accompany him to Bakersfield. Instead, Rich opted to go to become a music teacher at Centralia College. While there, he tutored on the side but continued playing local venues. In December 1960, however, he left to rejoin Owens in Bakersfield.
"Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960, Owens performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.
Career peak
In early 1963, the Johnny Russell song "Act Naturally" was pitched to Owens, who initially didn't like it. His guitarist and longtime collaborator Don Rich, however, enjoyed it and convinced Owens to record it with the Buckaroos. Laid down on February 12, 1963, it was released on March 11 and entered the charts of April 13. By June 15 the single began its first of four non-consecutive weeks at the No. 1 position, Owens' first top hit. The Beatles recorded a cover of it in 1965 with Ringo Starr as lead singer. Starr later recorded a duet of it with Owens in 1988.
The 1966 album Carnegie Hall Concert was a smash hit and further cemented Buck Owens as a top country band. It achieved crossover success on to the pop charts, reinforced by R&B singer Ray Charles releasing cover versions of two of Owens' songs that became pop hits that year: "Crying Time" and "Together Again".
In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, a then-rare occurrence for a country act. The subsequent live album, Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan, was an early example of a country band recording outside the United States.
Owens and the Buckaroos performed at the White House for President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, which was later released as a live album.
Between 1968 and 1969, pedal steel guitar player Tom Brumley and drummer Willie Cantu left the band, replaced by Jay Dee Maness and Jerry Wiggins. Owens and the Buckaroos had two songs reach No. 1 on the country music charts in 1969, "Tall Dark Stranger" and "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass". In 1969, they recorded a live album, Live in London, where they premiered their rock song "A Happening In London Town" and their version of Chuck Berry's song "Johnny B. Goode".
During this time Hee Haw, starring Owens and the Buckaroos, was at its height of popularity. The series, originally envisioned as a country music's version of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, went on to run in various incarnations for 231 episodes over 24 seasons. Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Owens by name in their 1970 single "Lookin' Out My Back Door".
Also between 1968 and 1970, Owens made guest appearances on top TV variety programs, including The Dean Martin Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jackie Gleason Show and seven times on The Jimmy Dean Show.
In the early 1970s, Owens and the Buckaroos enjoyed a string of hit duets with his protege Susan Raye, who subsequently became a popular solo artist with Owens as her producer.
In 1971, the Buckaroos' bass guitarist Doyle Holly left the band to pursue a solo career. Holly was known for his booming deep voice on solo ballads. His departure was a setback to the band, as Doyle had received the Bass Player of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music the year before and served as co-lead vocalist (along with Don Rich) of the Buckaroos. Holly went on to record two solo records in the early 1970s, both were top 20 hits.
Owens and Rich were the only members left of the original band, and in the 1970s they struggled to top the country music charts. However, the popularity of Hee Haw was allowing them to enjoy large crowds at indoor arenas.
After three years of not having a number one song Owens and the Buckaroos finally had another No. 1 hit, "Made in Japan", in 1972. The band had been without pedal steel since late in 1969 when Maness departed. In April he added pedal steel guitarist, Jerry Brightman, and Owens returned to his grassroots sound of fiddle, steel, and electric guitars, releasing a string of singles including "Arms Full of Empty", "Ain't it Amazing Gracie" and "Ain't Gonna Have Ole Buck (to Kick Around no More)". Owens' original version of "Streets of Bakersfield" was released in 1972.
Death of Don Rich
On July 17, 1974, Owens' best friend and Buckaroos' guitarist Don Rich was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle and struck a guard rail on Highway 1 in Morro Bay, where he was to have joined his family for vacation. Owens was devastated. "He was like a brother, a son and a best friend," he said in the late 1990s. "Something I never said before, maybe I couldn't, but I think my music life ended when he died. Oh yeah, I carried on and I existed, but the real joy and love, the real lightning and thunder is gone forever." Owens would never fully recover from the tragedy, either emotionally or professionally.
Business ventures
Before the 1960s ended, Owens and manager Jack McFadden began to concentrate on Owens' financial future. He bought several radio stations, including KNIX (AM) (later KCWW) and KNIX-FM in Phoenix and KUZZ-FM in Bakersfield. During the 1990s, Owens was co-owner of the country music network Real Country, of which, the Owens-owned station KCWW was the flagship station. In 1998, Owens sold KCWW to ABC/Disney for $8,850,000 and sold KNIX-FM to Clear Channel Communications, but he maintained ownership of KUZZ until his death.
Owens established Buck Owens Enterprises and produced records by several artists. He recorded for Warner Bros. Records, but by the 1980s he was no longer recording, instead devoting his time to overseeing his business empire from Bakersfield. He left Hee Haw in 1986.
Later career
Country artist Dwight Yoakam was largely influenced by Owens' style of music and teamed up with him for a duet of "Streets of Bakersfield" in 1988. It was Owens' first No. 1 single in 16 years. In an interview, Yoakam described the first time he met with Owens:
We sat there that day in 1987 and talked about my music to that point, my short career, and what I'd been doing and how he'd been watching me. I was really flattered and thrilled to know that this legend had been keeping an eye on me.
Owens also collaborated with Cledus T. Judd on the song "The First Redneck On The Internet" in 1998, in which Owens also appears in the music video.
The 1990s saw a flood of reissues of Owens' Capitol recordings on compact disc, the publishing rights to which Owens had bought back in 1974 as part of his final contract with the label. His albums had been out of print for nearly 15 years when he released a retrospective box set in 1990. Encouraged by brisk sales, Owens struck a distribution deal with Sundazed Records of New York, which specializes in reissuing obscure recordings. The bulk of his Capitol catalog was reissued on CD in 1995, 1997 and in 2005. Sometime in the 1970s, Owens had also purchased the remaining copies of his original LP albums from Capitol's distribution warehouses across the country. Many of those records (still in the shrinkwrap) were stored by Owens for decades. He often gave them away as gifts and sold them at his nightclub for a premium price some 35 years later.
In August 1999, Owens brought back together the remaining members of his original Buckaroo Band to help him celebrate his 70th birthday at his Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. Owens, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley, and Wille Cantu performed old hits from their heyday including "Tiger by the Tail" and "Act Naturally."
Long before Owens became the famous co-host of Hee Haw, his band became known for their signature Bakersfield sound, later emulated by artists such as Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, and Brad Paisley. Buck inspired indie country songwriter and friend Terry Fraley, whose band "The Nudie Cowboys" possessed a similar sound. This sound was originally made possible with two trademark silver-sparkle Fender Telecaster guitars, often played simultaneously by Owens and longtime lead guitarist Don Rich. Fender had made a "Buck Owens signature Telecaster," and after his death paid tribute to him. In 2003, Paisley blended creative styles with this guitar and his own Paisley Telecaster, creating what became known as the Buck-O-Caster. Initially, only two were made; one for Paisley himself and the other presented to Owens during a New Year's celebration that Paisley attended in 2004.
Following the death of Rich, Owens' latter trademark became a red, white and blue acoustic guitar, along with a 1974 Pontiac convertible "Nudiemobile", adorned with pistols and silver dollars. A similar car, created by Nudie Cohn for Elvis Presley and later won by Owens in a bet, is now enshrined behind the bar at Owens' Crystal Palace Nightclub in Bakersfield.
Owens would hand out replicas of his trademark acoustic guitar to friends, acquaintances, and fans. Each would contain a gold plaque with the name of the recipient. Some of these guitars cost $1000 and up.
Personal life
Owens was married four times, three ending in divorce and one in annulment. He married country singer Bonnie Campbell Owens in 1948. The couple had two sons, one of which was Buddy Alan, and separated in 1951, and later divorced.
Owens married Phyllis Buford in 1956, with whom he had a third son. In 1977 he wed Buckaroos fiddle player Jana Jae Greif. Within a few days he filed for annulment, then changed his mind; the couple continued the on-and-off marriage for a year before divorcing. In 1979 he married Jennifer Smith.
Owens had three sons: Buddy Alan (who charted several hits as a Capitol recording artist in the early 1970s and appeared with his father numerous times on Hee Haw), Johnny, and Michael Owens.
Owens successfully recovered from oral cancer in the early 1990s, but had additional health problems near the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, including pneumonia and a minor stroke in 2004. These health problems had forced him to curtail his regular weekly performances with the Buckaroos at his Crystal Palace. Owens died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack at his ranch just north of Bakersfield on March 25, 2006, only hours after performing at his club. He was 76 years old.
Owens was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He was ranked No. 12 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. In addition, CMT also ranked the Buckaroos No. 2 in the network's 20 Greatest Bands in 2005. He was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The stretch of US Highway 82 in Sherman is named the Buck Owens Freeway in his honor.
Biographies
In November 2013, Buck Owens' posthumous autobiography Buck 'Em! The Autobiography of Buck Owens by Buck Owens with Randy Poe was released. The book has a foreword by Brad Paisley and a preface by Dwight Yoakam.
In a 2007 authorized biography Buck, historian Kathryn Burke gives a positive account of Owens.
In Buck Owens: The Biography (2010) investigative journalist Eileen Sisk offers a critical account of Owens and the shortcomings in his private life.
Discography
Covers of Owens songs
Vocalist–guitarist Johnny Rivers recorded a rock version of Owens's "Under Your Spell Again" on his album Meanwhile, Back at the Whiskey A GoGo in 1965.
Country music singer Emmylou Harris recorded a version of Owens's "Together Again", which was released on her 1976 album Elite Hotel.
The Beatles and, later, Ringo Starr recorded versions of "Act Naturally". The Beatles recorded the song in 1965, two years after Owens released it. Starr recorded it as a duet with Owens in 1988, which received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration in 1989.
After his death in 2006, a medley was played by the Buck Owens All Star Tribute, which included Billy Gibbons, Chris Hillman, Brad Paisley and Travis Barker.
Country artist Dwight Yoakam has cited Owens as an early influence in his career and recorded several of Owens's songs. He recorded a duet with Owens of the song "Streets of Bakersfield", originally recorded by Owens in 1973. In 2007, Yoakam released a tribute album, Dwight Sings Buck.
Mark Lanegan included a cover of "Together Again" on his 1999 cover album, I'll Take Care of You.
Cake covered "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)" on its album B-Sides and Rarities.
In 2007, Austin-San Marcos, Texas band The Derailers released Under The Influence of Buck, which featured 12 covers of Owens songs, including "Under the Influence of Love".
In 2011, Ben Gibbard covered "Love's Gonna Live Here".
In 2011, country singer and songwriter Brad Paisley covered "Tiger by The Tail" for his studio album This Is Country Music.
Footnotes
References
Fenster, Mark. (1998). "Buck Owens". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 399–400.
Flippo, Chet: "NASHVILLE SKYLINE: Buck Owens' Supercharged Music"' cmt.com, March 30, 2006
External links
Original site of Buck Owens' studio to close on 4/1/08
BuckOwensFan
Buck Owens at Country Music Hall of Fame
Buck Owens Sears-sold 'American' model guitar at Silvertone World
1929 births
2006 deaths
American country guitarists
American male guitarists
American country singer-songwriters
American male singer-songwriters
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Singer-songwriters from Texas
People from Sherman, Texas
Starday Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Bakersfield sound
Musicians from Mesa, Arizona
Musicians from Phoenix, Arizona
20th-century American singers
Musicians from Bakersfield, California
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from California
Guitarists from Arizona
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Texas
Country musicians from California
Country musicians from Texas
Country musicians from Arizona
20th-century American male singers
Singer-songwriters from Arizona
| false |
[
"Finn Murphy (born May 22, 1958) is an American long haul trucker and author of The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road, published by W.W. Norton & Company. He was born in Greenwich, Connecticut the fifth child of illustrator and cartoonist John Cullen Murphy and Joan Byrne Murphy’s eight children.\n\nHe attended parochial schools in Connecticut and attended Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He earned his Commercial Truck Driver license in 1980 and spent almost a decade driving for North American Van Lines. In 2008, Murphy went back on the road as a driver and those two periods became the basis for his book.\n\nIn the years between, he lived on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts and worked as a businessman and community activist. Murphy served in several public service positions on Nantucket notably as Chairman of the Nantucket Board of Selectmen, Police Commissioner, and as Airport Commissioner. As a businessman he and his wife Pamela owned and operated several luxury retail enterprises and represented the cashmere manufacturer Johnstons of Elgin from an office in New York’s garment center.\n\nMarried 1986-2011 to Pamela (Bembridge) Murphy. No children\n\nBrother to Cullen Murphy, Cullene Murphy, Siobhan Grogan, Byrne Sleeper, Brendan Murphy, Cait Murphy, Mairead Nash.\n\nWorks\nThe Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road W. W. Norton & Company; June 2017 (hardback), , \nThe Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road W. W. Norton & Company; June 2018 (paperback)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Finn Murphy website\n Finn Murphy on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross: https://www.npr.org/2018/02/14/585719252/long-haul-trucker-was-completely-seduced-by-the-open-road\n https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2017/08/08/becoming-a-truck-driver-for-your-second-career/#5370196030e5\n http://www.wnyc.org/people/finn-murphy/\n https://vimeo.com/213247554\n\nLiving people\nAmerican male writers\nAmerican truck drivers\n1958 births",
"Trucker Path is an American transportation network company specializing in online and mobile services for the trucking industry. In early 2013, the company released its trip planning and resource locating mobile app Trucker Path. In mid-2015, it was followed by Truckloads, a marketplace available on the web and mobile devices specializing in connecting freight companies with carriers. By March 2015 the Trucker Path app had 100,000 users. One year later, Trucker Path reached one million downloads on iOS and Android combined. By June 2016, the number of active monthly users surpassed 450,000, which represented 30% of all Class 8 truckers in the U.S. Truckloads became the most installed freight-matching mobile app with over 250,000 installs by the end of 2016. In February 2017, Trucker Path reached over 1.5 million total installs and is the first in the trucking industry to have over one million installs on the Google Play Store. In December 2017, Renren announced that it acquired Trucker Path.\n\nHistory\nThe early version of the application for truck drivers was developed by Viktor Radchenko who was inspired to create it after hearing his trucker friends complain about the difficulties they had finding truck stops. Trucker Path was the fourth application Radchenko had developed since moving to Silicon Valley from his native Ukraine in 2010. Before creating Trucker Path, he did not have any direct involvement in the freight industry.\n\nThe early beta version of the app was launched in February 2013, and by August had reached 50,000 active weekly users. In October 2013 Radchenko began working together with Ivan Tsybaev to found the company officially, with Tsybaev acting as the organization's first CEO and Radchenko as the chief technology officer. Tsybaev envisioned the company becoming a freight transportation marketplace. To build up a user base, he decided to focus on positioning Trucker Path as a crowdsourced navigational assistant that would make it easy for truckers to plan their trips by helping them find truck stops, parking, rest areas, washers and other POI. Initially, the application focused on providing trucking information primarily for the United States of America but has since added locations across Canada.\n\nAt the 2013 LA Auto Show, Trucker Path was named one of the eight finalists for Fastpitch, a competition for automobile-related startups. In February 2014, Radchenko left his job as chief technology officer at Trucker Path.\n\nIn September 2014, the company raised US$1.5 million in seed funding from Renrenren, a China-based social media company founded by an American citizen and MIT/Stanford graduate Joseph Chen. Renren prefers to invest in the U.S. based companies that have the potential to expand into China. Their other investments include SoFi, a digital finance and p2p lending company, and a Swiss-Israeli secure mobile phone company Sirin Labs.\n\nIn June 2015, Trucker Path raised $20 million in a Series A round from Chicago-based Wicklow Capital. The round involved a follow-on partner, Chinese social media giant Renren.\n\nIn July 2015, Trucker Path released Truckloads, a B2B marketplace specializing in connecting transportation brokers to carriers. Initially, the application was available only by invite. Between July 2015 and February 2016, Truckloads was available as a public beta.\n\nBy February 2017, the app read surpassed 250,000 downloads on Google Play and the App Store. The app features InstaPay, a payment system which guarantees payment to approved truckers within 24 hours.\n\nTrucker Path funding also included $30 million in debt financing which it secured through Flexible Funding which the company says it's using to fund its freight factoring service InstaPay for owner operators and small fleets.\n\nAccording to CEO Ivan Tsybaev, the popularity of Trucker Path and other trucking applications correlates with the smartphone adoption rate in the industry. He believes that the primary effect of these apps will be replacing dispatchers for owner-operator drivers.\n\nIn December 2017, Renren announced that it acquired Trucker Path for undisclosed amount.\n\nIn March 2018 Trucker Path's freight factoring service InstaPay was fully acquired by Flexible Funding Ltd for undisclosed amount.\n\nTrucker Path application\nThe main Trucker Path app for iOS and Android provides truck drivers with various information, e.g. parking availability, locations of truck stops, verified Walmart locations with truck parking, check a weigh station's status, and find truck wash facilities.\n\nIn March 2016 Trucker Path received an update that added Fuel View, a feature that allows drivers to see and compare fuel prices on the map.\n\nOf the 6,000+ truck stops listed in the Trucker Path database, 3,277 are independently run. The data on those stops was gathered based on user-generated input and ratings. Collected from over 500,000 active users, that information allows truckers to plan their parking in advance and spend less time searching for available spots, which is an increasingly important safety issue facing the industry, according to a study by the Federal Highway Administration.\n\nIn February 2017, Trucker Path reached over one million downloads on the Google Play Store and 1.5 million total downloads. It is also the highest-rated app in the trucking industry receiving an overall 4.7-star rating (out of 5) on Android based on the input from more than 34,000 users.\n\nTruckloads application \nLaunched in July 2015, Truckloads enables its users to quickly tap into available trucking capacity across all North American markets. The platform includes a mobile app for truckers that helps them find available loads and a web-based panel for freight brokers which they use to see nearby trucking capacity and post loads for moving.\n\nAfter a period of beta testing, Truckloads has downloaded more than 250,000 times and has shown an average 20% monthly growth. More than 2 million loads are posted on the platform every month, also allowing carriers access to unlimited premium loads. Truckloads offers freight companies the opportunity to post their loads for over 80,000 qualified carriers to view. more than 250,000 owner-operators who have installed and use the app.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Trucker Path Android app\n Trucker Path iOS app\n Truckloads for Brokers\n Truckloads for Carriers\n\nAmerican companies established in 2013\nCompanies based in San Jose, California"
] |
[
"Buck Owens",
"Early career",
"What was his first gig?",
"I don't know.",
"What started off his career?",
"Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California.",
"How long was he a trucker?",
"Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band."
] |
C_3fd85ab959f745e6b629ab9f0215b10b_1
|
Did he ever move?
| 5 |
Did Buck Owens ever move from Fife, Washington?
|
Buck Owens
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Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945. In the late 1940s he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California. He was impressed by Bakersfield, where he and his wife settled in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others. Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label, using the pseudonym Corky Jones because he did not want the fact he recorded a rock n' roll tune to hurt his country music career. Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band. In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90's restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows, and immediately went to speak with him. Rich started to play fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. Owens' career took off in 1959, when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California. Owens tried to convince Rich to go with him to Bakersfield, but to no avail. Rich opted to go to Centralia College so that he could become a music teacher while tutoring and playing local venues, but after a year of college, he decided to drop out and join Owens in Bakersfield in December 1960. "Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960 he performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee. CANNOTANSWER
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Owens tried to convince Rich to go with him to Bakersfield, but to no avail.
|
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens' adopted home, and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".
While the Buckaroos originally featured a fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, their sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental. The band's signature style was based on simple story lines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a prominent drum track, and high, two-part vocal harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.
From 1969 to 1986, Owens co-hosted the popular CBS television variety show Hee Haw with Roy Clark (syndicated beginning in 1971). According to his son, Buddy Alan (Owens), the accidental 1974 death of Rich, his best friend, devastated him for years and impacted his creative efforts until he performed with Dwight Yoakam in 1988.
Owens is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Owens was born on a farm in Sherman, Texas, United States, to Alvis Edgar Owens Sr. and Maicie Azel (née Ellington) Owens.
In the biography About Buck., Rich Kienzle writes: "'Buck' was a donkey on the Owens farm." "When Alvis Jr. was three or four years old, he walked into the house and announced that his name also was "Buck." That was fine with the family, and the boy's name became "Buck" from then on." He attended public school for grades 1–3 in Garland, Texas.
Owens' family moved to Mesa, Arizona, in 1937 during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. While attending school in Arizona, Owens found that while he disliked formal schoolwork, he could often satisfy class requirements by singing or performing in school plays. As a result, he began to take part in such activities whenever he could.
Early career
A self-taught musician and singer, Owens became proficient on guitar, mandolin, horns, and drums. When he obtained his first electric steel guitar, he taught himself to play it after his father adapted an old radio into an amplifier. Owens quit school in the ninth grade in order to help work on his father's farm and pursue a music career. In 1945, he co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt. Co-host Theryl Ray Britten and Owens also played at local bars, where owners usually allowed them and a third member of their band to pass the hat during a show and keep ten percent of the take. They eventually became the resident musicians at a Phoenix bar called the Romo Buffet.
In the late 1940s, Owens became a truck driver, a job which took him through the San Joaquin Valley of California, where he first experienced and was impressed by the town of Bakersfield. He and his first wife eventually settled there in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others.
Using the pseudonym "Corky Jones" to prevent the recording of a rock 'n' roll tune from hurting his aspiring Country Music career, Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label. Some time in the 1950s he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.
In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90s Restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows and immediately approached him about collaborating, after which Rich began playing fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. In 1959, Owens' career took off when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California.
Following their success, Owens tried unsuccessfully to convince Rich to accompany him to Bakersfield. Instead, Rich opted to go to become a music teacher at Centralia College. While there, he tutored on the side but continued playing local venues. In December 1960, however, he left to rejoin Owens in Bakersfield.
"Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960, Owens performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.
Career peak
In early 1963, the Johnny Russell song "Act Naturally" was pitched to Owens, who initially didn't like it. His guitarist and longtime collaborator Don Rich, however, enjoyed it and convinced Owens to record it with the Buckaroos. Laid down on February 12, 1963, it was released on March 11 and entered the charts of April 13. By June 15 the single began its first of four non-consecutive weeks at the No. 1 position, Owens' first top hit. The Beatles recorded a cover of it in 1965 with Ringo Starr as lead singer. Starr later recorded a duet of it with Owens in 1988.
The 1966 album Carnegie Hall Concert was a smash hit and further cemented Buck Owens as a top country band. It achieved crossover success on to the pop charts, reinforced by R&B singer Ray Charles releasing cover versions of two of Owens' songs that became pop hits that year: "Crying Time" and "Together Again".
In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, a then-rare occurrence for a country act. The subsequent live album, Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan, was an early example of a country band recording outside the United States.
Owens and the Buckaroos performed at the White House for President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, which was later released as a live album.
Between 1968 and 1969, pedal steel guitar player Tom Brumley and drummer Willie Cantu left the band, replaced by Jay Dee Maness and Jerry Wiggins. Owens and the Buckaroos had two songs reach No. 1 on the country music charts in 1969, "Tall Dark Stranger" and "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass". In 1969, they recorded a live album, Live in London, where they premiered their rock song "A Happening In London Town" and their version of Chuck Berry's song "Johnny B. Goode".
During this time Hee Haw, starring Owens and the Buckaroos, was at its height of popularity. The series, originally envisioned as a country music's version of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, went on to run in various incarnations for 231 episodes over 24 seasons. Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Owens by name in their 1970 single "Lookin' Out My Back Door".
Also between 1968 and 1970, Owens made guest appearances on top TV variety programs, including The Dean Martin Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jackie Gleason Show and seven times on The Jimmy Dean Show.
In the early 1970s, Owens and the Buckaroos enjoyed a string of hit duets with his protege Susan Raye, who subsequently became a popular solo artist with Owens as her producer.
In 1971, the Buckaroos' bass guitarist Doyle Holly left the band to pursue a solo career. Holly was known for his booming deep voice on solo ballads. His departure was a setback to the band, as Doyle had received the Bass Player of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music the year before and served as co-lead vocalist (along with Don Rich) of the Buckaroos. Holly went on to record two solo records in the early 1970s, both were top 20 hits.
Owens and Rich were the only members left of the original band, and in the 1970s they struggled to top the country music charts. However, the popularity of Hee Haw was allowing them to enjoy large crowds at indoor arenas.
After three years of not having a number one song Owens and the Buckaroos finally had another No. 1 hit, "Made in Japan", in 1972. The band had been without pedal steel since late in 1969 when Maness departed. In April he added pedal steel guitarist, Jerry Brightman, and Owens returned to his grassroots sound of fiddle, steel, and electric guitars, releasing a string of singles including "Arms Full of Empty", "Ain't it Amazing Gracie" and "Ain't Gonna Have Ole Buck (to Kick Around no More)". Owens' original version of "Streets of Bakersfield" was released in 1972.
Death of Don Rich
On July 17, 1974, Owens' best friend and Buckaroos' guitarist Don Rich was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle and struck a guard rail on Highway 1 in Morro Bay, where he was to have joined his family for vacation. Owens was devastated. "He was like a brother, a son and a best friend," he said in the late 1990s. "Something I never said before, maybe I couldn't, but I think my music life ended when he died. Oh yeah, I carried on and I existed, but the real joy and love, the real lightning and thunder is gone forever." Owens would never fully recover from the tragedy, either emotionally or professionally.
Business ventures
Before the 1960s ended, Owens and manager Jack McFadden began to concentrate on Owens' financial future. He bought several radio stations, including KNIX (AM) (later KCWW) and KNIX-FM in Phoenix and KUZZ-FM in Bakersfield. During the 1990s, Owens was co-owner of the country music network Real Country, of which, the Owens-owned station KCWW was the flagship station. In 1998, Owens sold KCWW to ABC/Disney for $8,850,000 and sold KNIX-FM to Clear Channel Communications, but he maintained ownership of KUZZ until his death.
Owens established Buck Owens Enterprises and produced records by several artists. He recorded for Warner Bros. Records, but by the 1980s he was no longer recording, instead devoting his time to overseeing his business empire from Bakersfield. He left Hee Haw in 1986.
Later career
Country artist Dwight Yoakam was largely influenced by Owens' style of music and teamed up with him for a duet of "Streets of Bakersfield" in 1988. It was Owens' first No. 1 single in 16 years. In an interview, Yoakam described the first time he met with Owens:
We sat there that day in 1987 and talked about my music to that point, my short career, and what I'd been doing and how he'd been watching me. I was really flattered and thrilled to know that this legend had been keeping an eye on me.
Owens also collaborated with Cledus T. Judd on the song "The First Redneck On The Internet" in 1998, in which Owens also appears in the music video.
The 1990s saw a flood of reissues of Owens' Capitol recordings on compact disc, the publishing rights to which Owens had bought back in 1974 as part of his final contract with the label. His albums had been out of print for nearly 15 years when he released a retrospective box set in 1990. Encouraged by brisk sales, Owens struck a distribution deal with Sundazed Records of New York, which specializes in reissuing obscure recordings. The bulk of his Capitol catalog was reissued on CD in 1995, 1997 and in 2005. Sometime in the 1970s, Owens had also purchased the remaining copies of his original LP albums from Capitol's distribution warehouses across the country. Many of those records (still in the shrinkwrap) were stored by Owens for decades. He often gave them away as gifts and sold them at his nightclub for a premium price some 35 years later.
In August 1999, Owens brought back together the remaining members of his original Buckaroo Band to help him celebrate his 70th birthday at his Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. Owens, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley, and Wille Cantu performed old hits from their heyday including "Tiger by the Tail" and "Act Naturally."
Long before Owens became the famous co-host of Hee Haw, his band became known for their signature Bakersfield sound, later emulated by artists such as Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, and Brad Paisley. Buck inspired indie country songwriter and friend Terry Fraley, whose band "The Nudie Cowboys" possessed a similar sound. This sound was originally made possible with two trademark silver-sparkle Fender Telecaster guitars, often played simultaneously by Owens and longtime lead guitarist Don Rich. Fender had made a "Buck Owens signature Telecaster," and after his death paid tribute to him. In 2003, Paisley blended creative styles with this guitar and his own Paisley Telecaster, creating what became known as the Buck-O-Caster. Initially, only two were made; one for Paisley himself and the other presented to Owens during a New Year's celebration that Paisley attended in 2004.
Following the death of Rich, Owens' latter trademark became a red, white and blue acoustic guitar, along with a 1974 Pontiac convertible "Nudiemobile", adorned with pistols and silver dollars. A similar car, created by Nudie Cohn for Elvis Presley and later won by Owens in a bet, is now enshrined behind the bar at Owens' Crystal Palace Nightclub in Bakersfield.
Owens would hand out replicas of his trademark acoustic guitar to friends, acquaintances, and fans. Each would contain a gold plaque with the name of the recipient. Some of these guitars cost $1000 and up.
Personal life
Owens was married four times, three ending in divorce and one in annulment. He married country singer Bonnie Campbell Owens in 1948. The couple had two sons, one of which was Buddy Alan, and separated in 1951, and later divorced.
Owens married Phyllis Buford in 1956, with whom he had a third son. In 1977 he wed Buckaroos fiddle player Jana Jae Greif. Within a few days he filed for annulment, then changed his mind; the couple continued the on-and-off marriage for a year before divorcing. In 1979 he married Jennifer Smith.
Owens had three sons: Buddy Alan (who charted several hits as a Capitol recording artist in the early 1970s and appeared with his father numerous times on Hee Haw), Johnny, and Michael Owens.
Owens successfully recovered from oral cancer in the early 1990s, but had additional health problems near the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, including pneumonia and a minor stroke in 2004. These health problems had forced him to curtail his regular weekly performances with the Buckaroos at his Crystal Palace. Owens died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack at his ranch just north of Bakersfield on March 25, 2006, only hours after performing at his club. He was 76 years old.
Owens was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He was ranked No. 12 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. In addition, CMT also ranked the Buckaroos No. 2 in the network's 20 Greatest Bands in 2005. He was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The stretch of US Highway 82 in Sherman is named the Buck Owens Freeway in his honor.
Biographies
In November 2013, Buck Owens' posthumous autobiography Buck 'Em! The Autobiography of Buck Owens by Buck Owens with Randy Poe was released. The book has a foreword by Brad Paisley and a preface by Dwight Yoakam.
In a 2007 authorized biography Buck, historian Kathryn Burke gives a positive account of Owens.
In Buck Owens: The Biography (2010) investigative journalist Eileen Sisk offers a critical account of Owens and the shortcomings in his private life.
Discography
Covers of Owens songs
Vocalist–guitarist Johnny Rivers recorded a rock version of Owens's "Under Your Spell Again" on his album Meanwhile, Back at the Whiskey A GoGo in 1965.
Country music singer Emmylou Harris recorded a version of Owens's "Together Again", which was released on her 1976 album Elite Hotel.
The Beatles and, later, Ringo Starr recorded versions of "Act Naturally". The Beatles recorded the song in 1965, two years after Owens released it. Starr recorded it as a duet with Owens in 1988, which received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration in 1989.
After his death in 2006, a medley was played by the Buck Owens All Star Tribute, which included Billy Gibbons, Chris Hillman, Brad Paisley and Travis Barker.
Country artist Dwight Yoakam has cited Owens as an early influence in his career and recorded several of Owens's songs. He recorded a duet with Owens of the song "Streets of Bakersfield", originally recorded by Owens in 1973. In 2007, Yoakam released a tribute album, Dwight Sings Buck.
Mark Lanegan included a cover of "Together Again" on his 1999 cover album, I'll Take Care of You.
Cake covered "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)" on its album B-Sides and Rarities.
In 2007, Austin-San Marcos, Texas band The Derailers released Under The Influence of Buck, which featured 12 covers of Owens songs, including "Under the Influence of Love".
In 2011, Ben Gibbard covered "Love's Gonna Live Here".
In 2011, country singer and songwriter Brad Paisley covered "Tiger by The Tail" for his studio album This Is Country Music.
Footnotes
References
Fenster, Mark. (1998). "Buck Owens". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 399–400.
Flippo, Chet: "NASHVILLE SKYLINE: Buck Owens' Supercharged Music"' cmt.com, March 30, 2006
External links
Original site of Buck Owens' studio to close on 4/1/08
BuckOwensFan
Buck Owens at Country Music Hall of Fame
Buck Owens Sears-sold 'American' model guitar at Silvertone World
1929 births
2006 deaths
American country guitarists
American male guitarists
American country singer-songwriters
American male singer-songwriters
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Singer-songwriters from Texas
People from Sherman, Texas
Starday Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Bakersfield sound
Musicians from Mesa, Arizona
Musicians from Phoenix, Arizona
20th-century American singers
Musicians from Bakersfield, California
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from California
Guitarists from Arizona
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Texas
Country musicians from California
Country musicians from Texas
Country musicians from Arizona
20th-century American male singers
Singer-songwriters from Arizona
| false |
[
"William Green (9 October 1927 – 1996) was an English footballer, who played as a defender.\n\nCareer\n\nGreen came up through the Wolverhampton Wanderers youth team, however did not make a senior appearance with the club. He would move to Walsall in 1949.\n\nAt Walsall, however, he would secure a first team spot, being an ever-present in two consecutive seasons for the club and making a total of 180 appearances.\n\nIn 1954 he would move to Wrexham spending three years at the club. Whilst there, in a match with Gateshead on 22 December 1956, where, during an altercation with Gateshead forward Bill Brown, he was punched unconscious by Brown. Green did not remember what had happened in a post-match interview.\n\nHe left Wrexham in 1957, going on to play for Wellington Town, Caernarfon Town and Pwllheli.\n\nGreen died in 1996.\n\nReferences\n\n1927 births\n1996 deaths\nEnglish footballers\nEnglish Football League players\nWolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players\nWalsall F.C. players\nWrexham A.F.C. players\nTelford United F.C. players\nCaernarfon Town F.C. players\nPwllheli F.C. players\nAssociation football defenders",
"was a Japanese professional shogi player, ranked 9-dan.\n\nPromotion history\nManabe's promotion history is as follows:\n 1967: 6-kyū\n April 1, 1973: 4-dan\n April 1, 1976: 5-dan\n April 1, 1978: 6-dan\n April 1, 1980: 7-dan\n April 1, 1988: 8-dan\n November 24, 2007: Died as an active player\n November 24, 2007: 9-dan (conferred posthumously)\n\nThe B-42 \"Phantom\" move and Masuda Special Prize\n\nManabe is widely remembered for a move he theorized but did not play contesting his last professional game, on October 30, 2007, against Masayuki Toyoshima in a C2 ranking match. Manabe, in poor health, resigned after the 33rd move. Later that day, he confided to his colleague Hiroshi Kobayashi that he had come up with the B-42 move and believed he might have won had he played it. However, he feared this would extend the match against Toyoshima and felt he could not endure a longer game. When he was later interviewed, Toyoshima acknowledged that the move would indeed have required a long time to formulate a response. Kobayashi did not appreciate the move at the time, but his conversations with Isao Nakata about the potential move began to draw public attention.\n\nOn November 27, a wake was held for Manabe. Simultaneously, a game position identical to Toyishima's match was reached in the C2 ranking match between Yasuaki Murayama and Nobuyuki Ōuchi. Ōuchi, playing White (gote), played Manabe's ... B-42. Ōuchi would later claim he was not aware of the move's relationship to Manabe's last game. Much as Manabe had predicted, Murayama took over 110 minutes to respond to B-42. Though Murayama ultimately won the match, when Ōuchi was later told about Manabe's game with Toyoshima, he said \"I should have won.\" Amazed at the move's recurrence during Manabe's wake, Kobayashi claimed it was a kind of miracle. The coincidence quickly became a topic of conversation in the Shogi world, and the move soon became known as the \"splendid, phantom move\" (幻の妙手, Maboroshi no myōshu).\n\nThe move was proposed for consideration for the then-upcoming Masuda Special Award, which was granted to Manabe posthumously in 2008.\n\nReferences\n\nJapanese shogi players\nDeceased professional shogi players\n1952 births\n2007 deaths\nProfessional shogi players from Tokyo\nPeople from Arakawa, Tokyo"
] |
[
"Buck Owens",
"Early career",
"What was his first gig?",
"I don't know.",
"What started off his career?",
"Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California.",
"How long was he a trucker?",
"Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.",
"Did he ever move?",
"Owens tried to convince Rich to go with him to Bakersfield, but to no avail."
] |
C_3fd85ab959f745e6b629ab9f0215b10b_1
|
Did he release any hits during his early years?
| 6 |
Did Buck Owens release any hits during his early years?
|
Buck Owens
|
Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945. In the late 1940s he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California. He was impressed by Bakersfield, where he and his wife settled in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others. Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label, using the pseudonym Corky Jones because he did not want the fact he recorded a rock n' roll tune to hurt his country music career. Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band. In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90's restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows, and immediately went to speak with him. Rich started to play fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. Owens' career took off in 1959, when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California. Owens tried to convince Rich to go with him to Bakersfield, but to no avail. Rich opted to go to Centralia College so that he could become a music teacher while tutoring and playing local venues, but after a year of college, he decided to drop out and join Owens in Bakersfield in December 1960. "Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960 he performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee. CANNOTANSWER
|
Above and Beyond" hit No. 3.
|
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens' adopted home, and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".
While the Buckaroos originally featured a fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, their sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental. The band's signature style was based on simple story lines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a prominent drum track, and high, two-part vocal harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.
From 1969 to 1986, Owens co-hosted the popular CBS television variety show Hee Haw with Roy Clark (syndicated beginning in 1971). According to his son, Buddy Alan (Owens), the accidental 1974 death of Rich, his best friend, devastated him for years and impacted his creative efforts until he performed with Dwight Yoakam in 1988.
Owens is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Owens was born on a farm in Sherman, Texas, United States, to Alvis Edgar Owens Sr. and Maicie Azel (née Ellington) Owens.
In the biography About Buck., Rich Kienzle writes: "'Buck' was a donkey on the Owens farm." "When Alvis Jr. was three or four years old, he walked into the house and announced that his name also was "Buck." That was fine with the family, and the boy's name became "Buck" from then on." He attended public school for grades 1–3 in Garland, Texas.
Owens' family moved to Mesa, Arizona, in 1937 during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. While attending school in Arizona, Owens found that while he disliked formal schoolwork, he could often satisfy class requirements by singing or performing in school plays. As a result, he began to take part in such activities whenever he could.
Early career
A self-taught musician and singer, Owens became proficient on guitar, mandolin, horns, and drums. When he obtained his first electric steel guitar, he taught himself to play it after his father adapted an old radio into an amplifier. Owens quit school in the ninth grade in order to help work on his father's farm and pursue a music career. In 1945, he co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt. Co-host Theryl Ray Britten and Owens also played at local bars, where owners usually allowed them and a third member of their band to pass the hat during a show and keep ten percent of the take. They eventually became the resident musicians at a Phoenix bar called the Romo Buffet.
In the late 1940s, Owens became a truck driver, a job which took him through the San Joaquin Valley of California, where he first experienced and was impressed by the town of Bakersfield. He and his first wife eventually settled there in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others.
Using the pseudonym "Corky Jones" to prevent the recording of a rock 'n' roll tune from hurting his aspiring Country Music career, Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label. Some time in the 1950s he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.
In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90s Restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows and immediately approached him about collaborating, after which Rich began playing fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. In 1959, Owens' career took off when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California.
Following their success, Owens tried unsuccessfully to convince Rich to accompany him to Bakersfield. Instead, Rich opted to go to become a music teacher at Centralia College. While there, he tutored on the side but continued playing local venues. In December 1960, however, he left to rejoin Owens in Bakersfield.
"Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960, Owens performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.
Career peak
In early 1963, the Johnny Russell song "Act Naturally" was pitched to Owens, who initially didn't like it. His guitarist and longtime collaborator Don Rich, however, enjoyed it and convinced Owens to record it with the Buckaroos. Laid down on February 12, 1963, it was released on March 11 and entered the charts of April 13. By June 15 the single began its first of four non-consecutive weeks at the No. 1 position, Owens' first top hit. The Beatles recorded a cover of it in 1965 with Ringo Starr as lead singer. Starr later recorded a duet of it with Owens in 1988.
The 1966 album Carnegie Hall Concert was a smash hit and further cemented Buck Owens as a top country band. It achieved crossover success on to the pop charts, reinforced by R&B singer Ray Charles releasing cover versions of two of Owens' songs that became pop hits that year: "Crying Time" and "Together Again".
In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, a then-rare occurrence for a country act. The subsequent live album, Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan, was an early example of a country band recording outside the United States.
Owens and the Buckaroos performed at the White House for President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, which was later released as a live album.
Between 1968 and 1969, pedal steel guitar player Tom Brumley and drummer Willie Cantu left the band, replaced by Jay Dee Maness and Jerry Wiggins. Owens and the Buckaroos had two songs reach No. 1 on the country music charts in 1969, "Tall Dark Stranger" and "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass". In 1969, they recorded a live album, Live in London, where they premiered their rock song "A Happening In London Town" and their version of Chuck Berry's song "Johnny B. Goode".
During this time Hee Haw, starring Owens and the Buckaroos, was at its height of popularity. The series, originally envisioned as a country music's version of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, went on to run in various incarnations for 231 episodes over 24 seasons. Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Owens by name in their 1970 single "Lookin' Out My Back Door".
Also between 1968 and 1970, Owens made guest appearances on top TV variety programs, including The Dean Martin Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jackie Gleason Show and seven times on The Jimmy Dean Show.
In the early 1970s, Owens and the Buckaroos enjoyed a string of hit duets with his protege Susan Raye, who subsequently became a popular solo artist with Owens as her producer.
In 1971, the Buckaroos' bass guitarist Doyle Holly left the band to pursue a solo career. Holly was known for his booming deep voice on solo ballads. His departure was a setback to the band, as Doyle had received the Bass Player of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music the year before and served as co-lead vocalist (along with Don Rich) of the Buckaroos. Holly went on to record two solo records in the early 1970s, both were top 20 hits.
Owens and Rich were the only members left of the original band, and in the 1970s they struggled to top the country music charts. However, the popularity of Hee Haw was allowing them to enjoy large crowds at indoor arenas.
After three years of not having a number one song Owens and the Buckaroos finally had another No. 1 hit, "Made in Japan", in 1972. The band had been without pedal steel since late in 1969 when Maness departed. In April he added pedal steel guitarist, Jerry Brightman, and Owens returned to his grassroots sound of fiddle, steel, and electric guitars, releasing a string of singles including "Arms Full of Empty", "Ain't it Amazing Gracie" and "Ain't Gonna Have Ole Buck (to Kick Around no More)". Owens' original version of "Streets of Bakersfield" was released in 1972.
Death of Don Rich
On July 17, 1974, Owens' best friend and Buckaroos' guitarist Don Rich was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle and struck a guard rail on Highway 1 in Morro Bay, where he was to have joined his family for vacation. Owens was devastated. "He was like a brother, a son and a best friend," he said in the late 1990s. "Something I never said before, maybe I couldn't, but I think my music life ended when he died. Oh yeah, I carried on and I existed, but the real joy and love, the real lightning and thunder is gone forever." Owens would never fully recover from the tragedy, either emotionally or professionally.
Business ventures
Before the 1960s ended, Owens and manager Jack McFadden began to concentrate on Owens' financial future. He bought several radio stations, including KNIX (AM) (later KCWW) and KNIX-FM in Phoenix and KUZZ-FM in Bakersfield. During the 1990s, Owens was co-owner of the country music network Real Country, of which, the Owens-owned station KCWW was the flagship station. In 1998, Owens sold KCWW to ABC/Disney for $8,850,000 and sold KNIX-FM to Clear Channel Communications, but he maintained ownership of KUZZ until his death.
Owens established Buck Owens Enterprises and produced records by several artists. He recorded for Warner Bros. Records, but by the 1980s he was no longer recording, instead devoting his time to overseeing his business empire from Bakersfield. He left Hee Haw in 1986.
Later career
Country artist Dwight Yoakam was largely influenced by Owens' style of music and teamed up with him for a duet of "Streets of Bakersfield" in 1988. It was Owens' first No. 1 single in 16 years. In an interview, Yoakam described the first time he met with Owens:
We sat there that day in 1987 and talked about my music to that point, my short career, and what I'd been doing and how he'd been watching me. I was really flattered and thrilled to know that this legend had been keeping an eye on me.
Owens also collaborated with Cledus T. Judd on the song "The First Redneck On The Internet" in 1998, in which Owens also appears in the music video.
The 1990s saw a flood of reissues of Owens' Capitol recordings on compact disc, the publishing rights to which Owens had bought back in 1974 as part of his final contract with the label. His albums had been out of print for nearly 15 years when he released a retrospective box set in 1990. Encouraged by brisk sales, Owens struck a distribution deal with Sundazed Records of New York, which specializes in reissuing obscure recordings. The bulk of his Capitol catalog was reissued on CD in 1995, 1997 and in 2005. Sometime in the 1970s, Owens had also purchased the remaining copies of his original LP albums from Capitol's distribution warehouses across the country. Many of those records (still in the shrinkwrap) were stored by Owens for decades. He often gave them away as gifts and sold them at his nightclub for a premium price some 35 years later.
In August 1999, Owens brought back together the remaining members of his original Buckaroo Band to help him celebrate his 70th birthday at his Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. Owens, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley, and Wille Cantu performed old hits from their heyday including "Tiger by the Tail" and "Act Naturally."
Long before Owens became the famous co-host of Hee Haw, his band became known for their signature Bakersfield sound, later emulated by artists such as Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, and Brad Paisley. Buck inspired indie country songwriter and friend Terry Fraley, whose band "The Nudie Cowboys" possessed a similar sound. This sound was originally made possible with two trademark silver-sparkle Fender Telecaster guitars, often played simultaneously by Owens and longtime lead guitarist Don Rich. Fender had made a "Buck Owens signature Telecaster," and after his death paid tribute to him. In 2003, Paisley blended creative styles with this guitar and his own Paisley Telecaster, creating what became known as the Buck-O-Caster. Initially, only two were made; one for Paisley himself and the other presented to Owens during a New Year's celebration that Paisley attended in 2004.
Following the death of Rich, Owens' latter trademark became a red, white and blue acoustic guitar, along with a 1974 Pontiac convertible "Nudiemobile", adorned with pistols and silver dollars. A similar car, created by Nudie Cohn for Elvis Presley and later won by Owens in a bet, is now enshrined behind the bar at Owens' Crystal Palace Nightclub in Bakersfield.
Owens would hand out replicas of his trademark acoustic guitar to friends, acquaintances, and fans. Each would contain a gold plaque with the name of the recipient. Some of these guitars cost $1000 and up.
Personal life
Owens was married four times, three ending in divorce and one in annulment. He married country singer Bonnie Campbell Owens in 1948. The couple had two sons, one of which was Buddy Alan, and separated in 1951, and later divorced.
Owens married Phyllis Buford in 1956, with whom he had a third son. In 1977 he wed Buckaroos fiddle player Jana Jae Greif. Within a few days he filed for annulment, then changed his mind; the couple continued the on-and-off marriage for a year before divorcing. In 1979 he married Jennifer Smith.
Owens had three sons: Buddy Alan (who charted several hits as a Capitol recording artist in the early 1970s and appeared with his father numerous times on Hee Haw), Johnny, and Michael Owens.
Owens successfully recovered from oral cancer in the early 1990s, but had additional health problems near the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, including pneumonia and a minor stroke in 2004. These health problems had forced him to curtail his regular weekly performances with the Buckaroos at his Crystal Palace. Owens died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack at his ranch just north of Bakersfield on March 25, 2006, only hours after performing at his club. He was 76 years old.
Owens was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He was ranked No. 12 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. In addition, CMT also ranked the Buckaroos No. 2 in the network's 20 Greatest Bands in 2005. He was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The stretch of US Highway 82 in Sherman is named the Buck Owens Freeway in his honor.
Biographies
In November 2013, Buck Owens' posthumous autobiography Buck 'Em! The Autobiography of Buck Owens by Buck Owens with Randy Poe was released. The book has a foreword by Brad Paisley and a preface by Dwight Yoakam.
In a 2007 authorized biography Buck, historian Kathryn Burke gives a positive account of Owens.
In Buck Owens: The Biography (2010) investigative journalist Eileen Sisk offers a critical account of Owens and the shortcomings in his private life.
Discography
Covers of Owens songs
Vocalist–guitarist Johnny Rivers recorded a rock version of Owens's "Under Your Spell Again" on his album Meanwhile, Back at the Whiskey A GoGo in 1965.
Country music singer Emmylou Harris recorded a version of Owens's "Together Again", which was released on her 1976 album Elite Hotel.
The Beatles and, later, Ringo Starr recorded versions of "Act Naturally". The Beatles recorded the song in 1965, two years after Owens released it. Starr recorded it as a duet with Owens in 1988, which received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration in 1989.
After his death in 2006, a medley was played by the Buck Owens All Star Tribute, which included Billy Gibbons, Chris Hillman, Brad Paisley and Travis Barker.
Country artist Dwight Yoakam has cited Owens as an early influence in his career and recorded several of Owens's songs. He recorded a duet with Owens of the song "Streets of Bakersfield", originally recorded by Owens in 1973. In 2007, Yoakam released a tribute album, Dwight Sings Buck.
Mark Lanegan included a cover of "Together Again" on his 1999 cover album, I'll Take Care of You.
Cake covered "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)" on its album B-Sides and Rarities.
In 2007, Austin-San Marcos, Texas band The Derailers released Under The Influence of Buck, which featured 12 covers of Owens songs, including "Under the Influence of Love".
In 2011, Ben Gibbard covered "Love's Gonna Live Here".
In 2011, country singer and songwriter Brad Paisley covered "Tiger by The Tail" for his studio album This Is Country Music.
Footnotes
References
Fenster, Mark. (1998). "Buck Owens". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 399–400.
Flippo, Chet: "NASHVILLE SKYLINE: Buck Owens' Supercharged Music"' cmt.com, March 30, 2006
External links
Original site of Buck Owens' studio to close on 4/1/08
BuckOwensFan
Buck Owens at Country Music Hall of Fame
Buck Owens Sears-sold 'American' model guitar at Silvertone World
1929 births
2006 deaths
American country guitarists
American male guitarists
American country singer-songwriters
American male singer-songwriters
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Singer-songwriters from Texas
People from Sherman, Texas
Starday Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Bakersfield sound
Musicians from Mesa, Arizona
Musicians from Phoenix, Arizona
20th-century American singers
Musicians from Bakersfield, California
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from California
Guitarists from Arizona
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Texas
Country musicians from California
Country musicians from Texas
Country musicians from Arizona
20th-century American male singers
Singer-songwriters from Arizona
| true |
[
"The discography for American country music singer Merle Haggard includes 66 studio albums, five instrumental albums featuring his backing band the Strangers, as well as several live and compilation albums. Haggard recorded for a variety of major and independent record labels through the years, with significant years spent with Capitol Records (where he lived for over a decade), MCA Records, Epic Records and Curb Records, as well as his own label Hag Records.\n\nStudio albums\n\n1960s\n\n1970s\n\n1980s\n\n1990s\n\n2000s\n\n2010s\n\nInstrumental albums\n{| class=\"wikitable plainrowheaders\" style=\"text-align:center;\"\n|-\n! rowspan=\"2\" style=\"width:35em;\"| Title\n! rowspan=\"2\" style=\"width:20em;\"| Album details\n! colspan=\"1\"| Peakchartposition\n|- style=\"font-size:smaller;\"\n! width=\"45\"| US Country\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| The Instrumental Sounds of Merle Haggard's Strangers \n| \n Release date: February 23, 1969\n Label: Capitol\n| 36\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Introducing My Friends, the Strangers \n| \n Release date: April 6, 1970\n Label: Capitol\n| 34\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Getting to Know Merle Haggard's Strangers \n| \n Release date: October 5, 1970\n Label: Capitol\n| 44 \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| ''Honky Tonkin \n| \n Release date: June 21, 1971\n Label: Capitol\n| 34\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Totally Instrumental with One Exception... \n| \n Release date: May 1973\n Label: Capitol\n| 23\n|-\n| colspan=\"5\" style=\"font-size: 8pt\"| \"—\" denotes releases that did not chart\n|-\n|}\n\nLive albums\n\nCompilation albums\n{| class=\"wikitable plainrowheaders\" style=\"text-align:center;\"\n|-\n! rowspan=\"2\" style=\"width:22em;\"| Title\n! rowspan=\"2\" style=\"width:20em;\"| Album details\n! colspan=\"2\"| Peak chartpositions\n! rowspan=\"2\"| Certifications/Sales\n|- style=\"font-size:smaller;\"\n! width=\"45\"| US Country\n! width=\"45\"| US\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| The Best of Merle Haggard\n| \n Release date: July 15, 1968\n Label: Capitol Records\n| 3\n| —\n| \n US: Platinum\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Close-Up\n| \n Release date: 1969\n Label: Capitol Records\n| 23\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| The Best of the Best\n| \n Release date: September 1972\n Label: Capitol Records\n| 1\n| 137\n| \n US: Platinum\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Songs I'll Always Sing\n| \n Release date: April 11, 1977\n Label: Capitol Records\n| 15\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Eleven Winners\n| \n Release date: January 1978\n Label: Capitol Records\n| 9\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| The Way It Was in '51\n| \n Release date: September 11, 1978\n Label: Capitol Records\n| 30\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Merle Haggard's Greatest Hits\n| \n Release date: 1982\n Label: MCA Records\n| 37\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| His Epic Hits: The First 11(To Be Continued...)\n| \n Release date: 1984\n Label: Epic Records\n| 41\n| —\n| \n US: Platinum\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| His Best\n| \n Release date: 1985\n Label: MCA Records\n| 38\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Walking the Line \n| \n Release date: 1987\n Label: Epic\n| 39\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Greatest Hits of the 80's\n| \n Release date: October 5, 1990\n Label: Epic Records\n| —\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Super Hits\n| \n Release date: March 9, 1993\n Label: Epic Records\n| —\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Super Hits, Vol. 2\n| \n Release date: November 1, 1994\n Label: Epic Records\n| —\n| —\n| \n US: Gold\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Super Hits, Vol. 3\n| \n Release date: September 5, 1995\n Label: Epic Records\n| —\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Down Every Road 1962–1994\n|\n Release date: April 2, 1996\n Label: Capitol Nashville\n| —\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| 16 Biggest Hits\n| \n Release date: July 14, 1998\n Label: Epic Records\n| 55\n| 167\n| \n US: Gold\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| For the Record, 43 Legendary Hits\n| \n Release date: August 24, 1999\n Label: BNA Records\n| 38\n| —\n| \n US: Gold\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Cheatin| \n Release date: September 25, 2001\n Label: Capitol Nashville\n| —\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Drinkin'''\n| \n Release date: September 25, 2001\n Label: Capitol Nashville\n| —\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Hurtin\n| \n Release date: September 25, 2001\n Label: Capitol Nashville\n| —\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Prison| \n Release date: September 25, 2001\n Label: Capitol Nashville\n| —\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| 20 Greatest Hits| \n Release date: February 26, 2002\n Label: Capitol Nashville\n| —\n| 75\n| \nUS: 332,300\n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| 40 #1's| \n Release date: March 23, 2004\n Label: Capitol Nashville\n| 60\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| 40 Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 (Rerecorded)| \n Release date: May 25, 2004\n Label: Entertainment One Music\n| —\n| 88\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| The Essential Merle Haggard: The Epic Years| \n Release date: August 31, 2004\n Label: Epic Records\n| —\n| 139\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard| \n Release date: September 12, 2006\n Label: Capitol Nashville\n| 59\n| —\n| \n|-\n! scope=\"row\"| 10 Great Songs| \n Release date: July 3, 2012\n Label: Capitol Nashville\n| 75\n| —\n| \n|-\n| colspan=\"5\" style=\"font-size: 8pt\"| \"—\" denotes releases that did not chart\n|-\n|}\n\n Other appearances \n\n Production \n\nSingles\n\n1960s\n\n1970s\n\n1980s—2010s\n\nOther singles\n\nSingles from collaboration albums\n\nGuest singles\n\nCharted B-sides\n\nMusic videos\n\nNotes\n\nA^ \"Okie from Muskogee\" also peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100. \nB^ \"If We Make It Through December\" also peaked at number 37 on the Canadian RPM'' Adult Contemporary Tracks chart. \nC^''' \"Broken Friend\" did not chart on Hot Country Songs, but peaked at No. 4 on Hot Country Radio Breakouts.\n\nReferences\n\n \n \nCountry music discographies\nDiscographies of American artists",
"Joe Walsh's Greatest Hits – Little Did He Know... is a compilation released by guitarist Joe Walsh. It contains his best-known solo songs as well as those he recorded with the James Gang and Barnstorm, but it does not contain material he released as a member of the Eagles. The remastered reissue of the compilation Joe Walsh: The Definitive Collection (2006) has the same cover art except for differing text above the photo and no text below the photo.\n\nCritical reception\nWriting for AllMusic, critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote of the album \"The double-disc Look What I Did! was simply too much for anyone but the dedicated Joe Walsh fan, which makes the release of the 15-song, single-disc Joe Walsh's Greatest Hits: Little Did He Know so welcome. Drawing highlights from his solo career and his early records with the James Gang, Greatest Hits contains almost every song that most fans would want\".\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written by Joe Walsh, except as noted.\n\nProduction\nCompiled & Coordinated by: Joe Walsh, David Spero, Andy McKaie\nRemastering: Bill Szymczyk\nPhotography: Tom Wright\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1997 greatest hits albums\nJoe Walsh albums"
] |
[
"Buck Owens",
"Early career",
"What was his first gig?",
"I don't know.",
"What started off his career?",
"Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California.",
"How long was he a trucker?",
"Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.",
"Did he ever move?",
"Owens tried to convince Rich to go with him to Bakersfield, but to no avail.",
"Did he release any hits during his early years?",
"Above and Beyond\" hit No. 3."
] |
C_3fd85ab959f745e6b629ab9f0215b10b_1
|
What was the name of the band he was apart of?
| 7 |
What was the name of the band Buck Owens was apart of?
|
Buck Owens
|
Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945. In the late 1940s he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California. He was impressed by Bakersfield, where he and his wife settled in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others. Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label, using the pseudonym Corky Jones because he did not want the fact he recorded a rock n' roll tune to hurt his country music career. Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band. In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90's restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows, and immediately went to speak with him. Rich started to play fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. Owens' career took off in 1959, when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California. Owens tried to convince Rich to go with him to Bakersfield, but to no avail. Rich opted to go to Centralia College so that he could become a music teacher while tutoring and playing local venues, but after a year of college, he decided to drop out and join Owens in Bakersfield in December 1960. "Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960 he performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee. CANNOTANSWER
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Dusty Rhodes band.
|
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens' adopted home, and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".
While the Buckaroos originally featured a fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, their sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental. The band's signature style was based on simple story lines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a prominent drum track, and high, two-part vocal harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.
From 1969 to 1986, Owens co-hosted the popular CBS television variety show Hee Haw with Roy Clark (syndicated beginning in 1971). According to his son, Buddy Alan (Owens), the accidental 1974 death of Rich, his best friend, devastated him for years and impacted his creative efforts until he performed with Dwight Yoakam in 1988.
Owens is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Owens was born on a farm in Sherman, Texas, United States, to Alvis Edgar Owens Sr. and Maicie Azel (née Ellington) Owens.
In the biography About Buck., Rich Kienzle writes: "'Buck' was a donkey on the Owens farm." "When Alvis Jr. was three or four years old, he walked into the house and announced that his name also was "Buck." That was fine with the family, and the boy's name became "Buck" from then on." He attended public school for grades 1–3 in Garland, Texas.
Owens' family moved to Mesa, Arizona, in 1937 during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. While attending school in Arizona, Owens found that while he disliked formal schoolwork, he could often satisfy class requirements by singing or performing in school plays. As a result, he began to take part in such activities whenever he could.
Early career
A self-taught musician and singer, Owens became proficient on guitar, mandolin, horns, and drums. When he obtained his first electric steel guitar, he taught himself to play it after his father adapted an old radio into an amplifier. Owens quit school in the ninth grade in order to help work on his father's farm and pursue a music career. In 1945, he co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt. Co-host Theryl Ray Britten and Owens also played at local bars, where owners usually allowed them and a third member of their band to pass the hat during a show and keep ten percent of the take. They eventually became the resident musicians at a Phoenix bar called the Romo Buffet.
In the late 1940s, Owens became a truck driver, a job which took him through the San Joaquin Valley of California, where he first experienced and was impressed by the town of Bakersfield. He and his first wife eventually settled there in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others.
Using the pseudonym "Corky Jones" to prevent the recording of a rock 'n' roll tune from hurting his aspiring Country Music career, Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label. Some time in the 1950s he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.
In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90s Restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows and immediately approached him about collaborating, after which Rich began playing fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. In 1959, Owens' career took off when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California.
Following their success, Owens tried unsuccessfully to convince Rich to accompany him to Bakersfield. Instead, Rich opted to go to become a music teacher at Centralia College. While there, he tutored on the side but continued playing local venues. In December 1960, however, he left to rejoin Owens in Bakersfield.
"Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960, Owens performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.
Career peak
In early 1963, the Johnny Russell song "Act Naturally" was pitched to Owens, who initially didn't like it. His guitarist and longtime collaborator Don Rich, however, enjoyed it and convinced Owens to record it with the Buckaroos. Laid down on February 12, 1963, it was released on March 11 and entered the charts of April 13. By June 15 the single began its first of four non-consecutive weeks at the No. 1 position, Owens' first top hit. The Beatles recorded a cover of it in 1965 with Ringo Starr as lead singer. Starr later recorded a duet of it with Owens in 1988.
The 1966 album Carnegie Hall Concert was a smash hit and further cemented Buck Owens as a top country band. It achieved crossover success on to the pop charts, reinforced by R&B singer Ray Charles releasing cover versions of two of Owens' songs that became pop hits that year: "Crying Time" and "Together Again".
In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, a then-rare occurrence for a country act. The subsequent live album, Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan, was an early example of a country band recording outside the United States.
Owens and the Buckaroos performed at the White House for President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, which was later released as a live album.
Between 1968 and 1969, pedal steel guitar player Tom Brumley and drummer Willie Cantu left the band, replaced by Jay Dee Maness and Jerry Wiggins. Owens and the Buckaroos had two songs reach No. 1 on the country music charts in 1969, "Tall Dark Stranger" and "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass". In 1969, they recorded a live album, Live in London, where they premiered their rock song "A Happening In London Town" and their version of Chuck Berry's song "Johnny B. Goode".
During this time Hee Haw, starring Owens and the Buckaroos, was at its height of popularity. The series, originally envisioned as a country music's version of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, went on to run in various incarnations for 231 episodes over 24 seasons. Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Owens by name in their 1970 single "Lookin' Out My Back Door".
Also between 1968 and 1970, Owens made guest appearances on top TV variety programs, including The Dean Martin Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jackie Gleason Show and seven times on The Jimmy Dean Show.
In the early 1970s, Owens and the Buckaroos enjoyed a string of hit duets with his protege Susan Raye, who subsequently became a popular solo artist with Owens as her producer.
In 1971, the Buckaroos' bass guitarist Doyle Holly left the band to pursue a solo career. Holly was known for his booming deep voice on solo ballads. His departure was a setback to the band, as Doyle had received the Bass Player of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music the year before and served as co-lead vocalist (along with Don Rich) of the Buckaroos. Holly went on to record two solo records in the early 1970s, both were top 20 hits.
Owens and Rich were the only members left of the original band, and in the 1970s they struggled to top the country music charts. However, the popularity of Hee Haw was allowing them to enjoy large crowds at indoor arenas.
After three years of not having a number one song Owens and the Buckaroos finally had another No. 1 hit, "Made in Japan", in 1972. The band had been without pedal steel since late in 1969 when Maness departed. In April he added pedal steel guitarist, Jerry Brightman, and Owens returned to his grassroots sound of fiddle, steel, and electric guitars, releasing a string of singles including "Arms Full of Empty", "Ain't it Amazing Gracie" and "Ain't Gonna Have Ole Buck (to Kick Around no More)". Owens' original version of "Streets of Bakersfield" was released in 1972.
Death of Don Rich
On July 17, 1974, Owens' best friend and Buckaroos' guitarist Don Rich was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle and struck a guard rail on Highway 1 in Morro Bay, where he was to have joined his family for vacation. Owens was devastated. "He was like a brother, a son and a best friend," he said in the late 1990s. "Something I never said before, maybe I couldn't, but I think my music life ended when he died. Oh yeah, I carried on and I existed, but the real joy and love, the real lightning and thunder is gone forever." Owens would never fully recover from the tragedy, either emotionally or professionally.
Business ventures
Before the 1960s ended, Owens and manager Jack McFadden began to concentrate on Owens' financial future. He bought several radio stations, including KNIX (AM) (later KCWW) and KNIX-FM in Phoenix and KUZZ-FM in Bakersfield. During the 1990s, Owens was co-owner of the country music network Real Country, of which, the Owens-owned station KCWW was the flagship station. In 1998, Owens sold KCWW to ABC/Disney for $8,850,000 and sold KNIX-FM to Clear Channel Communications, but he maintained ownership of KUZZ until his death.
Owens established Buck Owens Enterprises and produced records by several artists. He recorded for Warner Bros. Records, but by the 1980s he was no longer recording, instead devoting his time to overseeing his business empire from Bakersfield. He left Hee Haw in 1986.
Later career
Country artist Dwight Yoakam was largely influenced by Owens' style of music and teamed up with him for a duet of "Streets of Bakersfield" in 1988. It was Owens' first No. 1 single in 16 years. In an interview, Yoakam described the first time he met with Owens:
We sat there that day in 1987 and talked about my music to that point, my short career, and what I'd been doing and how he'd been watching me. I was really flattered and thrilled to know that this legend had been keeping an eye on me.
Owens also collaborated with Cledus T. Judd on the song "The First Redneck On The Internet" in 1998, in which Owens also appears in the music video.
The 1990s saw a flood of reissues of Owens' Capitol recordings on compact disc, the publishing rights to which Owens had bought back in 1974 as part of his final contract with the label. His albums had been out of print for nearly 15 years when he released a retrospective box set in 1990. Encouraged by brisk sales, Owens struck a distribution deal with Sundazed Records of New York, which specializes in reissuing obscure recordings. The bulk of his Capitol catalog was reissued on CD in 1995, 1997 and in 2005. Sometime in the 1970s, Owens had also purchased the remaining copies of his original LP albums from Capitol's distribution warehouses across the country. Many of those records (still in the shrinkwrap) were stored by Owens for decades. He often gave them away as gifts and sold them at his nightclub for a premium price some 35 years later.
In August 1999, Owens brought back together the remaining members of his original Buckaroo Band to help him celebrate his 70th birthday at his Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. Owens, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley, and Wille Cantu performed old hits from their heyday including "Tiger by the Tail" and "Act Naturally."
Long before Owens became the famous co-host of Hee Haw, his band became known for their signature Bakersfield sound, later emulated by artists such as Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, and Brad Paisley. Buck inspired indie country songwriter and friend Terry Fraley, whose band "The Nudie Cowboys" possessed a similar sound. This sound was originally made possible with two trademark silver-sparkle Fender Telecaster guitars, often played simultaneously by Owens and longtime lead guitarist Don Rich. Fender had made a "Buck Owens signature Telecaster," and after his death paid tribute to him. In 2003, Paisley blended creative styles with this guitar and his own Paisley Telecaster, creating what became known as the Buck-O-Caster. Initially, only two were made; one for Paisley himself and the other presented to Owens during a New Year's celebration that Paisley attended in 2004.
Following the death of Rich, Owens' latter trademark became a red, white and blue acoustic guitar, along with a 1974 Pontiac convertible "Nudiemobile", adorned with pistols and silver dollars. A similar car, created by Nudie Cohn for Elvis Presley and later won by Owens in a bet, is now enshrined behind the bar at Owens' Crystal Palace Nightclub in Bakersfield.
Owens would hand out replicas of his trademark acoustic guitar to friends, acquaintances, and fans. Each would contain a gold plaque with the name of the recipient. Some of these guitars cost $1000 and up.
Personal life
Owens was married four times, three ending in divorce and one in annulment. He married country singer Bonnie Campbell Owens in 1948. The couple had two sons, one of which was Buddy Alan, and separated in 1951, and later divorced.
Owens married Phyllis Buford in 1956, with whom he had a third son. In 1977 he wed Buckaroos fiddle player Jana Jae Greif. Within a few days he filed for annulment, then changed his mind; the couple continued the on-and-off marriage for a year before divorcing. In 1979 he married Jennifer Smith.
Owens had three sons: Buddy Alan (who charted several hits as a Capitol recording artist in the early 1970s and appeared with his father numerous times on Hee Haw), Johnny, and Michael Owens.
Owens successfully recovered from oral cancer in the early 1990s, but had additional health problems near the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, including pneumonia and a minor stroke in 2004. These health problems had forced him to curtail his regular weekly performances with the Buckaroos at his Crystal Palace. Owens died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack at his ranch just north of Bakersfield on March 25, 2006, only hours after performing at his club. He was 76 years old.
Owens was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He was ranked No. 12 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. In addition, CMT also ranked the Buckaroos No. 2 in the network's 20 Greatest Bands in 2005. He was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The stretch of US Highway 82 in Sherman is named the Buck Owens Freeway in his honor.
Biographies
In November 2013, Buck Owens' posthumous autobiography Buck 'Em! The Autobiography of Buck Owens by Buck Owens with Randy Poe was released. The book has a foreword by Brad Paisley and a preface by Dwight Yoakam.
In a 2007 authorized biography Buck, historian Kathryn Burke gives a positive account of Owens.
In Buck Owens: The Biography (2010) investigative journalist Eileen Sisk offers a critical account of Owens and the shortcomings in his private life.
Discography
Covers of Owens songs
Vocalist–guitarist Johnny Rivers recorded a rock version of Owens's "Under Your Spell Again" on his album Meanwhile, Back at the Whiskey A GoGo in 1965.
Country music singer Emmylou Harris recorded a version of Owens's "Together Again", which was released on her 1976 album Elite Hotel.
The Beatles and, later, Ringo Starr recorded versions of "Act Naturally". The Beatles recorded the song in 1965, two years after Owens released it. Starr recorded it as a duet with Owens in 1988, which received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration in 1989.
After his death in 2006, a medley was played by the Buck Owens All Star Tribute, which included Billy Gibbons, Chris Hillman, Brad Paisley and Travis Barker.
Country artist Dwight Yoakam has cited Owens as an early influence in his career and recorded several of Owens's songs. He recorded a duet with Owens of the song "Streets of Bakersfield", originally recorded by Owens in 1973. In 2007, Yoakam released a tribute album, Dwight Sings Buck.
Mark Lanegan included a cover of "Together Again" on his 1999 cover album, I'll Take Care of You.
Cake covered "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)" on its album B-Sides and Rarities.
In 2007, Austin-San Marcos, Texas band The Derailers released Under The Influence of Buck, which featured 12 covers of Owens songs, including "Under the Influence of Love".
In 2011, Ben Gibbard covered "Love's Gonna Live Here".
In 2011, country singer and songwriter Brad Paisley covered "Tiger by The Tail" for his studio album This Is Country Music.
Footnotes
References
Fenster, Mark. (1998). "Buck Owens". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 399–400.
Flippo, Chet: "NASHVILLE SKYLINE: Buck Owens' Supercharged Music"' cmt.com, March 30, 2006
External links
Original site of Buck Owens' studio to close on 4/1/08
BuckOwensFan
Buck Owens at Country Music Hall of Fame
Buck Owens Sears-sold 'American' model guitar at Silvertone World
1929 births
2006 deaths
American country guitarists
American male guitarists
American country singer-songwriters
American male singer-songwriters
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Singer-songwriters from Texas
People from Sherman, Texas
Starday Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Bakersfield sound
Musicians from Mesa, Arizona
Musicians from Phoenix, Arizona
20th-century American singers
Musicians from Bakersfield, California
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from California
Guitarists from Arizona
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Texas
Country musicians from California
Country musicians from Texas
Country musicians from Arizona
20th-century American male singers
Singer-songwriters from Arizona
| true |
[
"Elkland was an American band from Horseheads, New York. Originally named Goat Explosion, the group took the new name from the nearby town of Elkland, Pennsylvania. The band was on the Columbia Records label, a division of Sony BMG Music Entertainment.\n\nFrom April to June 2005, Elkland performed as the opening act for all concerts in Erasure's tour of North America.\n\nThe band's debut album, Golden was released in 2005 and has been described as \"a stylish cast of '80s new wave and post-millennium modern rock\" by AllMusic and \"a rare new wave/synthpop gem\" by Cryptic Rock.\n\nIn May 2006, Elkland split, supposedly on what singer Jon Pierce has said were amicable terms.\n\nImmediately on the heels of the demise of Elkland, frontman Jon Pierce formed the Drums with former Goat Explosion member Jacob Graham of Orlando's Flashlight Party.\n\nMembers\nJonathan Pierce - vocals\nJoel Tarpin - keyboards/synthesizers\nAdam Kessler - guitar\nJesse Pierce - drums\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\nGolden (2005)\n\"Put Your Hand Over Mine\"\n\"Apart\"\n\"It's Not Your Fault\"\n\"I Never\"\n\"Everybody's Leaving\"\n\"Talking on the Phone\"\n\"Everytime You Tell Me That You Love Me\"\n\"Abandon\"\n\"I Need You Tonight\"\n\"Find Me\"\n\"Without You\"\n\"We Share a Heart\"\n\nSingles\n\"Apart\" (2005)\n\"Apart\"\n\"Salvation\" (The Cranberries cover)\n\"I Think I Hate Her\"\n\"Everytime You Tell Me That You Love Me\"\n\"Apart\" (Jacknife Lee Remix)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nElkland's website\n\nAmerican pop music groups\nAmerican synth-pop groups\nMusical groups from New York (state)\nColumbia Records artists",
"The Age of Backwards E.P. was the first release by the short-lived band The Spells, a collaboration between Carrie Brownstein and Mary Timony.\n\nThe group also recorded a second E.P. entitled \"Bat vs. Bird\" in 2008, which also contained 4 songs and totaled about 9 minutes. \"Bat vs. Bird,\" with its more prominent percussion (as opposed to the subdued backbeats of \"The Age of Backwards\") and overall \"full band\" sound, was more of a promise of what was to come from Wild Flag, which is composed of Mary Timony, Carrie Brownstein, Janet Weiss, and Rebecca Cole.\n\nTrack listing\n \"The Age of Backwards\"\n \"Octaves Apart\"\n \"Number One Fan\"\n \"Can't Explain [The Who]\"\n\nReferences\n\n1999 EPs"
] |
[
"Carousel (musical)",
"Film, television and concert versions"
] |
C_0e5314f854634d5b99e441aa87fea861_1
|
when did it become a film?
| 1 |
When did the musical Carousel become a film?
|
Carousel (musical)
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A film version of the musical was made in 1956, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It follows the musical's story fairly closely, although a prologue, set in the Starkeeper's heaven, was added. The film was released only a few months after the release of the film version of Oklahoma!. It garnered some good reviews, and the soundtrack recording was a best seller. As the same stars appeared in both pictures, however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel. Thomas Hischak, in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical". There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version that starred Robert Goulet, with choreography by Edward Villella. The New York Philharmonic presented a staged concert version of the musical from February 28 to March 2, 2013, at Avery Fisher Hall. Kelli O'Hara played Julie, with Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Nettie, Jessie Mueller as Carrie, Jason Danieley as Enoch, Shuler Hensley as Jigger, John Cullum as the Starkeeper, and Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin. Tiler Peck danced the role of Louise to choreography by Warren Carlyle. The production was directed by John Rando. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, "this is as gorgeously sung a production of this sublime 1945 Broadway musical as you are ever likely to hear." It was broadcast as part of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center series, premiering on April 26, 2013. CANNOTANSWER
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in 1956,
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Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals.
Following the spectacular success of the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma! (1943), the pair sought to collaborate on another piece, knowing that any resulting work would be compared with Oklahoma!, most likely unfavorably. They were initially reluctant to seek the rights to Liliom; Molnár had refused permission for the work to be adapted in the past, and the original ending was considered too depressing for the musical theatre. After acquiring the rights, the team created a work with lengthy sequences of music and made the ending more hopeful.
The musical required considerable modification during out-of-town tryouts, but once it opened on Broadway on April 19, 1945, it was an immediate hit with both critics and audiences. Carousel initially ran for 890 performances and duplicated its success in the West End in 1950. Though it has never achieved as much commercial success as Oklahoma!, the piece has been repeatedly revived, recorded several times and was filmed in 1956. A production by Nicholas Hytner enjoyed success in 1992 in London, in 1994 in New York and on tour. Another Broadway revival opened in 2018. In 1999, Time magazine named Carousel the best musical of the 20th century.
Background
Liliom
Ferenc Molnár's Hungarian-language drama, Liliom, premiered in Budapest in 1909. The audience was puzzled by the work, and it lasted only thirty-odd performances before being withdrawn, the first shadow on Molnár's successful career as a playwright. Liliom was not presented again until after World War I. When it reappeared on the Budapest stage, it was a tremendous hit.
Except for the ending, the plots of Liliom and Carousel are very similar. Andreas Zavocky (nicknamed Liliom, the Hungarian word for "lily", a slang term for "tough guy"), a carnival barker, falls in love with Julie Zeller, a servant girl, and they begin living together. With both discharged from their jobs, Liliom is discontented and contemplates leaving Julie, but decides not to do so on learning that she is pregnant. A subplot involves Julie's friend Marie, who has fallen in love with Wolf Biefeld, a hotel porter—after the two marry, he becomes the owner of the hotel. Desperate to make money so that he, Julie and their child can escape to America and a better life, Liliom conspires with lowlife Ficsur to commit a robbery, but it goes badly, and Liliom stabs himself. He dies, and his spirit is taken to heaven's police court. As Ficsur suggested while the two waited to commit the crime, would-be robbers like them do not come before God Himself. Liliom is told by the magistrate that he may go back to Earth for one day to attempt to redeem the wrongs he has done to his family, but must first spend sixteen years in a fiery purgatory.
On his return to Earth, Liliom encounters his daughter, Louise, who like her mother is now a factory worker. Saying that he knew her father, he tries to give her a star he stole from the heavens. When Louise refuses to take it, he strikes her. Not realizing who he is, Julie confronts him, but finds herself unable to be angry with him. Liliom is ushered off to his fate, presumably Hell, and Louise asks her mother if it is possible to feel a hard slap as if it was a kiss. Julie reminiscently tells her daughter that it is very possible for that to happen.
An English translation of Liliom was credited to Benjamin "Barney" Glazer, though there is a story that the actual translator, uncredited, was Rodgers' first major partner Lorenz Hart. The Theatre Guild presented it in New York City in 1921, with Joseph Schildkraut as Liliom, and the play was a success, running 300 performances. A 1940 revival with Burgess Meredith and Ingrid Bergman was seen by both Hammerstein and Rodgers. Glazer, in introducing the English translation of Liliom, wrote of the play's appeal:
And where in modern dramatic literature can such pearls be matched—Julie incoherently confessing to her dead lover the love she had always been ashamed to tell; Liliom crying out to the distant carousel the glad news that he is to be a father; the two thieves gambling for the spoils of their prospective robbery; Marie and Wolf posing for their portrait while the broken-hearted Julie stands looking after the vanishing Liliom, the thieves' song ringing in her ears; the two policemen grousing about pay and pensions while Liliom lies bleeding to death; Liliom furtively proffering his daughter the star he has stolen for her in heaven. ... The temptation to count the whole scintillating string is difficult to resist.
Inception
In the 1920s and 1930s, Rodgers and Hammerstein both became well known for creating Broadway hits with other partners. Rodgers, with Lorenz Hart, had produced a string of over two dozen musicals, including such popular successes as Babes in Arms (1937), The Boys from Syracuse (1938) and Pal Joey (1940). Some of Rodgers' work with Hart broke new ground in musical theatre: On Your Toes was the first use of ballet to sustain the plot (in the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" scene), while Pal Joey flouted Broadway tradition by presenting a knave as its hero. Hammerstein had written or co-written the words for such hits as Rose-Marie (1924), The Desert Song (1926), The New Moon (1927) and Show Boat (1927). Though less productive in the 1930s, he wrote material for musicals and films, sharing an Oscar for his song with Jerome Kern, "The Last Time I Saw Paris", which was included in the 1941 film Lady Be Good.
By the early 1940s, Hart had sunk into alcoholism and emotional turmoil, becoming unreliable and prompting Rodgers to approach Hammerstein to ask if he would consider working with him. Hammerstein was eager to do so, and their first collaboration was Oklahoma! (1943). Thomas Hischak states, in his The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, that Oklahoma! is "the single most influential work in the American musical theatre. In fact, the history of the Broadway musical can accurately be divided into what came before Oklahoma! and what came after it." An innovation for its time in integrating song, character, plot and dance, Oklahoma! would serve, according to Hischak, as "the model for Broadway shows for decades", and proved a huge popular and financial success. Once it was well-launched, what to do as an encore was a daunting challenge for the pair. Film producer Samuel Goldwyn saw Oklahoma! and advised Rodgers to shoot himself, which according to Rodgers "was Sam's blunt but funny way of telling me that I'd never create another show as good as Oklahoma!" As they considered new projects, Hammerstein wrote, "We're such fools. No matter what we do, everyone is bound to say, 'This is not another Oklahoma! "
Oklahoma! had been a struggle to finance and produce. Hammerstein and Rodgers met weekly in 1943 with Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner of the Theatre Guild, producers of the blockbuster musical, who together formed what they termed "the Gloat Club". At one such luncheon, Helburn and Langner proposed to Rodgers and Hammerstein that they turn Molnár's Liliom into a musical. Both men refused—they had no feeling for the Budapest setting and thought that the unhappy ending was unsuitable for musical theatre. In addition, given the unstable wartime political situation, they might need to change the setting from Hungary while in rehearsal. At the next luncheon, Helburn and Langner again proposed Liliom, suggesting that they move the setting to Louisiana and make Liliom a Creole. Rodgers and Hammerstein played with the idea over the next few weeks, but decided that Creole dialect, filled with "zis" and "zose", would sound corny and would make it difficult to write effective lyrics.
A breakthrough came when Rodgers, who owned a house in Connecticut, proposed a New England setting. Hammerstein wrote of this suggestion in 1945,
I began to see an attractive ensemble—sailors, whalers, girls who worked in the mills up the river, clambakes on near-by islands, an amusement park on the seaboard, things people could do in crowds, people who were strong and alive and lusty, people who had always been depicted on the stage as thin-lipped puritans—a libel I was anxious to refute ... as for the two leading characters, Julie with her courage and inner strength and outward simplicity seemed more indigenous to Maine than to Budapest. Liliom is, of course, an international character, indigenous to nowhere.
Rodgers and Hammerstein were also concerned about what they termed "the tunnel" of Molnár's second act—a series of gloomy scenes leading up to Liliom's suicide—followed by a dark ending. They also felt it would be difficult to set Liliom's motivation for the robbery to music. Molnár's opposition to having his works adapted was also an issue; he had famously turned down Giacomo Puccini when the great composer wished to transform Liliom into an opera, stating that he wanted the piece to be remembered as his, not Puccini's. In 1937, Molnár, who had recently emigrated to the United States, had declined another offer from Kurt Weill to adapt the play into a musical.
The pair continued to work on the preliminary ideas for a Liliom adaptation while pursuing other projects in late 1943 and early 1944—writing the film musical State Fair and producing I Remember Mama on Broadway. Meanwhile, the Theatre Guild took Molnár to see Oklahoma! Molnár stated that if Rodgers and Hammerstein could adapt Liliom as beautifully as they had modified Green Grow the Lilacs into Oklahoma!, he would be pleased to have them do it. The Guild obtained the rights from Molnár in October 1943. The playwright received one percent of the gross and $2,500 for "personal services". The duo insisted, as part of the contract, that Molnár permit them to make changes in the plot. At first, the playwright refused, but eventually yielded. Hammerstein later stated that if this point had not been won, "we could never have made Carousel."
In seeking to establish through song Liliom's motivation for the robbery, Rodgers remembered that he and Hart had a similar problem in Pal Joey. Rodgers and Hart had overcome the problem with a song that Joey sings to himself, "I'm Talking to My Pal". This inspired "Soliloquy". Both partners later told a story that "Soliloquy" was only intended to be a song about Liliom's dreams of a son, but that Rodgers, who had two daughters, insisted that Liliom consider that Julie might have a girl. However, the notes taken at their meeting of December 7, 1943 state: "Mr. Rodgers suggested a fine musical number for the end of the scene where Liliom discovers he is to be a father, in which he sings first with pride of the growth of a boy, and then suddenly realizes it might be a girl and changes completely."
Hammerstein and Rodgers returned to the Liliom project in mid-1944. Hammerstein was uneasy as he worked, fearing that no matter what they did, Molnár would disapprove of the results. Green Grow the Lilacs had been a little-known work; Liliom was a theatrical standard. Molnár's text also contained considerable commentary on the Hungarian politics of 1909 and the rigidity of that society. A dismissed carnival barker who hits his wife, attempts a robbery and commits suicide seemed an unlikely central character for a musical comedy. Hammerstein decided to use the words and story to make the audience sympathize with the lovers. He also built up the secondary couple, who are incidental to the plot in Liliom; they became Enoch Snow and Carrie Pipperidge. "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" was repurposed from a song, "A Real Nice Hayride", written for Oklahoma! but not used.
Molnár's ending was unsuitable, and after a couple of false starts, Hammerstein conceived the graduation scene that ends the musical. According to Frederick Nolan in his book on the team's works: "From that scene the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" sprang almost naturally." In spite of Hammerstein's simple lyrics for "You'll Never Walk Alone", Rodgers had great difficulty in setting it to music. Rodgers explained his rationale for the changed ending,
Liliom was a tragedy about a man who cannot learn to live with other people. The way Molnár wrote it, the man ends up hitting his daughter and then having to go back to purgatory, leaving his daughter helpless and hopeless. We couldn't accept that. The way we ended Carousel it may still be a tragedy but it's a hopeful one because in the final scene it is clear that the child has at last learned how to express herself and communicate with others.
When the pair decided to make "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" into an ensemble number, Hammerstein realized he had no idea what a clambake was like, and researched the matter. Based on his initial findings, he wrote the line, "First came codfish chowder". However, further research convinced him the proper term was "codhead chowder", a term unfamiliar to many playgoers. He decided to keep it as "codfish". When the song proceeded to discuss the lobsters consumed at the feast, Hammerstein wrote the line "We slit 'em down the back/And peppered 'em good". He was grieved to hear from a friend that lobsters are always slit down the front. The lyricist sent a researcher to a seafood restaurant and heard back that lobsters are always slit down the back. Hammerstein concluded that there is disagreement about which side of a lobster is the back. One error not caught involved the song "June Is Bustin' Out All Over", in which sheep are depicted as seeking to mate in late spring—they actually do so in the winter. Whenever this was brought to Hammerstein's attention, he told his informant that 1873 was a special year, in which sheep mated in the spring.
Rodgers early decided to dispense with an overture, feeling that the music was hard to hear over the banging of seats as latecomers settled themselves. In his autobiography, Rodgers complained that only the brass section can be heard during an overture because there are never enough strings in a musical's small orchestra. He determined to force the audience to concentrate from the beginning by opening with a pantomime scene accompanied by what became known as "The Carousel Waltz". The pantomime paralleled one in the Molnár play, which was also used to introduce the characters and situation to the audience. Author Ethan Mordden described the effectiveness of this opening:
Other characters catch our notice—Mr. Bascombe, the pompous mill owner, Mrs. Mullin, the widow who runs the carousel and, apparently, Billy; a dancing bear; an acrobat. But what draws us in is the intensity with which Julie regards Billy—the way she stands frozen, staring at him, while everyone else at the fair is swaying to the rhythm of Billy's spiel. And as Julie and Billy ride together on the swirling carousel, and the stage picture surges with the excitement of the crowd, and the orchestra storms to a climax, and the curtain falls, we realize that R & H have not only skipped the overture and the opening number but the exposition as well. They have plunged into the story, right into the middle of it, in the most intense first scene any musical ever had.
Casting and out-of-town tryouts
The casting for Carousel began when Oklahoma!s production team, including Rodgers and Hammerstein, was seeking a replacement for the part of Curly (the male lead in Oklahoma!). Lawrence Langner had heard, through a relative, of a California singer named John Raitt, who might be suitable for the part. Langner went to hear Raitt, then urged the others to bring Raitt to New York for an audition. Raitt asked to sing "Largo al factotum", Figaro's aria from The Barber of Seville, to warm up. The warmup was sufficient to convince the producers that not only had they found a Curly, they had found a Liliom (or Billy Bigelow, as the part was renamed). Theresa Helburn made another California discovery, Jan Clayton, a singer/actress who had made a few minor films for MGM. She was brought east and successfully auditioned for the part of Julie.
The producers sought to cast unknowns. Though many had played in previous Hammerstein or Rodgers works, only one, Jean Casto (cast as carousel owner Mrs. Mullin, and a veteran of Pal Joey), had ever played on Broadway before. It proved harder to cast the ensemble than the leads, due to the war—Rodgers told his casting director, John Fearnley, that the sole qualification for a dancing boy was that he be alive. Rodgers and Hammerstein reassembled much of the creative team that had made Oklahoma! a success, including director Rouben Mamoulian and choreographer Agnes de Mille. Miles White was the costume designer while Jo Mielziner (who had not worked on Oklahoma!) was the scenic and lighting designer. Even though Oklahoma! orchestrator Russell Bennett had informed Rodgers that he was unavailable to work on Carousel due to a radio contract, Rodgers insisted he do the work in his spare time. He orchestrated "The Carousel Waltz" and "(When I Marry) Mister Snow" before finally being replaced by Don Walker. A new member of the creative team was Trude Rittmann, who arranged the dance music. Rittmann initially felt that Rodgers mistrusted her because she was a woman, and found him difficult to work with, but the two worked together on Rodgers' shows until the 1970s.
Rehearsals began in January 1945; either Rodgers or Hammerstein was always present. Raitt was presented with the lyrics for "Soliloquy" on a five-foot long sheet of paper—the piece ran nearly eight minutes. Staging such a long solo number presented problems, and Raitt later stated that he felt that they were never fully addressed. At some point during rehearsals, Molnár came to see what they had done to his play. There are a number of variations on the story.Fordin, pp. 231–32 As Rodgers told it, while watching rehearsals with Hammerstein, the composer spotted Molnár in the rear of the theatre and whispered the news to his partner. Both sweated through an afternoon of rehearsal in which nothing seemed to go right. At the end, the two walked to the back of the theatre, expecting an angry reaction from Molnár. Instead, the playwright said enthusiastically, "What you have done is so beautiful. And you know what I like best? The ending!" Hammerstein wrote that Molnár became a regular attendee at rehearsals after that.
Like most of the pair's works, Carousel contains a lengthy ballet, "Billy Makes a Journey", in the second act, as Billy looks down to the Earth from "Up There" and observes his daughter. In the original production the ballet was choreographed by de Mille. It began with Billy looking down from heaven at his wife in labor, with the village women gathered for a "birthing". The ballet involved every character in the play, some of whom spoke lines of dialogue, and contained a number of subplots. The focus was on Louise, played by Bambi Linn, who at first almost soars in her dance, expressing the innocence of childhood. She is teased and mocked by her schoolmates, and Louise becomes attracted to the rough carnival people, who symbolize Billy's world. A youth from the carnival attempts to seduce Louise, as she discovers her own sexuality, but he decides she is more girl than woman, and he leaves her. After Julie comforts her, Louise goes to a children's party, where she is shunned. The carnival people reappear and form a ring around the children's party, with Louise lost between the two groups. At the end, the performers form a huge carousel with their bodies.
The play opened for tryouts in New Haven, Connecticut on March 22, 1945. The first act was well-received; the second act was not. Casto recalled that the second act finished about 1:30 a.m. The staff immediately sat down for a two-hour conference. Five scenes, half the ballet, and two songs were cut from the show as the result. John Fearnley commented, "Now I see why these people have hits. I never witnessed anything so brisk and brave in my life." De Mille said of this conference, "not three minutes had been wasted pleading for something cherished. Nor was there any idle joking. ... We cut and cut and cut and then we went to bed." By the time the company left New Haven, de Mille's ballet was down to forty minutes.
A major concern with the second act was the effectiveness of the characters He and She (later called by Rodgers "Mr. and Mrs. God"), before whom Billy appeared after his death. Mr. and Mrs. God were depicted as a New England minister and his wife, seen in their parlor.Block (ed.), p. 129. At this time, according to the cast sheet distributed during the Boston run, Dr. Seldon was listed as the "Minister". The couple was still part of the show at the Boston opening. Rodgers said to Hammerstein, "We've got to get God out of that parlor". When Hammerstein inquired where he should put the deity, Rodgers replied, "I don't care where you put Him. Put Him on a ladder for all I care, only get Him out of that parlor!" Hammerstein duly put Mr. God (renamed the Starkeeper) atop a ladder, and Mrs. God was removed from the show. Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest terms this change a mistake, leading to a more fantastic afterlife, which was later criticized by The New Republic as "a Rotarian atmosphere congenial to audiences who seek not reality but escape from reality, not truth but escape from truth".
Hammerstein wrote that Molnár's advice, to combine two scenes into one, was key to pulling together the second act and represented "a more radical departure from the original than any change we had made". A reprise of "If I Loved You" was added in the second act, which Rodgers felt needed more music. Three weeks of tryouts in Boston followed the brief New Haven run, and the audience there gave the musical a warm reception. An even shorter version of the ballet was presented the final two weeks in Boston, but on the final night there, de Mille expanded it back to forty minutes, and it brought the house down, causing both Rodgers and Hammerstein to embrace her.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two young female millworkers in 1873 Maine visit the town's carousel after work. One of them, Julie Jordan, attracts the attention of the barker, Billy Bigelow ("The Carousel Waltz"). When Julie lets Billy put his arm around her during the ride, Mrs. Mullin, the widowed owner of the carousel, tells Julie never to return. Julie and her friend, Carrie Pipperidge, argue with Mrs. Mullin. Billy arrives and, seeing that Mrs. Mullin is jealous, mocks her; he is fired from his job. Billy, unconcerned, invites Julie to join him for a drink. As he goes to get his belongings, Carrie presses Julie about her feelings toward him, but Julie is evasive ("You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan"). Carrie has a beau too, fisherman Enoch Snow ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow"), to whom she is newly engaged. Billy returns for Julie as the departing Carrie warns that staying out late means the loss of Julie's job. Mr. Bascombe, owner of the mill, happens by along with a policeman, and offers to escort Julie to her home, but she refuses and is fired. Left alone, she and Billy talk about what life might be like if they were in love, but neither quite confesses to the growing attraction they feel for each other ("If I Loved You").
Over a month passes, and preparations for the summer clambake are under way ("June Is Bustin' Out All Over"). Julie and Billy, now married, live at Julie's cousin Nettie's spa. Julie confides in Carrie that Billy, frustrated over being unemployed, hit her. Carrie has happier news—she is engaged to Enoch, who enters as she discusses him ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow (reprise))". Billy arrives with his ne'er-do-well whaler friend, Jigger. The former barker is openly rude to Enoch and Julie, then leaves with Jigger, followed by a distraught Julie. Enoch tells Carrie that he expects to become rich selling herring and to have a large family, larger perhaps than Carrie is comfortable having ("When the Children Are Asleep").
Jigger and his shipmates, joined by Billy, then sing about life on the sea ("Blow High, Blow Low"). The whaler tries to recruit Billy to help with a robbery, but Billy declines, as the victim—Julie's former boss, Mr. Bascombe—might have to be killed. Mrs. Mullin enters and tries to tempt Billy back to the carousel (and to her). He would have to abandon Julie; a married barker cannot evoke the same sexual tension as one who is single. Billy reluctantly mulls it over as Julie arrives and the others leave. She tells him that she is pregnant, and Billy is overwhelmed with happiness, ending all thoughts of returning to the carousel. Once alone, Billy imagines the fun he will have with Bill Jr.—until he realizes that his child might be a girl, and reflects soberly that "you've got to be a father to a girl" ("Soliloquy"). Determined to provide financially for his future child, whatever the means, Billy decides to be Jigger's accomplice.
The whole town leaves for the clambake. Billy, who had earlier refused to go, agrees to join in, to Julie's delight, as he realizes that being seen at the clambake is integral to his and Jigger's alibi ("Act I Finale").
Act 2
Everyone reminisces about the huge meal and much fun ("This Was a Real Nice Clambake"). Jigger tries to seduce Carrie; Enoch walks in at the wrong moment, and declares that he is finished with her ("Geraniums In the Winder"), as Jigger jeers ("There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman"). The girls try to comfort Carrie, but for Julie all that matters is that "he's your feller and you love him" ("What's the Use of Wond'rin'?"). Julie sees Billy trying to sneak away with Jigger and, trying to stop him, feels the knife hidden in his shirt. She begs him to give it to her, but he refuses and leaves to commit the robbery.
As they wait, Jigger and Billy gamble with cards. They stake their shares of the anticipated robbery spoils. Billy loses: his participation is now pointless. Unknown to Billy and Jigger, Mr. Bascombe, the intended victim, has already deposited the mill's money. The robbery fails: Bascombe pulls a gun on Billy while Jigger escapes. Billy stabs himself with his knife; Julie arrives just in time for him to say his last words to her and die. Julie strokes his hair, finally able to tell him that she loved him. Carrie and Enoch, reunited by the crisis, attempt to console Julie; Nettie arrives and gives Julie the resolve to keep going despite her despair ("You'll Never Walk Alone").
Billy's defiant spirit ("The Highest Judge of All") is taken Up There to see the Starkeeper, a heavenly official. The Starkeeper tells Billy that the good he did in life was not enough to get into heaven, but so long as there is a person alive who remembers him, he can return for a day to try to do good to redeem himself. He informs Billy that fifteen years have passed on Earth since his suicide, and suggests that Billy can get himself into heaven if he helps his daughter, Louise. He helps Billy look down from heaven to see her (instrumental ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey"). Louise has grown up to be lonely and bitter. The local children ostracize her because her father was a thief and a wife-beater. In the dance, a young ruffian, much like her father at that age, flirts with her and abandons her as too young. The dance concludes, and Billy is anxious to return to Earth and help his daughter. He steals a star to take with him, as the Starkeeper pretends not to notice.
Outside Julie's cottage, Carrie describes her visit to New York with the now-wealthy Enoch. Carrie's husband and their many children enter to fetch her—the family must get ready for the high school graduation later that day. Enoch Jr., the oldest son, remains behind to talk with Louise, as Billy and the Heavenly Friend escorting him enter, invisible to the other characters. Louise confides in Enoch Jr. that she plans to run away from home with an acting troupe. He says that he will stop her by marrying her, but that his father will think her an unsuitable match. Louise is outraged: each insults the other's father, and Louise orders Enoch Jr. to go away. Billy, able to make himself visible at will, reveals himself to the sobbing Louise, pretending to be a friend of her father. He offers her a gift—the star he stole from heaven. She refuses it and, frustrated, he slaps her hand. He makes himself invisible, and Louise tells Julie what happened, stating that the slap miraculously felt like a kiss, not a blow—and Julie understands her perfectly. Louise retreats to the house, as Julie notices the star that Billy dropped; she picks it up and seems to feel Billy's presence ("If I Loved You (Reprise)").
Billy invisibly attends Louise's graduation, hoping for one last chance to help his daughter and redeem himself. The beloved town physician, Dr. Seldon (who resembles the Starkeeper) advises the graduating class not to rely on their parents' success or be held back by their failure (words directed at Louise). Seldon prompts everyone to sing an old song, "You'll Never Walk Alone". Billy, still invisible, whispers to Louise, telling her to believe Seldon's words, and when she tentatively reaches out to another girl, she learns she does not have to be an outcast. Billy goes to Julie, telling her at last that he loved her. As his widow and daughter join in the singing, Billy is taken to his heavenly reward.
Principal roles and notable performers
° denotes original Broadway cast
Musical numbers Act I"List of Songs", Carousel at the IBDB Database. Retrieved July 18, 2012
"The Carousel Waltz" – Orchestra
"You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan" – Carrie Pipperidge and Julie Jordan
"(When I Marry) Mister Snow" – Carrie
"If I Loved You" – Billy Bigelow and Julie
"June Is Bustin' Out All Over" – Nettie Fowler and Chorus
"(When I Marry) Mister Snow" (reprise) – Carrie, Enoch Snow and Female Chorus
"When the Children Are Asleep" – Enoch and Carrie
"Blow High, Blow Low" – Jigger Craigin, Billy and Male Chorus
"Soliloquy" – BillyAct II "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" – Carrie, Nettie, Julie, Enoch and Chorus
"Geraniums in the Winder" – Enoch *
"There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" – Jigger and Chorus
"What's the Use of Wond'rin'?" – Julie
"You'll Never Walk Alone" – Nettie
"The Highest Judge of All" – Billy
Ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey" – Orchestra
"If I Loved You" (reprise) – Billy
Finale: "You'll Never Walk Alone" (reprise) – Company
Productions
Early productions
The original Broadway production opened at the Majestic Theatre on April 19, 1945. The dress rehearsal the day before had gone badly, and the pair feared the new work would not be well received. One successful last-minute change was to have de Mille choreograph the pantomime. The movement of the carnival crowd in the pantomime had been entrusted to Mamoulian, and his version was not working. Rodgers had injured his back the previous week, and he watched the opening from a stretcher propped in a box behind the curtain. Sedated with morphine, he could see only part of the stage. As he could not hear the audience's applause and laughter, he assumed the show was a failure. It was not until friends congratulated him later that evening that he realized that the curtain had been met by wild applause. Bambi Linn, who played Louise, was so enthusiastically received by the audience during her ballet that she was forced to break character, when she next appeared, and bow. Rodgers' daughter Mary caught sight of her friend, Stephen Sondheim, both teenagers then, across several rows; both had eyes wet with tears.
The original production ran for 890 performances, closing on May 24, 1947. The original cast included John Raitt (Billy), Jan Clayton (Julie), Jean Darling (Carrie), Eric Mattson (Enoch Snow), Christine Johnson (Nettie Fowler), Murvyn Vye (Jigger), Bambi Linn (Louise) and Russell Collins (Starkeeper). In December 1945, Clayton left to star in the Broadway revival of Show Boat and was replaced by Iva Withers; Raitt was replaced by Henry Michel in January 1947; Darling was replaced by Margot Moser.Hischak, p. 62
After closing on Broadway, the show went on a national tour for two years. It played for five months in Chicago alone, visited twenty states and two Canadian cities, covered and played to nearly two million people. The touring company had a four-week run at New York City Center in January 1949. Following the City Center run, the show was moved back to the Majestic Theatre in the hopes of filling the theatre until South Pacific opened in early April. However, ticket sales were mediocre, and the show closed almost a month early.
The musical premiered in the West End, London, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on June 7, 1950. The production was restaged by Jerome Whyte, with a cast that included Stephen Douglass (Billy), Iva Withers (Julie) and Margot Moser (Carrie). Carousel ran in London for 566 performances, remaining there for over a year and a half.
Subsequent productions
Carousel was revived in 1954 and 1957 at City Center, presented by the New York City Center Light Opera Company. Both times, the production featured Barbara Cook, though she played Carrie in 1954 and Julie in 1957 (playing alongside Howard Keel as Billy). The production was then taken to Belgium to be performed at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, with David Atkinson as Billy, Ruth Kobart as Nettie, and Clayton reprising the role of Julie, which she had originated.
In August 1965, Rodgers and the Music Theater of Lincoln Center produced Carousel for 47 performances. John Raitt reprised the role of Billy, with Jerry Orbach as Jigger and Reid Shelton as Enoch Snow. The roles of the Starkeeper and Dr. Seldon were played by Edward Everett Horton in his final stage appearance. The following year, New York City Center Light Opera Company brought Carousel back to City Center for 22 performances, with Bruce Yarnell as Billy and Constance Towers as Julie.
Nicholas Hytner directed a new production of Carousel in 1992, at London's Royal National Theatre, with choreography by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and designs by Bob Crowley. In this staging, the story begins at the mill, where Julie and Carrie work, with the music slowed down to emphasize the drudgery. After work ends, they move to the shipyards and then to the carnival. As they proceed on a revolving stage, carnival characters appear, and at last the carousel is assembled onstage for the girls to ride.Block, p. 175 Louise is seduced by the ruffian boy during her Act 2 ballet, set around the ruins of a carousel. Michael Hayden played Billy not as a large, gruff man, but as a frustrated smaller one, a time bomb waiting to explode. Hayden, Joanna Riding (Julie) and Janie Dee (Carrie) all won Olivier Awards for their performances. Patricia Routledge played Nettie. Enoch and Carrie were cast as an interracial couple whose eight children, according to the review in The New York Times, looked like "a walking United Colors of Benetton ad". Clive Rowe, as Enoch, was nominated for an Olivier Award. The production's limited run from December 1992 through March 1993 was a sellout. It re-opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London in September 1993, presented by Cameron Mackintosh, where it continued until May 1994.
The Hytner production moved to New York's Vivian Beaumont Theater, where it opened on March 24, 1994, and ran for 322 performances. This won five Tony Awards, including best musical revival, as well as awards for Hytner, MacMillan, Crowley and Audra McDonald (as Carrie). The cast also included Sally Murphy as Julie, Shirley Verrett as Nettie, Fisher Stevens as Jigger and Eddie Korbich as Enoch. One change made from the London to the New York production was to have Billy strike Louise across the face, rather than on the hand. According to Hayden, "He does the one unpardonable thing, the thing we can't forgive. It's a challenge for the audience to like him after that." The Hytner Carousel was presented in Japan in May 1995. A U.S. national tour with a scaled-down production began in February 1996 in Houston and closed in May 1997 in Providence, Rhode Island. Producers sought to feature young talent on the tour, with Patrick Wilson as Billy and Sarah Uriarte Berry, and later Jennifer Laura Thompson, as Julie.
A revival opened at London's Savoy Theatre on December 2, 2008, after a week of previews, starring Jeremiah James (Billy), Alexandra Silber (Julie) and Lesley Garrett (Nettie). The production received warm to mixed reviews. It closed in June 2009, a month early. Michael Coveney, writing in The Independent, admired Rodgers' music but stated, "Lindsay Posner's efficient revival doesn't hold a candle to the National Theatre 1992 version". A production at Theater Basel, Switzerland, in 2016 to 2017, with German dialogue, was directed by Alexander Charim and choreographed by Teresa Rotemberg. Bryony Dwyer, Christian Miedl and Cheryl Studer starred, respectively, as Julie Jordan, Billy Bigelow and Nettie Fowler.<ref>[http://operabase.com/diary.cgi?lang=en&code=wsba&date=20161215 "Richard Rodgers: Carousel"] , Diary: Theater Basel, Operabase.com. Retrieved on March 8, 2018</ref> A semi-staged revival by the English National Opera opened at the London Coliseum in 2017. The production was directed by Lonny Price, conducted by David Charles Abell, and starred Alfie Boe as Billy, Katherine Jenkins as Julie and Nicholas Lyndhurst as the Starkeeper. The production received mixed to positive reviews.
The third Broadway revival began previews in February 2018 at the Imperial Theatre and officially opened on April 12. It closed on September 16, 2018. The production starred Jessie Mueller, Joshua Henry, Renée Fleming, Lindsay Mendez and Alexander Gemignani. The production was directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Justin Peck. The songs "Geraniums in the Winder" and "There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" were cut from this revival. Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, "The tragic inevitability of Carousel has seldom come across as warmly or as chillingly as it does in this vividly reimagined revival. ... [W]ith thoughtful and powerful performances by Mr. Henry and Ms. Mueller, the love story at the show's center has never seemed quite as ill-starred or, at the same time, as sexy. ... [T]he Starkeeper ... assumes new visibility throughout, taking on the role of Billy's angelic supervisor." Brantley strongly praised the choreography, all the performances and the designers. He was unconvinced, however, by the "mother-daughter dialogue that falls so abrasively on contemporary ears", where Julie tries to justify loving an abusive man, and other scenes in Act 2, particularly those set in heaven, and the optimism of the final scene. Most of the reviewers agreed that while the choreography and performances (especially the singing) were excellent, characterizing the production as sexy and sumptuous, O'Brien's direction did little to help the show deal with modern sensibilities about men's treatment of women, instead indulging in nostalgia.
From July to September 2021 the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London is presenting a staging by its artistic director Timothy Sheader, with choreography by Drew McOnie. The cast includes Carly Bawden as Julie, Declan Bennett as Billy and Joanna Riding as Nettie.
Film, television and concert versions
[[File:Boothbay Harbor in Summer.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where the location shots for Carousels movie version were filmed]]
A film version of the musical was made in 1956, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It follows the musical's story fairly closely, although a prologue, set in the Starkeeper's heaven, was added. The film was released only a few months after the release of the film version of Oklahoma! It garnered some good reviews, and the soundtrack recording was a best seller. As the same stars appeared in both pictures, however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel. Thomas Hischak, in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical".
There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version that starred Robert Goulet, with choreography by Edward Villella.
The New York Philharmonic presented a staged concert version of the musical from February 28 to March 2, 2013, at Avery Fisher Hall. Kelli O'Hara played Julie, with Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Nettie, Jessie Mueller as Carrie, Jason Danieley as Enoch, Shuler Hensley as Jigger, John Cullum as the Starkeeper, and Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin. Tiler Peck danced the role of Louise to choreography by Warren Carlyle. The production was directed by John Rando and conducted by Rob Fisher. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, "this is as gorgeously sung a production of this sublime 1945 Broadway musical as you are ever likely to hear." It was broadcast as part of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center series, premiering on April 26, 2013.
Music and recordings
Musical treatment
Rodgers designed Carousel to be an almost continuous stream of music, especially in Act 1. In later years, Rodgers was asked if he had considered writing an opera. He stated that he had been sorely tempted to, but saw Carousel in operatic terms. He remembered, "We came very close to opera in the Majestic Theatre. ... There's much that is operatic in the music."
Rodgers uses music in Carousel in subtle ways to differentiate characters and tell the audience of their emotional state. In "You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan", the music for the placid Carrie is characterized by even eighth-note rhythms, whereas the emotionally restless Julie's music is marked by dotted eighths and sixteenths; this rhythm will characterize her throughout the show. When Billy whistles a snatch of the song, he selects Julie's dotted notes rather than Carrie's. Reflecting the close association in the music between Julie and the as-yet unborn Louise, when Billy sings in "Soliloquy" of his daughter, who "gets hungry every night", he uses Julie's dotted rhythms. Such rhythms also characterize Julie's Act 2 song, "What's the Use of Wond'rin'". The stable love between Enoch and Carrie is strengthened by her willingness to let Enoch not only plan his entire life, but hers as well. This is reflected in "When the Children Are Asleep", where the two sing in close harmony, but Enoch musically interrupts his intended's turn at the chorus with the words "Dreams that won't be interrupted". Rodgers biographer Geoffrey Block, in his book on the Broadway musical, points out that though Billy may strike his wife, he allows her musical themes to become a part of him and never interrupts her music. Block suggests that, as reprehensible as Billy may be for his actions, Enoch requiring Carrie to act as "the little woman", and his having nine children with her (more than she had found acceptable in "When the Children are Asleep") can be considered to be even more abusive.
The twelve-minute "bench scene", in which Billy and Julie get to know each other and which culminates with "If I Loved You", according to Hischak, "is considered the most completely integrated piece of music-drama in the American musical theatre". The scene is almost entirely drawn from Molnár and is one extended musical piece; Stephen Sondheim described it as "probably the single most important moment in the revolution of contemporary musicals". "If I Loved You" has been recorded many times, by such diverse artists as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr., Mario Lanza and Chad and Jeremy. The D-flat major theme that dominates the music for the second act ballet seems like a new melody to many audience members. It is, however, a greatly expanded development of a theme heard during "Soliloquy" at the line "I guess he'll call me 'The old man' ".
When the pair discussed the song that would become "Soliloquy", Rodgers improvised at the piano to give Hammerstein an idea of how he envisioned the song. When Hammerstein presented his collaborator with the lyrics after two weeks of work (Hammerstein always wrote the words first, then Rodgers would write the melodies), Rodgers wrote the music for the eight-minute song in two hours. "What's the Use of Wond'rin' ", one of Julie's songs, worked well in the show but was never as popular on the radio or for recording, and Hammerstein believed that the lack of popularity was because he had concluded the final line, "And all the rest is talk" with a hard consonant, which does not allow the singer a vocal climax.
Irving Berlin later stated that "You'll Never Walk Alone" had the same sort of effect on him as the 23rd Psalm. When singer Mel Tormé told Rodgers that "You'll Never Walk Alone" had made him cry, Rodgers nodded impatiently. "You're supposed to." The frequently recorded song has become a widely accepted hymn.Rodgers, p. 240 The cast recording of Carousel proved popular in Liverpool, like many Broadway albums, and in 1963, the Brian Epstein-managed band, Gerry and the Pacemakers had a number-one hit with the song. At the time, the top ten hits were played before Liverpool F.C. home matches; even after "You'll Never Walk Alone" dropped out of the top ten, fans continued to sing it, and it has become closely associated with the soccer team and the city of Liverpool. A BBC program, Soul Music, ranked it alongside "Silent Night" and "Abide With Me" in terms of its emotional impact and iconic status.
Recordings
The cast album of the 1945 Broadway production was issued on 78s, and the score was significantly cut—as was the 1950 London cast recording. Theatre historian John Kenrick notes of the 1945 recording that a number of songs had to be abridged to fit the 78 format, but that there is a small part of "Soliloquy" found on no other recording, as Rodgers cut it from the score immediately after the studio recording was made.Fick, David. "The Best Carousel Recording", June 11, 2009. Retrieved on April 7, 2016
A number of songs were cut for the 1956 film, but two of the deleted numbers had been recorded and were ultimately retained on the soundtrack album. The expanded CD version of the soundtrack, issued in 2001, contains all of the singing recorded for the film, including the cut portions, and nearly all of the dance music. The recording of the 1965 Lincoln Center revival featured Raitt reprising the role of Billy. Studio recordings of Carousels songs were released in 1956 (with Robert Merrill as Billy, Patrice Munsel as Julie, and Florence Henderson as Carrie), 1962 and 1987. The 1987 version featured a mix of opera and musical stars, including Samuel Ramey, Barbara Cook and Sarah Brightman. Kenrick recommends the 1962 studio recording for its outstanding cast, including Alfred Drake, Roberta Peters, Claramae Turner, Lee Venora, and Norman Treigle.
Both the London (1993) and New York (1994) cast albums of the Hytner production contain portions of dialogue that, according to Hischak, speak to the power of Michael Hayden's portrayal of Billy. Kenrick judges the 1994 recording the best all-around performance of Carousel on disc, despite uneven singing by Hayden, due to Sally Murphy's Julie and the strong supporting cast (calling Audra McDonald the best Carrie he has heard). The Stratford Festival issued a recording in 2015.
Critical reception and legacy
The musical received almost unanimous rave reviews after its opening in 1945. According to Hischak, reviews were not as exuberant as for Oklahoma! as the critics were not taken by surprise this time. John Chapman of the Daily News termed it "one of the finest musical plays I have ever seen and I shall remember it always". The New York Times's reviewer, Lewis Nichols, stated that "Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein 2d, who can do no wrong, have continued doing no wrong in adapting Liliom into a musical play. Their Carousel is on the whole delightful." Wilella Waldorf of the New York Post, however, complained, "Carousel seemed to us a rather long evening. The Oklahoma! formula is becoming a bit monotonous and so are Miss de Mille's ballets. All right, go ahead and shoot!"Suskin, Steven. Opening Night on Broadway. Schirmer Trade Books, 1990, p. 147. . Dance Magazine gave Linn plaudits for her role as Louise, stating, "Bambi doesn't come on until twenty minutes before eleven, and for the next forty minutes, she practically holds the audience in her hand". Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune also applauded the dancing: "It has waited for Miss de Mille to come through with peculiarly American dance patterns for a musical show to become as much a dance as a song show."
When the musical returned to New York in 1949, The New York Times reviewer Brooks Atkinson described Carousel as "a conspicuously superior musical play ... Carousel, which was warmly appreciated when it opened, seems like nothing less than a masterpiece now." In 1954, when Carousel was revived at City Center, Atkinson discussed the musical in his review:
Carousel has no comment to make on anything of topical importance. The theme is timeless and universal: the devotion of two people who love each other through thick and thin, complicated in this case by the wayward personality of the man, who cannot fulfill the responsibilities he has assumed. ... Billy is a bum, but Carousel recognizes the decency of his motives and admires his independence. There are no slick solutions in Carousel.
Stephen Sondheim noted the duo's ability to take the innovations of Oklahoma! and apply them to a serious setting: "Oklahoma! is about a picnic, Carousel is about life and death." Critic Eric Bentley, on the other hand, wrote that "the last scene of Carousel is an impertinence: I refuse to be lectured to by a musical comedy scriptwriter on the education of children, the nature of the good life, and the contribution of the American small town to the salvation of souls."New York Times critic Frank Rich said of the 1992 London production: "What is remarkable about Mr. Hytner's direction, aside from its unorthodox faith in the virtues of simplicity and stillness, is its ability to make a 1992 audience believe in Hammerstein's vision of redemption, which has it that a dead sinner can return to Earth to do godly good." The Hytner production in New York was hailed by many critics as a grittier Carousel, which they deemed more appropriate for the 1990s. Clive Barnes of the New York Post called it a "defining Carousel—hard-nosed, imaginative, and exciting."
Critic Michael Billington has commented that "lyrically [Carousel] comes perilously close to acceptance of the inevitability of domestic violence." BroadwayWorld.com stated in 2013 that Carousel is now "considered somewhat controversial in terms of its attitudes on domestic violence" because Julie chooses to stay with Billy despite the abuse; actress Kelli O'Hara noted that the domestic violence that Julie "chooses to deal with – is a real, existing and very complicated thing. And exploring it is an important part of healing it."
Rodgers considered Carousel his favorite of all his musicals and wrote, "it affects me deeply every time I see it performed". In 1999, Time magazine, in its "Best of the Century" list, named Carousel the Best Musical of the 20th century, writing that Rodgers and Hammerstein "set the standards for the 20th century musical, and this show features their most beautiful score and the most skillful and affecting example of their musical storytelling". Hammerstein's grandson, Oscar Andrew Hammerstein, in his book about his family, suggested that the wartime situation made Carousel's ending especially poignant to its original viewers, "Every American grieved the loss of a brother, son, father, or friend ... the audience empathized with [Billy's] all-too-human efforts to offer advice, to seek forgiveness, to complete an unfinished life, and to bid a proper good-bye from beyond the grave." Author and composer Ethan Mordden agreed with that perspective:
If Oklahoma! developed the moral argument for sending American boys overseas, Carousel offered consolation to those wives and mothers whose boys would only return in spirit. The meaning lay not in the tragedy of the present, but in the hope for a future where no one walks alone.
Awards and nominations
Original 1945 Broadway productionNote: The Tony Awards were not established until 1947, and so Carousel was not eligible to win any Tonys at its premiere.
1957 revival
1992 London revival
1994 Broadway revival
2018 Broadway revival
References
Bibliography
Block, Geoffrey. Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from Show Boat to Sondheim. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2004. .
Block, Geoffrey (ed.) The Richard Rodgers Reader. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2006. .
Bradley, Ian. You've Got to Have a Dream: The Message of the Broadway Musical. Louisville, Ky., Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. 978-0-664-22854-5.
Easton, Carol. No Intermission: The Life of Agnes DeMille. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 2000 (1st DaCapo Press edition). .
Fordin, Hugh. Getting to Know Him: A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 1995 reprint of 1986 edition. .
Hammerstein, Oscar Andrew. The Hammersteins: A Musical Theatre Family. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2010. .
Hischak, Thomas S. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. .
Hyland, William G. Richard Rodgers. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. .
Molnár, Ferenc. Liliom: A Legend in Seven Scenes and a Prologue. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921.
Mordden, Ethan. "Rodgers & Hammerstein". New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992. .
Nolan, Frederick. The Sound of Their Music: The Story of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2002. .
Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages: An Autobiography. Jefferson, N.C. Da Capo Press, 2002 reprint of 1975 edition. .
Secrest, Meryle. Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2001. .
External links
Carousel at guidetomusicaltheatre.com
Carousel info page on StageAgent.com – Carousel plot summary and character descriptions
(1967 TV adaptation)
1945 musicals
Broadway musicals
Musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein
West End musicals
Musicals based on plays
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Maine in fiction
Fiction set in 1873
Fiction about the afterlife
Plays set in Maine
Plays set in the 19th century
Tony Award-winning musicals
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[
"Love in Syncopation is a 1946 musical comedy film released in the United States. The film featured Henri Woode and his band as well as Ruby Dee. Leonard Anderson directed and William D. Alexander produced. The film features dance and musical performances including by the Congaroos.\n\nThe cast included Harrel Tillman who went on to become a reverend, lawyer, and judge in Houston, Texas. He is credited as the state's first African American judge.\n\nThe Pittsburgh Courier did an extensive write up of the film when it was released. The Courier praised the film as fast moving, full of musical variety, and lauded it for progressing African American cinema.\n\nCast\nHenri Woode and His Band\nRuby Dee\nMaxine Johnson\nHarrel Tillman\nPowell Lindsay\nJune Eckstine (wife of Billy Eckstine)\nTaps and Wilda\nRonell and Edna\n\nReferences\n\nMusical comedy films\n1940s musical comedy films",
"Zareen Panna, also known as Panna or Zarrin (Urdu; زرین; born 1947) is a Pakistani actress and former classical dancer. She acted in both Urdu and Punjabi films.\n\nEarly life\nZareen was born on 1947 in Shimla, India. She along with her family migrated to Pakistan in Karachi. Zareen was interested in arts and dancing from a young age. Comdeian Sultan Khoosat father of actor Irfan Khoosat was a friend of her family, he introduced her to Ghulam Hussain (Patiala Gharana) and stad Shado Maharaj (Dehli Gharana). They trained her in classical dancing and later Sabiha Khanum sister of Farida Khanum helped her in dancing and at that time she was taught by Rafi Anwar, Siddique Samrat and Madam Azuri. \n\nShe attended a school to become a doctor to help her family her mother supported her decision to become a doctor because she wanted her to become an doctor but she also took dancing classes as she loved dancing and decided to become an dancer. Later Zareen attended Islamia Girs College in Karachi from there she completed her studies.\n\nZareen's father Nawab Khalil was an adviser in the court of Maharaja of Patiala and her mother was a housewife.\n\nCareer\nZareen started as an child actress. She first did advertisements for leading brands of that time. After she learned Bharatanatyam, Khattak and Katha Kali dancing. She achieving national and international recognition at a very young age and in 1958 she was awarded Sitara-i-Imtiaz by the President of Pakistan Ayub Khan. In 1960 she made her debut as an actress in 1960 in film Gharib and had a successful career, she worked in multiple films Insaan Badalta Hai, Lakhon Fasanay, Sukh Ka Sapna, Insaan Badalta Hai and Taj Aur Talwar. She also performed in front of Pakistan President Iskander Mirza, he appreciated her and she also did live performances in front of former prime ministers Feroz Khan Noon and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. In 1959, she also did a performance for President of United States Dwight D. Eisenhower during his visit to Pakistan at The Palace Hotel.\n\nIn 1961, she also did a classical performance for Queen Elizabeth II when she visited Pakistan with her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.\n\nShe was invited by former prime minister Feroz Khan Noon to perform in front of King of Afghanistan Mohammed Zahir Shah. When president Sukarno visited Pakistan in 1963, she performed a live dance show for him. \n\nShe also went to China, she performed in the Palace of Mao Zedong and she went to Russia participated in a cultural festival at Moscow.\n\nIn 2018 she a did a live dance performance for prince Aga Khan IV when he visited Pakistan. For her contributions towards the television and film industry, she was honored by the Government of Pakistan with the Pride of Performance in 2018.\n\nPersonal life\nIn 1960s Zareen married actor and director S. Suleman brother of actors Santosh Kumar, Mansoor and Darpan. She was a close relative of actresses Sabiha Khanum, Farida Khanum and Nayyar Sultana. She has three children one daughter and two sons. After 25 years she and S. Suleman separated but they did not divorced and she took the custody of her children.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nAwards and recognition\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1947 births\nLiving people\n20th-century Pakistani actresses\nPakistani film actresses\n21st-century Pakistani actresses\nPakistani television actresses\nRecipients of the Pride of Performance"
] |
[
"Carousel (musical)",
"Film, television and concert versions",
"when did it become a film?",
"in 1956,"
] |
C_0e5314f854634d5b99e441aa87fea861_1
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how was the film received?
| 2 |
How was the film version of Carousel received in 1956?
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Carousel (musical)
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A film version of the musical was made in 1956, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It follows the musical's story fairly closely, although a prologue, set in the Starkeeper's heaven, was added. The film was released only a few months after the release of the film version of Oklahoma!. It garnered some good reviews, and the soundtrack recording was a best seller. As the same stars appeared in both pictures, however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel. Thomas Hischak, in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical". There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version that starred Robert Goulet, with choreography by Edward Villella. The New York Philharmonic presented a staged concert version of the musical from February 28 to March 2, 2013, at Avery Fisher Hall. Kelli O'Hara played Julie, with Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Nettie, Jessie Mueller as Carrie, Jason Danieley as Enoch, Shuler Hensley as Jigger, John Cullum as the Starkeeper, and Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin. Tiler Peck danced the role of Louise to choreography by Warren Carlyle. The production was directed by John Rando. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, "this is as gorgeously sung a production of this sublime 1945 Broadway musical as you are ever likely to hear." It was broadcast as part of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center series, premiering on April 26, 2013. CANNOTANSWER
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It garnered some good reviews,
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Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals.
Following the spectacular success of the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma! (1943), the pair sought to collaborate on another piece, knowing that any resulting work would be compared with Oklahoma!, most likely unfavorably. They were initially reluctant to seek the rights to Liliom; Molnár had refused permission for the work to be adapted in the past, and the original ending was considered too depressing for the musical theatre. After acquiring the rights, the team created a work with lengthy sequences of music and made the ending more hopeful.
The musical required considerable modification during out-of-town tryouts, but once it opened on Broadway on April 19, 1945, it was an immediate hit with both critics and audiences. Carousel initially ran for 890 performances and duplicated its success in the West End in 1950. Though it has never achieved as much commercial success as Oklahoma!, the piece has been repeatedly revived, recorded several times and was filmed in 1956. A production by Nicholas Hytner enjoyed success in 1992 in London, in 1994 in New York and on tour. Another Broadway revival opened in 2018. In 1999, Time magazine named Carousel the best musical of the 20th century.
Background
Liliom
Ferenc Molnár's Hungarian-language drama, Liliom, premiered in Budapest in 1909. The audience was puzzled by the work, and it lasted only thirty-odd performances before being withdrawn, the first shadow on Molnár's successful career as a playwright. Liliom was not presented again until after World War I. When it reappeared on the Budapest stage, it was a tremendous hit.
Except for the ending, the plots of Liliom and Carousel are very similar. Andreas Zavocky (nicknamed Liliom, the Hungarian word for "lily", a slang term for "tough guy"), a carnival barker, falls in love with Julie Zeller, a servant girl, and they begin living together. With both discharged from their jobs, Liliom is discontented and contemplates leaving Julie, but decides not to do so on learning that she is pregnant. A subplot involves Julie's friend Marie, who has fallen in love with Wolf Biefeld, a hotel porter—after the two marry, he becomes the owner of the hotel. Desperate to make money so that he, Julie and their child can escape to America and a better life, Liliom conspires with lowlife Ficsur to commit a robbery, but it goes badly, and Liliom stabs himself. He dies, and his spirit is taken to heaven's police court. As Ficsur suggested while the two waited to commit the crime, would-be robbers like them do not come before God Himself. Liliom is told by the magistrate that he may go back to Earth for one day to attempt to redeem the wrongs he has done to his family, but must first spend sixteen years in a fiery purgatory.
On his return to Earth, Liliom encounters his daughter, Louise, who like her mother is now a factory worker. Saying that he knew her father, he tries to give her a star he stole from the heavens. When Louise refuses to take it, he strikes her. Not realizing who he is, Julie confronts him, but finds herself unable to be angry with him. Liliom is ushered off to his fate, presumably Hell, and Louise asks her mother if it is possible to feel a hard slap as if it was a kiss. Julie reminiscently tells her daughter that it is very possible for that to happen.
An English translation of Liliom was credited to Benjamin "Barney" Glazer, though there is a story that the actual translator, uncredited, was Rodgers' first major partner Lorenz Hart. The Theatre Guild presented it in New York City in 1921, with Joseph Schildkraut as Liliom, and the play was a success, running 300 performances. A 1940 revival with Burgess Meredith and Ingrid Bergman was seen by both Hammerstein and Rodgers. Glazer, in introducing the English translation of Liliom, wrote of the play's appeal:
And where in modern dramatic literature can such pearls be matched—Julie incoherently confessing to her dead lover the love she had always been ashamed to tell; Liliom crying out to the distant carousel the glad news that he is to be a father; the two thieves gambling for the spoils of their prospective robbery; Marie and Wolf posing for their portrait while the broken-hearted Julie stands looking after the vanishing Liliom, the thieves' song ringing in her ears; the two policemen grousing about pay and pensions while Liliom lies bleeding to death; Liliom furtively proffering his daughter the star he has stolen for her in heaven. ... The temptation to count the whole scintillating string is difficult to resist.
Inception
In the 1920s and 1930s, Rodgers and Hammerstein both became well known for creating Broadway hits with other partners. Rodgers, with Lorenz Hart, had produced a string of over two dozen musicals, including such popular successes as Babes in Arms (1937), The Boys from Syracuse (1938) and Pal Joey (1940). Some of Rodgers' work with Hart broke new ground in musical theatre: On Your Toes was the first use of ballet to sustain the plot (in the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" scene), while Pal Joey flouted Broadway tradition by presenting a knave as its hero. Hammerstein had written or co-written the words for such hits as Rose-Marie (1924), The Desert Song (1926), The New Moon (1927) and Show Boat (1927). Though less productive in the 1930s, he wrote material for musicals and films, sharing an Oscar for his song with Jerome Kern, "The Last Time I Saw Paris", which was included in the 1941 film Lady Be Good.
By the early 1940s, Hart had sunk into alcoholism and emotional turmoil, becoming unreliable and prompting Rodgers to approach Hammerstein to ask if he would consider working with him. Hammerstein was eager to do so, and their first collaboration was Oklahoma! (1943). Thomas Hischak states, in his The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, that Oklahoma! is "the single most influential work in the American musical theatre. In fact, the history of the Broadway musical can accurately be divided into what came before Oklahoma! and what came after it." An innovation for its time in integrating song, character, plot and dance, Oklahoma! would serve, according to Hischak, as "the model for Broadway shows for decades", and proved a huge popular and financial success. Once it was well-launched, what to do as an encore was a daunting challenge for the pair. Film producer Samuel Goldwyn saw Oklahoma! and advised Rodgers to shoot himself, which according to Rodgers "was Sam's blunt but funny way of telling me that I'd never create another show as good as Oklahoma!" As they considered new projects, Hammerstein wrote, "We're such fools. No matter what we do, everyone is bound to say, 'This is not another Oklahoma! "
Oklahoma! had been a struggle to finance and produce. Hammerstein and Rodgers met weekly in 1943 with Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner of the Theatre Guild, producers of the blockbuster musical, who together formed what they termed "the Gloat Club". At one such luncheon, Helburn and Langner proposed to Rodgers and Hammerstein that they turn Molnár's Liliom into a musical. Both men refused—they had no feeling for the Budapest setting and thought that the unhappy ending was unsuitable for musical theatre. In addition, given the unstable wartime political situation, they might need to change the setting from Hungary while in rehearsal. At the next luncheon, Helburn and Langner again proposed Liliom, suggesting that they move the setting to Louisiana and make Liliom a Creole. Rodgers and Hammerstein played with the idea over the next few weeks, but decided that Creole dialect, filled with "zis" and "zose", would sound corny and would make it difficult to write effective lyrics.
A breakthrough came when Rodgers, who owned a house in Connecticut, proposed a New England setting. Hammerstein wrote of this suggestion in 1945,
I began to see an attractive ensemble—sailors, whalers, girls who worked in the mills up the river, clambakes on near-by islands, an amusement park on the seaboard, things people could do in crowds, people who were strong and alive and lusty, people who had always been depicted on the stage as thin-lipped puritans—a libel I was anxious to refute ... as for the two leading characters, Julie with her courage and inner strength and outward simplicity seemed more indigenous to Maine than to Budapest. Liliom is, of course, an international character, indigenous to nowhere.
Rodgers and Hammerstein were also concerned about what they termed "the tunnel" of Molnár's second act—a series of gloomy scenes leading up to Liliom's suicide—followed by a dark ending. They also felt it would be difficult to set Liliom's motivation for the robbery to music. Molnár's opposition to having his works adapted was also an issue; he had famously turned down Giacomo Puccini when the great composer wished to transform Liliom into an opera, stating that he wanted the piece to be remembered as his, not Puccini's. In 1937, Molnár, who had recently emigrated to the United States, had declined another offer from Kurt Weill to adapt the play into a musical.
The pair continued to work on the preliminary ideas for a Liliom adaptation while pursuing other projects in late 1943 and early 1944—writing the film musical State Fair and producing I Remember Mama on Broadway. Meanwhile, the Theatre Guild took Molnár to see Oklahoma! Molnár stated that if Rodgers and Hammerstein could adapt Liliom as beautifully as they had modified Green Grow the Lilacs into Oklahoma!, he would be pleased to have them do it. The Guild obtained the rights from Molnár in October 1943. The playwright received one percent of the gross and $2,500 for "personal services". The duo insisted, as part of the contract, that Molnár permit them to make changes in the plot. At first, the playwright refused, but eventually yielded. Hammerstein later stated that if this point had not been won, "we could never have made Carousel."
In seeking to establish through song Liliom's motivation for the robbery, Rodgers remembered that he and Hart had a similar problem in Pal Joey. Rodgers and Hart had overcome the problem with a song that Joey sings to himself, "I'm Talking to My Pal". This inspired "Soliloquy". Both partners later told a story that "Soliloquy" was only intended to be a song about Liliom's dreams of a son, but that Rodgers, who had two daughters, insisted that Liliom consider that Julie might have a girl. However, the notes taken at their meeting of December 7, 1943 state: "Mr. Rodgers suggested a fine musical number for the end of the scene where Liliom discovers he is to be a father, in which he sings first with pride of the growth of a boy, and then suddenly realizes it might be a girl and changes completely."
Hammerstein and Rodgers returned to the Liliom project in mid-1944. Hammerstein was uneasy as he worked, fearing that no matter what they did, Molnár would disapprove of the results. Green Grow the Lilacs had been a little-known work; Liliom was a theatrical standard. Molnár's text also contained considerable commentary on the Hungarian politics of 1909 and the rigidity of that society. A dismissed carnival barker who hits his wife, attempts a robbery and commits suicide seemed an unlikely central character for a musical comedy. Hammerstein decided to use the words and story to make the audience sympathize with the lovers. He also built up the secondary couple, who are incidental to the plot in Liliom; they became Enoch Snow and Carrie Pipperidge. "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" was repurposed from a song, "A Real Nice Hayride", written for Oklahoma! but not used.
Molnár's ending was unsuitable, and after a couple of false starts, Hammerstein conceived the graduation scene that ends the musical. According to Frederick Nolan in his book on the team's works: "From that scene the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" sprang almost naturally." In spite of Hammerstein's simple lyrics for "You'll Never Walk Alone", Rodgers had great difficulty in setting it to music. Rodgers explained his rationale for the changed ending,
Liliom was a tragedy about a man who cannot learn to live with other people. The way Molnár wrote it, the man ends up hitting his daughter and then having to go back to purgatory, leaving his daughter helpless and hopeless. We couldn't accept that. The way we ended Carousel it may still be a tragedy but it's a hopeful one because in the final scene it is clear that the child has at last learned how to express herself and communicate with others.
When the pair decided to make "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" into an ensemble number, Hammerstein realized he had no idea what a clambake was like, and researched the matter. Based on his initial findings, he wrote the line, "First came codfish chowder". However, further research convinced him the proper term was "codhead chowder", a term unfamiliar to many playgoers. He decided to keep it as "codfish". When the song proceeded to discuss the lobsters consumed at the feast, Hammerstein wrote the line "We slit 'em down the back/And peppered 'em good". He was grieved to hear from a friend that lobsters are always slit down the front. The lyricist sent a researcher to a seafood restaurant and heard back that lobsters are always slit down the back. Hammerstein concluded that there is disagreement about which side of a lobster is the back. One error not caught involved the song "June Is Bustin' Out All Over", in which sheep are depicted as seeking to mate in late spring—they actually do so in the winter. Whenever this was brought to Hammerstein's attention, he told his informant that 1873 was a special year, in which sheep mated in the spring.
Rodgers early decided to dispense with an overture, feeling that the music was hard to hear over the banging of seats as latecomers settled themselves. In his autobiography, Rodgers complained that only the brass section can be heard during an overture because there are never enough strings in a musical's small orchestra. He determined to force the audience to concentrate from the beginning by opening with a pantomime scene accompanied by what became known as "The Carousel Waltz". The pantomime paralleled one in the Molnár play, which was also used to introduce the characters and situation to the audience. Author Ethan Mordden described the effectiveness of this opening:
Other characters catch our notice—Mr. Bascombe, the pompous mill owner, Mrs. Mullin, the widow who runs the carousel and, apparently, Billy; a dancing bear; an acrobat. But what draws us in is the intensity with which Julie regards Billy—the way she stands frozen, staring at him, while everyone else at the fair is swaying to the rhythm of Billy's spiel. And as Julie and Billy ride together on the swirling carousel, and the stage picture surges with the excitement of the crowd, and the orchestra storms to a climax, and the curtain falls, we realize that R & H have not only skipped the overture and the opening number but the exposition as well. They have plunged into the story, right into the middle of it, in the most intense first scene any musical ever had.
Casting and out-of-town tryouts
The casting for Carousel began when Oklahoma!s production team, including Rodgers and Hammerstein, was seeking a replacement for the part of Curly (the male lead in Oklahoma!). Lawrence Langner had heard, through a relative, of a California singer named John Raitt, who might be suitable for the part. Langner went to hear Raitt, then urged the others to bring Raitt to New York for an audition. Raitt asked to sing "Largo al factotum", Figaro's aria from The Barber of Seville, to warm up. The warmup was sufficient to convince the producers that not only had they found a Curly, they had found a Liliom (or Billy Bigelow, as the part was renamed). Theresa Helburn made another California discovery, Jan Clayton, a singer/actress who had made a few minor films for MGM. She was brought east and successfully auditioned for the part of Julie.
The producers sought to cast unknowns. Though many had played in previous Hammerstein or Rodgers works, only one, Jean Casto (cast as carousel owner Mrs. Mullin, and a veteran of Pal Joey), had ever played on Broadway before. It proved harder to cast the ensemble than the leads, due to the war—Rodgers told his casting director, John Fearnley, that the sole qualification for a dancing boy was that he be alive. Rodgers and Hammerstein reassembled much of the creative team that had made Oklahoma! a success, including director Rouben Mamoulian and choreographer Agnes de Mille. Miles White was the costume designer while Jo Mielziner (who had not worked on Oklahoma!) was the scenic and lighting designer. Even though Oklahoma! orchestrator Russell Bennett had informed Rodgers that he was unavailable to work on Carousel due to a radio contract, Rodgers insisted he do the work in his spare time. He orchestrated "The Carousel Waltz" and "(When I Marry) Mister Snow" before finally being replaced by Don Walker. A new member of the creative team was Trude Rittmann, who arranged the dance music. Rittmann initially felt that Rodgers mistrusted her because she was a woman, and found him difficult to work with, but the two worked together on Rodgers' shows until the 1970s.
Rehearsals began in January 1945; either Rodgers or Hammerstein was always present. Raitt was presented with the lyrics for "Soliloquy" on a five-foot long sheet of paper—the piece ran nearly eight minutes. Staging such a long solo number presented problems, and Raitt later stated that he felt that they were never fully addressed. At some point during rehearsals, Molnár came to see what they had done to his play. There are a number of variations on the story.Fordin, pp. 231–32 As Rodgers told it, while watching rehearsals with Hammerstein, the composer spotted Molnár in the rear of the theatre and whispered the news to his partner. Both sweated through an afternoon of rehearsal in which nothing seemed to go right. At the end, the two walked to the back of the theatre, expecting an angry reaction from Molnár. Instead, the playwright said enthusiastically, "What you have done is so beautiful. And you know what I like best? The ending!" Hammerstein wrote that Molnár became a regular attendee at rehearsals after that.
Like most of the pair's works, Carousel contains a lengthy ballet, "Billy Makes a Journey", in the second act, as Billy looks down to the Earth from "Up There" and observes his daughter. In the original production the ballet was choreographed by de Mille. It began with Billy looking down from heaven at his wife in labor, with the village women gathered for a "birthing". The ballet involved every character in the play, some of whom spoke lines of dialogue, and contained a number of subplots. The focus was on Louise, played by Bambi Linn, who at first almost soars in her dance, expressing the innocence of childhood. She is teased and mocked by her schoolmates, and Louise becomes attracted to the rough carnival people, who symbolize Billy's world. A youth from the carnival attempts to seduce Louise, as she discovers her own sexuality, but he decides she is more girl than woman, and he leaves her. After Julie comforts her, Louise goes to a children's party, where she is shunned. The carnival people reappear and form a ring around the children's party, with Louise lost between the two groups. At the end, the performers form a huge carousel with their bodies.
The play opened for tryouts in New Haven, Connecticut on March 22, 1945. The first act was well-received; the second act was not. Casto recalled that the second act finished about 1:30 a.m. The staff immediately sat down for a two-hour conference. Five scenes, half the ballet, and two songs were cut from the show as the result. John Fearnley commented, "Now I see why these people have hits. I never witnessed anything so brisk and brave in my life." De Mille said of this conference, "not three minutes had been wasted pleading for something cherished. Nor was there any idle joking. ... We cut and cut and cut and then we went to bed." By the time the company left New Haven, de Mille's ballet was down to forty minutes.
A major concern with the second act was the effectiveness of the characters He and She (later called by Rodgers "Mr. and Mrs. God"), before whom Billy appeared after his death. Mr. and Mrs. God were depicted as a New England minister and his wife, seen in their parlor.Block (ed.), p. 129. At this time, according to the cast sheet distributed during the Boston run, Dr. Seldon was listed as the "Minister". The couple was still part of the show at the Boston opening. Rodgers said to Hammerstein, "We've got to get God out of that parlor". When Hammerstein inquired where he should put the deity, Rodgers replied, "I don't care where you put Him. Put Him on a ladder for all I care, only get Him out of that parlor!" Hammerstein duly put Mr. God (renamed the Starkeeper) atop a ladder, and Mrs. God was removed from the show. Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest terms this change a mistake, leading to a more fantastic afterlife, which was later criticized by The New Republic as "a Rotarian atmosphere congenial to audiences who seek not reality but escape from reality, not truth but escape from truth".
Hammerstein wrote that Molnár's advice, to combine two scenes into one, was key to pulling together the second act and represented "a more radical departure from the original than any change we had made". A reprise of "If I Loved You" was added in the second act, which Rodgers felt needed more music. Three weeks of tryouts in Boston followed the brief New Haven run, and the audience there gave the musical a warm reception. An even shorter version of the ballet was presented the final two weeks in Boston, but on the final night there, de Mille expanded it back to forty minutes, and it brought the house down, causing both Rodgers and Hammerstein to embrace her.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two young female millworkers in 1873 Maine visit the town's carousel after work. One of them, Julie Jordan, attracts the attention of the barker, Billy Bigelow ("The Carousel Waltz"). When Julie lets Billy put his arm around her during the ride, Mrs. Mullin, the widowed owner of the carousel, tells Julie never to return. Julie and her friend, Carrie Pipperidge, argue with Mrs. Mullin. Billy arrives and, seeing that Mrs. Mullin is jealous, mocks her; he is fired from his job. Billy, unconcerned, invites Julie to join him for a drink. As he goes to get his belongings, Carrie presses Julie about her feelings toward him, but Julie is evasive ("You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan"). Carrie has a beau too, fisherman Enoch Snow ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow"), to whom she is newly engaged. Billy returns for Julie as the departing Carrie warns that staying out late means the loss of Julie's job. Mr. Bascombe, owner of the mill, happens by along with a policeman, and offers to escort Julie to her home, but she refuses and is fired. Left alone, she and Billy talk about what life might be like if they were in love, but neither quite confesses to the growing attraction they feel for each other ("If I Loved You").
Over a month passes, and preparations for the summer clambake are under way ("June Is Bustin' Out All Over"). Julie and Billy, now married, live at Julie's cousin Nettie's spa. Julie confides in Carrie that Billy, frustrated over being unemployed, hit her. Carrie has happier news—she is engaged to Enoch, who enters as she discusses him ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow (reprise))". Billy arrives with his ne'er-do-well whaler friend, Jigger. The former barker is openly rude to Enoch and Julie, then leaves with Jigger, followed by a distraught Julie. Enoch tells Carrie that he expects to become rich selling herring and to have a large family, larger perhaps than Carrie is comfortable having ("When the Children Are Asleep").
Jigger and his shipmates, joined by Billy, then sing about life on the sea ("Blow High, Blow Low"). The whaler tries to recruit Billy to help with a robbery, but Billy declines, as the victim—Julie's former boss, Mr. Bascombe—might have to be killed. Mrs. Mullin enters and tries to tempt Billy back to the carousel (and to her). He would have to abandon Julie; a married barker cannot evoke the same sexual tension as one who is single. Billy reluctantly mulls it over as Julie arrives and the others leave. She tells him that she is pregnant, and Billy is overwhelmed with happiness, ending all thoughts of returning to the carousel. Once alone, Billy imagines the fun he will have with Bill Jr.—until he realizes that his child might be a girl, and reflects soberly that "you've got to be a father to a girl" ("Soliloquy"). Determined to provide financially for his future child, whatever the means, Billy decides to be Jigger's accomplice.
The whole town leaves for the clambake. Billy, who had earlier refused to go, agrees to join in, to Julie's delight, as he realizes that being seen at the clambake is integral to his and Jigger's alibi ("Act I Finale").
Act 2
Everyone reminisces about the huge meal and much fun ("This Was a Real Nice Clambake"). Jigger tries to seduce Carrie; Enoch walks in at the wrong moment, and declares that he is finished with her ("Geraniums In the Winder"), as Jigger jeers ("There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman"). The girls try to comfort Carrie, but for Julie all that matters is that "he's your feller and you love him" ("What's the Use of Wond'rin'?"). Julie sees Billy trying to sneak away with Jigger and, trying to stop him, feels the knife hidden in his shirt. She begs him to give it to her, but he refuses and leaves to commit the robbery.
As they wait, Jigger and Billy gamble with cards. They stake their shares of the anticipated robbery spoils. Billy loses: his participation is now pointless. Unknown to Billy and Jigger, Mr. Bascombe, the intended victim, has already deposited the mill's money. The robbery fails: Bascombe pulls a gun on Billy while Jigger escapes. Billy stabs himself with his knife; Julie arrives just in time for him to say his last words to her and die. Julie strokes his hair, finally able to tell him that she loved him. Carrie and Enoch, reunited by the crisis, attempt to console Julie; Nettie arrives and gives Julie the resolve to keep going despite her despair ("You'll Never Walk Alone").
Billy's defiant spirit ("The Highest Judge of All") is taken Up There to see the Starkeeper, a heavenly official. The Starkeeper tells Billy that the good he did in life was not enough to get into heaven, but so long as there is a person alive who remembers him, he can return for a day to try to do good to redeem himself. He informs Billy that fifteen years have passed on Earth since his suicide, and suggests that Billy can get himself into heaven if he helps his daughter, Louise. He helps Billy look down from heaven to see her (instrumental ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey"). Louise has grown up to be lonely and bitter. The local children ostracize her because her father was a thief and a wife-beater. In the dance, a young ruffian, much like her father at that age, flirts with her and abandons her as too young. The dance concludes, and Billy is anxious to return to Earth and help his daughter. He steals a star to take with him, as the Starkeeper pretends not to notice.
Outside Julie's cottage, Carrie describes her visit to New York with the now-wealthy Enoch. Carrie's husband and their many children enter to fetch her—the family must get ready for the high school graduation later that day. Enoch Jr., the oldest son, remains behind to talk with Louise, as Billy and the Heavenly Friend escorting him enter, invisible to the other characters. Louise confides in Enoch Jr. that she plans to run away from home with an acting troupe. He says that he will stop her by marrying her, but that his father will think her an unsuitable match. Louise is outraged: each insults the other's father, and Louise orders Enoch Jr. to go away. Billy, able to make himself visible at will, reveals himself to the sobbing Louise, pretending to be a friend of her father. He offers her a gift—the star he stole from heaven. She refuses it and, frustrated, he slaps her hand. He makes himself invisible, and Louise tells Julie what happened, stating that the slap miraculously felt like a kiss, not a blow—and Julie understands her perfectly. Louise retreats to the house, as Julie notices the star that Billy dropped; she picks it up and seems to feel Billy's presence ("If I Loved You (Reprise)").
Billy invisibly attends Louise's graduation, hoping for one last chance to help his daughter and redeem himself. The beloved town physician, Dr. Seldon (who resembles the Starkeeper) advises the graduating class not to rely on their parents' success or be held back by their failure (words directed at Louise). Seldon prompts everyone to sing an old song, "You'll Never Walk Alone". Billy, still invisible, whispers to Louise, telling her to believe Seldon's words, and when she tentatively reaches out to another girl, she learns she does not have to be an outcast. Billy goes to Julie, telling her at last that he loved her. As his widow and daughter join in the singing, Billy is taken to his heavenly reward.
Principal roles and notable performers
° denotes original Broadway cast
Musical numbers Act I"List of Songs", Carousel at the IBDB Database. Retrieved July 18, 2012
"The Carousel Waltz" – Orchestra
"You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan" – Carrie Pipperidge and Julie Jordan
"(When I Marry) Mister Snow" – Carrie
"If I Loved You" – Billy Bigelow and Julie
"June Is Bustin' Out All Over" – Nettie Fowler and Chorus
"(When I Marry) Mister Snow" (reprise) – Carrie, Enoch Snow and Female Chorus
"When the Children Are Asleep" – Enoch and Carrie
"Blow High, Blow Low" – Jigger Craigin, Billy and Male Chorus
"Soliloquy" – BillyAct II "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" – Carrie, Nettie, Julie, Enoch and Chorus
"Geraniums in the Winder" – Enoch *
"There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" – Jigger and Chorus
"What's the Use of Wond'rin'?" – Julie
"You'll Never Walk Alone" – Nettie
"The Highest Judge of All" – Billy
Ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey" – Orchestra
"If I Loved You" (reprise) – Billy
Finale: "You'll Never Walk Alone" (reprise) – Company
Productions
Early productions
The original Broadway production opened at the Majestic Theatre on April 19, 1945. The dress rehearsal the day before had gone badly, and the pair feared the new work would not be well received. One successful last-minute change was to have de Mille choreograph the pantomime. The movement of the carnival crowd in the pantomime had been entrusted to Mamoulian, and his version was not working. Rodgers had injured his back the previous week, and he watched the opening from a stretcher propped in a box behind the curtain. Sedated with morphine, he could see only part of the stage. As he could not hear the audience's applause and laughter, he assumed the show was a failure. It was not until friends congratulated him later that evening that he realized that the curtain had been met by wild applause. Bambi Linn, who played Louise, was so enthusiastically received by the audience during her ballet that she was forced to break character, when she next appeared, and bow. Rodgers' daughter Mary caught sight of her friend, Stephen Sondheim, both teenagers then, across several rows; both had eyes wet with tears.
The original production ran for 890 performances, closing on May 24, 1947. The original cast included John Raitt (Billy), Jan Clayton (Julie), Jean Darling (Carrie), Eric Mattson (Enoch Snow), Christine Johnson (Nettie Fowler), Murvyn Vye (Jigger), Bambi Linn (Louise) and Russell Collins (Starkeeper). In December 1945, Clayton left to star in the Broadway revival of Show Boat and was replaced by Iva Withers; Raitt was replaced by Henry Michel in January 1947; Darling was replaced by Margot Moser.Hischak, p. 62
After closing on Broadway, the show went on a national tour for two years. It played for five months in Chicago alone, visited twenty states and two Canadian cities, covered and played to nearly two million people. The touring company had a four-week run at New York City Center in January 1949. Following the City Center run, the show was moved back to the Majestic Theatre in the hopes of filling the theatre until South Pacific opened in early April. However, ticket sales were mediocre, and the show closed almost a month early.
The musical premiered in the West End, London, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on June 7, 1950. The production was restaged by Jerome Whyte, with a cast that included Stephen Douglass (Billy), Iva Withers (Julie) and Margot Moser (Carrie). Carousel ran in London for 566 performances, remaining there for over a year and a half.
Subsequent productions
Carousel was revived in 1954 and 1957 at City Center, presented by the New York City Center Light Opera Company. Both times, the production featured Barbara Cook, though she played Carrie in 1954 and Julie in 1957 (playing alongside Howard Keel as Billy). The production was then taken to Belgium to be performed at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, with David Atkinson as Billy, Ruth Kobart as Nettie, and Clayton reprising the role of Julie, which she had originated.
In August 1965, Rodgers and the Music Theater of Lincoln Center produced Carousel for 47 performances. John Raitt reprised the role of Billy, with Jerry Orbach as Jigger and Reid Shelton as Enoch Snow. The roles of the Starkeeper and Dr. Seldon were played by Edward Everett Horton in his final stage appearance. The following year, New York City Center Light Opera Company brought Carousel back to City Center for 22 performances, with Bruce Yarnell as Billy and Constance Towers as Julie.
Nicholas Hytner directed a new production of Carousel in 1992, at London's Royal National Theatre, with choreography by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and designs by Bob Crowley. In this staging, the story begins at the mill, where Julie and Carrie work, with the music slowed down to emphasize the drudgery. After work ends, they move to the shipyards and then to the carnival. As they proceed on a revolving stage, carnival characters appear, and at last the carousel is assembled onstage for the girls to ride.Block, p. 175 Louise is seduced by the ruffian boy during her Act 2 ballet, set around the ruins of a carousel. Michael Hayden played Billy not as a large, gruff man, but as a frustrated smaller one, a time bomb waiting to explode. Hayden, Joanna Riding (Julie) and Janie Dee (Carrie) all won Olivier Awards for their performances. Patricia Routledge played Nettie. Enoch and Carrie were cast as an interracial couple whose eight children, according to the review in The New York Times, looked like "a walking United Colors of Benetton ad". Clive Rowe, as Enoch, was nominated for an Olivier Award. The production's limited run from December 1992 through March 1993 was a sellout. It re-opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London in September 1993, presented by Cameron Mackintosh, where it continued until May 1994.
The Hytner production moved to New York's Vivian Beaumont Theater, where it opened on March 24, 1994, and ran for 322 performances. This won five Tony Awards, including best musical revival, as well as awards for Hytner, MacMillan, Crowley and Audra McDonald (as Carrie). The cast also included Sally Murphy as Julie, Shirley Verrett as Nettie, Fisher Stevens as Jigger and Eddie Korbich as Enoch. One change made from the London to the New York production was to have Billy strike Louise across the face, rather than on the hand. According to Hayden, "He does the one unpardonable thing, the thing we can't forgive. It's a challenge for the audience to like him after that." The Hytner Carousel was presented in Japan in May 1995. A U.S. national tour with a scaled-down production began in February 1996 in Houston and closed in May 1997 in Providence, Rhode Island. Producers sought to feature young talent on the tour, with Patrick Wilson as Billy and Sarah Uriarte Berry, and later Jennifer Laura Thompson, as Julie.
A revival opened at London's Savoy Theatre on December 2, 2008, after a week of previews, starring Jeremiah James (Billy), Alexandra Silber (Julie) and Lesley Garrett (Nettie). The production received warm to mixed reviews. It closed in June 2009, a month early. Michael Coveney, writing in The Independent, admired Rodgers' music but stated, "Lindsay Posner's efficient revival doesn't hold a candle to the National Theatre 1992 version". A production at Theater Basel, Switzerland, in 2016 to 2017, with German dialogue, was directed by Alexander Charim and choreographed by Teresa Rotemberg. Bryony Dwyer, Christian Miedl and Cheryl Studer starred, respectively, as Julie Jordan, Billy Bigelow and Nettie Fowler.<ref>[http://operabase.com/diary.cgi?lang=en&code=wsba&date=20161215 "Richard Rodgers: Carousel"] , Diary: Theater Basel, Operabase.com. Retrieved on March 8, 2018</ref> A semi-staged revival by the English National Opera opened at the London Coliseum in 2017. The production was directed by Lonny Price, conducted by David Charles Abell, and starred Alfie Boe as Billy, Katherine Jenkins as Julie and Nicholas Lyndhurst as the Starkeeper. The production received mixed to positive reviews.
The third Broadway revival began previews in February 2018 at the Imperial Theatre and officially opened on April 12. It closed on September 16, 2018. The production starred Jessie Mueller, Joshua Henry, Renée Fleming, Lindsay Mendez and Alexander Gemignani. The production was directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Justin Peck. The songs "Geraniums in the Winder" and "There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" were cut from this revival. Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, "The tragic inevitability of Carousel has seldom come across as warmly or as chillingly as it does in this vividly reimagined revival. ... [W]ith thoughtful and powerful performances by Mr. Henry and Ms. Mueller, the love story at the show's center has never seemed quite as ill-starred or, at the same time, as sexy. ... [T]he Starkeeper ... assumes new visibility throughout, taking on the role of Billy's angelic supervisor." Brantley strongly praised the choreography, all the performances and the designers. He was unconvinced, however, by the "mother-daughter dialogue that falls so abrasively on contemporary ears", where Julie tries to justify loving an abusive man, and other scenes in Act 2, particularly those set in heaven, and the optimism of the final scene. Most of the reviewers agreed that while the choreography and performances (especially the singing) were excellent, characterizing the production as sexy and sumptuous, O'Brien's direction did little to help the show deal with modern sensibilities about men's treatment of women, instead indulging in nostalgia.
From July to September 2021 the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London is presenting a staging by its artistic director Timothy Sheader, with choreography by Drew McOnie. The cast includes Carly Bawden as Julie, Declan Bennett as Billy and Joanna Riding as Nettie.
Film, television and concert versions
[[File:Boothbay Harbor in Summer.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where the location shots for Carousels movie version were filmed]]
A film version of the musical was made in 1956, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It follows the musical's story fairly closely, although a prologue, set in the Starkeeper's heaven, was added. The film was released only a few months after the release of the film version of Oklahoma! It garnered some good reviews, and the soundtrack recording was a best seller. As the same stars appeared in both pictures, however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel. Thomas Hischak, in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical".
There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version that starred Robert Goulet, with choreography by Edward Villella.
The New York Philharmonic presented a staged concert version of the musical from February 28 to March 2, 2013, at Avery Fisher Hall. Kelli O'Hara played Julie, with Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Nettie, Jessie Mueller as Carrie, Jason Danieley as Enoch, Shuler Hensley as Jigger, John Cullum as the Starkeeper, and Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin. Tiler Peck danced the role of Louise to choreography by Warren Carlyle. The production was directed by John Rando and conducted by Rob Fisher. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, "this is as gorgeously sung a production of this sublime 1945 Broadway musical as you are ever likely to hear." It was broadcast as part of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center series, premiering on April 26, 2013.
Music and recordings
Musical treatment
Rodgers designed Carousel to be an almost continuous stream of music, especially in Act 1. In later years, Rodgers was asked if he had considered writing an opera. He stated that he had been sorely tempted to, but saw Carousel in operatic terms. He remembered, "We came very close to opera in the Majestic Theatre. ... There's much that is operatic in the music."
Rodgers uses music in Carousel in subtle ways to differentiate characters and tell the audience of their emotional state. In "You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan", the music for the placid Carrie is characterized by even eighth-note rhythms, whereas the emotionally restless Julie's music is marked by dotted eighths and sixteenths; this rhythm will characterize her throughout the show. When Billy whistles a snatch of the song, he selects Julie's dotted notes rather than Carrie's. Reflecting the close association in the music between Julie and the as-yet unborn Louise, when Billy sings in "Soliloquy" of his daughter, who "gets hungry every night", he uses Julie's dotted rhythms. Such rhythms also characterize Julie's Act 2 song, "What's the Use of Wond'rin'". The stable love between Enoch and Carrie is strengthened by her willingness to let Enoch not only plan his entire life, but hers as well. This is reflected in "When the Children Are Asleep", where the two sing in close harmony, but Enoch musically interrupts his intended's turn at the chorus with the words "Dreams that won't be interrupted". Rodgers biographer Geoffrey Block, in his book on the Broadway musical, points out that though Billy may strike his wife, he allows her musical themes to become a part of him and never interrupts her music. Block suggests that, as reprehensible as Billy may be for his actions, Enoch requiring Carrie to act as "the little woman", and his having nine children with her (more than she had found acceptable in "When the Children are Asleep") can be considered to be even more abusive.
The twelve-minute "bench scene", in which Billy and Julie get to know each other and which culminates with "If I Loved You", according to Hischak, "is considered the most completely integrated piece of music-drama in the American musical theatre". The scene is almost entirely drawn from Molnár and is one extended musical piece; Stephen Sondheim described it as "probably the single most important moment in the revolution of contemporary musicals". "If I Loved You" has been recorded many times, by such diverse artists as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr., Mario Lanza and Chad and Jeremy. The D-flat major theme that dominates the music for the second act ballet seems like a new melody to many audience members. It is, however, a greatly expanded development of a theme heard during "Soliloquy" at the line "I guess he'll call me 'The old man' ".
When the pair discussed the song that would become "Soliloquy", Rodgers improvised at the piano to give Hammerstein an idea of how he envisioned the song. When Hammerstein presented his collaborator with the lyrics after two weeks of work (Hammerstein always wrote the words first, then Rodgers would write the melodies), Rodgers wrote the music for the eight-minute song in two hours. "What's the Use of Wond'rin' ", one of Julie's songs, worked well in the show but was never as popular on the radio or for recording, and Hammerstein believed that the lack of popularity was because he had concluded the final line, "And all the rest is talk" with a hard consonant, which does not allow the singer a vocal climax.
Irving Berlin later stated that "You'll Never Walk Alone" had the same sort of effect on him as the 23rd Psalm. When singer Mel Tormé told Rodgers that "You'll Never Walk Alone" had made him cry, Rodgers nodded impatiently. "You're supposed to." The frequently recorded song has become a widely accepted hymn.Rodgers, p. 240 The cast recording of Carousel proved popular in Liverpool, like many Broadway albums, and in 1963, the Brian Epstein-managed band, Gerry and the Pacemakers had a number-one hit with the song. At the time, the top ten hits were played before Liverpool F.C. home matches; even after "You'll Never Walk Alone" dropped out of the top ten, fans continued to sing it, and it has become closely associated with the soccer team and the city of Liverpool. A BBC program, Soul Music, ranked it alongside "Silent Night" and "Abide With Me" in terms of its emotional impact and iconic status.
Recordings
The cast album of the 1945 Broadway production was issued on 78s, and the score was significantly cut—as was the 1950 London cast recording. Theatre historian John Kenrick notes of the 1945 recording that a number of songs had to be abridged to fit the 78 format, but that there is a small part of "Soliloquy" found on no other recording, as Rodgers cut it from the score immediately after the studio recording was made.Fick, David. "The Best Carousel Recording", June 11, 2009. Retrieved on April 7, 2016
A number of songs were cut for the 1956 film, but two of the deleted numbers had been recorded and were ultimately retained on the soundtrack album. The expanded CD version of the soundtrack, issued in 2001, contains all of the singing recorded for the film, including the cut portions, and nearly all of the dance music. The recording of the 1965 Lincoln Center revival featured Raitt reprising the role of Billy. Studio recordings of Carousels songs were released in 1956 (with Robert Merrill as Billy, Patrice Munsel as Julie, and Florence Henderson as Carrie), 1962 and 1987. The 1987 version featured a mix of opera and musical stars, including Samuel Ramey, Barbara Cook and Sarah Brightman. Kenrick recommends the 1962 studio recording for its outstanding cast, including Alfred Drake, Roberta Peters, Claramae Turner, Lee Venora, and Norman Treigle.
Both the London (1993) and New York (1994) cast albums of the Hytner production contain portions of dialogue that, according to Hischak, speak to the power of Michael Hayden's portrayal of Billy. Kenrick judges the 1994 recording the best all-around performance of Carousel on disc, despite uneven singing by Hayden, due to Sally Murphy's Julie and the strong supporting cast (calling Audra McDonald the best Carrie he has heard). The Stratford Festival issued a recording in 2015.
Critical reception and legacy
The musical received almost unanimous rave reviews after its opening in 1945. According to Hischak, reviews were not as exuberant as for Oklahoma! as the critics were not taken by surprise this time. John Chapman of the Daily News termed it "one of the finest musical plays I have ever seen and I shall remember it always". The New York Times's reviewer, Lewis Nichols, stated that "Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein 2d, who can do no wrong, have continued doing no wrong in adapting Liliom into a musical play. Their Carousel is on the whole delightful." Wilella Waldorf of the New York Post, however, complained, "Carousel seemed to us a rather long evening. The Oklahoma! formula is becoming a bit monotonous and so are Miss de Mille's ballets. All right, go ahead and shoot!"Suskin, Steven. Opening Night on Broadway. Schirmer Trade Books, 1990, p. 147. . Dance Magazine gave Linn plaudits for her role as Louise, stating, "Bambi doesn't come on until twenty minutes before eleven, and for the next forty minutes, she practically holds the audience in her hand". Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune also applauded the dancing: "It has waited for Miss de Mille to come through with peculiarly American dance patterns for a musical show to become as much a dance as a song show."
When the musical returned to New York in 1949, The New York Times reviewer Brooks Atkinson described Carousel as "a conspicuously superior musical play ... Carousel, which was warmly appreciated when it opened, seems like nothing less than a masterpiece now." In 1954, when Carousel was revived at City Center, Atkinson discussed the musical in his review:
Carousel has no comment to make on anything of topical importance. The theme is timeless and universal: the devotion of two people who love each other through thick and thin, complicated in this case by the wayward personality of the man, who cannot fulfill the responsibilities he has assumed. ... Billy is a bum, but Carousel recognizes the decency of his motives and admires his independence. There are no slick solutions in Carousel.
Stephen Sondheim noted the duo's ability to take the innovations of Oklahoma! and apply them to a serious setting: "Oklahoma! is about a picnic, Carousel is about life and death." Critic Eric Bentley, on the other hand, wrote that "the last scene of Carousel is an impertinence: I refuse to be lectured to by a musical comedy scriptwriter on the education of children, the nature of the good life, and the contribution of the American small town to the salvation of souls."New York Times critic Frank Rich said of the 1992 London production: "What is remarkable about Mr. Hytner's direction, aside from its unorthodox faith in the virtues of simplicity and stillness, is its ability to make a 1992 audience believe in Hammerstein's vision of redemption, which has it that a dead sinner can return to Earth to do godly good." The Hytner production in New York was hailed by many critics as a grittier Carousel, which they deemed more appropriate for the 1990s. Clive Barnes of the New York Post called it a "defining Carousel—hard-nosed, imaginative, and exciting."
Critic Michael Billington has commented that "lyrically [Carousel] comes perilously close to acceptance of the inevitability of domestic violence." BroadwayWorld.com stated in 2013 that Carousel is now "considered somewhat controversial in terms of its attitudes on domestic violence" because Julie chooses to stay with Billy despite the abuse; actress Kelli O'Hara noted that the domestic violence that Julie "chooses to deal with – is a real, existing and very complicated thing. And exploring it is an important part of healing it."
Rodgers considered Carousel his favorite of all his musicals and wrote, "it affects me deeply every time I see it performed". In 1999, Time magazine, in its "Best of the Century" list, named Carousel the Best Musical of the 20th century, writing that Rodgers and Hammerstein "set the standards for the 20th century musical, and this show features their most beautiful score and the most skillful and affecting example of their musical storytelling". Hammerstein's grandson, Oscar Andrew Hammerstein, in his book about his family, suggested that the wartime situation made Carousel's ending especially poignant to its original viewers, "Every American grieved the loss of a brother, son, father, or friend ... the audience empathized with [Billy's] all-too-human efforts to offer advice, to seek forgiveness, to complete an unfinished life, and to bid a proper good-bye from beyond the grave." Author and composer Ethan Mordden agreed with that perspective:
If Oklahoma! developed the moral argument for sending American boys overseas, Carousel offered consolation to those wives and mothers whose boys would only return in spirit. The meaning lay not in the tragedy of the present, but in the hope for a future where no one walks alone.
Awards and nominations
Original 1945 Broadway productionNote: The Tony Awards were not established until 1947, and so Carousel was not eligible to win any Tonys at its premiere.
1957 revival
1992 London revival
1994 Broadway revival
2018 Broadway revival
References
Bibliography
Block, Geoffrey. Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from Show Boat to Sondheim. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2004. .
Block, Geoffrey (ed.) The Richard Rodgers Reader. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2006. .
Bradley, Ian. You've Got to Have a Dream: The Message of the Broadway Musical. Louisville, Ky., Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. 978-0-664-22854-5.
Easton, Carol. No Intermission: The Life of Agnes DeMille. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 2000 (1st DaCapo Press edition). .
Fordin, Hugh. Getting to Know Him: A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 1995 reprint of 1986 edition. .
Hammerstein, Oscar Andrew. The Hammersteins: A Musical Theatre Family. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2010. .
Hischak, Thomas S. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. .
Hyland, William G. Richard Rodgers. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. .
Molnár, Ferenc. Liliom: A Legend in Seven Scenes and a Prologue. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921.
Mordden, Ethan. "Rodgers & Hammerstein". New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992. .
Nolan, Frederick. The Sound of Their Music: The Story of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2002. .
Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages: An Autobiography. Jefferson, N.C. Da Capo Press, 2002 reprint of 1975 edition. .
Secrest, Meryle. Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2001. .
External links
Carousel at guidetomusicaltheatre.com
Carousel info page on StageAgent.com – Carousel plot summary and character descriptions
(1967 TV adaptation)
1945 musicals
Broadway musicals
Musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein
West End musicals
Musicals based on plays
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Maine in fiction
Fiction set in 1873
Fiction about the afterlife
Plays set in Maine
Plays set in the 19th century
Tony Award-winning musicals
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"How Is Your Fish Today?, also known as Jin Tian De Yu Zen Me Yang?, is a 2007 Chinese film written by Xiaolu Guo and Hui Rao. It was directed by Xiaolu Guo. The film is a drama set in modern China, focusing on the intertwined stories of two main characters; a frustrated writer (Hui Rao) and the subject of his latest work, Lin Hao (Zijiang Yang). How Is Your Fish Today won 4 international awards and was well received by critics, but was not commercially successful.\n\nCast\n Hui Rao as himself\n Zijiang Yang as Lin Hao\n Xiaolu Guo as Mimi\n Ning Hao as Hu Ning\n\nReception\nHow Is Your Fish Today? was consistently given good ratings by reviewers, but still remains fairly unpopular.\n\nCritics\nOn its release, How Is Your Fish Today? was received well by critics, who applauded the film as an impressive debut from Guo.\n\nAwards\n \"Grand Prix\" at the 2007 Créteil International Women's Film Festival\n Special Mention at the 2007 Fribourg International Film Festival\n Special Mention at the 2007 Pesaro International Film Festival of New Cinema\n NETPAC Special Mention at the 2007 Rotterdam International Film Festival\n\nNominations\n\n \"Tiger Award\" at the 2007 Rotterdam International Film Festival\n \"Grand Jury Prize\" in the World Cinema/Dramatic categories at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nHOW IS YOUR FISH TODAY? site for Independent Lens on PBS \n \n \n \n\n2007 films\nChinese films\nMandarin-language films\nFilms directed by Xiaolu Guo",
"How the West Was Won may refer to:\n How the West Was Won (film), a 1962 American Western film\n How the West Was Won (TV series), a 1970s television series loosely based on the film\n How the West Was Won (Bing Crosby album) (1959)\n How the West Was Won (Led Zeppelin album) (2003)\n How the West Was Won (Peter Perrett album) (2017)\n How the West Was Won, a 2002 album by Luni Coleone\n \"How the West Was Won\", a 1987 song by Laibach from Opus Dei\n \"How the West Was Won\", a 1996 song by the Romo band Plastic Fantastic\n\nSee also\n How the West Was Fun, a 1994 TV movie starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen\n How the West Was One (disambiguation)\n \"How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us\", a 1997 song by R.E.M."
] |
[
"Carousel (musical)",
"Film, television and concert versions",
"when did it become a film?",
"in 1956,",
"how was the film received?",
"It garnered some good reviews,"
] |
C_0e5314f854634d5b99e441aa87fea861_1
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were there any negative reviews?
| 3 |
Were there any negative reviews of the film Carousel?
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Carousel (musical)
|
A film version of the musical was made in 1956, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It follows the musical's story fairly closely, although a prologue, set in the Starkeeper's heaven, was added. The film was released only a few months after the release of the film version of Oklahoma!. It garnered some good reviews, and the soundtrack recording was a best seller. As the same stars appeared in both pictures, however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel. Thomas Hischak, in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical". There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version that starred Robert Goulet, with choreography by Edward Villella. The New York Philharmonic presented a staged concert version of the musical from February 28 to March 2, 2013, at Avery Fisher Hall. Kelli O'Hara played Julie, with Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Nettie, Jessie Mueller as Carrie, Jason Danieley as Enoch, Shuler Hensley as Jigger, John Cullum as the Starkeeper, and Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin. Tiler Peck danced the role of Louise to choreography by Warren Carlyle. The production was directed by John Rando. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, "this is as gorgeously sung a production of this sublime 1945 Broadway musical as you are ever likely to hear." It was broadcast as part of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center series, premiering on April 26, 2013. CANNOTANSWER
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however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel.
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Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals.
Following the spectacular success of the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma! (1943), the pair sought to collaborate on another piece, knowing that any resulting work would be compared with Oklahoma!, most likely unfavorably. They were initially reluctant to seek the rights to Liliom; Molnár had refused permission for the work to be adapted in the past, and the original ending was considered too depressing for the musical theatre. After acquiring the rights, the team created a work with lengthy sequences of music and made the ending more hopeful.
The musical required considerable modification during out-of-town tryouts, but once it opened on Broadway on April 19, 1945, it was an immediate hit with both critics and audiences. Carousel initially ran for 890 performances and duplicated its success in the West End in 1950. Though it has never achieved as much commercial success as Oklahoma!, the piece has been repeatedly revived, recorded several times and was filmed in 1956. A production by Nicholas Hytner enjoyed success in 1992 in London, in 1994 in New York and on tour. Another Broadway revival opened in 2018. In 1999, Time magazine named Carousel the best musical of the 20th century.
Background
Liliom
Ferenc Molnár's Hungarian-language drama, Liliom, premiered in Budapest in 1909. The audience was puzzled by the work, and it lasted only thirty-odd performances before being withdrawn, the first shadow on Molnár's successful career as a playwright. Liliom was not presented again until after World War I. When it reappeared on the Budapest stage, it was a tremendous hit.
Except for the ending, the plots of Liliom and Carousel are very similar. Andreas Zavocky (nicknamed Liliom, the Hungarian word for "lily", a slang term for "tough guy"), a carnival barker, falls in love with Julie Zeller, a servant girl, and they begin living together. With both discharged from their jobs, Liliom is discontented and contemplates leaving Julie, but decides not to do so on learning that she is pregnant. A subplot involves Julie's friend Marie, who has fallen in love with Wolf Biefeld, a hotel porter—after the two marry, he becomes the owner of the hotel. Desperate to make money so that he, Julie and their child can escape to America and a better life, Liliom conspires with lowlife Ficsur to commit a robbery, but it goes badly, and Liliom stabs himself. He dies, and his spirit is taken to heaven's police court. As Ficsur suggested while the two waited to commit the crime, would-be robbers like them do not come before God Himself. Liliom is told by the magistrate that he may go back to Earth for one day to attempt to redeem the wrongs he has done to his family, but must first spend sixteen years in a fiery purgatory.
On his return to Earth, Liliom encounters his daughter, Louise, who like her mother is now a factory worker. Saying that he knew her father, he tries to give her a star he stole from the heavens. When Louise refuses to take it, he strikes her. Not realizing who he is, Julie confronts him, but finds herself unable to be angry with him. Liliom is ushered off to his fate, presumably Hell, and Louise asks her mother if it is possible to feel a hard slap as if it was a kiss. Julie reminiscently tells her daughter that it is very possible for that to happen.
An English translation of Liliom was credited to Benjamin "Barney" Glazer, though there is a story that the actual translator, uncredited, was Rodgers' first major partner Lorenz Hart. The Theatre Guild presented it in New York City in 1921, with Joseph Schildkraut as Liliom, and the play was a success, running 300 performances. A 1940 revival with Burgess Meredith and Ingrid Bergman was seen by both Hammerstein and Rodgers. Glazer, in introducing the English translation of Liliom, wrote of the play's appeal:
And where in modern dramatic literature can such pearls be matched—Julie incoherently confessing to her dead lover the love she had always been ashamed to tell; Liliom crying out to the distant carousel the glad news that he is to be a father; the two thieves gambling for the spoils of their prospective robbery; Marie and Wolf posing for their portrait while the broken-hearted Julie stands looking after the vanishing Liliom, the thieves' song ringing in her ears; the two policemen grousing about pay and pensions while Liliom lies bleeding to death; Liliom furtively proffering his daughter the star he has stolen for her in heaven. ... The temptation to count the whole scintillating string is difficult to resist.
Inception
In the 1920s and 1930s, Rodgers and Hammerstein both became well known for creating Broadway hits with other partners. Rodgers, with Lorenz Hart, had produced a string of over two dozen musicals, including such popular successes as Babes in Arms (1937), The Boys from Syracuse (1938) and Pal Joey (1940). Some of Rodgers' work with Hart broke new ground in musical theatre: On Your Toes was the first use of ballet to sustain the plot (in the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" scene), while Pal Joey flouted Broadway tradition by presenting a knave as its hero. Hammerstein had written or co-written the words for such hits as Rose-Marie (1924), The Desert Song (1926), The New Moon (1927) and Show Boat (1927). Though less productive in the 1930s, he wrote material for musicals and films, sharing an Oscar for his song with Jerome Kern, "The Last Time I Saw Paris", which was included in the 1941 film Lady Be Good.
By the early 1940s, Hart had sunk into alcoholism and emotional turmoil, becoming unreliable and prompting Rodgers to approach Hammerstein to ask if he would consider working with him. Hammerstein was eager to do so, and their first collaboration was Oklahoma! (1943). Thomas Hischak states, in his The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, that Oklahoma! is "the single most influential work in the American musical theatre. In fact, the history of the Broadway musical can accurately be divided into what came before Oklahoma! and what came after it." An innovation for its time in integrating song, character, plot and dance, Oklahoma! would serve, according to Hischak, as "the model for Broadway shows for decades", and proved a huge popular and financial success. Once it was well-launched, what to do as an encore was a daunting challenge for the pair. Film producer Samuel Goldwyn saw Oklahoma! and advised Rodgers to shoot himself, which according to Rodgers "was Sam's blunt but funny way of telling me that I'd never create another show as good as Oklahoma!" As they considered new projects, Hammerstein wrote, "We're such fools. No matter what we do, everyone is bound to say, 'This is not another Oklahoma! "
Oklahoma! had been a struggle to finance and produce. Hammerstein and Rodgers met weekly in 1943 with Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner of the Theatre Guild, producers of the blockbuster musical, who together formed what they termed "the Gloat Club". At one such luncheon, Helburn and Langner proposed to Rodgers and Hammerstein that they turn Molnár's Liliom into a musical. Both men refused—they had no feeling for the Budapest setting and thought that the unhappy ending was unsuitable for musical theatre. In addition, given the unstable wartime political situation, they might need to change the setting from Hungary while in rehearsal. At the next luncheon, Helburn and Langner again proposed Liliom, suggesting that they move the setting to Louisiana and make Liliom a Creole. Rodgers and Hammerstein played with the idea over the next few weeks, but decided that Creole dialect, filled with "zis" and "zose", would sound corny and would make it difficult to write effective lyrics.
A breakthrough came when Rodgers, who owned a house in Connecticut, proposed a New England setting. Hammerstein wrote of this suggestion in 1945,
I began to see an attractive ensemble—sailors, whalers, girls who worked in the mills up the river, clambakes on near-by islands, an amusement park on the seaboard, things people could do in crowds, people who were strong and alive and lusty, people who had always been depicted on the stage as thin-lipped puritans—a libel I was anxious to refute ... as for the two leading characters, Julie with her courage and inner strength and outward simplicity seemed more indigenous to Maine than to Budapest. Liliom is, of course, an international character, indigenous to nowhere.
Rodgers and Hammerstein were also concerned about what they termed "the tunnel" of Molnár's second act—a series of gloomy scenes leading up to Liliom's suicide—followed by a dark ending. They also felt it would be difficult to set Liliom's motivation for the robbery to music. Molnár's opposition to having his works adapted was also an issue; he had famously turned down Giacomo Puccini when the great composer wished to transform Liliom into an opera, stating that he wanted the piece to be remembered as his, not Puccini's. In 1937, Molnár, who had recently emigrated to the United States, had declined another offer from Kurt Weill to adapt the play into a musical.
The pair continued to work on the preliminary ideas for a Liliom adaptation while pursuing other projects in late 1943 and early 1944—writing the film musical State Fair and producing I Remember Mama on Broadway. Meanwhile, the Theatre Guild took Molnár to see Oklahoma! Molnár stated that if Rodgers and Hammerstein could adapt Liliom as beautifully as they had modified Green Grow the Lilacs into Oklahoma!, he would be pleased to have them do it. The Guild obtained the rights from Molnár in October 1943. The playwright received one percent of the gross and $2,500 for "personal services". The duo insisted, as part of the contract, that Molnár permit them to make changes in the plot. At first, the playwright refused, but eventually yielded. Hammerstein later stated that if this point had not been won, "we could never have made Carousel."
In seeking to establish through song Liliom's motivation for the robbery, Rodgers remembered that he and Hart had a similar problem in Pal Joey. Rodgers and Hart had overcome the problem with a song that Joey sings to himself, "I'm Talking to My Pal". This inspired "Soliloquy". Both partners later told a story that "Soliloquy" was only intended to be a song about Liliom's dreams of a son, but that Rodgers, who had two daughters, insisted that Liliom consider that Julie might have a girl. However, the notes taken at their meeting of December 7, 1943 state: "Mr. Rodgers suggested a fine musical number for the end of the scene where Liliom discovers he is to be a father, in which he sings first with pride of the growth of a boy, and then suddenly realizes it might be a girl and changes completely."
Hammerstein and Rodgers returned to the Liliom project in mid-1944. Hammerstein was uneasy as he worked, fearing that no matter what they did, Molnár would disapprove of the results. Green Grow the Lilacs had been a little-known work; Liliom was a theatrical standard. Molnár's text also contained considerable commentary on the Hungarian politics of 1909 and the rigidity of that society. A dismissed carnival barker who hits his wife, attempts a robbery and commits suicide seemed an unlikely central character for a musical comedy. Hammerstein decided to use the words and story to make the audience sympathize with the lovers. He also built up the secondary couple, who are incidental to the plot in Liliom; they became Enoch Snow and Carrie Pipperidge. "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" was repurposed from a song, "A Real Nice Hayride", written for Oklahoma! but not used.
Molnár's ending was unsuitable, and after a couple of false starts, Hammerstein conceived the graduation scene that ends the musical. According to Frederick Nolan in his book on the team's works: "From that scene the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" sprang almost naturally." In spite of Hammerstein's simple lyrics for "You'll Never Walk Alone", Rodgers had great difficulty in setting it to music. Rodgers explained his rationale for the changed ending,
Liliom was a tragedy about a man who cannot learn to live with other people. The way Molnár wrote it, the man ends up hitting his daughter and then having to go back to purgatory, leaving his daughter helpless and hopeless. We couldn't accept that. The way we ended Carousel it may still be a tragedy but it's a hopeful one because in the final scene it is clear that the child has at last learned how to express herself and communicate with others.
When the pair decided to make "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" into an ensemble number, Hammerstein realized he had no idea what a clambake was like, and researched the matter. Based on his initial findings, he wrote the line, "First came codfish chowder". However, further research convinced him the proper term was "codhead chowder", a term unfamiliar to many playgoers. He decided to keep it as "codfish". When the song proceeded to discuss the lobsters consumed at the feast, Hammerstein wrote the line "We slit 'em down the back/And peppered 'em good". He was grieved to hear from a friend that lobsters are always slit down the front. The lyricist sent a researcher to a seafood restaurant and heard back that lobsters are always slit down the back. Hammerstein concluded that there is disagreement about which side of a lobster is the back. One error not caught involved the song "June Is Bustin' Out All Over", in which sheep are depicted as seeking to mate in late spring—they actually do so in the winter. Whenever this was brought to Hammerstein's attention, he told his informant that 1873 was a special year, in which sheep mated in the spring.
Rodgers early decided to dispense with an overture, feeling that the music was hard to hear over the banging of seats as latecomers settled themselves. In his autobiography, Rodgers complained that only the brass section can be heard during an overture because there are never enough strings in a musical's small orchestra. He determined to force the audience to concentrate from the beginning by opening with a pantomime scene accompanied by what became known as "The Carousel Waltz". The pantomime paralleled one in the Molnár play, which was also used to introduce the characters and situation to the audience. Author Ethan Mordden described the effectiveness of this opening:
Other characters catch our notice—Mr. Bascombe, the pompous mill owner, Mrs. Mullin, the widow who runs the carousel and, apparently, Billy; a dancing bear; an acrobat. But what draws us in is the intensity with which Julie regards Billy—the way she stands frozen, staring at him, while everyone else at the fair is swaying to the rhythm of Billy's spiel. And as Julie and Billy ride together on the swirling carousel, and the stage picture surges with the excitement of the crowd, and the orchestra storms to a climax, and the curtain falls, we realize that R & H have not only skipped the overture and the opening number but the exposition as well. They have plunged into the story, right into the middle of it, in the most intense first scene any musical ever had.
Casting and out-of-town tryouts
The casting for Carousel began when Oklahoma!s production team, including Rodgers and Hammerstein, was seeking a replacement for the part of Curly (the male lead in Oklahoma!). Lawrence Langner had heard, through a relative, of a California singer named John Raitt, who might be suitable for the part. Langner went to hear Raitt, then urged the others to bring Raitt to New York for an audition. Raitt asked to sing "Largo al factotum", Figaro's aria from The Barber of Seville, to warm up. The warmup was sufficient to convince the producers that not only had they found a Curly, they had found a Liliom (or Billy Bigelow, as the part was renamed). Theresa Helburn made another California discovery, Jan Clayton, a singer/actress who had made a few minor films for MGM. She was brought east and successfully auditioned for the part of Julie.
The producers sought to cast unknowns. Though many had played in previous Hammerstein or Rodgers works, only one, Jean Casto (cast as carousel owner Mrs. Mullin, and a veteran of Pal Joey), had ever played on Broadway before. It proved harder to cast the ensemble than the leads, due to the war—Rodgers told his casting director, John Fearnley, that the sole qualification for a dancing boy was that he be alive. Rodgers and Hammerstein reassembled much of the creative team that had made Oklahoma! a success, including director Rouben Mamoulian and choreographer Agnes de Mille. Miles White was the costume designer while Jo Mielziner (who had not worked on Oklahoma!) was the scenic and lighting designer. Even though Oklahoma! orchestrator Russell Bennett had informed Rodgers that he was unavailable to work on Carousel due to a radio contract, Rodgers insisted he do the work in his spare time. He orchestrated "The Carousel Waltz" and "(When I Marry) Mister Snow" before finally being replaced by Don Walker. A new member of the creative team was Trude Rittmann, who arranged the dance music. Rittmann initially felt that Rodgers mistrusted her because she was a woman, and found him difficult to work with, but the two worked together on Rodgers' shows until the 1970s.
Rehearsals began in January 1945; either Rodgers or Hammerstein was always present. Raitt was presented with the lyrics for "Soliloquy" on a five-foot long sheet of paper—the piece ran nearly eight minutes. Staging such a long solo number presented problems, and Raitt later stated that he felt that they were never fully addressed. At some point during rehearsals, Molnár came to see what they had done to his play. There are a number of variations on the story.Fordin, pp. 231–32 As Rodgers told it, while watching rehearsals with Hammerstein, the composer spotted Molnár in the rear of the theatre and whispered the news to his partner. Both sweated through an afternoon of rehearsal in which nothing seemed to go right. At the end, the two walked to the back of the theatre, expecting an angry reaction from Molnár. Instead, the playwright said enthusiastically, "What you have done is so beautiful. And you know what I like best? The ending!" Hammerstein wrote that Molnár became a regular attendee at rehearsals after that.
Like most of the pair's works, Carousel contains a lengthy ballet, "Billy Makes a Journey", in the second act, as Billy looks down to the Earth from "Up There" and observes his daughter. In the original production the ballet was choreographed by de Mille. It began with Billy looking down from heaven at his wife in labor, with the village women gathered for a "birthing". The ballet involved every character in the play, some of whom spoke lines of dialogue, and contained a number of subplots. The focus was on Louise, played by Bambi Linn, who at first almost soars in her dance, expressing the innocence of childhood. She is teased and mocked by her schoolmates, and Louise becomes attracted to the rough carnival people, who symbolize Billy's world. A youth from the carnival attempts to seduce Louise, as she discovers her own sexuality, but he decides she is more girl than woman, and he leaves her. After Julie comforts her, Louise goes to a children's party, where she is shunned. The carnival people reappear and form a ring around the children's party, with Louise lost between the two groups. At the end, the performers form a huge carousel with their bodies.
The play opened for tryouts in New Haven, Connecticut on March 22, 1945. The first act was well-received; the second act was not. Casto recalled that the second act finished about 1:30 a.m. The staff immediately sat down for a two-hour conference. Five scenes, half the ballet, and two songs were cut from the show as the result. John Fearnley commented, "Now I see why these people have hits. I never witnessed anything so brisk and brave in my life." De Mille said of this conference, "not three minutes had been wasted pleading for something cherished. Nor was there any idle joking. ... We cut and cut and cut and then we went to bed." By the time the company left New Haven, de Mille's ballet was down to forty minutes.
A major concern with the second act was the effectiveness of the characters He and She (later called by Rodgers "Mr. and Mrs. God"), before whom Billy appeared after his death. Mr. and Mrs. God were depicted as a New England minister and his wife, seen in their parlor.Block (ed.), p. 129. At this time, according to the cast sheet distributed during the Boston run, Dr. Seldon was listed as the "Minister". The couple was still part of the show at the Boston opening. Rodgers said to Hammerstein, "We've got to get God out of that parlor". When Hammerstein inquired where he should put the deity, Rodgers replied, "I don't care where you put Him. Put Him on a ladder for all I care, only get Him out of that parlor!" Hammerstein duly put Mr. God (renamed the Starkeeper) atop a ladder, and Mrs. God was removed from the show. Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest terms this change a mistake, leading to a more fantastic afterlife, which was later criticized by The New Republic as "a Rotarian atmosphere congenial to audiences who seek not reality but escape from reality, not truth but escape from truth".
Hammerstein wrote that Molnár's advice, to combine two scenes into one, was key to pulling together the second act and represented "a more radical departure from the original than any change we had made". A reprise of "If I Loved You" was added in the second act, which Rodgers felt needed more music. Three weeks of tryouts in Boston followed the brief New Haven run, and the audience there gave the musical a warm reception. An even shorter version of the ballet was presented the final two weeks in Boston, but on the final night there, de Mille expanded it back to forty minutes, and it brought the house down, causing both Rodgers and Hammerstein to embrace her.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two young female millworkers in 1873 Maine visit the town's carousel after work. One of them, Julie Jordan, attracts the attention of the barker, Billy Bigelow ("The Carousel Waltz"). When Julie lets Billy put his arm around her during the ride, Mrs. Mullin, the widowed owner of the carousel, tells Julie never to return. Julie and her friend, Carrie Pipperidge, argue with Mrs. Mullin. Billy arrives and, seeing that Mrs. Mullin is jealous, mocks her; he is fired from his job. Billy, unconcerned, invites Julie to join him for a drink. As he goes to get his belongings, Carrie presses Julie about her feelings toward him, but Julie is evasive ("You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan"). Carrie has a beau too, fisherman Enoch Snow ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow"), to whom she is newly engaged. Billy returns for Julie as the departing Carrie warns that staying out late means the loss of Julie's job. Mr. Bascombe, owner of the mill, happens by along with a policeman, and offers to escort Julie to her home, but she refuses and is fired. Left alone, she and Billy talk about what life might be like if they were in love, but neither quite confesses to the growing attraction they feel for each other ("If I Loved You").
Over a month passes, and preparations for the summer clambake are under way ("June Is Bustin' Out All Over"). Julie and Billy, now married, live at Julie's cousin Nettie's spa. Julie confides in Carrie that Billy, frustrated over being unemployed, hit her. Carrie has happier news—she is engaged to Enoch, who enters as she discusses him ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow (reprise))". Billy arrives with his ne'er-do-well whaler friend, Jigger. The former barker is openly rude to Enoch and Julie, then leaves with Jigger, followed by a distraught Julie. Enoch tells Carrie that he expects to become rich selling herring and to have a large family, larger perhaps than Carrie is comfortable having ("When the Children Are Asleep").
Jigger and his shipmates, joined by Billy, then sing about life on the sea ("Blow High, Blow Low"). The whaler tries to recruit Billy to help with a robbery, but Billy declines, as the victim—Julie's former boss, Mr. Bascombe—might have to be killed. Mrs. Mullin enters and tries to tempt Billy back to the carousel (and to her). He would have to abandon Julie; a married barker cannot evoke the same sexual tension as one who is single. Billy reluctantly mulls it over as Julie arrives and the others leave. She tells him that she is pregnant, and Billy is overwhelmed with happiness, ending all thoughts of returning to the carousel. Once alone, Billy imagines the fun he will have with Bill Jr.—until he realizes that his child might be a girl, and reflects soberly that "you've got to be a father to a girl" ("Soliloquy"). Determined to provide financially for his future child, whatever the means, Billy decides to be Jigger's accomplice.
The whole town leaves for the clambake. Billy, who had earlier refused to go, agrees to join in, to Julie's delight, as he realizes that being seen at the clambake is integral to his and Jigger's alibi ("Act I Finale").
Act 2
Everyone reminisces about the huge meal and much fun ("This Was a Real Nice Clambake"). Jigger tries to seduce Carrie; Enoch walks in at the wrong moment, and declares that he is finished with her ("Geraniums In the Winder"), as Jigger jeers ("There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman"). The girls try to comfort Carrie, but for Julie all that matters is that "he's your feller and you love him" ("What's the Use of Wond'rin'?"). Julie sees Billy trying to sneak away with Jigger and, trying to stop him, feels the knife hidden in his shirt. She begs him to give it to her, but he refuses and leaves to commit the robbery.
As they wait, Jigger and Billy gamble with cards. They stake their shares of the anticipated robbery spoils. Billy loses: his participation is now pointless. Unknown to Billy and Jigger, Mr. Bascombe, the intended victim, has already deposited the mill's money. The robbery fails: Bascombe pulls a gun on Billy while Jigger escapes. Billy stabs himself with his knife; Julie arrives just in time for him to say his last words to her and die. Julie strokes his hair, finally able to tell him that she loved him. Carrie and Enoch, reunited by the crisis, attempt to console Julie; Nettie arrives and gives Julie the resolve to keep going despite her despair ("You'll Never Walk Alone").
Billy's defiant spirit ("The Highest Judge of All") is taken Up There to see the Starkeeper, a heavenly official. The Starkeeper tells Billy that the good he did in life was not enough to get into heaven, but so long as there is a person alive who remembers him, he can return for a day to try to do good to redeem himself. He informs Billy that fifteen years have passed on Earth since his suicide, and suggests that Billy can get himself into heaven if he helps his daughter, Louise. He helps Billy look down from heaven to see her (instrumental ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey"). Louise has grown up to be lonely and bitter. The local children ostracize her because her father was a thief and a wife-beater. In the dance, a young ruffian, much like her father at that age, flirts with her and abandons her as too young. The dance concludes, and Billy is anxious to return to Earth and help his daughter. He steals a star to take with him, as the Starkeeper pretends not to notice.
Outside Julie's cottage, Carrie describes her visit to New York with the now-wealthy Enoch. Carrie's husband and their many children enter to fetch her—the family must get ready for the high school graduation later that day. Enoch Jr., the oldest son, remains behind to talk with Louise, as Billy and the Heavenly Friend escorting him enter, invisible to the other characters. Louise confides in Enoch Jr. that she plans to run away from home with an acting troupe. He says that he will stop her by marrying her, but that his father will think her an unsuitable match. Louise is outraged: each insults the other's father, and Louise orders Enoch Jr. to go away. Billy, able to make himself visible at will, reveals himself to the sobbing Louise, pretending to be a friend of her father. He offers her a gift—the star he stole from heaven. She refuses it and, frustrated, he slaps her hand. He makes himself invisible, and Louise tells Julie what happened, stating that the slap miraculously felt like a kiss, not a blow—and Julie understands her perfectly. Louise retreats to the house, as Julie notices the star that Billy dropped; she picks it up and seems to feel Billy's presence ("If I Loved You (Reprise)").
Billy invisibly attends Louise's graduation, hoping for one last chance to help his daughter and redeem himself. The beloved town physician, Dr. Seldon (who resembles the Starkeeper) advises the graduating class not to rely on their parents' success or be held back by their failure (words directed at Louise). Seldon prompts everyone to sing an old song, "You'll Never Walk Alone". Billy, still invisible, whispers to Louise, telling her to believe Seldon's words, and when she tentatively reaches out to another girl, she learns she does not have to be an outcast. Billy goes to Julie, telling her at last that he loved her. As his widow and daughter join in the singing, Billy is taken to his heavenly reward.
Principal roles and notable performers
° denotes original Broadway cast
Musical numbers Act I"List of Songs", Carousel at the IBDB Database. Retrieved July 18, 2012
"The Carousel Waltz" – Orchestra
"You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan" – Carrie Pipperidge and Julie Jordan
"(When I Marry) Mister Snow" – Carrie
"If I Loved You" – Billy Bigelow and Julie
"June Is Bustin' Out All Over" – Nettie Fowler and Chorus
"(When I Marry) Mister Snow" (reprise) – Carrie, Enoch Snow and Female Chorus
"When the Children Are Asleep" – Enoch and Carrie
"Blow High, Blow Low" – Jigger Craigin, Billy and Male Chorus
"Soliloquy" – BillyAct II "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" – Carrie, Nettie, Julie, Enoch and Chorus
"Geraniums in the Winder" – Enoch *
"There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" – Jigger and Chorus
"What's the Use of Wond'rin'?" – Julie
"You'll Never Walk Alone" – Nettie
"The Highest Judge of All" – Billy
Ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey" – Orchestra
"If I Loved You" (reprise) – Billy
Finale: "You'll Never Walk Alone" (reprise) – Company
Productions
Early productions
The original Broadway production opened at the Majestic Theatre on April 19, 1945. The dress rehearsal the day before had gone badly, and the pair feared the new work would not be well received. One successful last-minute change was to have de Mille choreograph the pantomime. The movement of the carnival crowd in the pantomime had been entrusted to Mamoulian, and his version was not working. Rodgers had injured his back the previous week, and he watched the opening from a stretcher propped in a box behind the curtain. Sedated with morphine, he could see only part of the stage. As he could not hear the audience's applause and laughter, he assumed the show was a failure. It was not until friends congratulated him later that evening that he realized that the curtain had been met by wild applause. Bambi Linn, who played Louise, was so enthusiastically received by the audience during her ballet that she was forced to break character, when she next appeared, and bow. Rodgers' daughter Mary caught sight of her friend, Stephen Sondheim, both teenagers then, across several rows; both had eyes wet with tears.
The original production ran for 890 performances, closing on May 24, 1947. The original cast included John Raitt (Billy), Jan Clayton (Julie), Jean Darling (Carrie), Eric Mattson (Enoch Snow), Christine Johnson (Nettie Fowler), Murvyn Vye (Jigger), Bambi Linn (Louise) and Russell Collins (Starkeeper). In December 1945, Clayton left to star in the Broadway revival of Show Boat and was replaced by Iva Withers; Raitt was replaced by Henry Michel in January 1947; Darling was replaced by Margot Moser.Hischak, p. 62
After closing on Broadway, the show went on a national tour for two years. It played for five months in Chicago alone, visited twenty states and two Canadian cities, covered and played to nearly two million people. The touring company had a four-week run at New York City Center in January 1949. Following the City Center run, the show was moved back to the Majestic Theatre in the hopes of filling the theatre until South Pacific opened in early April. However, ticket sales were mediocre, and the show closed almost a month early.
The musical premiered in the West End, London, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on June 7, 1950. The production was restaged by Jerome Whyte, with a cast that included Stephen Douglass (Billy), Iva Withers (Julie) and Margot Moser (Carrie). Carousel ran in London for 566 performances, remaining there for over a year and a half.
Subsequent productions
Carousel was revived in 1954 and 1957 at City Center, presented by the New York City Center Light Opera Company. Both times, the production featured Barbara Cook, though she played Carrie in 1954 and Julie in 1957 (playing alongside Howard Keel as Billy). The production was then taken to Belgium to be performed at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, with David Atkinson as Billy, Ruth Kobart as Nettie, and Clayton reprising the role of Julie, which she had originated.
In August 1965, Rodgers and the Music Theater of Lincoln Center produced Carousel for 47 performances. John Raitt reprised the role of Billy, with Jerry Orbach as Jigger and Reid Shelton as Enoch Snow. The roles of the Starkeeper and Dr. Seldon were played by Edward Everett Horton in his final stage appearance. The following year, New York City Center Light Opera Company brought Carousel back to City Center for 22 performances, with Bruce Yarnell as Billy and Constance Towers as Julie.
Nicholas Hytner directed a new production of Carousel in 1992, at London's Royal National Theatre, with choreography by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and designs by Bob Crowley. In this staging, the story begins at the mill, where Julie and Carrie work, with the music slowed down to emphasize the drudgery. After work ends, they move to the shipyards and then to the carnival. As they proceed on a revolving stage, carnival characters appear, and at last the carousel is assembled onstage for the girls to ride.Block, p. 175 Louise is seduced by the ruffian boy during her Act 2 ballet, set around the ruins of a carousel. Michael Hayden played Billy not as a large, gruff man, but as a frustrated smaller one, a time bomb waiting to explode. Hayden, Joanna Riding (Julie) and Janie Dee (Carrie) all won Olivier Awards for their performances. Patricia Routledge played Nettie. Enoch and Carrie were cast as an interracial couple whose eight children, according to the review in The New York Times, looked like "a walking United Colors of Benetton ad". Clive Rowe, as Enoch, was nominated for an Olivier Award. The production's limited run from December 1992 through March 1993 was a sellout. It re-opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London in September 1993, presented by Cameron Mackintosh, where it continued until May 1994.
The Hytner production moved to New York's Vivian Beaumont Theater, where it opened on March 24, 1994, and ran for 322 performances. This won five Tony Awards, including best musical revival, as well as awards for Hytner, MacMillan, Crowley and Audra McDonald (as Carrie). The cast also included Sally Murphy as Julie, Shirley Verrett as Nettie, Fisher Stevens as Jigger and Eddie Korbich as Enoch. One change made from the London to the New York production was to have Billy strike Louise across the face, rather than on the hand. According to Hayden, "He does the one unpardonable thing, the thing we can't forgive. It's a challenge for the audience to like him after that." The Hytner Carousel was presented in Japan in May 1995. A U.S. national tour with a scaled-down production began in February 1996 in Houston and closed in May 1997 in Providence, Rhode Island. Producers sought to feature young talent on the tour, with Patrick Wilson as Billy and Sarah Uriarte Berry, and later Jennifer Laura Thompson, as Julie.
A revival opened at London's Savoy Theatre on December 2, 2008, after a week of previews, starring Jeremiah James (Billy), Alexandra Silber (Julie) and Lesley Garrett (Nettie). The production received warm to mixed reviews. It closed in June 2009, a month early. Michael Coveney, writing in The Independent, admired Rodgers' music but stated, "Lindsay Posner's efficient revival doesn't hold a candle to the National Theatre 1992 version". A production at Theater Basel, Switzerland, in 2016 to 2017, with German dialogue, was directed by Alexander Charim and choreographed by Teresa Rotemberg. Bryony Dwyer, Christian Miedl and Cheryl Studer starred, respectively, as Julie Jordan, Billy Bigelow and Nettie Fowler.<ref>[http://operabase.com/diary.cgi?lang=en&code=wsba&date=20161215 "Richard Rodgers: Carousel"] , Diary: Theater Basel, Operabase.com. Retrieved on March 8, 2018</ref> A semi-staged revival by the English National Opera opened at the London Coliseum in 2017. The production was directed by Lonny Price, conducted by David Charles Abell, and starred Alfie Boe as Billy, Katherine Jenkins as Julie and Nicholas Lyndhurst as the Starkeeper. The production received mixed to positive reviews.
The third Broadway revival began previews in February 2018 at the Imperial Theatre and officially opened on April 12. It closed on September 16, 2018. The production starred Jessie Mueller, Joshua Henry, Renée Fleming, Lindsay Mendez and Alexander Gemignani. The production was directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Justin Peck. The songs "Geraniums in the Winder" and "There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" were cut from this revival. Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, "The tragic inevitability of Carousel has seldom come across as warmly or as chillingly as it does in this vividly reimagined revival. ... [W]ith thoughtful and powerful performances by Mr. Henry and Ms. Mueller, the love story at the show's center has never seemed quite as ill-starred or, at the same time, as sexy. ... [T]he Starkeeper ... assumes new visibility throughout, taking on the role of Billy's angelic supervisor." Brantley strongly praised the choreography, all the performances and the designers. He was unconvinced, however, by the "mother-daughter dialogue that falls so abrasively on contemporary ears", where Julie tries to justify loving an abusive man, and other scenes in Act 2, particularly those set in heaven, and the optimism of the final scene. Most of the reviewers agreed that while the choreography and performances (especially the singing) were excellent, characterizing the production as sexy and sumptuous, O'Brien's direction did little to help the show deal with modern sensibilities about men's treatment of women, instead indulging in nostalgia.
From July to September 2021 the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London is presenting a staging by its artistic director Timothy Sheader, with choreography by Drew McOnie. The cast includes Carly Bawden as Julie, Declan Bennett as Billy and Joanna Riding as Nettie.
Film, television and concert versions
[[File:Boothbay Harbor in Summer.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where the location shots for Carousels movie version were filmed]]
A film version of the musical was made in 1956, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It follows the musical's story fairly closely, although a prologue, set in the Starkeeper's heaven, was added. The film was released only a few months after the release of the film version of Oklahoma! It garnered some good reviews, and the soundtrack recording was a best seller. As the same stars appeared in both pictures, however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel. Thomas Hischak, in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical".
There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version that starred Robert Goulet, with choreography by Edward Villella.
The New York Philharmonic presented a staged concert version of the musical from February 28 to March 2, 2013, at Avery Fisher Hall. Kelli O'Hara played Julie, with Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Nettie, Jessie Mueller as Carrie, Jason Danieley as Enoch, Shuler Hensley as Jigger, John Cullum as the Starkeeper, and Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin. Tiler Peck danced the role of Louise to choreography by Warren Carlyle. The production was directed by John Rando and conducted by Rob Fisher. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, "this is as gorgeously sung a production of this sublime 1945 Broadway musical as you are ever likely to hear." It was broadcast as part of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center series, premiering on April 26, 2013.
Music and recordings
Musical treatment
Rodgers designed Carousel to be an almost continuous stream of music, especially in Act 1. In later years, Rodgers was asked if he had considered writing an opera. He stated that he had been sorely tempted to, but saw Carousel in operatic terms. He remembered, "We came very close to opera in the Majestic Theatre. ... There's much that is operatic in the music."
Rodgers uses music in Carousel in subtle ways to differentiate characters and tell the audience of their emotional state. In "You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan", the music for the placid Carrie is characterized by even eighth-note rhythms, whereas the emotionally restless Julie's music is marked by dotted eighths and sixteenths; this rhythm will characterize her throughout the show. When Billy whistles a snatch of the song, he selects Julie's dotted notes rather than Carrie's. Reflecting the close association in the music between Julie and the as-yet unborn Louise, when Billy sings in "Soliloquy" of his daughter, who "gets hungry every night", he uses Julie's dotted rhythms. Such rhythms also characterize Julie's Act 2 song, "What's the Use of Wond'rin'". The stable love between Enoch and Carrie is strengthened by her willingness to let Enoch not only plan his entire life, but hers as well. This is reflected in "When the Children Are Asleep", where the two sing in close harmony, but Enoch musically interrupts his intended's turn at the chorus with the words "Dreams that won't be interrupted". Rodgers biographer Geoffrey Block, in his book on the Broadway musical, points out that though Billy may strike his wife, he allows her musical themes to become a part of him and never interrupts her music. Block suggests that, as reprehensible as Billy may be for his actions, Enoch requiring Carrie to act as "the little woman", and his having nine children with her (more than she had found acceptable in "When the Children are Asleep") can be considered to be even more abusive.
The twelve-minute "bench scene", in which Billy and Julie get to know each other and which culminates with "If I Loved You", according to Hischak, "is considered the most completely integrated piece of music-drama in the American musical theatre". The scene is almost entirely drawn from Molnár and is one extended musical piece; Stephen Sondheim described it as "probably the single most important moment in the revolution of contemporary musicals". "If I Loved You" has been recorded many times, by such diverse artists as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr., Mario Lanza and Chad and Jeremy. The D-flat major theme that dominates the music for the second act ballet seems like a new melody to many audience members. It is, however, a greatly expanded development of a theme heard during "Soliloquy" at the line "I guess he'll call me 'The old man' ".
When the pair discussed the song that would become "Soliloquy", Rodgers improvised at the piano to give Hammerstein an idea of how he envisioned the song. When Hammerstein presented his collaborator with the lyrics after two weeks of work (Hammerstein always wrote the words first, then Rodgers would write the melodies), Rodgers wrote the music for the eight-minute song in two hours. "What's the Use of Wond'rin' ", one of Julie's songs, worked well in the show but was never as popular on the radio or for recording, and Hammerstein believed that the lack of popularity was because he had concluded the final line, "And all the rest is talk" with a hard consonant, which does not allow the singer a vocal climax.
Irving Berlin later stated that "You'll Never Walk Alone" had the same sort of effect on him as the 23rd Psalm. When singer Mel Tormé told Rodgers that "You'll Never Walk Alone" had made him cry, Rodgers nodded impatiently. "You're supposed to." The frequently recorded song has become a widely accepted hymn.Rodgers, p. 240 The cast recording of Carousel proved popular in Liverpool, like many Broadway albums, and in 1963, the Brian Epstein-managed band, Gerry and the Pacemakers had a number-one hit with the song. At the time, the top ten hits were played before Liverpool F.C. home matches; even after "You'll Never Walk Alone" dropped out of the top ten, fans continued to sing it, and it has become closely associated with the soccer team and the city of Liverpool. A BBC program, Soul Music, ranked it alongside "Silent Night" and "Abide With Me" in terms of its emotional impact and iconic status.
Recordings
The cast album of the 1945 Broadway production was issued on 78s, and the score was significantly cut—as was the 1950 London cast recording. Theatre historian John Kenrick notes of the 1945 recording that a number of songs had to be abridged to fit the 78 format, but that there is a small part of "Soliloquy" found on no other recording, as Rodgers cut it from the score immediately after the studio recording was made.Fick, David. "The Best Carousel Recording", June 11, 2009. Retrieved on April 7, 2016
A number of songs were cut for the 1956 film, but two of the deleted numbers had been recorded and were ultimately retained on the soundtrack album. The expanded CD version of the soundtrack, issued in 2001, contains all of the singing recorded for the film, including the cut portions, and nearly all of the dance music. The recording of the 1965 Lincoln Center revival featured Raitt reprising the role of Billy. Studio recordings of Carousels songs were released in 1956 (with Robert Merrill as Billy, Patrice Munsel as Julie, and Florence Henderson as Carrie), 1962 and 1987. The 1987 version featured a mix of opera and musical stars, including Samuel Ramey, Barbara Cook and Sarah Brightman. Kenrick recommends the 1962 studio recording for its outstanding cast, including Alfred Drake, Roberta Peters, Claramae Turner, Lee Venora, and Norman Treigle.
Both the London (1993) and New York (1994) cast albums of the Hytner production contain portions of dialogue that, according to Hischak, speak to the power of Michael Hayden's portrayal of Billy. Kenrick judges the 1994 recording the best all-around performance of Carousel on disc, despite uneven singing by Hayden, due to Sally Murphy's Julie and the strong supporting cast (calling Audra McDonald the best Carrie he has heard). The Stratford Festival issued a recording in 2015.
Critical reception and legacy
The musical received almost unanimous rave reviews after its opening in 1945. According to Hischak, reviews were not as exuberant as for Oklahoma! as the critics were not taken by surprise this time. John Chapman of the Daily News termed it "one of the finest musical plays I have ever seen and I shall remember it always". The New York Times's reviewer, Lewis Nichols, stated that "Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein 2d, who can do no wrong, have continued doing no wrong in adapting Liliom into a musical play. Their Carousel is on the whole delightful." Wilella Waldorf of the New York Post, however, complained, "Carousel seemed to us a rather long evening. The Oklahoma! formula is becoming a bit monotonous and so are Miss de Mille's ballets. All right, go ahead and shoot!"Suskin, Steven. Opening Night on Broadway. Schirmer Trade Books, 1990, p. 147. . Dance Magazine gave Linn plaudits for her role as Louise, stating, "Bambi doesn't come on until twenty minutes before eleven, and for the next forty minutes, she practically holds the audience in her hand". Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune also applauded the dancing: "It has waited for Miss de Mille to come through with peculiarly American dance patterns for a musical show to become as much a dance as a song show."
When the musical returned to New York in 1949, The New York Times reviewer Brooks Atkinson described Carousel as "a conspicuously superior musical play ... Carousel, which was warmly appreciated when it opened, seems like nothing less than a masterpiece now." In 1954, when Carousel was revived at City Center, Atkinson discussed the musical in his review:
Carousel has no comment to make on anything of topical importance. The theme is timeless and universal: the devotion of two people who love each other through thick and thin, complicated in this case by the wayward personality of the man, who cannot fulfill the responsibilities he has assumed. ... Billy is a bum, but Carousel recognizes the decency of his motives and admires his independence. There are no slick solutions in Carousel.
Stephen Sondheim noted the duo's ability to take the innovations of Oklahoma! and apply them to a serious setting: "Oklahoma! is about a picnic, Carousel is about life and death." Critic Eric Bentley, on the other hand, wrote that "the last scene of Carousel is an impertinence: I refuse to be lectured to by a musical comedy scriptwriter on the education of children, the nature of the good life, and the contribution of the American small town to the salvation of souls."New York Times critic Frank Rich said of the 1992 London production: "What is remarkable about Mr. Hytner's direction, aside from its unorthodox faith in the virtues of simplicity and stillness, is its ability to make a 1992 audience believe in Hammerstein's vision of redemption, which has it that a dead sinner can return to Earth to do godly good." The Hytner production in New York was hailed by many critics as a grittier Carousel, which they deemed more appropriate for the 1990s. Clive Barnes of the New York Post called it a "defining Carousel—hard-nosed, imaginative, and exciting."
Critic Michael Billington has commented that "lyrically [Carousel] comes perilously close to acceptance of the inevitability of domestic violence." BroadwayWorld.com stated in 2013 that Carousel is now "considered somewhat controversial in terms of its attitudes on domestic violence" because Julie chooses to stay with Billy despite the abuse; actress Kelli O'Hara noted that the domestic violence that Julie "chooses to deal with – is a real, existing and very complicated thing. And exploring it is an important part of healing it."
Rodgers considered Carousel his favorite of all his musicals and wrote, "it affects me deeply every time I see it performed". In 1999, Time magazine, in its "Best of the Century" list, named Carousel the Best Musical of the 20th century, writing that Rodgers and Hammerstein "set the standards for the 20th century musical, and this show features their most beautiful score and the most skillful and affecting example of their musical storytelling". Hammerstein's grandson, Oscar Andrew Hammerstein, in his book about his family, suggested that the wartime situation made Carousel's ending especially poignant to its original viewers, "Every American grieved the loss of a brother, son, father, or friend ... the audience empathized with [Billy's] all-too-human efforts to offer advice, to seek forgiveness, to complete an unfinished life, and to bid a proper good-bye from beyond the grave." Author and composer Ethan Mordden agreed with that perspective:
If Oklahoma! developed the moral argument for sending American boys overseas, Carousel offered consolation to those wives and mothers whose boys would only return in spirit. The meaning lay not in the tragedy of the present, but in the hope for a future where no one walks alone.
Awards and nominations
Original 1945 Broadway productionNote: The Tony Awards were not established until 1947, and so Carousel was not eligible to win any Tonys at its premiere.
1957 revival
1992 London revival
1994 Broadway revival
2018 Broadway revival
References
Bibliography
Block, Geoffrey. Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from Show Boat to Sondheim. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2004. .
Block, Geoffrey (ed.) The Richard Rodgers Reader. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2006. .
Bradley, Ian. You've Got to Have a Dream: The Message of the Broadway Musical. Louisville, Ky., Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. 978-0-664-22854-5.
Easton, Carol. No Intermission: The Life of Agnes DeMille. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 2000 (1st DaCapo Press edition). .
Fordin, Hugh. Getting to Know Him: A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 1995 reprint of 1986 edition. .
Hammerstein, Oscar Andrew. The Hammersteins: A Musical Theatre Family. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2010. .
Hischak, Thomas S. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. .
Hyland, William G. Richard Rodgers. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. .
Molnár, Ferenc. Liliom: A Legend in Seven Scenes and a Prologue. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921.
Mordden, Ethan. "Rodgers & Hammerstein". New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992. .
Nolan, Frederick. The Sound of Their Music: The Story of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2002. .
Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages: An Autobiography. Jefferson, N.C. Da Capo Press, 2002 reprint of 1975 edition. .
Secrest, Meryle. Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2001. .
External links
Carousel at guidetomusicaltheatre.com
Carousel info page on StageAgent.com – Carousel plot summary and character descriptions
(1967 TV adaptation)
1945 musicals
Broadway musicals
Musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein
West End musicals
Musicals based on plays
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Maine in fiction
Fiction set in 1873
Fiction about the afterlife
Plays set in Maine
Plays set in the 19th century
Tony Award-winning musicals
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[
"On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, a film has a rating of 100% if each professional review recorded by the website is, overall, assessed as positive rather than negative.\n\nCriteria\nThe percentage is based on the film's reviews aggregated by the website and assessed as positive or negative, and when all aggregated reviews are positive, the film has a 100% rating. Listed below are films with 100% ratings that have a critics' consensus or have been reviewed by at least twenty film critics. Many of these films, particularly those with a high number of positive reviews, have achieved wide critical acclaim and are often considered among the best films ever made. A number of these films also appear on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies lists, but there are many others and several entries with dozens of positive reviews, which are considered surprising to some experts. To date, Leave No Trace holds the site's record, with a rating of 100% and 248 positive reviews.\n\nLoss of perfect rating\nThe 100% rating is vulnerable to a film critic gaming the system by purposely submitting a negative review. For example, Lady Bird had a 100% rating based on 196 positive reviews when film critic Cole Smithey submitted a negative review solely in response to the perfect rating. To date, Lady Bird has a 99% rating with 394 positive reviews and four negative reviews. Paddington 2 held a perfect rating from its release in 2017 until film critic Eddie Harrison published a negative review in June 2021. The film has a 99% rating with 247 reviews, with one negative review from the aforementioned critic. The 100% rating could also be affected by rediscovering negative reviews, as in the case with Citizen Kane when an 80-year-old negative review from the Chicago Tribune affected its former 100% rating with 115 reviews.\n\nList\n\nSee also \n List of films considered the best\n List of films considered the worst\n List of films with a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes\n AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)\n\nReferences \n\nRotten Tomatoes\nRotten Tomatoes",
"& Then Boom is the debut studio album by American new wave band Iglu & Hartly. It was released on September 29, 2008.\n\nCritical reception\n\nReviews of & Then Boom upon release were mixed. As of March 2015, the album holds an aggregated score of a 42 out of 100, indicating \"mixed or average reviews\", based on six sources. Allmusic journalist Anthony Tognazzini described & Then Boom as \"fizzy, fun retro-glam-electro-pop from beginning to end\", also noting the variety of the sounds on the record. There were three-star reviews from the Hot Press and Q, with the former's Edwin McFee calling it a \"guilty pleasure\" and latter calling it a \"kitchen-sink hybrid\" that \"works remarkably well\". Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian gave the album a similar score, praising it as \"crisp electro-rock with a big hook in every tune, and lyrics that present them as a bunch of civic-minded young fellows.\"\n\nHowever, in more varied reviews, The Guardian's sister paper The Observer, Craig McLean opined that \"On the one hand, it's riotously good fun; on the other, it's a bit naff.\" Shaun Newport, writing for musicOMH, called it a \"frustration and disappointment\" to listen to, saying that the group \"sound nice, look nice but you’d be pressed to find any substance.\" However, he did give them credit for \"absolutely signif[ying] the beginning of the end of our love affair with the ’80s. It was cool, then it was pop and now it has shamelessly gone too far. Thank goodness we always have time to learn from our mistakes.\" Entertainment.ie's Lauren Murphy called most of the rapping \"cringeworthy\", with her overall verdict of the album describing it as \"two different, disjointed and discordant bands - neither with any direction, and both offering only minimal splashes of fun.\"\n\nThere were extremely negative reviews that questioned if BBC Radio 1's promotion of Iglu & Hartly was a joke, as well as criticized the record's cheap and unprofessional-sounding production and songwriting. It got a zero-out-of-ten review from David Renshaw of Drowned in Sound, calling it \"the worst album of [2008].\" Racheal Crowther, a critic for DIY, rated it a one out of ten, writing that the tracks were \"so similar it feels like listening to one really long song rather than an album.\" In a two-out-of-ten review from NME, Rick Martin called it \"an abomination of a debut album, informed by all the most disgusting musical faux pas of the past 20 years.\" Jarvis Anderson responded to this negative critical reception in an interview; \"Reviews are interesting, I'll take negative criticism if someone explains why. We laugh hard at some of them – we take it with a light heart. I certainly haven't really read a negative review that's changed my mind about anything. If anyone's got an opinion maybe I'll use it if it's good, I'm not that stubborn.\"\n\nTrack listing \n\nAll songs written and composed by Iglu & Hartly\n\nPersonnel \n\n Jarvis Anderson – vocals, keyboards\n Sam Martin – vocals, keyboards\n Simon Katz – guitar\n Luis Rosiles – drums\n Michael Bucher – bass\n\nCharts\n\nReferences \n\nIglu & Hartly albums\n2008 debut albums\nMercury Records albums"
] |
[
"Carousel (musical)",
"Film, television and concert versions",
"when did it become a film?",
"in 1956,",
"how was the film received?",
"It garnered some good reviews,",
"were there any negative reviews?",
"however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel."
] |
C_0e5314f854634d5b99e441aa87fea861_1
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when was it first televised?
| 4 |
When was the film Carousel first televised?
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Carousel (musical)
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A film version of the musical was made in 1956, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It follows the musical's story fairly closely, although a prologue, set in the Starkeeper's heaven, was added. The film was released only a few months after the release of the film version of Oklahoma!. It garnered some good reviews, and the soundtrack recording was a best seller. As the same stars appeared in both pictures, however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel. Thomas Hischak, in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical". There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version that starred Robert Goulet, with choreography by Edward Villella. The New York Philharmonic presented a staged concert version of the musical from February 28 to March 2, 2013, at Avery Fisher Hall. Kelli O'Hara played Julie, with Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Nettie, Jessie Mueller as Carrie, Jason Danieley as Enoch, Shuler Hensley as Jigger, John Cullum as the Starkeeper, and Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin. Tiler Peck danced the role of Louise to choreography by Warren Carlyle. The production was directed by John Rando. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, "this is as gorgeously sung a production of this sublime 1945 Broadway musical as you are ever likely to hear." It was broadcast as part of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center series, premiering on April 26, 2013. CANNOTANSWER
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There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version
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Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals.
Following the spectacular success of the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma! (1943), the pair sought to collaborate on another piece, knowing that any resulting work would be compared with Oklahoma!, most likely unfavorably. They were initially reluctant to seek the rights to Liliom; Molnár had refused permission for the work to be adapted in the past, and the original ending was considered too depressing for the musical theatre. After acquiring the rights, the team created a work with lengthy sequences of music and made the ending more hopeful.
The musical required considerable modification during out-of-town tryouts, but once it opened on Broadway on April 19, 1945, it was an immediate hit with both critics and audiences. Carousel initially ran for 890 performances and duplicated its success in the West End in 1950. Though it has never achieved as much commercial success as Oklahoma!, the piece has been repeatedly revived, recorded several times and was filmed in 1956. A production by Nicholas Hytner enjoyed success in 1992 in London, in 1994 in New York and on tour. Another Broadway revival opened in 2018. In 1999, Time magazine named Carousel the best musical of the 20th century.
Background
Liliom
Ferenc Molnár's Hungarian-language drama, Liliom, premiered in Budapest in 1909. The audience was puzzled by the work, and it lasted only thirty-odd performances before being withdrawn, the first shadow on Molnár's successful career as a playwright. Liliom was not presented again until after World War I. When it reappeared on the Budapest stage, it was a tremendous hit.
Except for the ending, the plots of Liliom and Carousel are very similar. Andreas Zavocky (nicknamed Liliom, the Hungarian word for "lily", a slang term for "tough guy"), a carnival barker, falls in love with Julie Zeller, a servant girl, and they begin living together. With both discharged from their jobs, Liliom is discontented and contemplates leaving Julie, but decides not to do so on learning that she is pregnant. A subplot involves Julie's friend Marie, who has fallen in love with Wolf Biefeld, a hotel porter—after the two marry, he becomes the owner of the hotel. Desperate to make money so that he, Julie and their child can escape to America and a better life, Liliom conspires with lowlife Ficsur to commit a robbery, but it goes badly, and Liliom stabs himself. He dies, and his spirit is taken to heaven's police court. As Ficsur suggested while the two waited to commit the crime, would-be robbers like them do not come before God Himself. Liliom is told by the magistrate that he may go back to Earth for one day to attempt to redeem the wrongs he has done to his family, but must first spend sixteen years in a fiery purgatory.
On his return to Earth, Liliom encounters his daughter, Louise, who like her mother is now a factory worker. Saying that he knew her father, he tries to give her a star he stole from the heavens. When Louise refuses to take it, he strikes her. Not realizing who he is, Julie confronts him, but finds herself unable to be angry with him. Liliom is ushered off to his fate, presumably Hell, and Louise asks her mother if it is possible to feel a hard slap as if it was a kiss. Julie reminiscently tells her daughter that it is very possible for that to happen.
An English translation of Liliom was credited to Benjamin "Barney" Glazer, though there is a story that the actual translator, uncredited, was Rodgers' first major partner Lorenz Hart. The Theatre Guild presented it in New York City in 1921, with Joseph Schildkraut as Liliom, and the play was a success, running 300 performances. A 1940 revival with Burgess Meredith and Ingrid Bergman was seen by both Hammerstein and Rodgers. Glazer, in introducing the English translation of Liliom, wrote of the play's appeal:
And where in modern dramatic literature can such pearls be matched—Julie incoherently confessing to her dead lover the love she had always been ashamed to tell; Liliom crying out to the distant carousel the glad news that he is to be a father; the two thieves gambling for the spoils of their prospective robbery; Marie and Wolf posing for their portrait while the broken-hearted Julie stands looking after the vanishing Liliom, the thieves' song ringing in her ears; the two policemen grousing about pay and pensions while Liliom lies bleeding to death; Liliom furtively proffering his daughter the star he has stolen for her in heaven. ... The temptation to count the whole scintillating string is difficult to resist.
Inception
In the 1920s and 1930s, Rodgers and Hammerstein both became well known for creating Broadway hits with other partners. Rodgers, with Lorenz Hart, had produced a string of over two dozen musicals, including such popular successes as Babes in Arms (1937), The Boys from Syracuse (1938) and Pal Joey (1940). Some of Rodgers' work with Hart broke new ground in musical theatre: On Your Toes was the first use of ballet to sustain the plot (in the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" scene), while Pal Joey flouted Broadway tradition by presenting a knave as its hero. Hammerstein had written or co-written the words for such hits as Rose-Marie (1924), The Desert Song (1926), The New Moon (1927) and Show Boat (1927). Though less productive in the 1930s, he wrote material for musicals and films, sharing an Oscar for his song with Jerome Kern, "The Last Time I Saw Paris", which was included in the 1941 film Lady Be Good.
By the early 1940s, Hart had sunk into alcoholism and emotional turmoil, becoming unreliable and prompting Rodgers to approach Hammerstein to ask if he would consider working with him. Hammerstein was eager to do so, and their first collaboration was Oklahoma! (1943). Thomas Hischak states, in his The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, that Oklahoma! is "the single most influential work in the American musical theatre. In fact, the history of the Broadway musical can accurately be divided into what came before Oklahoma! and what came after it." An innovation for its time in integrating song, character, plot and dance, Oklahoma! would serve, according to Hischak, as "the model for Broadway shows for decades", and proved a huge popular and financial success. Once it was well-launched, what to do as an encore was a daunting challenge for the pair. Film producer Samuel Goldwyn saw Oklahoma! and advised Rodgers to shoot himself, which according to Rodgers "was Sam's blunt but funny way of telling me that I'd never create another show as good as Oklahoma!" As they considered new projects, Hammerstein wrote, "We're such fools. No matter what we do, everyone is bound to say, 'This is not another Oklahoma! "
Oklahoma! had been a struggle to finance and produce. Hammerstein and Rodgers met weekly in 1943 with Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner of the Theatre Guild, producers of the blockbuster musical, who together formed what they termed "the Gloat Club". At one such luncheon, Helburn and Langner proposed to Rodgers and Hammerstein that they turn Molnár's Liliom into a musical. Both men refused—they had no feeling for the Budapest setting and thought that the unhappy ending was unsuitable for musical theatre. In addition, given the unstable wartime political situation, they might need to change the setting from Hungary while in rehearsal. At the next luncheon, Helburn and Langner again proposed Liliom, suggesting that they move the setting to Louisiana and make Liliom a Creole. Rodgers and Hammerstein played with the idea over the next few weeks, but decided that Creole dialect, filled with "zis" and "zose", would sound corny and would make it difficult to write effective lyrics.
A breakthrough came when Rodgers, who owned a house in Connecticut, proposed a New England setting. Hammerstein wrote of this suggestion in 1945,
I began to see an attractive ensemble—sailors, whalers, girls who worked in the mills up the river, clambakes on near-by islands, an amusement park on the seaboard, things people could do in crowds, people who were strong and alive and lusty, people who had always been depicted on the stage as thin-lipped puritans—a libel I was anxious to refute ... as for the two leading characters, Julie with her courage and inner strength and outward simplicity seemed more indigenous to Maine than to Budapest. Liliom is, of course, an international character, indigenous to nowhere.
Rodgers and Hammerstein were also concerned about what they termed "the tunnel" of Molnár's second act—a series of gloomy scenes leading up to Liliom's suicide—followed by a dark ending. They also felt it would be difficult to set Liliom's motivation for the robbery to music. Molnár's opposition to having his works adapted was also an issue; he had famously turned down Giacomo Puccini when the great composer wished to transform Liliom into an opera, stating that he wanted the piece to be remembered as his, not Puccini's. In 1937, Molnár, who had recently emigrated to the United States, had declined another offer from Kurt Weill to adapt the play into a musical.
The pair continued to work on the preliminary ideas for a Liliom adaptation while pursuing other projects in late 1943 and early 1944—writing the film musical State Fair and producing I Remember Mama on Broadway. Meanwhile, the Theatre Guild took Molnár to see Oklahoma! Molnár stated that if Rodgers and Hammerstein could adapt Liliom as beautifully as they had modified Green Grow the Lilacs into Oklahoma!, he would be pleased to have them do it. The Guild obtained the rights from Molnár in October 1943. The playwright received one percent of the gross and $2,500 for "personal services". The duo insisted, as part of the contract, that Molnár permit them to make changes in the plot. At first, the playwright refused, but eventually yielded. Hammerstein later stated that if this point had not been won, "we could never have made Carousel."
In seeking to establish through song Liliom's motivation for the robbery, Rodgers remembered that he and Hart had a similar problem in Pal Joey. Rodgers and Hart had overcome the problem with a song that Joey sings to himself, "I'm Talking to My Pal". This inspired "Soliloquy". Both partners later told a story that "Soliloquy" was only intended to be a song about Liliom's dreams of a son, but that Rodgers, who had two daughters, insisted that Liliom consider that Julie might have a girl. However, the notes taken at their meeting of December 7, 1943 state: "Mr. Rodgers suggested a fine musical number for the end of the scene where Liliom discovers he is to be a father, in which he sings first with pride of the growth of a boy, and then suddenly realizes it might be a girl and changes completely."
Hammerstein and Rodgers returned to the Liliom project in mid-1944. Hammerstein was uneasy as he worked, fearing that no matter what they did, Molnár would disapprove of the results. Green Grow the Lilacs had been a little-known work; Liliom was a theatrical standard. Molnár's text also contained considerable commentary on the Hungarian politics of 1909 and the rigidity of that society. A dismissed carnival barker who hits his wife, attempts a robbery and commits suicide seemed an unlikely central character for a musical comedy. Hammerstein decided to use the words and story to make the audience sympathize with the lovers. He also built up the secondary couple, who are incidental to the plot in Liliom; they became Enoch Snow and Carrie Pipperidge. "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" was repurposed from a song, "A Real Nice Hayride", written for Oklahoma! but not used.
Molnár's ending was unsuitable, and after a couple of false starts, Hammerstein conceived the graduation scene that ends the musical. According to Frederick Nolan in his book on the team's works: "From that scene the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" sprang almost naturally." In spite of Hammerstein's simple lyrics for "You'll Never Walk Alone", Rodgers had great difficulty in setting it to music. Rodgers explained his rationale for the changed ending,
Liliom was a tragedy about a man who cannot learn to live with other people. The way Molnár wrote it, the man ends up hitting his daughter and then having to go back to purgatory, leaving his daughter helpless and hopeless. We couldn't accept that. The way we ended Carousel it may still be a tragedy but it's a hopeful one because in the final scene it is clear that the child has at last learned how to express herself and communicate with others.
When the pair decided to make "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" into an ensemble number, Hammerstein realized he had no idea what a clambake was like, and researched the matter. Based on his initial findings, he wrote the line, "First came codfish chowder". However, further research convinced him the proper term was "codhead chowder", a term unfamiliar to many playgoers. He decided to keep it as "codfish". When the song proceeded to discuss the lobsters consumed at the feast, Hammerstein wrote the line "We slit 'em down the back/And peppered 'em good". He was grieved to hear from a friend that lobsters are always slit down the front. The lyricist sent a researcher to a seafood restaurant and heard back that lobsters are always slit down the back. Hammerstein concluded that there is disagreement about which side of a lobster is the back. One error not caught involved the song "June Is Bustin' Out All Over", in which sheep are depicted as seeking to mate in late spring—they actually do so in the winter. Whenever this was brought to Hammerstein's attention, he told his informant that 1873 was a special year, in which sheep mated in the spring.
Rodgers early decided to dispense with an overture, feeling that the music was hard to hear over the banging of seats as latecomers settled themselves. In his autobiography, Rodgers complained that only the brass section can be heard during an overture because there are never enough strings in a musical's small orchestra. He determined to force the audience to concentrate from the beginning by opening with a pantomime scene accompanied by what became known as "The Carousel Waltz". The pantomime paralleled one in the Molnár play, which was also used to introduce the characters and situation to the audience. Author Ethan Mordden described the effectiveness of this opening:
Other characters catch our notice—Mr. Bascombe, the pompous mill owner, Mrs. Mullin, the widow who runs the carousel and, apparently, Billy; a dancing bear; an acrobat. But what draws us in is the intensity with which Julie regards Billy—the way she stands frozen, staring at him, while everyone else at the fair is swaying to the rhythm of Billy's spiel. And as Julie and Billy ride together on the swirling carousel, and the stage picture surges with the excitement of the crowd, and the orchestra storms to a climax, and the curtain falls, we realize that R & H have not only skipped the overture and the opening number but the exposition as well. They have plunged into the story, right into the middle of it, in the most intense first scene any musical ever had.
Casting and out-of-town tryouts
The casting for Carousel began when Oklahoma!s production team, including Rodgers and Hammerstein, was seeking a replacement for the part of Curly (the male lead in Oklahoma!). Lawrence Langner had heard, through a relative, of a California singer named John Raitt, who might be suitable for the part. Langner went to hear Raitt, then urged the others to bring Raitt to New York for an audition. Raitt asked to sing "Largo al factotum", Figaro's aria from The Barber of Seville, to warm up. The warmup was sufficient to convince the producers that not only had they found a Curly, they had found a Liliom (or Billy Bigelow, as the part was renamed). Theresa Helburn made another California discovery, Jan Clayton, a singer/actress who had made a few minor films for MGM. She was brought east and successfully auditioned for the part of Julie.
The producers sought to cast unknowns. Though many had played in previous Hammerstein or Rodgers works, only one, Jean Casto (cast as carousel owner Mrs. Mullin, and a veteran of Pal Joey), had ever played on Broadway before. It proved harder to cast the ensemble than the leads, due to the war—Rodgers told his casting director, John Fearnley, that the sole qualification for a dancing boy was that he be alive. Rodgers and Hammerstein reassembled much of the creative team that had made Oklahoma! a success, including director Rouben Mamoulian and choreographer Agnes de Mille. Miles White was the costume designer while Jo Mielziner (who had not worked on Oklahoma!) was the scenic and lighting designer. Even though Oklahoma! orchestrator Russell Bennett had informed Rodgers that he was unavailable to work on Carousel due to a radio contract, Rodgers insisted he do the work in his spare time. He orchestrated "The Carousel Waltz" and "(When I Marry) Mister Snow" before finally being replaced by Don Walker. A new member of the creative team was Trude Rittmann, who arranged the dance music. Rittmann initially felt that Rodgers mistrusted her because she was a woman, and found him difficult to work with, but the two worked together on Rodgers' shows until the 1970s.
Rehearsals began in January 1945; either Rodgers or Hammerstein was always present. Raitt was presented with the lyrics for "Soliloquy" on a five-foot long sheet of paper—the piece ran nearly eight minutes. Staging such a long solo number presented problems, and Raitt later stated that he felt that they were never fully addressed. At some point during rehearsals, Molnár came to see what they had done to his play. There are a number of variations on the story.Fordin, pp. 231–32 As Rodgers told it, while watching rehearsals with Hammerstein, the composer spotted Molnár in the rear of the theatre and whispered the news to his partner. Both sweated through an afternoon of rehearsal in which nothing seemed to go right. At the end, the two walked to the back of the theatre, expecting an angry reaction from Molnár. Instead, the playwright said enthusiastically, "What you have done is so beautiful. And you know what I like best? The ending!" Hammerstein wrote that Molnár became a regular attendee at rehearsals after that.
Like most of the pair's works, Carousel contains a lengthy ballet, "Billy Makes a Journey", in the second act, as Billy looks down to the Earth from "Up There" and observes his daughter. In the original production the ballet was choreographed by de Mille. It began with Billy looking down from heaven at his wife in labor, with the village women gathered for a "birthing". The ballet involved every character in the play, some of whom spoke lines of dialogue, and contained a number of subplots. The focus was on Louise, played by Bambi Linn, who at first almost soars in her dance, expressing the innocence of childhood. She is teased and mocked by her schoolmates, and Louise becomes attracted to the rough carnival people, who symbolize Billy's world. A youth from the carnival attempts to seduce Louise, as she discovers her own sexuality, but he decides she is more girl than woman, and he leaves her. After Julie comforts her, Louise goes to a children's party, where she is shunned. The carnival people reappear and form a ring around the children's party, with Louise lost between the two groups. At the end, the performers form a huge carousel with their bodies.
The play opened for tryouts in New Haven, Connecticut on March 22, 1945. The first act was well-received; the second act was not. Casto recalled that the second act finished about 1:30 a.m. The staff immediately sat down for a two-hour conference. Five scenes, half the ballet, and two songs were cut from the show as the result. John Fearnley commented, "Now I see why these people have hits. I never witnessed anything so brisk and brave in my life." De Mille said of this conference, "not three minutes had been wasted pleading for something cherished. Nor was there any idle joking. ... We cut and cut and cut and then we went to bed." By the time the company left New Haven, de Mille's ballet was down to forty minutes.
A major concern with the second act was the effectiveness of the characters He and She (later called by Rodgers "Mr. and Mrs. God"), before whom Billy appeared after his death. Mr. and Mrs. God were depicted as a New England minister and his wife, seen in their parlor.Block (ed.), p. 129. At this time, according to the cast sheet distributed during the Boston run, Dr. Seldon was listed as the "Minister". The couple was still part of the show at the Boston opening. Rodgers said to Hammerstein, "We've got to get God out of that parlor". When Hammerstein inquired where he should put the deity, Rodgers replied, "I don't care where you put Him. Put Him on a ladder for all I care, only get Him out of that parlor!" Hammerstein duly put Mr. God (renamed the Starkeeper) atop a ladder, and Mrs. God was removed from the show. Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest terms this change a mistake, leading to a more fantastic afterlife, which was later criticized by The New Republic as "a Rotarian atmosphere congenial to audiences who seek not reality but escape from reality, not truth but escape from truth".
Hammerstein wrote that Molnár's advice, to combine two scenes into one, was key to pulling together the second act and represented "a more radical departure from the original than any change we had made". A reprise of "If I Loved You" was added in the second act, which Rodgers felt needed more music. Three weeks of tryouts in Boston followed the brief New Haven run, and the audience there gave the musical a warm reception. An even shorter version of the ballet was presented the final two weeks in Boston, but on the final night there, de Mille expanded it back to forty minutes, and it brought the house down, causing both Rodgers and Hammerstein to embrace her.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two young female millworkers in 1873 Maine visit the town's carousel after work. One of them, Julie Jordan, attracts the attention of the barker, Billy Bigelow ("The Carousel Waltz"). When Julie lets Billy put his arm around her during the ride, Mrs. Mullin, the widowed owner of the carousel, tells Julie never to return. Julie and her friend, Carrie Pipperidge, argue with Mrs. Mullin. Billy arrives and, seeing that Mrs. Mullin is jealous, mocks her; he is fired from his job. Billy, unconcerned, invites Julie to join him for a drink. As he goes to get his belongings, Carrie presses Julie about her feelings toward him, but Julie is evasive ("You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan"). Carrie has a beau too, fisherman Enoch Snow ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow"), to whom she is newly engaged. Billy returns for Julie as the departing Carrie warns that staying out late means the loss of Julie's job. Mr. Bascombe, owner of the mill, happens by along with a policeman, and offers to escort Julie to her home, but she refuses and is fired. Left alone, she and Billy talk about what life might be like if they were in love, but neither quite confesses to the growing attraction they feel for each other ("If I Loved You").
Over a month passes, and preparations for the summer clambake are under way ("June Is Bustin' Out All Over"). Julie and Billy, now married, live at Julie's cousin Nettie's spa. Julie confides in Carrie that Billy, frustrated over being unemployed, hit her. Carrie has happier news—she is engaged to Enoch, who enters as she discusses him ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow (reprise))". Billy arrives with his ne'er-do-well whaler friend, Jigger. The former barker is openly rude to Enoch and Julie, then leaves with Jigger, followed by a distraught Julie. Enoch tells Carrie that he expects to become rich selling herring and to have a large family, larger perhaps than Carrie is comfortable having ("When the Children Are Asleep").
Jigger and his shipmates, joined by Billy, then sing about life on the sea ("Blow High, Blow Low"). The whaler tries to recruit Billy to help with a robbery, but Billy declines, as the victim—Julie's former boss, Mr. Bascombe—might have to be killed. Mrs. Mullin enters and tries to tempt Billy back to the carousel (and to her). He would have to abandon Julie; a married barker cannot evoke the same sexual tension as one who is single. Billy reluctantly mulls it over as Julie arrives and the others leave. She tells him that she is pregnant, and Billy is overwhelmed with happiness, ending all thoughts of returning to the carousel. Once alone, Billy imagines the fun he will have with Bill Jr.—until he realizes that his child might be a girl, and reflects soberly that "you've got to be a father to a girl" ("Soliloquy"). Determined to provide financially for his future child, whatever the means, Billy decides to be Jigger's accomplice.
The whole town leaves for the clambake. Billy, who had earlier refused to go, agrees to join in, to Julie's delight, as he realizes that being seen at the clambake is integral to his and Jigger's alibi ("Act I Finale").
Act 2
Everyone reminisces about the huge meal and much fun ("This Was a Real Nice Clambake"). Jigger tries to seduce Carrie; Enoch walks in at the wrong moment, and declares that he is finished with her ("Geraniums In the Winder"), as Jigger jeers ("There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman"). The girls try to comfort Carrie, but for Julie all that matters is that "he's your feller and you love him" ("What's the Use of Wond'rin'?"). Julie sees Billy trying to sneak away with Jigger and, trying to stop him, feels the knife hidden in his shirt. She begs him to give it to her, but he refuses and leaves to commit the robbery.
As they wait, Jigger and Billy gamble with cards. They stake their shares of the anticipated robbery spoils. Billy loses: his participation is now pointless. Unknown to Billy and Jigger, Mr. Bascombe, the intended victim, has already deposited the mill's money. The robbery fails: Bascombe pulls a gun on Billy while Jigger escapes. Billy stabs himself with his knife; Julie arrives just in time for him to say his last words to her and die. Julie strokes his hair, finally able to tell him that she loved him. Carrie and Enoch, reunited by the crisis, attempt to console Julie; Nettie arrives and gives Julie the resolve to keep going despite her despair ("You'll Never Walk Alone").
Billy's defiant spirit ("The Highest Judge of All") is taken Up There to see the Starkeeper, a heavenly official. The Starkeeper tells Billy that the good he did in life was not enough to get into heaven, but so long as there is a person alive who remembers him, he can return for a day to try to do good to redeem himself. He informs Billy that fifteen years have passed on Earth since his suicide, and suggests that Billy can get himself into heaven if he helps his daughter, Louise. He helps Billy look down from heaven to see her (instrumental ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey"). Louise has grown up to be lonely and bitter. The local children ostracize her because her father was a thief and a wife-beater. In the dance, a young ruffian, much like her father at that age, flirts with her and abandons her as too young. The dance concludes, and Billy is anxious to return to Earth and help his daughter. He steals a star to take with him, as the Starkeeper pretends not to notice.
Outside Julie's cottage, Carrie describes her visit to New York with the now-wealthy Enoch. Carrie's husband and their many children enter to fetch her—the family must get ready for the high school graduation later that day. Enoch Jr., the oldest son, remains behind to talk with Louise, as Billy and the Heavenly Friend escorting him enter, invisible to the other characters. Louise confides in Enoch Jr. that she plans to run away from home with an acting troupe. He says that he will stop her by marrying her, but that his father will think her an unsuitable match. Louise is outraged: each insults the other's father, and Louise orders Enoch Jr. to go away. Billy, able to make himself visible at will, reveals himself to the sobbing Louise, pretending to be a friend of her father. He offers her a gift—the star he stole from heaven. She refuses it and, frustrated, he slaps her hand. He makes himself invisible, and Louise tells Julie what happened, stating that the slap miraculously felt like a kiss, not a blow—and Julie understands her perfectly. Louise retreats to the house, as Julie notices the star that Billy dropped; she picks it up and seems to feel Billy's presence ("If I Loved You (Reprise)").
Billy invisibly attends Louise's graduation, hoping for one last chance to help his daughter and redeem himself. The beloved town physician, Dr. Seldon (who resembles the Starkeeper) advises the graduating class not to rely on their parents' success or be held back by their failure (words directed at Louise). Seldon prompts everyone to sing an old song, "You'll Never Walk Alone". Billy, still invisible, whispers to Louise, telling her to believe Seldon's words, and when she tentatively reaches out to another girl, she learns she does not have to be an outcast. Billy goes to Julie, telling her at last that he loved her. As his widow and daughter join in the singing, Billy is taken to his heavenly reward.
Principal roles and notable performers
° denotes original Broadway cast
Musical numbers Act I"List of Songs", Carousel at the IBDB Database. Retrieved July 18, 2012
"The Carousel Waltz" – Orchestra
"You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan" – Carrie Pipperidge and Julie Jordan
"(When I Marry) Mister Snow" – Carrie
"If I Loved You" – Billy Bigelow and Julie
"June Is Bustin' Out All Over" – Nettie Fowler and Chorus
"(When I Marry) Mister Snow" (reprise) – Carrie, Enoch Snow and Female Chorus
"When the Children Are Asleep" – Enoch and Carrie
"Blow High, Blow Low" – Jigger Craigin, Billy and Male Chorus
"Soliloquy" – BillyAct II "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" – Carrie, Nettie, Julie, Enoch and Chorus
"Geraniums in the Winder" – Enoch *
"There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" – Jigger and Chorus
"What's the Use of Wond'rin'?" – Julie
"You'll Never Walk Alone" – Nettie
"The Highest Judge of All" – Billy
Ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey" – Orchestra
"If I Loved You" (reprise) – Billy
Finale: "You'll Never Walk Alone" (reprise) – Company
Productions
Early productions
The original Broadway production opened at the Majestic Theatre on April 19, 1945. The dress rehearsal the day before had gone badly, and the pair feared the new work would not be well received. One successful last-minute change was to have de Mille choreograph the pantomime. The movement of the carnival crowd in the pantomime had been entrusted to Mamoulian, and his version was not working. Rodgers had injured his back the previous week, and he watched the opening from a stretcher propped in a box behind the curtain. Sedated with morphine, he could see only part of the stage. As he could not hear the audience's applause and laughter, he assumed the show was a failure. It was not until friends congratulated him later that evening that he realized that the curtain had been met by wild applause. Bambi Linn, who played Louise, was so enthusiastically received by the audience during her ballet that she was forced to break character, when she next appeared, and bow. Rodgers' daughter Mary caught sight of her friend, Stephen Sondheim, both teenagers then, across several rows; both had eyes wet with tears.
The original production ran for 890 performances, closing on May 24, 1947. The original cast included John Raitt (Billy), Jan Clayton (Julie), Jean Darling (Carrie), Eric Mattson (Enoch Snow), Christine Johnson (Nettie Fowler), Murvyn Vye (Jigger), Bambi Linn (Louise) and Russell Collins (Starkeeper). In December 1945, Clayton left to star in the Broadway revival of Show Boat and was replaced by Iva Withers; Raitt was replaced by Henry Michel in January 1947; Darling was replaced by Margot Moser.Hischak, p. 62
After closing on Broadway, the show went on a national tour for two years. It played for five months in Chicago alone, visited twenty states and two Canadian cities, covered and played to nearly two million people. The touring company had a four-week run at New York City Center in January 1949. Following the City Center run, the show was moved back to the Majestic Theatre in the hopes of filling the theatre until South Pacific opened in early April. However, ticket sales were mediocre, and the show closed almost a month early.
The musical premiered in the West End, London, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on June 7, 1950. The production was restaged by Jerome Whyte, with a cast that included Stephen Douglass (Billy), Iva Withers (Julie) and Margot Moser (Carrie). Carousel ran in London for 566 performances, remaining there for over a year and a half.
Subsequent productions
Carousel was revived in 1954 and 1957 at City Center, presented by the New York City Center Light Opera Company. Both times, the production featured Barbara Cook, though she played Carrie in 1954 and Julie in 1957 (playing alongside Howard Keel as Billy). The production was then taken to Belgium to be performed at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, with David Atkinson as Billy, Ruth Kobart as Nettie, and Clayton reprising the role of Julie, which she had originated.
In August 1965, Rodgers and the Music Theater of Lincoln Center produced Carousel for 47 performances. John Raitt reprised the role of Billy, with Jerry Orbach as Jigger and Reid Shelton as Enoch Snow. The roles of the Starkeeper and Dr. Seldon were played by Edward Everett Horton in his final stage appearance. The following year, New York City Center Light Opera Company brought Carousel back to City Center for 22 performances, with Bruce Yarnell as Billy and Constance Towers as Julie.
Nicholas Hytner directed a new production of Carousel in 1992, at London's Royal National Theatre, with choreography by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and designs by Bob Crowley. In this staging, the story begins at the mill, where Julie and Carrie work, with the music slowed down to emphasize the drudgery. After work ends, they move to the shipyards and then to the carnival. As they proceed on a revolving stage, carnival characters appear, and at last the carousel is assembled onstage for the girls to ride.Block, p. 175 Louise is seduced by the ruffian boy during her Act 2 ballet, set around the ruins of a carousel. Michael Hayden played Billy not as a large, gruff man, but as a frustrated smaller one, a time bomb waiting to explode. Hayden, Joanna Riding (Julie) and Janie Dee (Carrie) all won Olivier Awards for their performances. Patricia Routledge played Nettie. Enoch and Carrie were cast as an interracial couple whose eight children, according to the review in The New York Times, looked like "a walking United Colors of Benetton ad". Clive Rowe, as Enoch, was nominated for an Olivier Award. The production's limited run from December 1992 through March 1993 was a sellout. It re-opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London in September 1993, presented by Cameron Mackintosh, where it continued until May 1994.
The Hytner production moved to New York's Vivian Beaumont Theater, where it opened on March 24, 1994, and ran for 322 performances. This won five Tony Awards, including best musical revival, as well as awards for Hytner, MacMillan, Crowley and Audra McDonald (as Carrie). The cast also included Sally Murphy as Julie, Shirley Verrett as Nettie, Fisher Stevens as Jigger and Eddie Korbich as Enoch. One change made from the London to the New York production was to have Billy strike Louise across the face, rather than on the hand. According to Hayden, "He does the one unpardonable thing, the thing we can't forgive. It's a challenge for the audience to like him after that." The Hytner Carousel was presented in Japan in May 1995. A U.S. national tour with a scaled-down production began in February 1996 in Houston and closed in May 1997 in Providence, Rhode Island. Producers sought to feature young talent on the tour, with Patrick Wilson as Billy and Sarah Uriarte Berry, and later Jennifer Laura Thompson, as Julie.
A revival opened at London's Savoy Theatre on December 2, 2008, after a week of previews, starring Jeremiah James (Billy), Alexandra Silber (Julie) and Lesley Garrett (Nettie). The production received warm to mixed reviews. It closed in June 2009, a month early. Michael Coveney, writing in The Independent, admired Rodgers' music but stated, "Lindsay Posner's efficient revival doesn't hold a candle to the National Theatre 1992 version". A production at Theater Basel, Switzerland, in 2016 to 2017, with German dialogue, was directed by Alexander Charim and choreographed by Teresa Rotemberg. Bryony Dwyer, Christian Miedl and Cheryl Studer starred, respectively, as Julie Jordan, Billy Bigelow and Nettie Fowler.<ref>[http://operabase.com/diary.cgi?lang=en&code=wsba&date=20161215 "Richard Rodgers: Carousel"] , Diary: Theater Basel, Operabase.com. Retrieved on March 8, 2018</ref> A semi-staged revival by the English National Opera opened at the London Coliseum in 2017. The production was directed by Lonny Price, conducted by David Charles Abell, and starred Alfie Boe as Billy, Katherine Jenkins as Julie and Nicholas Lyndhurst as the Starkeeper. The production received mixed to positive reviews.
The third Broadway revival began previews in February 2018 at the Imperial Theatre and officially opened on April 12. It closed on September 16, 2018. The production starred Jessie Mueller, Joshua Henry, Renée Fleming, Lindsay Mendez and Alexander Gemignani. The production was directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Justin Peck. The songs "Geraniums in the Winder" and "There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" were cut from this revival. Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, "The tragic inevitability of Carousel has seldom come across as warmly or as chillingly as it does in this vividly reimagined revival. ... [W]ith thoughtful and powerful performances by Mr. Henry and Ms. Mueller, the love story at the show's center has never seemed quite as ill-starred or, at the same time, as sexy. ... [T]he Starkeeper ... assumes new visibility throughout, taking on the role of Billy's angelic supervisor." Brantley strongly praised the choreography, all the performances and the designers. He was unconvinced, however, by the "mother-daughter dialogue that falls so abrasively on contemporary ears", where Julie tries to justify loving an abusive man, and other scenes in Act 2, particularly those set in heaven, and the optimism of the final scene. Most of the reviewers agreed that while the choreography and performances (especially the singing) were excellent, characterizing the production as sexy and sumptuous, O'Brien's direction did little to help the show deal with modern sensibilities about men's treatment of women, instead indulging in nostalgia.
From July to September 2021 the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London is presenting a staging by its artistic director Timothy Sheader, with choreography by Drew McOnie. The cast includes Carly Bawden as Julie, Declan Bennett as Billy and Joanna Riding as Nettie.
Film, television and concert versions
[[File:Boothbay Harbor in Summer.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where the location shots for Carousels movie version were filmed]]
A film version of the musical was made in 1956, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It follows the musical's story fairly closely, although a prologue, set in the Starkeeper's heaven, was added. The film was released only a few months after the release of the film version of Oklahoma! It garnered some good reviews, and the soundtrack recording was a best seller. As the same stars appeared in both pictures, however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel. Thomas Hischak, in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical".
There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version that starred Robert Goulet, with choreography by Edward Villella.
The New York Philharmonic presented a staged concert version of the musical from February 28 to March 2, 2013, at Avery Fisher Hall. Kelli O'Hara played Julie, with Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Nettie, Jessie Mueller as Carrie, Jason Danieley as Enoch, Shuler Hensley as Jigger, John Cullum as the Starkeeper, and Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin. Tiler Peck danced the role of Louise to choreography by Warren Carlyle. The production was directed by John Rando and conducted by Rob Fisher. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, "this is as gorgeously sung a production of this sublime 1945 Broadway musical as you are ever likely to hear." It was broadcast as part of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center series, premiering on April 26, 2013.
Music and recordings
Musical treatment
Rodgers designed Carousel to be an almost continuous stream of music, especially in Act 1. In later years, Rodgers was asked if he had considered writing an opera. He stated that he had been sorely tempted to, but saw Carousel in operatic terms. He remembered, "We came very close to opera in the Majestic Theatre. ... There's much that is operatic in the music."
Rodgers uses music in Carousel in subtle ways to differentiate characters and tell the audience of their emotional state. In "You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan", the music for the placid Carrie is characterized by even eighth-note rhythms, whereas the emotionally restless Julie's music is marked by dotted eighths and sixteenths; this rhythm will characterize her throughout the show. When Billy whistles a snatch of the song, he selects Julie's dotted notes rather than Carrie's. Reflecting the close association in the music between Julie and the as-yet unborn Louise, when Billy sings in "Soliloquy" of his daughter, who "gets hungry every night", he uses Julie's dotted rhythms. Such rhythms also characterize Julie's Act 2 song, "What's the Use of Wond'rin'". The stable love between Enoch and Carrie is strengthened by her willingness to let Enoch not only plan his entire life, but hers as well. This is reflected in "When the Children Are Asleep", where the two sing in close harmony, but Enoch musically interrupts his intended's turn at the chorus with the words "Dreams that won't be interrupted". Rodgers biographer Geoffrey Block, in his book on the Broadway musical, points out that though Billy may strike his wife, he allows her musical themes to become a part of him and never interrupts her music. Block suggests that, as reprehensible as Billy may be for his actions, Enoch requiring Carrie to act as "the little woman", and his having nine children with her (more than she had found acceptable in "When the Children are Asleep") can be considered to be even more abusive.
The twelve-minute "bench scene", in which Billy and Julie get to know each other and which culminates with "If I Loved You", according to Hischak, "is considered the most completely integrated piece of music-drama in the American musical theatre". The scene is almost entirely drawn from Molnár and is one extended musical piece; Stephen Sondheim described it as "probably the single most important moment in the revolution of contemporary musicals". "If I Loved You" has been recorded many times, by such diverse artists as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr., Mario Lanza and Chad and Jeremy. The D-flat major theme that dominates the music for the second act ballet seems like a new melody to many audience members. It is, however, a greatly expanded development of a theme heard during "Soliloquy" at the line "I guess he'll call me 'The old man' ".
When the pair discussed the song that would become "Soliloquy", Rodgers improvised at the piano to give Hammerstein an idea of how he envisioned the song. When Hammerstein presented his collaborator with the lyrics after two weeks of work (Hammerstein always wrote the words first, then Rodgers would write the melodies), Rodgers wrote the music for the eight-minute song in two hours. "What's the Use of Wond'rin' ", one of Julie's songs, worked well in the show but was never as popular on the radio or for recording, and Hammerstein believed that the lack of popularity was because he had concluded the final line, "And all the rest is talk" with a hard consonant, which does not allow the singer a vocal climax.
Irving Berlin later stated that "You'll Never Walk Alone" had the same sort of effect on him as the 23rd Psalm. When singer Mel Tormé told Rodgers that "You'll Never Walk Alone" had made him cry, Rodgers nodded impatiently. "You're supposed to." The frequently recorded song has become a widely accepted hymn.Rodgers, p. 240 The cast recording of Carousel proved popular in Liverpool, like many Broadway albums, and in 1963, the Brian Epstein-managed band, Gerry and the Pacemakers had a number-one hit with the song. At the time, the top ten hits were played before Liverpool F.C. home matches; even after "You'll Never Walk Alone" dropped out of the top ten, fans continued to sing it, and it has become closely associated with the soccer team and the city of Liverpool. A BBC program, Soul Music, ranked it alongside "Silent Night" and "Abide With Me" in terms of its emotional impact and iconic status.
Recordings
The cast album of the 1945 Broadway production was issued on 78s, and the score was significantly cut—as was the 1950 London cast recording. Theatre historian John Kenrick notes of the 1945 recording that a number of songs had to be abridged to fit the 78 format, but that there is a small part of "Soliloquy" found on no other recording, as Rodgers cut it from the score immediately after the studio recording was made.Fick, David. "The Best Carousel Recording", June 11, 2009. Retrieved on April 7, 2016
A number of songs were cut for the 1956 film, but two of the deleted numbers had been recorded and were ultimately retained on the soundtrack album. The expanded CD version of the soundtrack, issued in 2001, contains all of the singing recorded for the film, including the cut portions, and nearly all of the dance music. The recording of the 1965 Lincoln Center revival featured Raitt reprising the role of Billy. Studio recordings of Carousels songs were released in 1956 (with Robert Merrill as Billy, Patrice Munsel as Julie, and Florence Henderson as Carrie), 1962 and 1987. The 1987 version featured a mix of opera and musical stars, including Samuel Ramey, Barbara Cook and Sarah Brightman. Kenrick recommends the 1962 studio recording for its outstanding cast, including Alfred Drake, Roberta Peters, Claramae Turner, Lee Venora, and Norman Treigle.
Both the London (1993) and New York (1994) cast albums of the Hytner production contain portions of dialogue that, according to Hischak, speak to the power of Michael Hayden's portrayal of Billy. Kenrick judges the 1994 recording the best all-around performance of Carousel on disc, despite uneven singing by Hayden, due to Sally Murphy's Julie and the strong supporting cast (calling Audra McDonald the best Carrie he has heard). The Stratford Festival issued a recording in 2015.
Critical reception and legacy
The musical received almost unanimous rave reviews after its opening in 1945. According to Hischak, reviews were not as exuberant as for Oklahoma! as the critics were not taken by surprise this time. John Chapman of the Daily News termed it "one of the finest musical plays I have ever seen and I shall remember it always". The New York Times's reviewer, Lewis Nichols, stated that "Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein 2d, who can do no wrong, have continued doing no wrong in adapting Liliom into a musical play. Their Carousel is on the whole delightful." Wilella Waldorf of the New York Post, however, complained, "Carousel seemed to us a rather long evening. The Oklahoma! formula is becoming a bit monotonous and so are Miss de Mille's ballets. All right, go ahead and shoot!"Suskin, Steven. Opening Night on Broadway. Schirmer Trade Books, 1990, p. 147. . Dance Magazine gave Linn plaudits for her role as Louise, stating, "Bambi doesn't come on until twenty minutes before eleven, and for the next forty minutes, she practically holds the audience in her hand". Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune also applauded the dancing: "It has waited for Miss de Mille to come through with peculiarly American dance patterns for a musical show to become as much a dance as a song show."
When the musical returned to New York in 1949, The New York Times reviewer Brooks Atkinson described Carousel as "a conspicuously superior musical play ... Carousel, which was warmly appreciated when it opened, seems like nothing less than a masterpiece now." In 1954, when Carousel was revived at City Center, Atkinson discussed the musical in his review:
Carousel has no comment to make on anything of topical importance. The theme is timeless and universal: the devotion of two people who love each other through thick and thin, complicated in this case by the wayward personality of the man, who cannot fulfill the responsibilities he has assumed. ... Billy is a bum, but Carousel recognizes the decency of his motives and admires his independence. There are no slick solutions in Carousel.
Stephen Sondheim noted the duo's ability to take the innovations of Oklahoma! and apply them to a serious setting: "Oklahoma! is about a picnic, Carousel is about life and death." Critic Eric Bentley, on the other hand, wrote that "the last scene of Carousel is an impertinence: I refuse to be lectured to by a musical comedy scriptwriter on the education of children, the nature of the good life, and the contribution of the American small town to the salvation of souls."New York Times critic Frank Rich said of the 1992 London production: "What is remarkable about Mr. Hytner's direction, aside from its unorthodox faith in the virtues of simplicity and stillness, is its ability to make a 1992 audience believe in Hammerstein's vision of redemption, which has it that a dead sinner can return to Earth to do godly good." The Hytner production in New York was hailed by many critics as a grittier Carousel, which they deemed more appropriate for the 1990s. Clive Barnes of the New York Post called it a "defining Carousel—hard-nosed, imaginative, and exciting."
Critic Michael Billington has commented that "lyrically [Carousel] comes perilously close to acceptance of the inevitability of domestic violence." BroadwayWorld.com stated in 2013 that Carousel is now "considered somewhat controversial in terms of its attitudes on domestic violence" because Julie chooses to stay with Billy despite the abuse; actress Kelli O'Hara noted that the domestic violence that Julie "chooses to deal with – is a real, existing and very complicated thing. And exploring it is an important part of healing it."
Rodgers considered Carousel his favorite of all his musicals and wrote, "it affects me deeply every time I see it performed". In 1999, Time magazine, in its "Best of the Century" list, named Carousel the Best Musical of the 20th century, writing that Rodgers and Hammerstein "set the standards for the 20th century musical, and this show features their most beautiful score and the most skillful and affecting example of their musical storytelling". Hammerstein's grandson, Oscar Andrew Hammerstein, in his book about his family, suggested that the wartime situation made Carousel's ending especially poignant to its original viewers, "Every American grieved the loss of a brother, son, father, or friend ... the audience empathized with [Billy's] all-too-human efforts to offer advice, to seek forgiveness, to complete an unfinished life, and to bid a proper good-bye from beyond the grave." Author and composer Ethan Mordden agreed with that perspective:
If Oklahoma! developed the moral argument for sending American boys overseas, Carousel offered consolation to those wives and mothers whose boys would only return in spirit. The meaning lay not in the tragedy of the present, but in the hope for a future where no one walks alone.
Awards and nominations
Original 1945 Broadway productionNote: The Tony Awards were not established until 1947, and so Carousel was not eligible to win any Tonys at its premiere.
1957 revival
1992 London revival
1994 Broadway revival
2018 Broadway revival
References
Bibliography
Block, Geoffrey. Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from Show Boat to Sondheim. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2004. .
Block, Geoffrey (ed.) The Richard Rodgers Reader. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2006. .
Bradley, Ian. You've Got to Have a Dream: The Message of the Broadway Musical. Louisville, Ky., Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. 978-0-664-22854-5.
Easton, Carol. No Intermission: The Life of Agnes DeMille. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 2000 (1st DaCapo Press edition). .
Fordin, Hugh. Getting to Know Him: A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 1995 reprint of 1986 edition. .
Hammerstein, Oscar Andrew. The Hammersteins: A Musical Theatre Family. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2010. .
Hischak, Thomas S. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. .
Hyland, William G. Richard Rodgers. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. .
Molnár, Ferenc. Liliom: A Legend in Seven Scenes and a Prologue. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921.
Mordden, Ethan. "Rodgers & Hammerstein". New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992. .
Nolan, Frederick. The Sound of Their Music: The Story of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2002. .
Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages: An Autobiography. Jefferson, N.C. Da Capo Press, 2002 reprint of 1975 edition. .
Secrest, Meryle. Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2001. .
External links
Carousel at guidetomusicaltheatre.com
Carousel info page on StageAgent.com – Carousel plot summary and character descriptions
(1967 TV adaptation)
1945 musicals
Broadway musicals
Musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein
West End musicals
Musicals based on plays
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Maine in fiction
Fiction set in 1873
Fiction about the afterlife
Plays set in Maine
Plays set in the 19th century
Tony Award-winning musicals
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[
"The ArenaCup was the af2's championship game. For the league's first five years, it was held at the arena of the higher seeded team. However, the 2005 ArenaCup was the first to be played at a neutral site in Bossier City, Louisiana. The 2006 ArenaCup was played in Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan. On August 25, 2007, ArenaCup 8 returned to Bossier City, LA. ArenaCup 9 was played at the arena of the higher seeded team, the Spokane Shock. ArenaCup 10 was held at the Orleans Arena in Paradise, Nevada.\n\nFor the 2000 and 2001 ArenaCups, the game was televised nationally by TNN (now Paramount Network), who carried AFL games at the time. However, when the AFL announced their televised games would be shown on NBC rather than TNN, the ArenaCup telecast was lost. The 2002 ArenaCup was televised by the Vision Network, and the 2003 game was televised by KWHB, a local station in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After having no television coverage in 2004, the game was telecast nationally by Fox Sports Net in 2005 and Comcast Sports Net in 2006.\n\nThe ArenaCup, along with all assets of af2, were purchased by Arena Football 1 (now the current incarnation of the Arena Football League) in December 2009. Because that league uses the ArenaBowl as its championship, the ArenaCup was retired.\n\nResults\n\nMost ArenaCup Championships won\n\nReferences\n\n \nRecurring sporting events established in 2000\nIndoor American football competitions\n2000 establishments in the United States",
"Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Logan Paul, billed as \"Bragging Rights\", was an exhibition boxing match between former five-division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. and YouTuber Logan Paul. It took place on June 6, 2021, at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. The fight reportedly sold more than one million pay-per-view buys.\n\nBackground\n\nOn December 6, 2020, Paul and Mayweather agreed to fight in an exhibition bout on February 20, 2021. The fight was postponed to June 6, 2021 and took place at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.\n\nOn April 27, 2021, Badou Jack and Jean Pascal were added to the card. However, on May 29, 2021, Jean Pascal failed a drug test and was removed from the bout. On June 1, 2021, Dervin Colina replaced Jean Pascal to face Badou Jack. \nOn May 3, 2021, a fight between former NFL wide receiver Chad Johnson and Brian Maxwell was also added to the card.\n\nFight card\n\nFight details\n\nMayweather vs. Paul (Main event) \nMayweather started tentatively and defensively, reluctant to throw often and avoiding most of Paul's shots. Toward the end of the first round, Paul unleashed a wild flurry, but all of his punches were blocked by Mayweather's guard. The second round was similar to the first, with Mayweather content with the slow pace of the fight. He finally turned up the offense in the third, opening up with some clean left hooks that rocked Paul's head back, as well as mixing in his trademark pull counter with the right hand. From the fourth round onward, Paul was visibly fatigued and took every opportunity to utilize his weight advantage by tying the smaller Mayweather up in the clinch after every exchange. Despite Paul's constant attempts at neutering Mayweather's offense, the latter continued to dictate the pace of the fight and land the cleaner, more effective punches. Toward the end of the eighth and final round, Paul showboated when it became clear that he had done enough to avoid being stopped as most had predicted would be the case, and that he would survive to hear the final bell.\n\nThe fight went the full eight-round distance, and no winner was announced. Mayweather's superior boxing was reflected by the CompuBox punch stats, with Mayweather having landed 43 punches of 107 thrown (40.2%), compared to Paul's 28 landed of 217 thrown (12.9%).\n\nIn his post-fight interview, Mayweather praised his opponent, saying \"He's better than I thought he was... he's a tough, rough competitor.\" Paul appeared to harbor some doubt about how seriously Mayweather had taken the fight, saying \"I'm going to go home thinking, 'Did Floyd let me survive?'\"\n\nUndercard \nOn the undercard, former two-division champion Badou Jack beat undefeated Dervin Colina by fourth-round technical knockout, Luís Arias secured an upset victory against former unified light-middlweight champion Jarrett Hurd via split decision, and Chad Johnson and Brian Maxwell went the full distance in a four-round exhibition bout.\n\nBroadcasting \nIn the United Kingdom and Ireland, the undercard was televised on Sky Sports Action, Sky Sports Mix, Sky Sports Main Event, Sky One and Sky Sports Boxing YouTube, whereas the main card aired on Sky Sports Box Office.\n\nESPN broadcast the fight across Latin America, with former world boxing champions Marcos Maidana and Acelino Freitas as guest analysts in the Spanish and Portuguese broadcasts respectively.\n\nThe fight was televised on Showtime PPV (and free to Showtime's subscribers) in the United States, and globally on Fanmio PPV at Fanmio.com. In Australia, the fight was televised on Main Event. In New Zealand, the fight was televised on Sky Arena. In South Africa, the fight was televised on SuperSport. In Russia, the fight was televised on REN TV. In Poland, the fight was televised on TVP Sport. In Portugal, the fight was televised on Sport TV. In the Czech Republic, the fight was televised on Sport 2. In Turkey, the fight was televised on S Sport Plus. In Spain, the fight was televised on Mitele Plus. In Indonesia, the fight was televised on tvOne. In Malaysia, the fight was televised on Astro Box Office.\n\nSee also\n Freak show fight\n\nReferences\n\n2021 in boxing\nBoxing matches involving Floyd Mayweather Jr.\n2020s in Miami\n2021 in sports in Florida\nSports competitions in Miami Gardens, Florida\nJune 2021 sports events in the United States\nBoxing on Showtime\nEvents in Miami"
] |
[
"Carousel (musical)",
"Film, television and concert versions",
"when did it become a film?",
"in 1956,",
"how was the film received?",
"It garnered some good reviews,",
"were there any negative reviews?",
"however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel.",
"when was it first televised?",
"There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version"
] |
C_0e5314f854634d5b99e441aa87fea861_1
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how was it receieved on tv?
| 5 |
How was Carousel received on television?
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Carousel (musical)
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A film version of the musical was made in 1956, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It follows the musical's story fairly closely, although a prologue, set in the Starkeeper's heaven, was added. The film was released only a few months after the release of the film version of Oklahoma!. It garnered some good reviews, and the soundtrack recording was a best seller. As the same stars appeared in both pictures, however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel. Thomas Hischak, in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical". There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version that starred Robert Goulet, with choreography by Edward Villella. The New York Philharmonic presented a staged concert version of the musical from February 28 to March 2, 2013, at Avery Fisher Hall. Kelli O'Hara played Julie, with Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Nettie, Jessie Mueller as Carrie, Jason Danieley as Enoch, Shuler Hensley as Jigger, John Cullum as the Starkeeper, and Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin. Tiler Peck danced the role of Louise to choreography by Warren Carlyle. The production was directed by John Rando. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, "this is as gorgeously sung a production of this sublime 1945 Broadway musical as you are ever likely to hear." It was broadcast as part of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center series, premiering on April 26, 2013. CANNOTANSWER
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The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical".
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Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals.
Following the spectacular success of the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma! (1943), the pair sought to collaborate on another piece, knowing that any resulting work would be compared with Oklahoma!, most likely unfavorably. They were initially reluctant to seek the rights to Liliom; Molnár had refused permission for the work to be adapted in the past, and the original ending was considered too depressing for the musical theatre. After acquiring the rights, the team created a work with lengthy sequences of music and made the ending more hopeful.
The musical required considerable modification during out-of-town tryouts, but once it opened on Broadway on April 19, 1945, it was an immediate hit with both critics and audiences. Carousel initially ran for 890 performances and duplicated its success in the West End in 1950. Though it has never achieved as much commercial success as Oklahoma!, the piece has been repeatedly revived, recorded several times and was filmed in 1956. A production by Nicholas Hytner enjoyed success in 1992 in London, in 1994 in New York and on tour. Another Broadway revival opened in 2018. In 1999, Time magazine named Carousel the best musical of the 20th century.
Background
Liliom
Ferenc Molnár's Hungarian-language drama, Liliom, premiered in Budapest in 1909. The audience was puzzled by the work, and it lasted only thirty-odd performances before being withdrawn, the first shadow on Molnár's successful career as a playwright. Liliom was not presented again until after World War I. When it reappeared on the Budapest stage, it was a tremendous hit.
Except for the ending, the plots of Liliom and Carousel are very similar. Andreas Zavocky (nicknamed Liliom, the Hungarian word for "lily", a slang term for "tough guy"), a carnival barker, falls in love with Julie Zeller, a servant girl, and they begin living together. With both discharged from their jobs, Liliom is discontented and contemplates leaving Julie, but decides not to do so on learning that she is pregnant. A subplot involves Julie's friend Marie, who has fallen in love with Wolf Biefeld, a hotel porter—after the two marry, he becomes the owner of the hotel. Desperate to make money so that he, Julie and their child can escape to America and a better life, Liliom conspires with lowlife Ficsur to commit a robbery, but it goes badly, and Liliom stabs himself. He dies, and his spirit is taken to heaven's police court. As Ficsur suggested while the two waited to commit the crime, would-be robbers like them do not come before God Himself. Liliom is told by the magistrate that he may go back to Earth for one day to attempt to redeem the wrongs he has done to his family, but must first spend sixteen years in a fiery purgatory.
On his return to Earth, Liliom encounters his daughter, Louise, who like her mother is now a factory worker. Saying that he knew her father, he tries to give her a star he stole from the heavens. When Louise refuses to take it, he strikes her. Not realizing who he is, Julie confronts him, but finds herself unable to be angry with him. Liliom is ushered off to his fate, presumably Hell, and Louise asks her mother if it is possible to feel a hard slap as if it was a kiss. Julie reminiscently tells her daughter that it is very possible for that to happen.
An English translation of Liliom was credited to Benjamin "Barney" Glazer, though there is a story that the actual translator, uncredited, was Rodgers' first major partner Lorenz Hart. The Theatre Guild presented it in New York City in 1921, with Joseph Schildkraut as Liliom, and the play was a success, running 300 performances. A 1940 revival with Burgess Meredith and Ingrid Bergman was seen by both Hammerstein and Rodgers. Glazer, in introducing the English translation of Liliom, wrote of the play's appeal:
And where in modern dramatic literature can such pearls be matched—Julie incoherently confessing to her dead lover the love she had always been ashamed to tell; Liliom crying out to the distant carousel the glad news that he is to be a father; the two thieves gambling for the spoils of their prospective robbery; Marie and Wolf posing for their portrait while the broken-hearted Julie stands looking after the vanishing Liliom, the thieves' song ringing in her ears; the two policemen grousing about pay and pensions while Liliom lies bleeding to death; Liliom furtively proffering his daughter the star he has stolen for her in heaven. ... The temptation to count the whole scintillating string is difficult to resist.
Inception
In the 1920s and 1930s, Rodgers and Hammerstein both became well known for creating Broadway hits with other partners. Rodgers, with Lorenz Hart, had produced a string of over two dozen musicals, including such popular successes as Babes in Arms (1937), The Boys from Syracuse (1938) and Pal Joey (1940). Some of Rodgers' work with Hart broke new ground in musical theatre: On Your Toes was the first use of ballet to sustain the plot (in the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" scene), while Pal Joey flouted Broadway tradition by presenting a knave as its hero. Hammerstein had written or co-written the words for such hits as Rose-Marie (1924), The Desert Song (1926), The New Moon (1927) and Show Boat (1927). Though less productive in the 1930s, he wrote material for musicals and films, sharing an Oscar for his song with Jerome Kern, "The Last Time I Saw Paris", which was included in the 1941 film Lady Be Good.
By the early 1940s, Hart had sunk into alcoholism and emotional turmoil, becoming unreliable and prompting Rodgers to approach Hammerstein to ask if he would consider working with him. Hammerstein was eager to do so, and their first collaboration was Oklahoma! (1943). Thomas Hischak states, in his The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, that Oklahoma! is "the single most influential work in the American musical theatre. In fact, the history of the Broadway musical can accurately be divided into what came before Oklahoma! and what came after it." An innovation for its time in integrating song, character, plot and dance, Oklahoma! would serve, according to Hischak, as "the model for Broadway shows for decades", and proved a huge popular and financial success. Once it was well-launched, what to do as an encore was a daunting challenge for the pair. Film producer Samuel Goldwyn saw Oklahoma! and advised Rodgers to shoot himself, which according to Rodgers "was Sam's blunt but funny way of telling me that I'd never create another show as good as Oklahoma!" As they considered new projects, Hammerstein wrote, "We're such fools. No matter what we do, everyone is bound to say, 'This is not another Oklahoma! "
Oklahoma! had been a struggle to finance and produce. Hammerstein and Rodgers met weekly in 1943 with Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner of the Theatre Guild, producers of the blockbuster musical, who together formed what they termed "the Gloat Club". At one such luncheon, Helburn and Langner proposed to Rodgers and Hammerstein that they turn Molnár's Liliom into a musical. Both men refused—they had no feeling for the Budapest setting and thought that the unhappy ending was unsuitable for musical theatre. In addition, given the unstable wartime political situation, they might need to change the setting from Hungary while in rehearsal. At the next luncheon, Helburn and Langner again proposed Liliom, suggesting that they move the setting to Louisiana and make Liliom a Creole. Rodgers and Hammerstein played with the idea over the next few weeks, but decided that Creole dialect, filled with "zis" and "zose", would sound corny and would make it difficult to write effective lyrics.
A breakthrough came when Rodgers, who owned a house in Connecticut, proposed a New England setting. Hammerstein wrote of this suggestion in 1945,
I began to see an attractive ensemble—sailors, whalers, girls who worked in the mills up the river, clambakes on near-by islands, an amusement park on the seaboard, things people could do in crowds, people who were strong and alive and lusty, people who had always been depicted on the stage as thin-lipped puritans—a libel I was anxious to refute ... as for the two leading characters, Julie with her courage and inner strength and outward simplicity seemed more indigenous to Maine than to Budapest. Liliom is, of course, an international character, indigenous to nowhere.
Rodgers and Hammerstein were also concerned about what they termed "the tunnel" of Molnár's second act—a series of gloomy scenes leading up to Liliom's suicide—followed by a dark ending. They also felt it would be difficult to set Liliom's motivation for the robbery to music. Molnár's opposition to having his works adapted was also an issue; he had famously turned down Giacomo Puccini when the great composer wished to transform Liliom into an opera, stating that he wanted the piece to be remembered as his, not Puccini's. In 1937, Molnár, who had recently emigrated to the United States, had declined another offer from Kurt Weill to adapt the play into a musical.
The pair continued to work on the preliminary ideas for a Liliom adaptation while pursuing other projects in late 1943 and early 1944—writing the film musical State Fair and producing I Remember Mama on Broadway. Meanwhile, the Theatre Guild took Molnár to see Oklahoma! Molnár stated that if Rodgers and Hammerstein could adapt Liliom as beautifully as they had modified Green Grow the Lilacs into Oklahoma!, he would be pleased to have them do it. The Guild obtained the rights from Molnár in October 1943. The playwright received one percent of the gross and $2,500 for "personal services". The duo insisted, as part of the contract, that Molnár permit them to make changes in the plot. At first, the playwright refused, but eventually yielded. Hammerstein later stated that if this point had not been won, "we could never have made Carousel."
In seeking to establish through song Liliom's motivation for the robbery, Rodgers remembered that he and Hart had a similar problem in Pal Joey. Rodgers and Hart had overcome the problem with a song that Joey sings to himself, "I'm Talking to My Pal". This inspired "Soliloquy". Both partners later told a story that "Soliloquy" was only intended to be a song about Liliom's dreams of a son, but that Rodgers, who had two daughters, insisted that Liliom consider that Julie might have a girl. However, the notes taken at their meeting of December 7, 1943 state: "Mr. Rodgers suggested a fine musical number for the end of the scene where Liliom discovers he is to be a father, in which he sings first with pride of the growth of a boy, and then suddenly realizes it might be a girl and changes completely."
Hammerstein and Rodgers returned to the Liliom project in mid-1944. Hammerstein was uneasy as he worked, fearing that no matter what they did, Molnár would disapprove of the results. Green Grow the Lilacs had been a little-known work; Liliom was a theatrical standard. Molnár's text also contained considerable commentary on the Hungarian politics of 1909 and the rigidity of that society. A dismissed carnival barker who hits his wife, attempts a robbery and commits suicide seemed an unlikely central character for a musical comedy. Hammerstein decided to use the words and story to make the audience sympathize with the lovers. He also built up the secondary couple, who are incidental to the plot in Liliom; they became Enoch Snow and Carrie Pipperidge. "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" was repurposed from a song, "A Real Nice Hayride", written for Oklahoma! but not used.
Molnár's ending was unsuitable, and after a couple of false starts, Hammerstein conceived the graduation scene that ends the musical. According to Frederick Nolan in his book on the team's works: "From that scene the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" sprang almost naturally." In spite of Hammerstein's simple lyrics for "You'll Never Walk Alone", Rodgers had great difficulty in setting it to music. Rodgers explained his rationale for the changed ending,
Liliom was a tragedy about a man who cannot learn to live with other people. The way Molnár wrote it, the man ends up hitting his daughter and then having to go back to purgatory, leaving his daughter helpless and hopeless. We couldn't accept that. The way we ended Carousel it may still be a tragedy but it's a hopeful one because in the final scene it is clear that the child has at last learned how to express herself and communicate with others.
When the pair decided to make "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" into an ensemble number, Hammerstein realized he had no idea what a clambake was like, and researched the matter. Based on his initial findings, he wrote the line, "First came codfish chowder". However, further research convinced him the proper term was "codhead chowder", a term unfamiliar to many playgoers. He decided to keep it as "codfish". When the song proceeded to discuss the lobsters consumed at the feast, Hammerstein wrote the line "We slit 'em down the back/And peppered 'em good". He was grieved to hear from a friend that lobsters are always slit down the front. The lyricist sent a researcher to a seafood restaurant and heard back that lobsters are always slit down the back. Hammerstein concluded that there is disagreement about which side of a lobster is the back. One error not caught involved the song "June Is Bustin' Out All Over", in which sheep are depicted as seeking to mate in late spring—they actually do so in the winter. Whenever this was brought to Hammerstein's attention, he told his informant that 1873 was a special year, in which sheep mated in the spring.
Rodgers early decided to dispense with an overture, feeling that the music was hard to hear over the banging of seats as latecomers settled themselves. In his autobiography, Rodgers complained that only the brass section can be heard during an overture because there are never enough strings in a musical's small orchestra. He determined to force the audience to concentrate from the beginning by opening with a pantomime scene accompanied by what became known as "The Carousel Waltz". The pantomime paralleled one in the Molnár play, which was also used to introduce the characters and situation to the audience. Author Ethan Mordden described the effectiveness of this opening:
Other characters catch our notice—Mr. Bascombe, the pompous mill owner, Mrs. Mullin, the widow who runs the carousel and, apparently, Billy; a dancing bear; an acrobat. But what draws us in is the intensity with which Julie regards Billy—the way she stands frozen, staring at him, while everyone else at the fair is swaying to the rhythm of Billy's spiel. And as Julie and Billy ride together on the swirling carousel, and the stage picture surges with the excitement of the crowd, and the orchestra storms to a climax, and the curtain falls, we realize that R & H have not only skipped the overture and the opening number but the exposition as well. They have plunged into the story, right into the middle of it, in the most intense first scene any musical ever had.
Casting and out-of-town tryouts
The casting for Carousel began when Oklahoma!s production team, including Rodgers and Hammerstein, was seeking a replacement for the part of Curly (the male lead in Oklahoma!). Lawrence Langner had heard, through a relative, of a California singer named John Raitt, who might be suitable for the part. Langner went to hear Raitt, then urged the others to bring Raitt to New York for an audition. Raitt asked to sing "Largo al factotum", Figaro's aria from The Barber of Seville, to warm up. The warmup was sufficient to convince the producers that not only had they found a Curly, they had found a Liliom (or Billy Bigelow, as the part was renamed). Theresa Helburn made another California discovery, Jan Clayton, a singer/actress who had made a few minor films for MGM. She was brought east and successfully auditioned for the part of Julie.
The producers sought to cast unknowns. Though many had played in previous Hammerstein or Rodgers works, only one, Jean Casto (cast as carousel owner Mrs. Mullin, and a veteran of Pal Joey), had ever played on Broadway before. It proved harder to cast the ensemble than the leads, due to the war—Rodgers told his casting director, John Fearnley, that the sole qualification for a dancing boy was that he be alive. Rodgers and Hammerstein reassembled much of the creative team that had made Oklahoma! a success, including director Rouben Mamoulian and choreographer Agnes de Mille. Miles White was the costume designer while Jo Mielziner (who had not worked on Oklahoma!) was the scenic and lighting designer. Even though Oklahoma! orchestrator Russell Bennett had informed Rodgers that he was unavailable to work on Carousel due to a radio contract, Rodgers insisted he do the work in his spare time. He orchestrated "The Carousel Waltz" and "(When I Marry) Mister Snow" before finally being replaced by Don Walker. A new member of the creative team was Trude Rittmann, who arranged the dance music. Rittmann initially felt that Rodgers mistrusted her because she was a woman, and found him difficult to work with, but the two worked together on Rodgers' shows until the 1970s.
Rehearsals began in January 1945; either Rodgers or Hammerstein was always present. Raitt was presented with the lyrics for "Soliloquy" on a five-foot long sheet of paper—the piece ran nearly eight minutes. Staging such a long solo number presented problems, and Raitt later stated that he felt that they were never fully addressed. At some point during rehearsals, Molnár came to see what they had done to his play. There are a number of variations on the story.Fordin, pp. 231–32 As Rodgers told it, while watching rehearsals with Hammerstein, the composer spotted Molnár in the rear of the theatre and whispered the news to his partner. Both sweated through an afternoon of rehearsal in which nothing seemed to go right. At the end, the two walked to the back of the theatre, expecting an angry reaction from Molnár. Instead, the playwright said enthusiastically, "What you have done is so beautiful. And you know what I like best? The ending!" Hammerstein wrote that Molnár became a regular attendee at rehearsals after that.
Like most of the pair's works, Carousel contains a lengthy ballet, "Billy Makes a Journey", in the second act, as Billy looks down to the Earth from "Up There" and observes his daughter. In the original production the ballet was choreographed by de Mille. It began with Billy looking down from heaven at his wife in labor, with the village women gathered for a "birthing". The ballet involved every character in the play, some of whom spoke lines of dialogue, and contained a number of subplots. The focus was on Louise, played by Bambi Linn, who at first almost soars in her dance, expressing the innocence of childhood. She is teased and mocked by her schoolmates, and Louise becomes attracted to the rough carnival people, who symbolize Billy's world. A youth from the carnival attempts to seduce Louise, as she discovers her own sexuality, but he decides she is more girl than woman, and he leaves her. After Julie comforts her, Louise goes to a children's party, where she is shunned. The carnival people reappear and form a ring around the children's party, with Louise lost between the two groups. At the end, the performers form a huge carousel with their bodies.
The play opened for tryouts in New Haven, Connecticut on March 22, 1945. The first act was well-received; the second act was not. Casto recalled that the second act finished about 1:30 a.m. The staff immediately sat down for a two-hour conference. Five scenes, half the ballet, and two songs were cut from the show as the result. John Fearnley commented, "Now I see why these people have hits. I never witnessed anything so brisk and brave in my life." De Mille said of this conference, "not three minutes had been wasted pleading for something cherished. Nor was there any idle joking. ... We cut and cut and cut and then we went to bed." By the time the company left New Haven, de Mille's ballet was down to forty minutes.
A major concern with the second act was the effectiveness of the characters He and She (later called by Rodgers "Mr. and Mrs. God"), before whom Billy appeared after his death. Mr. and Mrs. God were depicted as a New England minister and his wife, seen in their parlor.Block (ed.), p. 129. At this time, according to the cast sheet distributed during the Boston run, Dr. Seldon was listed as the "Minister". The couple was still part of the show at the Boston opening. Rodgers said to Hammerstein, "We've got to get God out of that parlor". When Hammerstein inquired where he should put the deity, Rodgers replied, "I don't care where you put Him. Put Him on a ladder for all I care, only get Him out of that parlor!" Hammerstein duly put Mr. God (renamed the Starkeeper) atop a ladder, and Mrs. God was removed from the show. Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest terms this change a mistake, leading to a more fantastic afterlife, which was later criticized by The New Republic as "a Rotarian atmosphere congenial to audiences who seek not reality but escape from reality, not truth but escape from truth".
Hammerstein wrote that Molnár's advice, to combine two scenes into one, was key to pulling together the second act and represented "a more radical departure from the original than any change we had made". A reprise of "If I Loved You" was added in the second act, which Rodgers felt needed more music. Three weeks of tryouts in Boston followed the brief New Haven run, and the audience there gave the musical a warm reception. An even shorter version of the ballet was presented the final two weeks in Boston, but on the final night there, de Mille expanded it back to forty minutes, and it brought the house down, causing both Rodgers and Hammerstein to embrace her.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two young female millworkers in 1873 Maine visit the town's carousel after work. One of them, Julie Jordan, attracts the attention of the barker, Billy Bigelow ("The Carousel Waltz"). When Julie lets Billy put his arm around her during the ride, Mrs. Mullin, the widowed owner of the carousel, tells Julie never to return. Julie and her friend, Carrie Pipperidge, argue with Mrs. Mullin. Billy arrives and, seeing that Mrs. Mullin is jealous, mocks her; he is fired from his job. Billy, unconcerned, invites Julie to join him for a drink. As he goes to get his belongings, Carrie presses Julie about her feelings toward him, but Julie is evasive ("You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan"). Carrie has a beau too, fisherman Enoch Snow ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow"), to whom she is newly engaged. Billy returns for Julie as the departing Carrie warns that staying out late means the loss of Julie's job. Mr. Bascombe, owner of the mill, happens by along with a policeman, and offers to escort Julie to her home, but she refuses and is fired. Left alone, she and Billy talk about what life might be like if they were in love, but neither quite confesses to the growing attraction they feel for each other ("If I Loved You").
Over a month passes, and preparations for the summer clambake are under way ("June Is Bustin' Out All Over"). Julie and Billy, now married, live at Julie's cousin Nettie's spa. Julie confides in Carrie that Billy, frustrated over being unemployed, hit her. Carrie has happier news—she is engaged to Enoch, who enters as she discusses him ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow (reprise))". Billy arrives with his ne'er-do-well whaler friend, Jigger. The former barker is openly rude to Enoch and Julie, then leaves with Jigger, followed by a distraught Julie. Enoch tells Carrie that he expects to become rich selling herring and to have a large family, larger perhaps than Carrie is comfortable having ("When the Children Are Asleep").
Jigger and his shipmates, joined by Billy, then sing about life on the sea ("Blow High, Blow Low"). The whaler tries to recruit Billy to help with a robbery, but Billy declines, as the victim—Julie's former boss, Mr. Bascombe—might have to be killed. Mrs. Mullin enters and tries to tempt Billy back to the carousel (and to her). He would have to abandon Julie; a married barker cannot evoke the same sexual tension as one who is single. Billy reluctantly mulls it over as Julie arrives and the others leave. She tells him that she is pregnant, and Billy is overwhelmed with happiness, ending all thoughts of returning to the carousel. Once alone, Billy imagines the fun he will have with Bill Jr.—until he realizes that his child might be a girl, and reflects soberly that "you've got to be a father to a girl" ("Soliloquy"). Determined to provide financially for his future child, whatever the means, Billy decides to be Jigger's accomplice.
The whole town leaves for the clambake. Billy, who had earlier refused to go, agrees to join in, to Julie's delight, as he realizes that being seen at the clambake is integral to his and Jigger's alibi ("Act I Finale").
Act 2
Everyone reminisces about the huge meal and much fun ("This Was a Real Nice Clambake"). Jigger tries to seduce Carrie; Enoch walks in at the wrong moment, and declares that he is finished with her ("Geraniums In the Winder"), as Jigger jeers ("There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman"). The girls try to comfort Carrie, but for Julie all that matters is that "he's your feller and you love him" ("What's the Use of Wond'rin'?"). Julie sees Billy trying to sneak away with Jigger and, trying to stop him, feels the knife hidden in his shirt. She begs him to give it to her, but he refuses and leaves to commit the robbery.
As they wait, Jigger and Billy gamble with cards. They stake their shares of the anticipated robbery spoils. Billy loses: his participation is now pointless. Unknown to Billy and Jigger, Mr. Bascombe, the intended victim, has already deposited the mill's money. The robbery fails: Bascombe pulls a gun on Billy while Jigger escapes. Billy stabs himself with his knife; Julie arrives just in time for him to say his last words to her and die. Julie strokes his hair, finally able to tell him that she loved him. Carrie and Enoch, reunited by the crisis, attempt to console Julie; Nettie arrives and gives Julie the resolve to keep going despite her despair ("You'll Never Walk Alone").
Billy's defiant spirit ("The Highest Judge of All") is taken Up There to see the Starkeeper, a heavenly official. The Starkeeper tells Billy that the good he did in life was not enough to get into heaven, but so long as there is a person alive who remembers him, he can return for a day to try to do good to redeem himself. He informs Billy that fifteen years have passed on Earth since his suicide, and suggests that Billy can get himself into heaven if he helps his daughter, Louise. He helps Billy look down from heaven to see her (instrumental ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey"). Louise has grown up to be lonely and bitter. The local children ostracize her because her father was a thief and a wife-beater. In the dance, a young ruffian, much like her father at that age, flirts with her and abandons her as too young. The dance concludes, and Billy is anxious to return to Earth and help his daughter. He steals a star to take with him, as the Starkeeper pretends not to notice.
Outside Julie's cottage, Carrie describes her visit to New York with the now-wealthy Enoch. Carrie's husband and their many children enter to fetch her—the family must get ready for the high school graduation later that day. Enoch Jr., the oldest son, remains behind to talk with Louise, as Billy and the Heavenly Friend escorting him enter, invisible to the other characters. Louise confides in Enoch Jr. that she plans to run away from home with an acting troupe. He says that he will stop her by marrying her, but that his father will think her an unsuitable match. Louise is outraged: each insults the other's father, and Louise orders Enoch Jr. to go away. Billy, able to make himself visible at will, reveals himself to the sobbing Louise, pretending to be a friend of her father. He offers her a gift—the star he stole from heaven. She refuses it and, frustrated, he slaps her hand. He makes himself invisible, and Louise tells Julie what happened, stating that the slap miraculously felt like a kiss, not a blow—and Julie understands her perfectly. Louise retreats to the house, as Julie notices the star that Billy dropped; she picks it up and seems to feel Billy's presence ("If I Loved You (Reprise)").
Billy invisibly attends Louise's graduation, hoping for one last chance to help his daughter and redeem himself. The beloved town physician, Dr. Seldon (who resembles the Starkeeper) advises the graduating class not to rely on their parents' success or be held back by their failure (words directed at Louise). Seldon prompts everyone to sing an old song, "You'll Never Walk Alone". Billy, still invisible, whispers to Louise, telling her to believe Seldon's words, and when she tentatively reaches out to another girl, she learns she does not have to be an outcast. Billy goes to Julie, telling her at last that he loved her. As his widow and daughter join in the singing, Billy is taken to his heavenly reward.
Principal roles and notable performers
° denotes original Broadway cast
Musical numbers Act I"List of Songs", Carousel at the IBDB Database. Retrieved July 18, 2012
"The Carousel Waltz" – Orchestra
"You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan" – Carrie Pipperidge and Julie Jordan
"(When I Marry) Mister Snow" – Carrie
"If I Loved You" – Billy Bigelow and Julie
"June Is Bustin' Out All Over" – Nettie Fowler and Chorus
"(When I Marry) Mister Snow" (reprise) – Carrie, Enoch Snow and Female Chorus
"When the Children Are Asleep" – Enoch and Carrie
"Blow High, Blow Low" – Jigger Craigin, Billy and Male Chorus
"Soliloquy" – BillyAct II "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" – Carrie, Nettie, Julie, Enoch and Chorus
"Geraniums in the Winder" – Enoch *
"There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" – Jigger and Chorus
"What's the Use of Wond'rin'?" – Julie
"You'll Never Walk Alone" – Nettie
"The Highest Judge of All" – Billy
Ballet: "Billy Makes a Journey" – Orchestra
"If I Loved You" (reprise) – Billy
Finale: "You'll Never Walk Alone" (reprise) – Company
Productions
Early productions
The original Broadway production opened at the Majestic Theatre on April 19, 1945. The dress rehearsal the day before had gone badly, and the pair feared the new work would not be well received. One successful last-minute change was to have de Mille choreograph the pantomime. The movement of the carnival crowd in the pantomime had been entrusted to Mamoulian, and his version was not working. Rodgers had injured his back the previous week, and he watched the opening from a stretcher propped in a box behind the curtain. Sedated with morphine, he could see only part of the stage. As he could not hear the audience's applause and laughter, he assumed the show was a failure. It was not until friends congratulated him later that evening that he realized that the curtain had been met by wild applause. Bambi Linn, who played Louise, was so enthusiastically received by the audience during her ballet that she was forced to break character, when she next appeared, and bow. Rodgers' daughter Mary caught sight of her friend, Stephen Sondheim, both teenagers then, across several rows; both had eyes wet with tears.
The original production ran for 890 performances, closing on May 24, 1947. The original cast included John Raitt (Billy), Jan Clayton (Julie), Jean Darling (Carrie), Eric Mattson (Enoch Snow), Christine Johnson (Nettie Fowler), Murvyn Vye (Jigger), Bambi Linn (Louise) and Russell Collins (Starkeeper). In December 1945, Clayton left to star in the Broadway revival of Show Boat and was replaced by Iva Withers; Raitt was replaced by Henry Michel in January 1947; Darling was replaced by Margot Moser.Hischak, p. 62
After closing on Broadway, the show went on a national tour for two years. It played for five months in Chicago alone, visited twenty states and two Canadian cities, covered and played to nearly two million people. The touring company had a four-week run at New York City Center in January 1949. Following the City Center run, the show was moved back to the Majestic Theatre in the hopes of filling the theatre until South Pacific opened in early April. However, ticket sales were mediocre, and the show closed almost a month early.
The musical premiered in the West End, London, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on June 7, 1950. The production was restaged by Jerome Whyte, with a cast that included Stephen Douglass (Billy), Iva Withers (Julie) and Margot Moser (Carrie). Carousel ran in London for 566 performances, remaining there for over a year and a half.
Subsequent productions
Carousel was revived in 1954 and 1957 at City Center, presented by the New York City Center Light Opera Company. Both times, the production featured Barbara Cook, though she played Carrie in 1954 and Julie in 1957 (playing alongside Howard Keel as Billy). The production was then taken to Belgium to be performed at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, with David Atkinson as Billy, Ruth Kobart as Nettie, and Clayton reprising the role of Julie, which she had originated.
In August 1965, Rodgers and the Music Theater of Lincoln Center produced Carousel for 47 performances. John Raitt reprised the role of Billy, with Jerry Orbach as Jigger and Reid Shelton as Enoch Snow. The roles of the Starkeeper and Dr. Seldon were played by Edward Everett Horton in his final stage appearance. The following year, New York City Center Light Opera Company brought Carousel back to City Center for 22 performances, with Bruce Yarnell as Billy and Constance Towers as Julie.
Nicholas Hytner directed a new production of Carousel in 1992, at London's Royal National Theatre, with choreography by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and designs by Bob Crowley. In this staging, the story begins at the mill, where Julie and Carrie work, with the music slowed down to emphasize the drudgery. After work ends, they move to the shipyards and then to the carnival. As they proceed on a revolving stage, carnival characters appear, and at last the carousel is assembled onstage for the girls to ride.Block, p. 175 Louise is seduced by the ruffian boy during her Act 2 ballet, set around the ruins of a carousel. Michael Hayden played Billy not as a large, gruff man, but as a frustrated smaller one, a time bomb waiting to explode. Hayden, Joanna Riding (Julie) and Janie Dee (Carrie) all won Olivier Awards for their performances. Patricia Routledge played Nettie. Enoch and Carrie were cast as an interracial couple whose eight children, according to the review in The New York Times, looked like "a walking United Colors of Benetton ad". Clive Rowe, as Enoch, was nominated for an Olivier Award. The production's limited run from December 1992 through March 1993 was a sellout. It re-opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London in September 1993, presented by Cameron Mackintosh, where it continued until May 1994.
The Hytner production moved to New York's Vivian Beaumont Theater, where it opened on March 24, 1994, and ran for 322 performances. This won five Tony Awards, including best musical revival, as well as awards for Hytner, MacMillan, Crowley and Audra McDonald (as Carrie). The cast also included Sally Murphy as Julie, Shirley Verrett as Nettie, Fisher Stevens as Jigger and Eddie Korbich as Enoch. One change made from the London to the New York production was to have Billy strike Louise across the face, rather than on the hand. According to Hayden, "He does the one unpardonable thing, the thing we can't forgive. It's a challenge for the audience to like him after that." The Hytner Carousel was presented in Japan in May 1995. A U.S. national tour with a scaled-down production began in February 1996 in Houston and closed in May 1997 in Providence, Rhode Island. Producers sought to feature young talent on the tour, with Patrick Wilson as Billy and Sarah Uriarte Berry, and later Jennifer Laura Thompson, as Julie.
A revival opened at London's Savoy Theatre on December 2, 2008, after a week of previews, starring Jeremiah James (Billy), Alexandra Silber (Julie) and Lesley Garrett (Nettie). The production received warm to mixed reviews. It closed in June 2009, a month early. Michael Coveney, writing in The Independent, admired Rodgers' music but stated, "Lindsay Posner's efficient revival doesn't hold a candle to the National Theatre 1992 version". A production at Theater Basel, Switzerland, in 2016 to 2017, with German dialogue, was directed by Alexander Charim and choreographed by Teresa Rotemberg. Bryony Dwyer, Christian Miedl and Cheryl Studer starred, respectively, as Julie Jordan, Billy Bigelow and Nettie Fowler.<ref>[http://operabase.com/diary.cgi?lang=en&code=wsba&date=20161215 "Richard Rodgers: Carousel"] , Diary: Theater Basel, Operabase.com. Retrieved on March 8, 2018</ref> A semi-staged revival by the English National Opera opened at the London Coliseum in 2017. The production was directed by Lonny Price, conducted by David Charles Abell, and starred Alfie Boe as Billy, Katherine Jenkins as Julie and Nicholas Lyndhurst as the Starkeeper. The production received mixed to positive reviews.
The third Broadway revival began previews in February 2018 at the Imperial Theatre and officially opened on April 12. It closed on September 16, 2018. The production starred Jessie Mueller, Joshua Henry, Renée Fleming, Lindsay Mendez and Alexander Gemignani. The production was directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Justin Peck. The songs "Geraniums in the Winder" and "There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" were cut from this revival. Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, "The tragic inevitability of Carousel has seldom come across as warmly or as chillingly as it does in this vividly reimagined revival. ... [W]ith thoughtful and powerful performances by Mr. Henry and Ms. Mueller, the love story at the show's center has never seemed quite as ill-starred or, at the same time, as sexy. ... [T]he Starkeeper ... assumes new visibility throughout, taking on the role of Billy's angelic supervisor." Brantley strongly praised the choreography, all the performances and the designers. He was unconvinced, however, by the "mother-daughter dialogue that falls so abrasively on contemporary ears", where Julie tries to justify loving an abusive man, and other scenes in Act 2, particularly those set in heaven, and the optimism of the final scene. Most of the reviewers agreed that while the choreography and performances (especially the singing) were excellent, characterizing the production as sexy and sumptuous, O'Brien's direction did little to help the show deal with modern sensibilities about men's treatment of women, instead indulging in nostalgia.
From July to September 2021 the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London is presenting a staging by its artistic director Timothy Sheader, with choreography by Drew McOnie. The cast includes Carly Bawden as Julie, Declan Bennett as Billy and Joanna Riding as Nettie.
Film, television and concert versions
[[File:Boothbay Harbor in Summer.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where the location shots for Carousels movie version were filmed]]
A film version of the musical was made in 1956, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It follows the musical's story fairly closely, although a prologue, set in the Starkeeper's heaven, was added. The film was released only a few months after the release of the film version of Oklahoma! It garnered some good reviews, and the soundtrack recording was a best seller. As the same stars appeared in both pictures, however, the two films were often compared, generally to the disadvantage of Carousel. Thomas Hischak, in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia, later wondered "if the smaller number of Carousel stage revivals is the product of this often-lumbering [film] musical".
There was also an abridged (100 minute) 1967 network television version that starred Robert Goulet, with choreography by Edward Villella.
The New York Philharmonic presented a staged concert version of the musical from February 28 to March 2, 2013, at Avery Fisher Hall. Kelli O'Hara played Julie, with Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Nettie, Jessie Mueller as Carrie, Jason Danieley as Enoch, Shuler Hensley as Jigger, John Cullum as the Starkeeper, and Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin. Tiler Peck danced the role of Louise to choreography by Warren Carlyle. The production was directed by John Rando and conducted by Rob Fisher. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote, "this is as gorgeously sung a production of this sublime 1945 Broadway musical as you are ever likely to hear." It was broadcast as part of the PBS Live from Lincoln Center series, premiering on April 26, 2013.
Music and recordings
Musical treatment
Rodgers designed Carousel to be an almost continuous stream of music, especially in Act 1. In later years, Rodgers was asked if he had considered writing an opera. He stated that he had been sorely tempted to, but saw Carousel in operatic terms. He remembered, "We came very close to opera in the Majestic Theatre. ... There's much that is operatic in the music."
Rodgers uses music in Carousel in subtle ways to differentiate characters and tell the audience of their emotional state. In "You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan", the music for the placid Carrie is characterized by even eighth-note rhythms, whereas the emotionally restless Julie's music is marked by dotted eighths and sixteenths; this rhythm will characterize her throughout the show. When Billy whistles a snatch of the song, he selects Julie's dotted notes rather than Carrie's. Reflecting the close association in the music between Julie and the as-yet unborn Louise, when Billy sings in "Soliloquy" of his daughter, who "gets hungry every night", he uses Julie's dotted rhythms. Such rhythms also characterize Julie's Act 2 song, "What's the Use of Wond'rin'". The stable love between Enoch and Carrie is strengthened by her willingness to let Enoch not only plan his entire life, but hers as well. This is reflected in "When the Children Are Asleep", where the two sing in close harmony, but Enoch musically interrupts his intended's turn at the chorus with the words "Dreams that won't be interrupted". Rodgers biographer Geoffrey Block, in his book on the Broadway musical, points out that though Billy may strike his wife, he allows her musical themes to become a part of him and never interrupts her music. Block suggests that, as reprehensible as Billy may be for his actions, Enoch requiring Carrie to act as "the little woman", and his having nine children with her (more than she had found acceptable in "When the Children are Asleep") can be considered to be even more abusive.
The twelve-minute "bench scene", in which Billy and Julie get to know each other and which culminates with "If I Loved You", according to Hischak, "is considered the most completely integrated piece of music-drama in the American musical theatre". The scene is almost entirely drawn from Molnár and is one extended musical piece; Stephen Sondheim described it as "probably the single most important moment in the revolution of contemporary musicals". "If I Loved You" has been recorded many times, by such diverse artists as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr., Mario Lanza and Chad and Jeremy. The D-flat major theme that dominates the music for the second act ballet seems like a new melody to many audience members. It is, however, a greatly expanded development of a theme heard during "Soliloquy" at the line "I guess he'll call me 'The old man' ".
When the pair discussed the song that would become "Soliloquy", Rodgers improvised at the piano to give Hammerstein an idea of how he envisioned the song. When Hammerstein presented his collaborator with the lyrics after two weeks of work (Hammerstein always wrote the words first, then Rodgers would write the melodies), Rodgers wrote the music for the eight-minute song in two hours. "What's the Use of Wond'rin' ", one of Julie's songs, worked well in the show but was never as popular on the radio or for recording, and Hammerstein believed that the lack of popularity was because he had concluded the final line, "And all the rest is talk" with a hard consonant, which does not allow the singer a vocal climax.
Irving Berlin later stated that "You'll Never Walk Alone" had the same sort of effect on him as the 23rd Psalm. When singer Mel Tormé told Rodgers that "You'll Never Walk Alone" had made him cry, Rodgers nodded impatiently. "You're supposed to." The frequently recorded song has become a widely accepted hymn.Rodgers, p. 240 The cast recording of Carousel proved popular in Liverpool, like many Broadway albums, and in 1963, the Brian Epstein-managed band, Gerry and the Pacemakers had a number-one hit with the song. At the time, the top ten hits were played before Liverpool F.C. home matches; even after "You'll Never Walk Alone" dropped out of the top ten, fans continued to sing it, and it has become closely associated with the soccer team and the city of Liverpool. A BBC program, Soul Music, ranked it alongside "Silent Night" and "Abide With Me" in terms of its emotional impact and iconic status.
Recordings
The cast album of the 1945 Broadway production was issued on 78s, and the score was significantly cut—as was the 1950 London cast recording. Theatre historian John Kenrick notes of the 1945 recording that a number of songs had to be abridged to fit the 78 format, but that there is a small part of "Soliloquy" found on no other recording, as Rodgers cut it from the score immediately after the studio recording was made.Fick, David. "The Best Carousel Recording", June 11, 2009. Retrieved on April 7, 2016
A number of songs were cut for the 1956 film, but two of the deleted numbers had been recorded and were ultimately retained on the soundtrack album. The expanded CD version of the soundtrack, issued in 2001, contains all of the singing recorded for the film, including the cut portions, and nearly all of the dance music. The recording of the 1965 Lincoln Center revival featured Raitt reprising the role of Billy. Studio recordings of Carousels songs were released in 1956 (with Robert Merrill as Billy, Patrice Munsel as Julie, and Florence Henderson as Carrie), 1962 and 1987. The 1987 version featured a mix of opera and musical stars, including Samuel Ramey, Barbara Cook and Sarah Brightman. Kenrick recommends the 1962 studio recording for its outstanding cast, including Alfred Drake, Roberta Peters, Claramae Turner, Lee Venora, and Norman Treigle.
Both the London (1993) and New York (1994) cast albums of the Hytner production contain portions of dialogue that, according to Hischak, speak to the power of Michael Hayden's portrayal of Billy. Kenrick judges the 1994 recording the best all-around performance of Carousel on disc, despite uneven singing by Hayden, due to Sally Murphy's Julie and the strong supporting cast (calling Audra McDonald the best Carrie he has heard). The Stratford Festival issued a recording in 2015.
Critical reception and legacy
The musical received almost unanimous rave reviews after its opening in 1945. According to Hischak, reviews were not as exuberant as for Oklahoma! as the critics were not taken by surprise this time. John Chapman of the Daily News termed it "one of the finest musical plays I have ever seen and I shall remember it always". The New York Times's reviewer, Lewis Nichols, stated that "Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein 2d, who can do no wrong, have continued doing no wrong in adapting Liliom into a musical play. Their Carousel is on the whole delightful." Wilella Waldorf of the New York Post, however, complained, "Carousel seemed to us a rather long evening. The Oklahoma! formula is becoming a bit monotonous and so are Miss de Mille's ballets. All right, go ahead and shoot!"Suskin, Steven. Opening Night on Broadway. Schirmer Trade Books, 1990, p. 147. . Dance Magazine gave Linn plaudits for her role as Louise, stating, "Bambi doesn't come on until twenty minutes before eleven, and for the next forty minutes, she practically holds the audience in her hand". Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune also applauded the dancing: "It has waited for Miss de Mille to come through with peculiarly American dance patterns for a musical show to become as much a dance as a song show."
When the musical returned to New York in 1949, The New York Times reviewer Brooks Atkinson described Carousel as "a conspicuously superior musical play ... Carousel, which was warmly appreciated when it opened, seems like nothing less than a masterpiece now." In 1954, when Carousel was revived at City Center, Atkinson discussed the musical in his review:
Carousel has no comment to make on anything of topical importance. The theme is timeless and universal: the devotion of two people who love each other through thick and thin, complicated in this case by the wayward personality of the man, who cannot fulfill the responsibilities he has assumed. ... Billy is a bum, but Carousel recognizes the decency of his motives and admires his independence. There are no slick solutions in Carousel.
Stephen Sondheim noted the duo's ability to take the innovations of Oklahoma! and apply them to a serious setting: "Oklahoma! is about a picnic, Carousel is about life and death." Critic Eric Bentley, on the other hand, wrote that "the last scene of Carousel is an impertinence: I refuse to be lectured to by a musical comedy scriptwriter on the education of children, the nature of the good life, and the contribution of the American small town to the salvation of souls."New York Times critic Frank Rich said of the 1992 London production: "What is remarkable about Mr. Hytner's direction, aside from its unorthodox faith in the virtues of simplicity and stillness, is its ability to make a 1992 audience believe in Hammerstein's vision of redemption, which has it that a dead sinner can return to Earth to do godly good." The Hytner production in New York was hailed by many critics as a grittier Carousel, which they deemed more appropriate for the 1990s. Clive Barnes of the New York Post called it a "defining Carousel—hard-nosed, imaginative, and exciting."
Critic Michael Billington has commented that "lyrically [Carousel] comes perilously close to acceptance of the inevitability of domestic violence." BroadwayWorld.com stated in 2013 that Carousel is now "considered somewhat controversial in terms of its attitudes on domestic violence" because Julie chooses to stay with Billy despite the abuse; actress Kelli O'Hara noted that the domestic violence that Julie "chooses to deal with – is a real, existing and very complicated thing. And exploring it is an important part of healing it."
Rodgers considered Carousel his favorite of all his musicals and wrote, "it affects me deeply every time I see it performed". In 1999, Time magazine, in its "Best of the Century" list, named Carousel the Best Musical of the 20th century, writing that Rodgers and Hammerstein "set the standards for the 20th century musical, and this show features their most beautiful score and the most skillful and affecting example of their musical storytelling". Hammerstein's grandson, Oscar Andrew Hammerstein, in his book about his family, suggested that the wartime situation made Carousel's ending especially poignant to its original viewers, "Every American grieved the loss of a brother, son, father, or friend ... the audience empathized with [Billy's] all-too-human efforts to offer advice, to seek forgiveness, to complete an unfinished life, and to bid a proper good-bye from beyond the grave." Author and composer Ethan Mordden agreed with that perspective:
If Oklahoma! developed the moral argument for sending American boys overseas, Carousel offered consolation to those wives and mothers whose boys would only return in spirit. The meaning lay not in the tragedy of the present, but in the hope for a future where no one walks alone.
Awards and nominations
Original 1945 Broadway productionNote: The Tony Awards were not established until 1947, and so Carousel was not eligible to win any Tonys at its premiere.
1957 revival
1992 London revival
1994 Broadway revival
2018 Broadway revival
References
Bibliography
Block, Geoffrey. Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from Show Boat to Sondheim. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2004. .
Block, Geoffrey (ed.) The Richard Rodgers Reader. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2006. .
Bradley, Ian. You've Got to Have a Dream: The Message of the Broadway Musical. Louisville, Ky., Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. 978-0-664-22854-5.
Easton, Carol. No Intermission: The Life of Agnes DeMille. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 2000 (1st DaCapo Press edition). .
Fordin, Hugh. Getting to Know Him: A Biography of Oscar Hammerstein II. Jefferson, N.C.: Da Capo Press, 1995 reprint of 1986 edition. .
Hammerstein, Oscar Andrew. The Hammersteins: A Musical Theatre Family. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2010. .
Hischak, Thomas S. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. .
Hyland, William G. Richard Rodgers. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. .
Molnár, Ferenc. Liliom: A Legend in Seven Scenes and a Prologue. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921.
Mordden, Ethan. "Rodgers & Hammerstein". New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992. .
Nolan, Frederick. The Sound of Their Music: The Story of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2002. .
Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages: An Autobiography. Jefferson, N.C. Da Capo Press, 2002 reprint of 1975 edition. .
Secrest, Meryle. Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2001. .
External links
Carousel at guidetomusicaltheatre.com
Carousel info page on StageAgent.com – Carousel plot summary and character descriptions
(1967 TV adaptation)
1945 musicals
Broadway musicals
Musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein
West End musicals
Musicals based on plays
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Maine in fiction
Fiction set in 1873
Fiction about the afterlife
Plays set in Maine
Plays set in the 19th century
Tony Award-winning musicals
| false |
[
"Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat is a 2002 American stand-up comedy film starring Martin Lawrence, and directed by David Raynr, also responsible for Whatever It Takes. Lawrence also has producing and writing credits for the film. It is Lawrence's second stand up comedy film after You So Crazy was released in 1994.\n\nShot on location at the DAR Constitution Hall in Washington D.C., the film was released in August 2002 and went on to gross nearly $20 million at the box office, almost seven times its production cost of $3 million.\n\nAfter a hiatus due to personal and legal issues, Lawrence makes a return to the stage featuring comedic monologues about the sharp criticism he has receieved during his struggles and personal reflections about his life as a celebrity. This film was recorded live in his hometown of D.C.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial site\n\n2002 films\nStand-up comedy concert films\nParamount Pictures films\nMTV Films films",
"Freedom Finger is a 2019 side-scrolling shooter developed and published by Wide Right Interactive. The game was originally released for Microsoft Windows and Nintendo Switch, and was later ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and macOS.\n\nGameplay \nFreedom Finger is a shoot 'em up where players assume the role of a rookie space pilot, Gamma Ray, where they have to rescue a group of kidnapped scientists. Unlike most shmup games, there are options for melee combat. There's also an option to grab enemies and either use them as shield, or using their guns as power-ups.\n\nDevelopment and release \nThe game was announced for Microsoft Windows and macOS on March 4, 2019. On August 29, 2019, the game got its definitive release date and initial platforms, September 27, 2020 for Microsoft Windows and Nintendo Switch, replacing macOS. On March 10, 2020, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ports were announced, for a March 24, 2020 release. On August 3, 2020, a macOS port was released. On December 3, 2020, Limited Run Games announced a physical PlayStation 4 physical release with a manual that includes the entire source code for the game, under the BSD-4-Clause license according to its programmer Mark Zorn.\n\nReception \n\nFreedom Finger for Nintendo Switch received \"mixed\" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ports receieved \"generally favorable\" reviews. Both Nintendo Life and Shacknews rated it 8/10.\n\nFootnotes\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n2019 video games\nCommercial video games with freely available source code\nHorizontally scrolling shooters\nIndie video games\nmacOS games\nNintendo Switch games\nOpen-source video games\nPlayStation 4 games\nShooter video games\nSingle-player video games\nSoftware using the BSD license\nVideo games developed in the United States\nXbox One games\nWindows games"
] |
[
"Fairport Convention",
"1998--present"
] |
C_5765ba588156443480be23938b07f20b_0
|
Who are the current band members
| 1 |
Who are the current band members of Fairport Convention?
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Fairport Convention
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In 1998, Dave Mattacks moved to the USA and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the USA and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008). 2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD. The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner. In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans). In January 2015, four years after their previous studio album of original material (Festival Bell), Fairport Convention released a new one entitled Myths and Heroes. CANNOTANSWER
|
1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris
|
Fairport Convention are a British folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.) They started out heavily influenced by American folk rock, with a setlist dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, with Matthews later leaving during the recording of their third album.
Denny began steering the group towards traditional British music for their next two albums, What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking (both 1969); the latter featured fiddler Dave "Swarb" Swarbrick, most notably on the song "A Sailor's Life", which laid the groundwork for British folk rock by being the first time a traditional British song was combined with a rock beat. Shortly before the album's release, a crash on the M1 motorway killed Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson's then-girlfriend; this resulted in the group retiring most of their prior material and turning entirely towards British folk music for their seminal album Liege & Lief, released the same year. This style became the band's focus ever since. For this album Swarbrick joined full time alongside drummer Dave Mattacks. Both Denny and Hutchings left before the year's end; the latter replaced by Dave Pegg, who has remained the group's sole consistent member to this day; Thompson would leave after the recording of 1970's Full House.
The 1970s saw numerous lineup changes around the core of Swarbrick and Pegg – Nicol being absent for the middle of the decade – and declining fortunes as folk music fell out of mainstream favour. Denny, whose partner Trevor Lucas had been a guitarist in the group since 1972, returned for the pop-oriented Rising for the Moon album in 1975 in a final bid to crack America; this effort failed, and after three more albums minus Denny and Lucas, the group disbanded in 1979. They played a farewell concert in the village of Cropredy, Oxfordshire, where they had held small concerts since 1976, and this marked the beginning of the Cropredy Festival (since 2005 known as Fairport's Cropredy Convention) which has become the largest folk festival in Britain, with annual attendances of 20,000.
The band was reformed by Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks in 1985, joined by Maartin Allcock (guitar, vocals) and Ric Sanders (fiddle, keyboards), and they have remained active since. Allcock was replaced by Chris Leslie in 1996, and Gerry Conway replaced Mattacks in 1998, with this lineup remaining unchanged since and marking the longest-lasting of the group's history. Their 28th studio album, 50:50@50, released to mark their 50th anniversary, was released in 2017, and they continue to headline Cropredy each year.
Despite little mainstream success – their only top 40 single being "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language cover of the Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" from Unhalfbricking – Fairport Convention remain highly influential in British folk rock and British folk in general. Liege & Lief was named the "Most Influential Folk Album of All Time" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006, and Pegg's playing style, which incorporates jigs and reels into his basslines, has been imitated by many in the folk rock and folk punk genres. Additionally, many former members went on to form or join other notable groups in the genre, including Fotheringay, Steeleye Span, and the Albion Band; along with solo careers, most notably Thompson and Denny. Sandy Denny's career ended with her death in 1978, though she is now regarded as being amongst Britain's finest female singer-songwriters; her song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" – recorded by Fairport on Unhalfbricking – has become a signature song for herself and the band.
History
Origins
Bassist Ashley Hutchings met guitarist Simon Nicol in North London in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green in Muswell Hill – the same street on which Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks grew up. The house name lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums. After their initial performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble, convinced the band that he could do a better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble, which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period.
1967–69: The first three albums
Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFO and The Electric Garden, which later became the Middle Earth club. After only a few months, they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd who secured them a contract with Polydor Records. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews (then known as Ian MacDonald) joined the band, and their first album, Fairport Convention, was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to North American folk and folk rock acts such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and The Byrds for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and the use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane' during this period. Fairport Convention played alongside Jefferson Airplane at the First Isle of Wight Festival, 1968.
After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records. Before their next recording Judy Dyble left – she described it as being "unceremoniously dumped" – and was replaced by the band with Sandy Denny, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny's distinctive voice, described by Clive James as "open space, low-volume, high-intensity", is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band. The first of these featured the Thompson-penned "Meet on the Ledge", which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem.
During the recording of Unhalfbricking, Matthews left after having sung on only one song, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort. He was not replaced; the other male members covered his vocal parts. The album featured a guest appearance by Birmingham folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick on a recording of "A Sailor's Life", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society Library at Cecil Sharp House; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project.
These two albums began to gain the band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now". The record just missed the top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top of the Pops, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time. In 1969 four members of the band, one uncredited and three with pseudonyms, featured as backing musicians on the album Love Chronicles by Scottish folk artist Al Stewart.
Developing British folk rock
On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig at Birmingham venue Mothers, Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway. Martin Lamble, aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. They nearly decided to disband. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking, now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester in Hampshire, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music into rock and roll, which would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief.
Usually considered the highpoint of the band's long career, Liege & Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in a similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics: "Tam Lin", which was over seven minutes in length, and "Matty Groves", at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick's energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions "Come all ye" and "Farewell, Farewell", which, in addition to information on the inside of the gatefold cover on Hutchings' research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album. "Farewell, Farewell" and the final track "Crazy Man Michael", also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from the use of electric instruments and Mattacks' disciplined drumming with Swarbrick's fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the "ethereal" vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from AllMusic put it, the album was characterised by the "fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both".
A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Fairport Convention's achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create a distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it. Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall late in 1969. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.
1970s: A time of change
Disagreements arose about the direction of the band in the wake of this success. Ashley Hutchings wanted to explore more traditional material and left to form two groups that would rival Fairport for significance in English folk rock: Steeleye Span and the Albion Band. Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return, the sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals.
Despite these changes the band produced another album, Full House (1970), which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of "Sir Patrick Spens", with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on "Walk Awhile", which would become a concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with the Band from Rolling Stone magazine who declared that "Fairport Convention is better than ever". The album reached number 13 in the UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single 'Now Be Thankful' and made its American debut, touring with Traffic and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
In the recurring pattern, soon after the album's release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member and Dave Swarbrick emerged as the leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved into The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire and this inspired the next album Angel Delight (1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200 and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John "Babbacombe" Lee, "the man they couldn't hang" and released with the title Babbacombe Lee (1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg. These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last: Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band and he was soon followed by Mattacks.
Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas on vocals and guitar and American Jerry Donahue on lead guitar. From these line-ups the band produced two studio albums: Rosie, notable for the Swarbrick penned title track (1973) and Nine (1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel.
Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny was featured on the album Rising for the Moon (1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200 and the first album to reach the top one-hundred in the UK since Angel Delight, reaching no 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland. Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite the relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs.
Rowland, Pegg, and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer (1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) in the UK, and as 'Fairport featuring Dave Swarbrick' in the US, and with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline and after producing two of four contracted albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) and Tipplers Tales (1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.
1979–1985: The Cropredy era
By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal, and Dave Swarbrick had been diagnosed with tinnitus, which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy, the Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion.
In August 1979, the band played at Knebworth Festival in England. The headline act at both their appearances at the festival, over two consecutive Saturdays on 4 and 11 August, were Led Zeppelin.
No record company wanted to release the live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival. Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as the major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle, rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge.
The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations including the Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base.
The Angel Delight lineup of Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg, and Dave Mattacks played a number of gigs in the UK in the early 80s, then toured extensively in the UK and the US in 1984 and 1985. Band alumni like Richard Thompson and Bruce Rowland would occasionally join in.
The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of the band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport's occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was the first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick's sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984 he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper.
In 1985, Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to the catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf. They also had the help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks; the former of these, "The Hiring Fair", would become a stage fixture of the future Fairport.
The resulting album Gladys' Leap (1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock. Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band's history so far.
1986–1997: Stability
The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the World and prepared material for a new album. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted! (1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87 which managed to capture the energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on.
In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of a songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold (1989) The Five Seasons (1990) and Jewel in the Crown (1995), the last of which was judged "their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years."
At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released the unplugged Old New Borrowed Blue as "Fairport Acoustic Convention" in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin and fiddle, who formerly worked with Swarbrick in Whippersnapper, and had a one-off stint with the band replacing Ric Sanders for 1992 Cropredy Festival. This meant that for the first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1997), particularly the rousing "John Gaudie". By the time of the 30th anniversary Festival at Cropredy in 1997, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of the band.
1998–present
Dave Mattacks moved to the US in 1998, and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then, for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the US and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008).
2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD.
The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner.
In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans).
As of 2020 the band still continue to write and record music, regularly producing new studio albums, the most recent releases being 2015's Myths and Heroes, 2017's 50:50@50 and 2020's Shuffle and Go. The Covid-19 Pandemic impacted significantly on their ability to tour, and their 2022 tour was initially cut short after several of the touring team developed Covid.
Public recognition
The mainstream media has increasingly recognized Fairport Convention's historical importance. They received a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for "Favourite Folk Track of All Time" for "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?".
Personnel
Members
Current members
Simon Nicol – guitar, vocal (1967–1971, 1976–1979, 1985–present)
Dave Pegg – bass guitar, mandolin, backing vocal (1969–1979, 1985–present)
Ric Sanders – fiddles, occasional keyboards (1985–present)
Chris Leslie – fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, vocal (1996–present)
Gerry Conway – drums, percussion (1998–present)
Former members
Richard Thompson – guitar, vocal (1967–1971)
Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar (1967–1969)
Shaun Frater – drums (1967)
Martin Lamble – drums (1967–1969; died 1969)
Judy Dyble – vocal, autoharp, piano, recorder (1967–1968; died 2020)
Iain Matthews – vocal (1967–1969)
Sandy Denny – vocal, guitar, piano (1968–1969, 1974–1975; died 1978)
Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, mandolin, vocal (1969–1979; died 2016)
Dave Mattacks – drums, keyboards, bass guitar (1969–1972, 1973–1975, 1985–1997)
Roger Hill – guitar, vocal (1971–1972; died 2011)
Tom Farnell – drums (1972)
David Rea – guitar (1972; died 2011)
Trevor Lucas – guitar, vocal (1972–1975; died 1989)
Jerry Donahue – guitar (1972–1975)
Paul Warren – drums (1975)
Bruce Rowland – drums (1975–1979; died 2015)
Dan Ar Braz – guitar (1976)
Bob Brady – piano (1976)
Roger Burridge – mandolin, fiddle (1976; died 2020)
Maartin Allcock – guitar, mandolin, keyboard, vocal (1985–1996; died 2018)
Lineups
Timeline
Discography
Filmography
Tony Palmer's Film of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort, directed by Tony Palmer, featuring Fairport's appearance at the Maidstone Fiesta in 1970. Originally released as a VHS video by MusicFolk/Weintraub, re-released on DVD by Voiceprint Records in 2007, soundtrack CD issued by Voiceprint as Live in Maidstone 1970 in 2009.
References
Citations
General sources
External links
English folk musical groups
English folk rock groups
Ashley Hutchings
1967 establishments in England
Musical groups established in 1967
A&M Records artists
Island Records artists
Polydor Records artists
Rough Trade Records artists
Transatlantic Records artists
Vertigo Records artists
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[
"The Yale Precision Marching Band (affectionately known as the YPMB, or more simply The Band, for short) is the official marching band of Yale University. It is a scatter band (what some peers might call a \"scramble band\"), as distinct from university marching bands that emphasize precise movements and geometric field formations. Band members refer to themselves as \"The Members Of...\", which is derived from their introduction at Yale events.\n\nAbout The Band\n\nAside from Director Thomas C. Duffy and Business Manager Stephanie Theodos Hubbard, the band is largely student-run.\n The Drum Major conducts the band during rehearsals and at games. The current Drum Major is Alex Wynn, TD '22. \n The Manager works closely with the Drum Major to organize performances and events on-and-off campus and ensure the well-being of the group. The current Manager is Mel Krusniak, ES ‘22. \n The Halftime Show Advisors guide a production team that writes each week's halftime show. The current Senior Advisor is Claire Nelson, MC '22, and the Junior Advisors are Hailey Dykstra, SY '23, and Tristan Weaver, SM '22.5.\n The Student Arrangers (STUDs) head the Musicological Junta, the student team that arranges music for the shows. The current STUDs are Ben Christensen, MC '23, and Jon Michel, DC '22.\n The Social Chair plans social gatherings and bonding events for the band outside of performances. They work to create a comfortable environment for everyone in the band. The current social chair is Xilonem Perez-Gonzaga, MY '23. \n The Virtual Presence Coordinator (VirCoord) documents the band's adventures through photos and videos. They post photos of the band on Facebook and they have control over the band's Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. The current VirCoord is Catherine Zhang, SM '23.5.\n There are four sections, the leaders of which assist the Drum Major and Manager in the running of the band. They also lead sectionals and provide section morale. The current section leaders are Matthew Fan (Woodwinds), '24, Emmy James (Squaaangs), TD '23, and Tristan Weaver (KBB), SM '22.5.\n The Video Director creates all of our video productions (promotional videos, recording projects, and more). The current Video Director is Michael Lee, SM '24.\nThe Announcer announces and performs the halftime shows during football games, and works closely with Mark Ryba, the play-by-play announcer for Yale football. The current announcer is Aidan Houlihan (TC '21).\n\nNotable stunts\nIn October 1985, six YPMB members were suspended after dropping their pants at halftime during the Yale-Holy Cross game. Only one week earlier, the band was forbidden by West Point officials from performing its halftime show during the Army-Yale game for the script's insinuation that certain government officials were communists. The following season, in the Yale-Army game at New Haven, the YPMB took the unusual step of marching in straight lines for several minutes before breaking into its usual scatter formations. (NYT 10/7/86, B4) Before the band left the field, members removed their blue blazers on the field, spelling out \"USA.\"\n\nRepertoire\n Bulldog, Eli Yale words and music by Cole Porter class of 1913\n Bright College Years (the unofficial alma mater of Yale University) words by Henry Durand in 1881 to the music of Die Wacht am Rhein \n Down the Field (march two step) words by Stanleigh P. Friedman; arranged by G.L. Atwater, Jr.; published in 1905 by the Chas H. Loomis Company (New Haven, CT)\n Yale Boola, Boola (march) words and music by A. M. Hirsh; arranged by G. L. Jr. Atwater; Original Copyright 1906 by Leo Feist\n Yale College Life words by T. Herbert Reed; arranged by J.C. Heed; Original Copyright: 1903 By: Reed, Dawson & Co.\n Sons of Yale: Here's to Good Old Yale Alternative title March Blue arranged by JL Lake; Original Copyright: 1917 by Carl Fischer\n\nThe Band's repertoire includes hundreds of songs arranged by the YPMB Junta, the Band's own syndicate of arranger-transcribers. These dedicated and talented folks manage to add more than 30 pieces to the Band music library every year. The YPMB runs the gamut of genres, from Hip Hop to Techno, Pop to R&B, and, of course, plenty of straight Rock.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nYale Precision Marching Band\nYale University\n\nCollege marching bands in the United States\nPrecision Marching Band\nScramble bands\n1917 establishments in Connecticut",
"The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) are an English rock band from Birmingham. Formed in 1970, the group's original lineup included songwriters/multi-instrumentalists Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood and drummer Bev Bevan. Currently Jeff Lynne and keyboardist Richard Tandy are the only official members of the band. Under the moniker Jeff Lynne's ELO they tour with additional musicians.\n\nOfficial members\n\nCurrent members\n\nFormer members\n\nTouring members\n\nCurrent touring members\n\nFormer touring members\n\nTimeline\n\nTouring member timeline\n\nLine-ups\n\nOriginal ELO Lineups\n\nJeff Lynne's ELO Lineups\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nElectric Light Orchestra – The official Facebook page by Legacy Recordings.\nElectric Light Orchestra Legacy Recordings site – ELO's page at their record label.\nJeff Lynne's ELO – The official Jeff Lynne website.\nFace the Music – ELO and related artists information website.\nJeff Lynne Song Database\n\n \nElectric Light Orchestra"
] |
[
"Fairport Convention",
"1998--present",
"Who are the current band members",
"1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris"
] |
C_5765ba588156443480be23938b07f20b_0
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Have they won any awards recently
| 2 |
Has Fairport Convention won any awards recently?
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Fairport Convention
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In 1998, Dave Mattacks moved to the USA and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the USA and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008). 2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD. The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner. In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans). In January 2015, four years after their previous studio album of original material (Festival Bell), Fairport Convention released a new one entitled Myths and Heroes. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Fairport Convention are a British folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.) They started out heavily influenced by American folk rock, with a setlist dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, with Matthews later leaving during the recording of their third album.
Denny began steering the group towards traditional British music for their next two albums, What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking (both 1969); the latter featured fiddler Dave "Swarb" Swarbrick, most notably on the song "A Sailor's Life", which laid the groundwork for British folk rock by being the first time a traditional British song was combined with a rock beat. Shortly before the album's release, a crash on the M1 motorway killed Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson's then-girlfriend; this resulted in the group retiring most of their prior material and turning entirely towards British folk music for their seminal album Liege & Lief, released the same year. This style became the band's focus ever since. For this album Swarbrick joined full time alongside drummer Dave Mattacks. Both Denny and Hutchings left before the year's end; the latter replaced by Dave Pegg, who has remained the group's sole consistent member to this day; Thompson would leave after the recording of 1970's Full House.
The 1970s saw numerous lineup changes around the core of Swarbrick and Pegg – Nicol being absent for the middle of the decade – and declining fortunes as folk music fell out of mainstream favour. Denny, whose partner Trevor Lucas had been a guitarist in the group since 1972, returned for the pop-oriented Rising for the Moon album in 1975 in a final bid to crack America; this effort failed, and after three more albums minus Denny and Lucas, the group disbanded in 1979. They played a farewell concert in the village of Cropredy, Oxfordshire, where they had held small concerts since 1976, and this marked the beginning of the Cropredy Festival (since 2005 known as Fairport's Cropredy Convention) which has become the largest folk festival in Britain, with annual attendances of 20,000.
The band was reformed by Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks in 1985, joined by Maartin Allcock (guitar, vocals) and Ric Sanders (fiddle, keyboards), and they have remained active since. Allcock was replaced by Chris Leslie in 1996, and Gerry Conway replaced Mattacks in 1998, with this lineup remaining unchanged since and marking the longest-lasting of the group's history. Their 28th studio album, 50:50@50, released to mark their 50th anniversary, was released in 2017, and they continue to headline Cropredy each year.
Despite little mainstream success – their only top 40 single being "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language cover of the Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" from Unhalfbricking – Fairport Convention remain highly influential in British folk rock and British folk in general. Liege & Lief was named the "Most Influential Folk Album of All Time" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006, and Pegg's playing style, which incorporates jigs and reels into his basslines, has been imitated by many in the folk rock and folk punk genres. Additionally, many former members went on to form or join other notable groups in the genre, including Fotheringay, Steeleye Span, and the Albion Band; along with solo careers, most notably Thompson and Denny. Sandy Denny's career ended with her death in 1978, though she is now regarded as being amongst Britain's finest female singer-songwriters; her song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" – recorded by Fairport on Unhalfbricking – has become a signature song for herself and the band.
History
Origins
Bassist Ashley Hutchings met guitarist Simon Nicol in North London in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green in Muswell Hill – the same street on which Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks grew up. The house name lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums. After their initial performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble, convinced the band that he could do a better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble, which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period.
1967–69: The first three albums
Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFO and The Electric Garden, which later became the Middle Earth club. After only a few months, they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd who secured them a contract with Polydor Records. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews (then known as Ian MacDonald) joined the band, and their first album, Fairport Convention, was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to North American folk and folk rock acts such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and The Byrds for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and the use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane' during this period. Fairport Convention played alongside Jefferson Airplane at the First Isle of Wight Festival, 1968.
After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records. Before their next recording Judy Dyble left – she described it as being "unceremoniously dumped" – and was replaced by the band with Sandy Denny, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny's distinctive voice, described by Clive James as "open space, low-volume, high-intensity", is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band. The first of these featured the Thompson-penned "Meet on the Ledge", which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem.
During the recording of Unhalfbricking, Matthews left after having sung on only one song, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort. He was not replaced; the other male members covered his vocal parts. The album featured a guest appearance by Birmingham folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick on a recording of "A Sailor's Life", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society Library at Cecil Sharp House; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project.
These two albums began to gain the band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now". The record just missed the top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top of the Pops, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time. In 1969 four members of the band, one uncredited and three with pseudonyms, featured as backing musicians on the album Love Chronicles by Scottish folk artist Al Stewart.
Developing British folk rock
On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig at Birmingham venue Mothers, Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway. Martin Lamble, aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. They nearly decided to disband. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking, now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester in Hampshire, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music into rock and roll, which would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief.
Usually considered the highpoint of the band's long career, Liege & Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in a similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics: "Tam Lin", which was over seven minutes in length, and "Matty Groves", at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick's energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions "Come all ye" and "Farewell, Farewell", which, in addition to information on the inside of the gatefold cover on Hutchings' research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album. "Farewell, Farewell" and the final track "Crazy Man Michael", also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from the use of electric instruments and Mattacks' disciplined drumming with Swarbrick's fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the "ethereal" vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from AllMusic put it, the album was characterised by the "fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both".
A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Fairport Convention's achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create a distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it. Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall late in 1969. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.
1970s: A time of change
Disagreements arose about the direction of the band in the wake of this success. Ashley Hutchings wanted to explore more traditional material and left to form two groups that would rival Fairport for significance in English folk rock: Steeleye Span and the Albion Band. Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return, the sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals.
Despite these changes the band produced another album, Full House (1970), which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of "Sir Patrick Spens", with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on "Walk Awhile", which would become a concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with the Band from Rolling Stone magazine who declared that "Fairport Convention is better than ever". The album reached number 13 in the UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single 'Now Be Thankful' and made its American debut, touring with Traffic and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
In the recurring pattern, soon after the album's release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member and Dave Swarbrick emerged as the leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved into The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire and this inspired the next album Angel Delight (1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200 and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John "Babbacombe" Lee, "the man they couldn't hang" and released with the title Babbacombe Lee (1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg. These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last: Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band and he was soon followed by Mattacks.
Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas on vocals and guitar and American Jerry Donahue on lead guitar. From these line-ups the band produced two studio albums: Rosie, notable for the Swarbrick penned title track (1973) and Nine (1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel.
Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny was featured on the album Rising for the Moon (1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200 and the first album to reach the top one-hundred in the UK since Angel Delight, reaching no 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland. Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite the relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs.
Rowland, Pegg, and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer (1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) in the UK, and as 'Fairport featuring Dave Swarbrick' in the US, and with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline and after producing two of four contracted albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) and Tipplers Tales (1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.
1979–1985: The Cropredy era
By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal, and Dave Swarbrick had been diagnosed with tinnitus, which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy, the Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion.
In August 1979, the band played at Knebworth Festival in England. The headline act at both their appearances at the festival, over two consecutive Saturdays on 4 and 11 August, were Led Zeppelin.
No record company wanted to release the live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival. Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as the major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle, rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge.
The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations including the Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base.
The Angel Delight lineup of Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg, and Dave Mattacks played a number of gigs in the UK in the early 80s, then toured extensively in the UK and the US in 1984 and 1985. Band alumni like Richard Thompson and Bruce Rowland would occasionally join in.
The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of the band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport's occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was the first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick's sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984 he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper.
In 1985, Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to the catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf. They also had the help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks; the former of these, "The Hiring Fair", would become a stage fixture of the future Fairport.
The resulting album Gladys' Leap (1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock. Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band's history so far.
1986–1997: Stability
The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the World and prepared material for a new album. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted! (1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87 which managed to capture the energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on.
In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of a songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold (1989) The Five Seasons (1990) and Jewel in the Crown (1995), the last of which was judged "their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years."
At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released the unplugged Old New Borrowed Blue as "Fairport Acoustic Convention" in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin and fiddle, who formerly worked with Swarbrick in Whippersnapper, and had a one-off stint with the band replacing Ric Sanders for 1992 Cropredy Festival. This meant that for the first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1997), particularly the rousing "John Gaudie". By the time of the 30th anniversary Festival at Cropredy in 1997, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of the band.
1998–present
Dave Mattacks moved to the US in 1998, and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then, for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the US and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008).
2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD.
The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner.
In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans).
As of 2020 the band still continue to write and record music, regularly producing new studio albums, the most recent releases being 2015's Myths and Heroes, 2017's 50:50@50 and 2020's Shuffle and Go. The Covid-19 Pandemic impacted significantly on their ability to tour, and their 2022 tour was initially cut short after several of the touring team developed Covid.
Public recognition
The mainstream media has increasingly recognized Fairport Convention's historical importance. They received a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for "Favourite Folk Track of All Time" for "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?".
Personnel
Members
Current members
Simon Nicol – guitar, vocal (1967–1971, 1976–1979, 1985–present)
Dave Pegg – bass guitar, mandolin, backing vocal (1969–1979, 1985–present)
Ric Sanders – fiddles, occasional keyboards (1985–present)
Chris Leslie – fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, vocal (1996–present)
Gerry Conway – drums, percussion (1998–present)
Former members
Richard Thompson – guitar, vocal (1967–1971)
Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar (1967–1969)
Shaun Frater – drums (1967)
Martin Lamble – drums (1967–1969; died 1969)
Judy Dyble – vocal, autoharp, piano, recorder (1967–1968; died 2020)
Iain Matthews – vocal (1967–1969)
Sandy Denny – vocal, guitar, piano (1968–1969, 1974–1975; died 1978)
Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, mandolin, vocal (1969–1979; died 2016)
Dave Mattacks – drums, keyboards, bass guitar (1969–1972, 1973–1975, 1985–1997)
Roger Hill – guitar, vocal (1971–1972; died 2011)
Tom Farnell – drums (1972)
David Rea – guitar (1972; died 2011)
Trevor Lucas – guitar, vocal (1972–1975; died 1989)
Jerry Donahue – guitar (1972–1975)
Paul Warren – drums (1975)
Bruce Rowland – drums (1975–1979; died 2015)
Dan Ar Braz – guitar (1976)
Bob Brady – piano (1976)
Roger Burridge – mandolin, fiddle (1976; died 2020)
Maartin Allcock – guitar, mandolin, keyboard, vocal (1985–1996; died 2018)
Lineups
Timeline
Discography
Filmography
Tony Palmer's Film of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort, directed by Tony Palmer, featuring Fairport's appearance at the Maidstone Fiesta in 1970. Originally released as a VHS video by MusicFolk/Weintraub, re-released on DVD by Voiceprint Records in 2007, soundtrack CD issued by Voiceprint as Live in Maidstone 1970 in 2009.
References
Citations
General sources
External links
English folk musical groups
English folk rock groups
Ashley Hutchings
1967 establishments in England
Musical groups established in 1967
A&M Records artists
Island Records artists
Polydor Records artists
Rough Trade Records artists
Transatlantic Records artists
Vertigo Records artists
| false |
[
"The FAMAS Award for Best Actor is one of the FAMAS Awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences Award, which are voted on by Palanca Award-winning writers and movie columnists and writers within the industry.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\nThe list may be incomplete such as some of the names of the nominees and the roles portrayed especially during the early years of FAMAS Awards.\n\nIn the lists below, the winner of the award for each year is shown first, followed by the other nominees. \n\n‡ – indicates the winner\n\nSuperlatives\n\nEddie Garcia won the award more than any actors with six wins. Joseph Estrada, Fernando Poe Jr. and Christopher De Leon have also won the award five times. All four of them are inducted to the FAMAS Hall of Fame. Allen Dizon just recently won his 5th Best Actor and is eligible for Hall of Fame induction in 2022.\nThree actors have won the award consecutively. They are Christopher De Leon (in 1991 and 1992), Allen Dizon (in 2010 and 2011), and ER Ejercito (in 2012, 2013 and 2014)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe Unofficial Website of the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences\nFAMAS Awards\n\nBest Actor\n Film awards for lead actor",
"This list of Nebraska Cornhuskers academic honors and awards are the academic achievements of Nebraska Cornhuskers student-athletes. The university is a member of the Big Ten Conference, and the Cornhuskers compete in NCAA Division I, fielding 22 varsity teams (9 men's, 13 women's) in 15 sports. Nebraska student-athletes have won 315 Academic All-American awards and 17 Today's Top 10 Awards—in both cases more than any other university. They have also won 15 Academic All-American of the Year awards.\n\nMajor awards\n\nToday's Top 10 Award\nNebraska student-athletes have won 17 Today's Top 10 Awards, more than any other school. The award honors student-athletes based upon the criteria of athletic achievement, academic achievement, and community involvement.\n\nAcademic All-American of the Year\nThe CoSIDA Academic All-American-of-the-Year award is given annually to the top student-athlete in each sport as voted on by the College Sports Information Directors of America. A total of 10 Nebraska student-athletes have won the award 15 times.\n\nAcademic All-Americans\nNebraska student-athletes have been named Academic All-America selections 340 times across all sports, most among NCAA Division I universities. Nebraska's football program has produced 108 Academic All-Americans, most among FBS schools.\n\nAcademic All-Americans by sport\n\nFirst team\n\nSecond team, third team, honorable mention\n\nReferences\n\nNebraska Cornhuskers"
] |
[
"Fairport Convention",
"1998--present",
"Who are the current band members",
"1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris",
"Have they won any awards recently",
"I don't know."
] |
C_5765ba588156443480be23938b07f20b_0
|
what have they been up to anything that stands out?
| 3 |
what has Fairport Convention been up to that stands out?
|
Fairport Convention
|
In 1998, Dave Mattacks moved to the USA and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the USA and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008). 2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD. The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner. In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans). In January 2015, four years after their previous studio album of original material (Festival Bell), Fairport Convention released a new one entitled Myths and Heroes. CANNOTANSWER
|
2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion.
|
Fairport Convention are a British folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.) They started out heavily influenced by American folk rock, with a setlist dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, with Matthews later leaving during the recording of their third album.
Denny began steering the group towards traditional British music for their next two albums, What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking (both 1969); the latter featured fiddler Dave "Swarb" Swarbrick, most notably on the song "A Sailor's Life", which laid the groundwork for British folk rock by being the first time a traditional British song was combined with a rock beat. Shortly before the album's release, a crash on the M1 motorway killed Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson's then-girlfriend; this resulted in the group retiring most of their prior material and turning entirely towards British folk music for their seminal album Liege & Lief, released the same year. This style became the band's focus ever since. For this album Swarbrick joined full time alongside drummer Dave Mattacks. Both Denny and Hutchings left before the year's end; the latter replaced by Dave Pegg, who has remained the group's sole consistent member to this day; Thompson would leave after the recording of 1970's Full House.
The 1970s saw numerous lineup changes around the core of Swarbrick and Pegg – Nicol being absent for the middle of the decade – and declining fortunes as folk music fell out of mainstream favour. Denny, whose partner Trevor Lucas had been a guitarist in the group since 1972, returned for the pop-oriented Rising for the Moon album in 1975 in a final bid to crack America; this effort failed, and after three more albums minus Denny and Lucas, the group disbanded in 1979. They played a farewell concert in the village of Cropredy, Oxfordshire, where they had held small concerts since 1976, and this marked the beginning of the Cropredy Festival (since 2005 known as Fairport's Cropredy Convention) which has become the largest folk festival in Britain, with annual attendances of 20,000.
The band was reformed by Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks in 1985, joined by Maartin Allcock (guitar, vocals) and Ric Sanders (fiddle, keyboards), and they have remained active since. Allcock was replaced by Chris Leslie in 1996, and Gerry Conway replaced Mattacks in 1998, with this lineup remaining unchanged since and marking the longest-lasting of the group's history. Their 28th studio album, 50:50@50, released to mark their 50th anniversary, was released in 2017, and they continue to headline Cropredy each year.
Despite little mainstream success – their only top 40 single being "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language cover of the Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" from Unhalfbricking – Fairport Convention remain highly influential in British folk rock and British folk in general. Liege & Lief was named the "Most Influential Folk Album of All Time" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006, and Pegg's playing style, which incorporates jigs and reels into his basslines, has been imitated by many in the folk rock and folk punk genres. Additionally, many former members went on to form or join other notable groups in the genre, including Fotheringay, Steeleye Span, and the Albion Band; along with solo careers, most notably Thompson and Denny. Sandy Denny's career ended with her death in 1978, though she is now regarded as being amongst Britain's finest female singer-songwriters; her song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" – recorded by Fairport on Unhalfbricking – has become a signature song for herself and the band.
History
Origins
Bassist Ashley Hutchings met guitarist Simon Nicol in North London in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green in Muswell Hill – the same street on which Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks grew up. The house name lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums. After their initial performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble, convinced the band that he could do a better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble, which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period.
1967–69: The first three albums
Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFO and The Electric Garden, which later became the Middle Earth club. After only a few months, they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd who secured them a contract with Polydor Records. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews (then known as Ian MacDonald) joined the band, and their first album, Fairport Convention, was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to North American folk and folk rock acts such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and The Byrds for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and the use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane' during this period. Fairport Convention played alongside Jefferson Airplane at the First Isle of Wight Festival, 1968.
After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records. Before their next recording Judy Dyble left – she described it as being "unceremoniously dumped" – and was replaced by the band with Sandy Denny, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny's distinctive voice, described by Clive James as "open space, low-volume, high-intensity", is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band. The first of these featured the Thompson-penned "Meet on the Ledge", which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem.
During the recording of Unhalfbricking, Matthews left after having sung on only one song, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort. He was not replaced; the other male members covered his vocal parts. The album featured a guest appearance by Birmingham folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick on a recording of "A Sailor's Life", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society Library at Cecil Sharp House; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project.
These two albums began to gain the band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now". The record just missed the top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top of the Pops, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time. In 1969 four members of the band, one uncredited and three with pseudonyms, featured as backing musicians on the album Love Chronicles by Scottish folk artist Al Stewart.
Developing British folk rock
On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig at Birmingham venue Mothers, Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway. Martin Lamble, aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. They nearly decided to disband. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking, now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester in Hampshire, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music into rock and roll, which would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief.
Usually considered the highpoint of the band's long career, Liege & Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in a similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics: "Tam Lin", which was over seven minutes in length, and "Matty Groves", at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick's energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions "Come all ye" and "Farewell, Farewell", which, in addition to information on the inside of the gatefold cover on Hutchings' research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album. "Farewell, Farewell" and the final track "Crazy Man Michael", also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from the use of electric instruments and Mattacks' disciplined drumming with Swarbrick's fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the "ethereal" vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from AllMusic put it, the album was characterised by the "fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both".
A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Fairport Convention's achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create a distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it. Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall late in 1969. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.
1970s: A time of change
Disagreements arose about the direction of the band in the wake of this success. Ashley Hutchings wanted to explore more traditional material and left to form two groups that would rival Fairport for significance in English folk rock: Steeleye Span and the Albion Band. Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return, the sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals.
Despite these changes the band produced another album, Full House (1970), which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of "Sir Patrick Spens", with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on "Walk Awhile", which would become a concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with the Band from Rolling Stone magazine who declared that "Fairport Convention is better than ever". The album reached number 13 in the UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single 'Now Be Thankful' and made its American debut, touring with Traffic and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
In the recurring pattern, soon after the album's release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member and Dave Swarbrick emerged as the leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved into The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire and this inspired the next album Angel Delight (1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200 and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John "Babbacombe" Lee, "the man they couldn't hang" and released with the title Babbacombe Lee (1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg. These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last: Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band and he was soon followed by Mattacks.
Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas on vocals and guitar and American Jerry Donahue on lead guitar. From these line-ups the band produced two studio albums: Rosie, notable for the Swarbrick penned title track (1973) and Nine (1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel.
Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny was featured on the album Rising for the Moon (1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200 and the first album to reach the top one-hundred in the UK since Angel Delight, reaching no 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland. Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite the relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs.
Rowland, Pegg, and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer (1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) in the UK, and as 'Fairport featuring Dave Swarbrick' in the US, and with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline and after producing two of four contracted albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) and Tipplers Tales (1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.
1979–1985: The Cropredy era
By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal, and Dave Swarbrick had been diagnosed with tinnitus, which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy, the Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion.
In August 1979, the band played at Knebworth Festival in England. The headline act at both their appearances at the festival, over two consecutive Saturdays on 4 and 11 August, were Led Zeppelin.
No record company wanted to release the live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival. Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as the major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle, rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge.
The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations including the Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base.
The Angel Delight lineup of Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg, and Dave Mattacks played a number of gigs in the UK in the early 80s, then toured extensively in the UK and the US in 1984 and 1985. Band alumni like Richard Thompson and Bruce Rowland would occasionally join in.
The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of the band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport's occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was the first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick's sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984 he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper.
In 1985, Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to the catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf. They also had the help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks; the former of these, "The Hiring Fair", would become a stage fixture of the future Fairport.
The resulting album Gladys' Leap (1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock. Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band's history so far.
1986–1997: Stability
The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the World and prepared material for a new album. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted! (1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87 which managed to capture the energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on.
In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of a songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold (1989) The Five Seasons (1990) and Jewel in the Crown (1995), the last of which was judged "their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years."
At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released the unplugged Old New Borrowed Blue as "Fairport Acoustic Convention" in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin and fiddle, who formerly worked with Swarbrick in Whippersnapper, and had a one-off stint with the band replacing Ric Sanders for 1992 Cropredy Festival. This meant that for the first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1997), particularly the rousing "John Gaudie". By the time of the 30th anniversary Festival at Cropredy in 1997, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of the band.
1998–present
Dave Mattacks moved to the US in 1998, and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then, for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the US and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008).
2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD.
The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner.
In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans).
As of 2020 the band still continue to write and record music, regularly producing new studio albums, the most recent releases being 2015's Myths and Heroes, 2017's 50:50@50 and 2020's Shuffle and Go. The Covid-19 Pandemic impacted significantly on their ability to tour, and their 2022 tour was initially cut short after several of the touring team developed Covid.
Public recognition
The mainstream media has increasingly recognized Fairport Convention's historical importance. They received a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for "Favourite Folk Track of All Time" for "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?".
Personnel
Members
Current members
Simon Nicol – guitar, vocal (1967–1971, 1976–1979, 1985–present)
Dave Pegg – bass guitar, mandolin, backing vocal (1969–1979, 1985–present)
Ric Sanders – fiddles, occasional keyboards (1985–present)
Chris Leslie – fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, vocal (1996–present)
Gerry Conway – drums, percussion (1998–present)
Former members
Richard Thompson – guitar, vocal (1967–1971)
Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar (1967–1969)
Shaun Frater – drums (1967)
Martin Lamble – drums (1967–1969; died 1969)
Judy Dyble – vocal, autoharp, piano, recorder (1967–1968; died 2020)
Iain Matthews – vocal (1967–1969)
Sandy Denny – vocal, guitar, piano (1968–1969, 1974–1975; died 1978)
Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, mandolin, vocal (1969–1979; died 2016)
Dave Mattacks – drums, keyboards, bass guitar (1969–1972, 1973–1975, 1985–1997)
Roger Hill – guitar, vocal (1971–1972; died 2011)
Tom Farnell – drums (1972)
David Rea – guitar (1972; died 2011)
Trevor Lucas – guitar, vocal (1972–1975; died 1989)
Jerry Donahue – guitar (1972–1975)
Paul Warren – drums (1975)
Bruce Rowland – drums (1975–1979; died 2015)
Dan Ar Braz – guitar (1976)
Bob Brady – piano (1976)
Roger Burridge – mandolin, fiddle (1976; died 2020)
Maartin Allcock – guitar, mandolin, keyboard, vocal (1985–1996; died 2018)
Lineups
Timeline
Discography
Filmography
Tony Palmer's Film of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort, directed by Tony Palmer, featuring Fairport's appearance at the Maidstone Fiesta in 1970. Originally released as a VHS video by MusicFolk/Weintraub, re-released on DVD by Voiceprint Records in 2007, soundtrack CD issued by Voiceprint as Live in Maidstone 1970 in 2009.
References
Citations
General sources
External links
English folk musical groups
English folk rock groups
Ashley Hutchings
1967 establishments in England
Musical groups established in 1967
A&M Records artists
Island Records artists
Polydor Records artists
Rough Trade Records artists
Transatlantic Records artists
Vertigo Records artists
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"Colours FM is a Bangladeshi FM radio station, the headquarter of which radio is situated in Dhaka. It has started broadcasting on 10 January 2014. ColoursFM targets young women from the age range of 18–35 years. Their main purpose is to be a friend, guide, philosopher - that “person” you can come to when you need anything at all. Colours FM want to give their guidance to all the girls and women out there who need help not only with beauty, fashion, health, fitness, legal and finance but anything and everything you can name of. They want them to know what their rights are, at the same time they want to entertain them with the latest and old music. Everybody has their preference, but we want to make sure that we listen to what they have to say.\n\nShow Names and Host\n\nReferences\n\n2014 establishments in Bangladesh\nOrganisations based in Dhaka\nRadio stations in Bangladesh\nMass media in Dhaka"
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"1998--present",
"Who are the current band members",
"1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris",
"Have they won any awards recently",
"I don't know.",
"what have they been up to anything that stands out?",
"2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion."
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How popular was this album
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How popular was the album Sense of Occasion?
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Fairport Convention
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In 1998, Dave Mattacks moved to the USA and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the USA and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008). 2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD. The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner. In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans). In January 2015, four years after their previous studio album of original material (Festival Bell), Fairport Convention released a new one entitled Myths and Heroes. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Fairport Convention are a British folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.) They started out heavily influenced by American folk rock, with a setlist dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, with Matthews later leaving during the recording of their third album.
Denny began steering the group towards traditional British music for their next two albums, What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking (both 1969); the latter featured fiddler Dave "Swarb" Swarbrick, most notably on the song "A Sailor's Life", which laid the groundwork for British folk rock by being the first time a traditional British song was combined with a rock beat. Shortly before the album's release, a crash on the M1 motorway killed Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson's then-girlfriend; this resulted in the group retiring most of their prior material and turning entirely towards British folk music for their seminal album Liege & Lief, released the same year. This style became the band's focus ever since. For this album Swarbrick joined full time alongside drummer Dave Mattacks. Both Denny and Hutchings left before the year's end; the latter replaced by Dave Pegg, who has remained the group's sole consistent member to this day; Thompson would leave after the recording of 1970's Full House.
The 1970s saw numerous lineup changes around the core of Swarbrick and Pegg – Nicol being absent for the middle of the decade – and declining fortunes as folk music fell out of mainstream favour. Denny, whose partner Trevor Lucas had been a guitarist in the group since 1972, returned for the pop-oriented Rising for the Moon album in 1975 in a final bid to crack America; this effort failed, and after three more albums minus Denny and Lucas, the group disbanded in 1979. They played a farewell concert in the village of Cropredy, Oxfordshire, where they had held small concerts since 1976, and this marked the beginning of the Cropredy Festival (since 2005 known as Fairport's Cropredy Convention) which has become the largest folk festival in Britain, with annual attendances of 20,000.
The band was reformed by Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks in 1985, joined by Maartin Allcock (guitar, vocals) and Ric Sanders (fiddle, keyboards), and they have remained active since. Allcock was replaced by Chris Leslie in 1996, and Gerry Conway replaced Mattacks in 1998, with this lineup remaining unchanged since and marking the longest-lasting of the group's history. Their 28th studio album, 50:50@50, released to mark their 50th anniversary, was released in 2017, and they continue to headline Cropredy each year.
Despite little mainstream success – their only top 40 single being "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language cover of the Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" from Unhalfbricking – Fairport Convention remain highly influential in British folk rock and British folk in general. Liege & Lief was named the "Most Influential Folk Album of All Time" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006, and Pegg's playing style, which incorporates jigs and reels into his basslines, has been imitated by many in the folk rock and folk punk genres. Additionally, many former members went on to form or join other notable groups in the genre, including Fotheringay, Steeleye Span, and the Albion Band; along with solo careers, most notably Thompson and Denny. Sandy Denny's career ended with her death in 1978, though she is now regarded as being amongst Britain's finest female singer-songwriters; her song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" – recorded by Fairport on Unhalfbricking – has become a signature song for herself and the band.
History
Origins
Bassist Ashley Hutchings met guitarist Simon Nicol in North London in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green in Muswell Hill – the same street on which Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks grew up. The house name lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums. After their initial performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble, convinced the band that he could do a better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble, which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period.
1967–69: The first three albums
Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFO and The Electric Garden, which later became the Middle Earth club. After only a few months, they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd who secured them a contract with Polydor Records. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews (then known as Ian MacDonald) joined the band, and their first album, Fairport Convention, was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to North American folk and folk rock acts such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and The Byrds for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and the use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane' during this period. Fairport Convention played alongside Jefferson Airplane at the First Isle of Wight Festival, 1968.
After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records. Before their next recording Judy Dyble left – she described it as being "unceremoniously dumped" – and was replaced by the band with Sandy Denny, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny's distinctive voice, described by Clive James as "open space, low-volume, high-intensity", is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band. The first of these featured the Thompson-penned "Meet on the Ledge", which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem.
During the recording of Unhalfbricking, Matthews left after having sung on only one song, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort. He was not replaced; the other male members covered his vocal parts. The album featured a guest appearance by Birmingham folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick on a recording of "A Sailor's Life", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society Library at Cecil Sharp House; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project.
These two albums began to gain the band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now". The record just missed the top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top of the Pops, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time. In 1969 four members of the band, one uncredited and three with pseudonyms, featured as backing musicians on the album Love Chronicles by Scottish folk artist Al Stewart.
Developing British folk rock
On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig at Birmingham venue Mothers, Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway. Martin Lamble, aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. They nearly decided to disband. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking, now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester in Hampshire, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music into rock and roll, which would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief.
Usually considered the highpoint of the band's long career, Liege & Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in a similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics: "Tam Lin", which was over seven minutes in length, and "Matty Groves", at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick's energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions "Come all ye" and "Farewell, Farewell", which, in addition to information on the inside of the gatefold cover on Hutchings' research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album. "Farewell, Farewell" and the final track "Crazy Man Michael", also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from the use of electric instruments and Mattacks' disciplined drumming with Swarbrick's fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the "ethereal" vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from AllMusic put it, the album was characterised by the "fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both".
A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Fairport Convention's achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create a distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it. Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall late in 1969. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.
1970s: A time of change
Disagreements arose about the direction of the band in the wake of this success. Ashley Hutchings wanted to explore more traditional material and left to form two groups that would rival Fairport for significance in English folk rock: Steeleye Span and the Albion Band. Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return, the sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals.
Despite these changes the band produced another album, Full House (1970), which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of "Sir Patrick Spens", with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on "Walk Awhile", which would become a concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with the Band from Rolling Stone magazine who declared that "Fairport Convention is better than ever". The album reached number 13 in the UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single 'Now Be Thankful' and made its American debut, touring with Traffic and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
In the recurring pattern, soon after the album's release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member and Dave Swarbrick emerged as the leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved into The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire and this inspired the next album Angel Delight (1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200 and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John "Babbacombe" Lee, "the man they couldn't hang" and released with the title Babbacombe Lee (1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg. These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last: Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band and he was soon followed by Mattacks.
Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas on vocals and guitar and American Jerry Donahue on lead guitar. From these line-ups the band produced two studio albums: Rosie, notable for the Swarbrick penned title track (1973) and Nine (1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel.
Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny was featured on the album Rising for the Moon (1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200 and the first album to reach the top one-hundred in the UK since Angel Delight, reaching no 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland. Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite the relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs.
Rowland, Pegg, and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer (1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) in the UK, and as 'Fairport featuring Dave Swarbrick' in the US, and with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline and after producing two of four contracted albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) and Tipplers Tales (1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.
1979–1985: The Cropredy era
By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal, and Dave Swarbrick had been diagnosed with tinnitus, which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy, the Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion.
In August 1979, the band played at Knebworth Festival in England. The headline act at both their appearances at the festival, over two consecutive Saturdays on 4 and 11 August, were Led Zeppelin.
No record company wanted to release the live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival. Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as the major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle, rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge.
The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations including the Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base.
The Angel Delight lineup of Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg, and Dave Mattacks played a number of gigs in the UK in the early 80s, then toured extensively in the UK and the US in 1984 and 1985. Band alumni like Richard Thompson and Bruce Rowland would occasionally join in.
The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of the band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport's occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was the first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick's sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984 he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper.
In 1985, Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to the catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf. They also had the help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks; the former of these, "The Hiring Fair", would become a stage fixture of the future Fairport.
The resulting album Gladys' Leap (1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock. Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band's history so far.
1986–1997: Stability
The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the World and prepared material for a new album. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted! (1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87 which managed to capture the energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on.
In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of a songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold (1989) The Five Seasons (1990) and Jewel in the Crown (1995), the last of which was judged "their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years."
At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released the unplugged Old New Borrowed Blue as "Fairport Acoustic Convention" in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin and fiddle, who formerly worked with Swarbrick in Whippersnapper, and had a one-off stint with the band replacing Ric Sanders for 1992 Cropredy Festival. This meant that for the first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1997), particularly the rousing "John Gaudie". By the time of the 30th anniversary Festival at Cropredy in 1997, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of the band.
1998–present
Dave Mattacks moved to the US in 1998, and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then, for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the US and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008).
2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD.
The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner.
In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans).
As of 2020 the band still continue to write and record music, regularly producing new studio albums, the most recent releases being 2015's Myths and Heroes, 2017's 50:50@50 and 2020's Shuffle and Go. The Covid-19 Pandemic impacted significantly on their ability to tour, and their 2022 tour was initially cut short after several of the touring team developed Covid.
Public recognition
The mainstream media has increasingly recognized Fairport Convention's historical importance. They received a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for "Favourite Folk Track of All Time" for "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?".
Personnel
Members
Current members
Simon Nicol – guitar, vocal (1967–1971, 1976–1979, 1985–present)
Dave Pegg – bass guitar, mandolin, backing vocal (1969–1979, 1985–present)
Ric Sanders – fiddles, occasional keyboards (1985–present)
Chris Leslie – fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, vocal (1996–present)
Gerry Conway – drums, percussion (1998–present)
Former members
Richard Thompson – guitar, vocal (1967–1971)
Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar (1967–1969)
Shaun Frater – drums (1967)
Martin Lamble – drums (1967–1969; died 1969)
Judy Dyble – vocal, autoharp, piano, recorder (1967–1968; died 2020)
Iain Matthews – vocal (1967–1969)
Sandy Denny – vocal, guitar, piano (1968–1969, 1974–1975; died 1978)
Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, mandolin, vocal (1969–1979; died 2016)
Dave Mattacks – drums, keyboards, bass guitar (1969–1972, 1973–1975, 1985–1997)
Roger Hill – guitar, vocal (1971–1972; died 2011)
Tom Farnell – drums (1972)
David Rea – guitar (1972; died 2011)
Trevor Lucas – guitar, vocal (1972–1975; died 1989)
Jerry Donahue – guitar (1972–1975)
Paul Warren – drums (1975)
Bruce Rowland – drums (1975–1979; died 2015)
Dan Ar Braz – guitar (1976)
Bob Brady – piano (1976)
Roger Burridge – mandolin, fiddle (1976; died 2020)
Maartin Allcock – guitar, mandolin, keyboard, vocal (1985–1996; died 2018)
Lineups
Timeline
Discography
Filmography
Tony Palmer's Film of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort, directed by Tony Palmer, featuring Fairport's appearance at the Maidstone Fiesta in 1970. Originally released as a VHS video by MusicFolk/Weintraub, re-released on DVD by Voiceprint Records in 2007, soundtrack CD issued by Voiceprint as Live in Maidstone 1970 in 2009.
References
Citations
General sources
External links
English folk musical groups
English folk rock groups
Ashley Hutchings
1967 establishments in England
Musical groups established in 1967
A&M Records artists
Island Records artists
Polydor Records artists
Rough Trade Records artists
Transatlantic Records artists
Vertigo Records artists
| false |
[
"How Much for Happy is Canadian actress and singer-songwriter Cassie Steele's debut album. How Much for Happy was released in Canada on March 15, 2005, and in the US on April 26, 2005. The album was sold on iTunes in the US for a few months, but after having an argument with Rob'N'Steal Productions about the distribution of How Much for Happy, the album was removed from iTunes, yet was still available on Amazon.com. Physically, the album is now out of print in the US, but it was put back on iTunes. Steele wrote 12 out of the 13 tracks on her debut album. The thirteenth was a remake of the popular song by Jimi Hendrix, \"Hey Joe\".\n\nSales\nThe album was certified gold in Canada, selling more than 25,000 copies.\n\nSingles\nTwo singles, \"Blue Bird\" and \"Famous\", were released off of the album. A music video for \"Blue Bird\" was released as well, which featured Cassie recording the single along with photos of her.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Not Yours Truly\"\n\"Famous\"\n\"Fantasy\"\n\"Blue Bird\"\n\"Jaded\"\n\"Rock Your Bones\"\n\"Drink Me Dry\"\n\"Crimson Tears\"\n\"Broken (How Much for Happy)\"\n\"Empty Eyes\"\n\"A Sinner's Prayer\"\n\"Love Cost\"\n\"Hey Joe\"\n Unreleased track: \"Things That God Cannot Explain\"\n\n2005 debut albums\nCassie Steele albums",
"How the West Was Won may refer to:\n How the West Was Won (film), a 1962 American Western film\n How the West Was Won (TV series), a 1970s television series loosely based on the film\n How the West Was Won (Bing Crosby album) (1959)\n How the West Was Won (Led Zeppelin album) (2003)\n How the West Was Won (Peter Perrett album) (2017)\n How the West Was Won, a 2002 album by Luni Coleone\n \"How the West Was Won\", a 1987 song by Laibach from Opus Dei\n \"How the West Was Won\", a 1996 song by the Romo band Plastic Fantastic\n\nSee also\n How the West Was Fun, a 1994 TV movie starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen\n How the West Was One (disambiguation)\n \"How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us\", a 1997 song by R.E.M."
] |
[
"Fairport Convention",
"1998--present",
"Who are the current band members",
"1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris",
"Have they won any awards recently",
"I don't know.",
"what have they been up to anything that stands out?",
"2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion.",
"How popular was this album",
"I don't know."
] |
C_5765ba588156443480be23938b07f20b_0
|
Have they had any hit singles
| 5 |
Has Fairport Convention had any hit singles?
|
Fairport Convention
|
In 1998, Dave Mattacks moved to the USA and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the USA and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008). 2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD. The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner. In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans). In January 2015, four years after their previous studio album of original material (Festival Bell), Fairport Convention released a new one entitled Myths and Heroes. CANNOTANSWER
|
the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs
|
Fairport Convention are a British folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.) They started out heavily influenced by American folk rock, with a setlist dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, with Matthews later leaving during the recording of their third album.
Denny began steering the group towards traditional British music for their next two albums, What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking (both 1969); the latter featured fiddler Dave "Swarb" Swarbrick, most notably on the song "A Sailor's Life", which laid the groundwork for British folk rock by being the first time a traditional British song was combined with a rock beat. Shortly before the album's release, a crash on the M1 motorway killed Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson's then-girlfriend; this resulted in the group retiring most of their prior material and turning entirely towards British folk music for their seminal album Liege & Lief, released the same year. This style became the band's focus ever since. For this album Swarbrick joined full time alongside drummer Dave Mattacks. Both Denny and Hutchings left before the year's end; the latter replaced by Dave Pegg, who has remained the group's sole consistent member to this day; Thompson would leave after the recording of 1970's Full House.
The 1970s saw numerous lineup changes around the core of Swarbrick and Pegg – Nicol being absent for the middle of the decade – and declining fortunes as folk music fell out of mainstream favour. Denny, whose partner Trevor Lucas had been a guitarist in the group since 1972, returned for the pop-oriented Rising for the Moon album in 1975 in a final bid to crack America; this effort failed, and after three more albums minus Denny and Lucas, the group disbanded in 1979. They played a farewell concert in the village of Cropredy, Oxfordshire, where they had held small concerts since 1976, and this marked the beginning of the Cropredy Festival (since 2005 known as Fairport's Cropredy Convention) which has become the largest folk festival in Britain, with annual attendances of 20,000.
The band was reformed by Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks in 1985, joined by Maartin Allcock (guitar, vocals) and Ric Sanders (fiddle, keyboards), and they have remained active since. Allcock was replaced by Chris Leslie in 1996, and Gerry Conway replaced Mattacks in 1998, with this lineup remaining unchanged since and marking the longest-lasting of the group's history. Their 28th studio album, 50:50@50, released to mark their 50th anniversary, was released in 2017, and they continue to headline Cropredy each year.
Despite little mainstream success – their only top 40 single being "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language cover of the Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" from Unhalfbricking – Fairport Convention remain highly influential in British folk rock and British folk in general. Liege & Lief was named the "Most Influential Folk Album of All Time" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006, and Pegg's playing style, which incorporates jigs and reels into his basslines, has been imitated by many in the folk rock and folk punk genres. Additionally, many former members went on to form or join other notable groups in the genre, including Fotheringay, Steeleye Span, and the Albion Band; along with solo careers, most notably Thompson and Denny. Sandy Denny's career ended with her death in 1978, though she is now regarded as being amongst Britain's finest female singer-songwriters; her song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" – recorded by Fairport on Unhalfbricking – has become a signature song for herself and the band.
History
Origins
Bassist Ashley Hutchings met guitarist Simon Nicol in North London in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green in Muswell Hill – the same street on which Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks grew up. The house name lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums. After their initial performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble, convinced the band that he could do a better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble, which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period.
1967–69: The first three albums
Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFO and The Electric Garden, which later became the Middle Earth club. After only a few months, they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd who secured them a contract with Polydor Records. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews (then known as Ian MacDonald) joined the band, and their first album, Fairport Convention, was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to North American folk and folk rock acts such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and The Byrds for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and the use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane' during this period. Fairport Convention played alongside Jefferson Airplane at the First Isle of Wight Festival, 1968.
After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records. Before their next recording Judy Dyble left – she described it as being "unceremoniously dumped" – and was replaced by the band with Sandy Denny, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny's distinctive voice, described by Clive James as "open space, low-volume, high-intensity", is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band. The first of these featured the Thompson-penned "Meet on the Ledge", which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem.
During the recording of Unhalfbricking, Matthews left after having sung on only one song, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort. He was not replaced; the other male members covered his vocal parts. The album featured a guest appearance by Birmingham folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick on a recording of "A Sailor's Life", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society Library at Cecil Sharp House; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project.
These two albums began to gain the band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now". The record just missed the top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top of the Pops, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time. In 1969 four members of the band, one uncredited and three with pseudonyms, featured as backing musicians on the album Love Chronicles by Scottish folk artist Al Stewart.
Developing British folk rock
On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig at Birmingham venue Mothers, Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway. Martin Lamble, aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. They nearly decided to disband. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking, now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester in Hampshire, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music into rock and roll, which would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief.
Usually considered the highpoint of the band's long career, Liege & Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in a similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics: "Tam Lin", which was over seven minutes in length, and "Matty Groves", at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick's energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions "Come all ye" and "Farewell, Farewell", which, in addition to information on the inside of the gatefold cover on Hutchings' research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album. "Farewell, Farewell" and the final track "Crazy Man Michael", also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from the use of electric instruments and Mattacks' disciplined drumming with Swarbrick's fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the "ethereal" vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from AllMusic put it, the album was characterised by the "fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both".
A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Fairport Convention's achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create a distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it. Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall late in 1969. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.
1970s: A time of change
Disagreements arose about the direction of the band in the wake of this success. Ashley Hutchings wanted to explore more traditional material and left to form two groups that would rival Fairport for significance in English folk rock: Steeleye Span and the Albion Band. Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return, the sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals.
Despite these changes the band produced another album, Full House (1970), which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of "Sir Patrick Spens", with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on "Walk Awhile", which would become a concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with the Band from Rolling Stone magazine who declared that "Fairport Convention is better than ever". The album reached number 13 in the UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single 'Now Be Thankful' and made its American debut, touring with Traffic and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
In the recurring pattern, soon after the album's release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member and Dave Swarbrick emerged as the leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved into The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire and this inspired the next album Angel Delight (1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200 and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John "Babbacombe" Lee, "the man they couldn't hang" and released with the title Babbacombe Lee (1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg. These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last: Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band and he was soon followed by Mattacks.
Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas on vocals and guitar and American Jerry Donahue on lead guitar. From these line-ups the band produced two studio albums: Rosie, notable for the Swarbrick penned title track (1973) and Nine (1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel.
Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny was featured on the album Rising for the Moon (1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200 and the first album to reach the top one-hundred in the UK since Angel Delight, reaching no 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland. Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite the relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs.
Rowland, Pegg, and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer (1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) in the UK, and as 'Fairport featuring Dave Swarbrick' in the US, and with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline and after producing two of four contracted albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) and Tipplers Tales (1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.
1979–1985: The Cropredy era
By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal, and Dave Swarbrick had been diagnosed with tinnitus, which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy, the Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion.
In August 1979, the band played at Knebworth Festival in England. The headline act at both their appearances at the festival, over two consecutive Saturdays on 4 and 11 August, were Led Zeppelin.
No record company wanted to release the live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival. Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as the major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle, rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge.
The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations including the Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base.
The Angel Delight lineup of Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg, and Dave Mattacks played a number of gigs in the UK in the early 80s, then toured extensively in the UK and the US in 1984 and 1985. Band alumni like Richard Thompson and Bruce Rowland would occasionally join in.
The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of the band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport's occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was the first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick's sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984 he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper.
In 1985, Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to the catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf. They also had the help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks; the former of these, "The Hiring Fair", would become a stage fixture of the future Fairport.
The resulting album Gladys' Leap (1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock. Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band's history so far.
1986–1997: Stability
The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the World and prepared material for a new album. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted! (1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87 which managed to capture the energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on.
In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of a songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold (1989) The Five Seasons (1990) and Jewel in the Crown (1995), the last of which was judged "their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years."
At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released the unplugged Old New Borrowed Blue as "Fairport Acoustic Convention" in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin and fiddle, who formerly worked with Swarbrick in Whippersnapper, and had a one-off stint with the band replacing Ric Sanders for 1992 Cropredy Festival. This meant that for the first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1997), particularly the rousing "John Gaudie". By the time of the 30th anniversary Festival at Cropredy in 1997, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of the band.
1998–present
Dave Mattacks moved to the US in 1998, and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then, for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the US and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008).
2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD.
The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner.
In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans).
As of 2020 the band still continue to write and record music, regularly producing new studio albums, the most recent releases being 2015's Myths and Heroes, 2017's 50:50@50 and 2020's Shuffle and Go. The Covid-19 Pandemic impacted significantly on their ability to tour, and their 2022 tour was initially cut short after several of the touring team developed Covid.
Public recognition
The mainstream media has increasingly recognized Fairport Convention's historical importance. They received a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for "Favourite Folk Track of All Time" for "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?".
Personnel
Members
Current members
Simon Nicol – guitar, vocal (1967–1971, 1976–1979, 1985–present)
Dave Pegg – bass guitar, mandolin, backing vocal (1969–1979, 1985–present)
Ric Sanders – fiddles, occasional keyboards (1985–present)
Chris Leslie – fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, vocal (1996–present)
Gerry Conway – drums, percussion (1998–present)
Former members
Richard Thompson – guitar, vocal (1967–1971)
Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar (1967–1969)
Shaun Frater – drums (1967)
Martin Lamble – drums (1967–1969; died 1969)
Judy Dyble – vocal, autoharp, piano, recorder (1967–1968; died 2020)
Iain Matthews – vocal (1967–1969)
Sandy Denny – vocal, guitar, piano (1968–1969, 1974–1975; died 1978)
Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, mandolin, vocal (1969–1979; died 2016)
Dave Mattacks – drums, keyboards, bass guitar (1969–1972, 1973–1975, 1985–1997)
Roger Hill – guitar, vocal (1971–1972; died 2011)
Tom Farnell – drums (1972)
David Rea – guitar (1972; died 2011)
Trevor Lucas – guitar, vocal (1972–1975; died 1989)
Jerry Donahue – guitar (1972–1975)
Paul Warren – drums (1975)
Bruce Rowland – drums (1975–1979; died 2015)
Dan Ar Braz – guitar (1976)
Bob Brady – piano (1976)
Roger Burridge – mandolin, fiddle (1976; died 2020)
Maartin Allcock – guitar, mandolin, keyboard, vocal (1985–1996; died 2018)
Lineups
Timeline
Discography
Filmography
Tony Palmer's Film of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort, directed by Tony Palmer, featuring Fairport's appearance at the Maidstone Fiesta in 1970. Originally released as a VHS video by MusicFolk/Weintraub, re-released on DVD by Voiceprint Records in 2007, soundtrack CD issued by Voiceprint as Live in Maidstone 1970 in 2009.
References
Citations
General sources
External links
English folk musical groups
English folk rock groups
Ashley Hutchings
1967 establishments in England
Musical groups established in 1967
A&M Records artists
Island Records artists
Polydor Records artists
Rough Trade Records artists
Transatlantic Records artists
Vertigo Records artists
| true |
[
"\"For You to Love\" is a 1988 song by the American recording artist Luther Vandross. The single was released in 1989 in support of his hit album Any Love. The song was a top five U.S. R&B hit that peaked to No. 3 on the R&B singles. Vandross' Any Love album charted three top-five singles on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n www.luthervandross.com\n\n1988 songs\nLuther Vandross songs\n1989 singles\nSongs written by Marcus Miller\nSongs written by Luther Vandross\nEpic Records singles",
"This is the discography of American rock band Styx. Over the years they have released 17 studio albums, 9 live albums, 16 compilation albums, 39 singles, and 3 extended plays. 16 singles have hit the top 40 of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and 8 have hit the top 10.\n\nStudio albums\n\nLive albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nExtended plays\n\nSingles\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial discography of Styx\n\nDiscographies of American artists\nRock music group discographies"
] |
[
"Fairport Convention",
"1998--present",
"Who are the current band members",
"1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris",
"Have they won any awards recently",
"I don't know.",
"what have they been up to anything that stands out?",
"2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion.",
"How popular was this album",
"I don't know.",
"Have they had any hit singles",
"the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs"
] |
C_5765ba588156443480be23938b07f20b_0
|
What year did they do that
| 6 |
What year did Fairport Convention release By Popular Request?
|
Fairport Convention
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In 1998, Dave Mattacks moved to the USA and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the USA and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008). 2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD. The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner. In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans). In January 2015, four years after their previous studio album of original material (Festival Bell), Fairport Convention released a new one entitled Myths and Heroes. CANNOTANSWER
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In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs
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Fairport Convention are a British folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.) They started out heavily influenced by American folk rock, with a setlist dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, with Matthews later leaving during the recording of their third album.
Denny began steering the group towards traditional British music for their next two albums, What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking (both 1969); the latter featured fiddler Dave "Swarb" Swarbrick, most notably on the song "A Sailor's Life", which laid the groundwork for British folk rock by being the first time a traditional British song was combined with a rock beat. Shortly before the album's release, a crash on the M1 motorway killed Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson's then-girlfriend; this resulted in the group retiring most of their prior material and turning entirely towards British folk music for their seminal album Liege & Lief, released the same year. This style became the band's focus ever since. For this album Swarbrick joined full time alongside drummer Dave Mattacks. Both Denny and Hutchings left before the year's end; the latter replaced by Dave Pegg, who has remained the group's sole consistent member to this day; Thompson would leave after the recording of 1970's Full House.
The 1970s saw numerous lineup changes around the core of Swarbrick and Pegg – Nicol being absent for the middle of the decade – and declining fortunes as folk music fell out of mainstream favour. Denny, whose partner Trevor Lucas had been a guitarist in the group since 1972, returned for the pop-oriented Rising for the Moon album in 1975 in a final bid to crack America; this effort failed, and after three more albums minus Denny and Lucas, the group disbanded in 1979. They played a farewell concert in the village of Cropredy, Oxfordshire, where they had held small concerts since 1976, and this marked the beginning of the Cropredy Festival (since 2005 known as Fairport's Cropredy Convention) which has become the largest folk festival in Britain, with annual attendances of 20,000.
The band was reformed by Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks in 1985, joined by Maartin Allcock (guitar, vocals) and Ric Sanders (fiddle, keyboards), and they have remained active since. Allcock was replaced by Chris Leslie in 1996, and Gerry Conway replaced Mattacks in 1998, with this lineup remaining unchanged since and marking the longest-lasting of the group's history. Their 28th studio album, 50:50@50, released to mark their 50th anniversary, was released in 2017, and they continue to headline Cropredy each year.
Despite little mainstream success – their only top 40 single being "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language cover of the Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" from Unhalfbricking – Fairport Convention remain highly influential in British folk rock and British folk in general. Liege & Lief was named the "Most Influential Folk Album of All Time" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006, and Pegg's playing style, which incorporates jigs and reels into his basslines, has been imitated by many in the folk rock and folk punk genres. Additionally, many former members went on to form or join other notable groups in the genre, including Fotheringay, Steeleye Span, and the Albion Band; along with solo careers, most notably Thompson and Denny. Sandy Denny's career ended with her death in 1978, though she is now regarded as being amongst Britain's finest female singer-songwriters; her song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" – recorded by Fairport on Unhalfbricking – has become a signature song for herself and the band.
History
Origins
Bassist Ashley Hutchings met guitarist Simon Nicol in North London in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green in Muswell Hill – the same street on which Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks grew up. The house name lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums. After their initial performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble, convinced the band that he could do a better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble, which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period.
1967–69: The first three albums
Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFO and The Electric Garden, which later became the Middle Earth club. After only a few months, they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd who secured them a contract with Polydor Records. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews (then known as Ian MacDonald) joined the band, and their first album, Fairport Convention, was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to North American folk and folk rock acts such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and The Byrds for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and the use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane' during this period. Fairport Convention played alongside Jefferson Airplane at the First Isle of Wight Festival, 1968.
After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records. Before their next recording Judy Dyble left – she described it as being "unceremoniously dumped" – and was replaced by the band with Sandy Denny, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny's distinctive voice, described by Clive James as "open space, low-volume, high-intensity", is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band. The first of these featured the Thompson-penned "Meet on the Ledge", which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem.
During the recording of Unhalfbricking, Matthews left after having sung on only one song, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort. He was not replaced; the other male members covered his vocal parts. The album featured a guest appearance by Birmingham folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick on a recording of "A Sailor's Life", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society Library at Cecil Sharp House; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project.
These two albums began to gain the band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now". The record just missed the top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top of the Pops, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time. In 1969 four members of the band, one uncredited and three with pseudonyms, featured as backing musicians on the album Love Chronicles by Scottish folk artist Al Stewart.
Developing British folk rock
On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig at Birmingham venue Mothers, Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway. Martin Lamble, aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. They nearly decided to disband. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking, now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester in Hampshire, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music into rock and roll, which would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief.
Usually considered the highpoint of the band's long career, Liege & Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in a similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics: "Tam Lin", which was over seven minutes in length, and "Matty Groves", at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick's energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions "Come all ye" and "Farewell, Farewell", which, in addition to information on the inside of the gatefold cover on Hutchings' research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album. "Farewell, Farewell" and the final track "Crazy Man Michael", also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from the use of electric instruments and Mattacks' disciplined drumming with Swarbrick's fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the "ethereal" vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from AllMusic put it, the album was characterised by the "fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both".
A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Fairport Convention's achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create a distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it. Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall late in 1969. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.
1970s: A time of change
Disagreements arose about the direction of the band in the wake of this success. Ashley Hutchings wanted to explore more traditional material and left to form two groups that would rival Fairport for significance in English folk rock: Steeleye Span and the Albion Band. Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return, the sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals.
Despite these changes the band produced another album, Full House (1970), which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of "Sir Patrick Spens", with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on "Walk Awhile", which would become a concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with the Band from Rolling Stone magazine who declared that "Fairport Convention is better than ever". The album reached number 13 in the UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single 'Now Be Thankful' and made its American debut, touring with Traffic and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
In the recurring pattern, soon after the album's release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member and Dave Swarbrick emerged as the leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved into The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire and this inspired the next album Angel Delight (1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200 and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John "Babbacombe" Lee, "the man they couldn't hang" and released with the title Babbacombe Lee (1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg. These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last: Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band and he was soon followed by Mattacks.
Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas on vocals and guitar and American Jerry Donahue on lead guitar. From these line-ups the band produced two studio albums: Rosie, notable for the Swarbrick penned title track (1973) and Nine (1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel.
Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny was featured on the album Rising for the Moon (1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200 and the first album to reach the top one-hundred in the UK since Angel Delight, reaching no 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland. Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite the relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs.
Rowland, Pegg, and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer (1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) in the UK, and as 'Fairport featuring Dave Swarbrick' in the US, and with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline and after producing two of four contracted albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) and Tipplers Tales (1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.
1979–1985: The Cropredy era
By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal, and Dave Swarbrick had been diagnosed with tinnitus, which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy, the Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion.
In August 1979, the band played at Knebworth Festival in England. The headline act at both their appearances at the festival, over two consecutive Saturdays on 4 and 11 August, were Led Zeppelin.
No record company wanted to release the live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival. Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as the major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle, rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge.
The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations including the Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base.
The Angel Delight lineup of Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg, and Dave Mattacks played a number of gigs in the UK in the early 80s, then toured extensively in the UK and the US in 1984 and 1985. Band alumni like Richard Thompson and Bruce Rowland would occasionally join in.
The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of the band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport's occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was the first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick's sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984 he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper.
In 1985, Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to the catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf. They also had the help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks; the former of these, "The Hiring Fair", would become a stage fixture of the future Fairport.
The resulting album Gladys' Leap (1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock. Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band's history so far.
1986–1997: Stability
The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the World and prepared material for a new album. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted! (1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87 which managed to capture the energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on.
In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of a songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold (1989) The Five Seasons (1990) and Jewel in the Crown (1995), the last of which was judged "their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years."
At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released the unplugged Old New Borrowed Blue as "Fairport Acoustic Convention" in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin and fiddle, who formerly worked with Swarbrick in Whippersnapper, and had a one-off stint with the band replacing Ric Sanders for 1992 Cropredy Festival. This meant that for the first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1997), particularly the rousing "John Gaudie". By the time of the 30th anniversary Festival at Cropredy in 1997, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of the band.
1998–present
Dave Mattacks moved to the US in 1998, and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then, for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the US and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008).
2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD.
The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner.
In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans).
As of 2020 the band still continue to write and record music, regularly producing new studio albums, the most recent releases being 2015's Myths and Heroes, 2017's 50:50@50 and 2020's Shuffle and Go. The Covid-19 Pandemic impacted significantly on their ability to tour, and their 2022 tour was initially cut short after several of the touring team developed Covid.
Public recognition
The mainstream media has increasingly recognized Fairport Convention's historical importance. They received a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for "Favourite Folk Track of All Time" for "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?".
Personnel
Members
Current members
Simon Nicol – guitar, vocal (1967–1971, 1976–1979, 1985–present)
Dave Pegg – bass guitar, mandolin, backing vocal (1969–1979, 1985–present)
Ric Sanders – fiddles, occasional keyboards (1985–present)
Chris Leslie – fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, vocal (1996–present)
Gerry Conway – drums, percussion (1998–present)
Former members
Richard Thompson – guitar, vocal (1967–1971)
Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar (1967–1969)
Shaun Frater – drums (1967)
Martin Lamble – drums (1967–1969; died 1969)
Judy Dyble – vocal, autoharp, piano, recorder (1967–1968; died 2020)
Iain Matthews – vocal (1967–1969)
Sandy Denny – vocal, guitar, piano (1968–1969, 1974–1975; died 1978)
Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, mandolin, vocal (1969–1979; died 2016)
Dave Mattacks – drums, keyboards, bass guitar (1969–1972, 1973–1975, 1985–1997)
Roger Hill – guitar, vocal (1971–1972; died 2011)
Tom Farnell – drums (1972)
David Rea – guitar (1972; died 2011)
Trevor Lucas – guitar, vocal (1972–1975; died 1989)
Jerry Donahue – guitar (1972–1975)
Paul Warren – drums (1975)
Bruce Rowland – drums (1975–1979; died 2015)
Dan Ar Braz – guitar (1976)
Bob Brady – piano (1976)
Roger Burridge – mandolin, fiddle (1976; died 2020)
Maartin Allcock – guitar, mandolin, keyboard, vocal (1985–1996; died 2018)
Lineups
Timeline
Discography
Filmography
Tony Palmer's Film of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort, directed by Tony Palmer, featuring Fairport's appearance at the Maidstone Fiesta in 1970. Originally released as a VHS video by MusicFolk/Weintraub, re-released on DVD by Voiceprint Records in 2007, soundtrack CD issued by Voiceprint as Live in Maidstone 1970 in 2009.
References
Citations
General sources
External links
English folk musical groups
English folk rock groups
Ashley Hutchings
1967 establishments in England
Musical groups established in 1967
A&M Records artists
Island Records artists
Polydor Records artists
Rough Trade Records artists
Transatlantic Records artists
Vertigo Records artists
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[
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"\"What Would Steve Do?\" is the second single released by Mumm-Ra on Columbia Records, which was released on February 19, 2007. It is a re-recorded version of the self-release they did in April 2006. It reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest charting single.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs written by Mumm-Ra.\n\nCD\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\"Without You\"\n\n7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"What Would Steve Do? (Floorboard Mix)\"\n\nGatefold 7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMumm-Ra (band) songs\n2006 songs\nColumbia Records singles"
] |
[
"Fairport Convention",
"1998--present",
"Who are the current band members",
"1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris",
"Have they won any awards recently",
"I don't know.",
"what have they been up to anything that stands out?",
"2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion.",
"How popular was this album",
"I don't know.",
"Have they had any hit singles",
"the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs",
"What year did they do that",
"In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs"
] |
C_5765ba588156443480be23938b07f20b_0
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what was their most recent release
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what is Fairport Convention's most recent release?
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Fairport Convention
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In 1998, Dave Mattacks moved to the USA and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the USA and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008). 2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD. The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner. In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans). In January 2015, four years after their previous studio album of original material (Festival Bell), Fairport Convention released a new one entitled Myths and Heroes. CANNOTANSWER
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Fairport Convention released a new one entitled Myths and Heroes.
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Fairport Convention are a British folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.) They started out heavily influenced by American folk rock, with a setlist dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, with Matthews later leaving during the recording of their third album.
Denny began steering the group towards traditional British music for their next two albums, What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking (both 1969); the latter featured fiddler Dave "Swarb" Swarbrick, most notably on the song "A Sailor's Life", which laid the groundwork for British folk rock by being the first time a traditional British song was combined with a rock beat. Shortly before the album's release, a crash on the M1 motorway killed Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson's then-girlfriend; this resulted in the group retiring most of their prior material and turning entirely towards British folk music for their seminal album Liege & Lief, released the same year. This style became the band's focus ever since. For this album Swarbrick joined full time alongside drummer Dave Mattacks. Both Denny and Hutchings left before the year's end; the latter replaced by Dave Pegg, who has remained the group's sole consistent member to this day; Thompson would leave after the recording of 1970's Full House.
The 1970s saw numerous lineup changes around the core of Swarbrick and Pegg – Nicol being absent for the middle of the decade – and declining fortunes as folk music fell out of mainstream favour. Denny, whose partner Trevor Lucas had been a guitarist in the group since 1972, returned for the pop-oriented Rising for the Moon album in 1975 in a final bid to crack America; this effort failed, and after three more albums minus Denny and Lucas, the group disbanded in 1979. They played a farewell concert in the village of Cropredy, Oxfordshire, where they had held small concerts since 1976, and this marked the beginning of the Cropredy Festival (since 2005 known as Fairport's Cropredy Convention) which has become the largest folk festival in Britain, with annual attendances of 20,000.
The band was reformed by Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks in 1985, joined by Maartin Allcock (guitar, vocals) and Ric Sanders (fiddle, keyboards), and they have remained active since. Allcock was replaced by Chris Leslie in 1996, and Gerry Conway replaced Mattacks in 1998, with this lineup remaining unchanged since and marking the longest-lasting of the group's history. Their 28th studio album, 50:50@50, released to mark their 50th anniversary, was released in 2017, and they continue to headline Cropredy each year.
Despite little mainstream success – their only top 40 single being "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language cover of the Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" from Unhalfbricking – Fairport Convention remain highly influential in British folk rock and British folk in general. Liege & Lief was named the "Most Influential Folk Album of All Time" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006, and Pegg's playing style, which incorporates jigs and reels into his basslines, has been imitated by many in the folk rock and folk punk genres. Additionally, many former members went on to form or join other notable groups in the genre, including Fotheringay, Steeleye Span, and the Albion Band; along with solo careers, most notably Thompson and Denny. Sandy Denny's career ended with her death in 1978, though she is now regarded as being amongst Britain's finest female singer-songwriters; her song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" – recorded by Fairport on Unhalfbricking – has become a signature song for herself and the band.
History
Origins
Bassist Ashley Hutchings met guitarist Simon Nicol in North London in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green in Muswell Hill – the same street on which Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks grew up. The house name lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums. After their initial performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble, convinced the band that he could do a better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble, which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period.
1967–69: The first three albums
Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFO and The Electric Garden, which later became the Middle Earth club. After only a few months, they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd who secured them a contract with Polydor Records. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews (then known as Ian MacDonald) joined the band, and their first album, Fairport Convention, was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to North American folk and folk rock acts such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and The Byrds for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and the use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane' during this period. Fairport Convention played alongside Jefferson Airplane at the First Isle of Wight Festival, 1968.
After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records. Before their next recording Judy Dyble left – she described it as being "unceremoniously dumped" – and was replaced by the band with Sandy Denny, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny's distinctive voice, described by Clive James as "open space, low-volume, high-intensity", is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band. The first of these featured the Thompson-penned "Meet on the Ledge", which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem.
During the recording of Unhalfbricking, Matthews left after having sung on only one song, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort. He was not replaced; the other male members covered his vocal parts. The album featured a guest appearance by Birmingham folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick on a recording of "A Sailor's Life", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society Library at Cecil Sharp House; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project.
These two albums began to gain the band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now". The record just missed the top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top of the Pops, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time. In 1969 four members of the band, one uncredited and three with pseudonyms, featured as backing musicians on the album Love Chronicles by Scottish folk artist Al Stewart.
Developing British folk rock
On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig at Birmingham venue Mothers, Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway. Martin Lamble, aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. They nearly decided to disband. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking, now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester in Hampshire, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music into rock and roll, which would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief.
Usually considered the highpoint of the band's long career, Liege & Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in a similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics: "Tam Lin", which was over seven minutes in length, and "Matty Groves", at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick's energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions "Come all ye" and "Farewell, Farewell", which, in addition to information on the inside of the gatefold cover on Hutchings' research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album. "Farewell, Farewell" and the final track "Crazy Man Michael", also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from the use of electric instruments and Mattacks' disciplined drumming with Swarbrick's fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the "ethereal" vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from AllMusic put it, the album was characterised by the "fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both".
A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Fairport Convention's achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create a distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it. Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall late in 1969. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.
1970s: A time of change
Disagreements arose about the direction of the band in the wake of this success. Ashley Hutchings wanted to explore more traditional material and left to form two groups that would rival Fairport for significance in English folk rock: Steeleye Span and the Albion Band. Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return, the sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals.
Despite these changes the band produced another album, Full House (1970), which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of "Sir Patrick Spens", with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on "Walk Awhile", which would become a concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with the Band from Rolling Stone magazine who declared that "Fairport Convention is better than ever". The album reached number 13 in the UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single 'Now Be Thankful' and made its American debut, touring with Traffic and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
In the recurring pattern, soon after the album's release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member and Dave Swarbrick emerged as the leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved into The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire and this inspired the next album Angel Delight (1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200 and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John "Babbacombe" Lee, "the man they couldn't hang" and released with the title Babbacombe Lee (1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg. These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last: Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band and he was soon followed by Mattacks.
Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas on vocals and guitar and American Jerry Donahue on lead guitar. From these line-ups the band produced two studio albums: Rosie, notable for the Swarbrick penned title track (1973) and Nine (1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel.
Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny was featured on the album Rising for the Moon (1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200 and the first album to reach the top one-hundred in the UK since Angel Delight, reaching no 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland. Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite the relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs.
Rowland, Pegg, and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer (1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) in the UK, and as 'Fairport featuring Dave Swarbrick' in the US, and with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline and after producing two of four contracted albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) and Tipplers Tales (1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.
1979–1985: The Cropredy era
By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal, and Dave Swarbrick had been diagnosed with tinnitus, which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy, the Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion.
In August 1979, the band played at Knebworth Festival in England. The headline act at both their appearances at the festival, over two consecutive Saturdays on 4 and 11 August, were Led Zeppelin.
No record company wanted to release the live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival. Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as the major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle, rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge.
The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations including the Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base.
The Angel Delight lineup of Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg, and Dave Mattacks played a number of gigs in the UK in the early 80s, then toured extensively in the UK and the US in 1984 and 1985. Band alumni like Richard Thompson and Bruce Rowland would occasionally join in.
The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of the band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport's occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was the first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick's sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984 he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper.
In 1985, Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to the catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf. They also had the help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks; the former of these, "The Hiring Fair", would become a stage fixture of the future Fairport.
The resulting album Gladys' Leap (1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock. Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band's history so far.
1986–1997: Stability
The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the World and prepared material for a new album. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted! (1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87 which managed to capture the energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on.
In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of a songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold (1989) The Five Seasons (1990) and Jewel in the Crown (1995), the last of which was judged "their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years."
At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released the unplugged Old New Borrowed Blue as "Fairport Acoustic Convention" in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin and fiddle, who formerly worked with Swarbrick in Whippersnapper, and had a one-off stint with the band replacing Ric Sanders for 1992 Cropredy Festival. This meant that for the first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1997), particularly the rousing "John Gaudie". By the time of the 30th anniversary Festival at Cropredy in 1997, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of the band.
1998–present
Dave Mattacks moved to the US in 1998, and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then, for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the US and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008).
2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD.
The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner.
In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans).
As of 2020 the band still continue to write and record music, regularly producing new studio albums, the most recent releases being 2015's Myths and Heroes, 2017's 50:50@50 and 2020's Shuffle and Go. The Covid-19 Pandemic impacted significantly on their ability to tour, and their 2022 tour was initially cut short after several of the touring team developed Covid.
Public recognition
The mainstream media has increasingly recognized Fairport Convention's historical importance. They received a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for "Favourite Folk Track of All Time" for "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?".
Personnel
Members
Current members
Simon Nicol – guitar, vocal (1967–1971, 1976–1979, 1985–present)
Dave Pegg – bass guitar, mandolin, backing vocal (1969–1979, 1985–present)
Ric Sanders – fiddles, occasional keyboards (1985–present)
Chris Leslie – fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, vocal (1996–present)
Gerry Conway – drums, percussion (1998–present)
Former members
Richard Thompson – guitar, vocal (1967–1971)
Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar (1967–1969)
Shaun Frater – drums (1967)
Martin Lamble – drums (1967–1969; died 1969)
Judy Dyble – vocal, autoharp, piano, recorder (1967–1968; died 2020)
Iain Matthews – vocal (1967–1969)
Sandy Denny – vocal, guitar, piano (1968–1969, 1974–1975; died 1978)
Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, mandolin, vocal (1969–1979; died 2016)
Dave Mattacks – drums, keyboards, bass guitar (1969–1972, 1973–1975, 1985–1997)
Roger Hill – guitar, vocal (1971–1972; died 2011)
Tom Farnell – drums (1972)
David Rea – guitar (1972; died 2011)
Trevor Lucas – guitar, vocal (1972–1975; died 1989)
Jerry Donahue – guitar (1972–1975)
Paul Warren – drums (1975)
Bruce Rowland – drums (1975–1979; died 2015)
Dan Ar Braz – guitar (1976)
Bob Brady – piano (1976)
Roger Burridge – mandolin, fiddle (1976; died 2020)
Maartin Allcock – guitar, mandolin, keyboard, vocal (1985–1996; died 2018)
Lineups
Timeline
Discography
Filmography
Tony Palmer's Film of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort, directed by Tony Palmer, featuring Fairport's appearance at the Maidstone Fiesta in 1970. Originally released as a VHS video by MusicFolk/Weintraub, re-released on DVD by Voiceprint Records in 2007, soundtrack CD issued by Voiceprint as Live in Maidstone 1970 in 2009.
References
Citations
General sources
External links
English folk musical groups
English folk rock groups
Ashley Hutchings
1967 establishments in England
Musical groups established in 1967
A&M Records artists
Island Records artists
Polydor Records artists
Rough Trade Records artists
Transatlantic Records artists
Vertigo Records artists
| false |
[
"Here for It is the first extended play (EP) from American recording R&B girl group Xscape. The EP was released on March 2, 2018, through RedZone Entertainment. This is Xscape's first release in twenty years and as a trio.\n\nBackground and release\nOn February 28, 2017, Kandi Burruss, LaTocha Scott, Tameka \"Tiny\" Cottle and Tamika Scott gave their first interview in over twenty years on V-103 Atlanta. The group announced their reunion stating they had offers on the table but nothing was set in stone at the time. A few months later the group were announced to perform at the Essence Festival 2017. On December 27, 2017, it was announced Xscape would be releasing an EP in Spring 2018 as a trio titled \"Here for It\" and would feature six brand new songs including their two most recent singles \"Dream Killa\" and \"Wifed Up\". Burruss stated she would not be joining the group in new music as she had other projects going on and she would be playing Roxie Hart on Broadway's Musical Chicago. \"Here for It\" was given several release dates, January 12, 2018, February 14, 2018 and the most recent release date March 2, 2018.\n\nSingles\n\"Dream Killa\" and \"Wifed Up\" were both released as singles on December 1, 2017.\n\nOther singles\n\"Here for It\" was released as the first promotional single on 1 January 2018.\n\nTrack listing \nCredits taken from TIDAL.\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2018 EPs\nXscape (group) albums",
"Chapter III is the third & most recent studio album by American R&B/pop music group 3T. It was released on November 6, 2015, by Warrior Records.\n\nThe entire album was written and produced solely by the trio and is their first release since Identity (2004).\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2015 albums"
] |
[
"Fairport Convention",
"1998--present",
"Who are the current band members",
"1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris",
"Have they won any awards recently",
"I don't know.",
"what have they been up to anything that stands out?",
"2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion.",
"How popular was this album",
"I don't know.",
"Have they had any hit singles",
"the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs",
"What year did they do that",
"In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs",
"what was their most recent release",
"Fairport Convention released a new one entitled Myths and Heroes."
] |
C_5765ba588156443480be23938b07f20b_0
|
Are they still together
| 8 |
Are Fairport Convention still together?
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Fairport Convention
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In 1998, Dave Mattacks moved to the USA and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the USA and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008). 2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD. The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner. In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans). In January 2015, four years after their previous studio album of original material (Festival Bell), Fairport Convention released a new one entitled Myths and Heroes. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
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Fairport Convention are a British folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.) They started out heavily influenced by American folk rock, with a setlist dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, with Matthews later leaving during the recording of their third album.
Denny began steering the group towards traditional British music for their next two albums, What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking (both 1969); the latter featured fiddler Dave "Swarb" Swarbrick, most notably on the song "A Sailor's Life", which laid the groundwork for British folk rock by being the first time a traditional British song was combined with a rock beat. Shortly before the album's release, a crash on the M1 motorway killed Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson's then-girlfriend; this resulted in the group retiring most of their prior material and turning entirely towards British folk music for their seminal album Liege & Lief, released the same year. This style became the band's focus ever since. For this album Swarbrick joined full time alongside drummer Dave Mattacks. Both Denny and Hutchings left before the year's end; the latter replaced by Dave Pegg, who has remained the group's sole consistent member to this day; Thompson would leave after the recording of 1970's Full House.
The 1970s saw numerous lineup changes around the core of Swarbrick and Pegg – Nicol being absent for the middle of the decade – and declining fortunes as folk music fell out of mainstream favour. Denny, whose partner Trevor Lucas had been a guitarist in the group since 1972, returned for the pop-oriented Rising for the Moon album in 1975 in a final bid to crack America; this effort failed, and after three more albums minus Denny and Lucas, the group disbanded in 1979. They played a farewell concert in the village of Cropredy, Oxfordshire, where they had held small concerts since 1976, and this marked the beginning of the Cropredy Festival (since 2005 known as Fairport's Cropredy Convention) which has become the largest folk festival in Britain, with annual attendances of 20,000.
The band was reformed by Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks in 1985, joined by Maartin Allcock (guitar, vocals) and Ric Sanders (fiddle, keyboards), and they have remained active since. Allcock was replaced by Chris Leslie in 1996, and Gerry Conway replaced Mattacks in 1998, with this lineup remaining unchanged since and marking the longest-lasting of the group's history. Their 28th studio album, 50:50@50, released to mark their 50th anniversary, was released in 2017, and they continue to headline Cropredy each year.
Despite little mainstream success – their only top 40 single being "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language cover of the Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" from Unhalfbricking – Fairport Convention remain highly influential in British folk rock and British folk in general. Liege & Lief was named the "Most Influential Folk Album of All Time" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006, and Pegg's playing style, which incorporates jigs and reels into his basslines, has been imitated by many in the folk rock and folk punk genres. Additionally, many former members went on to form or join other notable groups in the genre, including Fotheringay, Steeleye Span, and the Albion Band; along with solo careers, most notably Thompson and Denny. Sandy Denny's career ended with her death in 1978, though she is now regarded as being amongst Britain's finest female singer-songwriters; her song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" – recorded by Fairport on Unhalfbricking – has become a signature song for herself and the band.
History
Origins
Bassist Ashley Hutchings met guitarist Simon Nicol in North London in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green in Muswell Hill – the same street on which Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks grew up. The house name lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums. After their initial performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble, convinced the band that he could do a better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble, which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period.
1967–69: The first three albums
Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFO and The Electric Garden, which later became the Middle Earth club. After only a few months, they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd who secured them a contract with Polydor Records. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews (then known as Ian MacDonald) joined the band, and their first album, Fairport Convention, was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to North American folk and folk rock acts such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and The Byrds for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and the use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane' during this period. Fairport Convention played alongside Jefferson Airplane at the First Isle of Wight Festival, 1968.
After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records. Before their next recording Judy Dyble left – she described it as being "unceremoniously dumped" – and was replaced by the band with Sandy Denny, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny's distinctive voice, described by Clive James as "open space, low-volume, high-intensity", is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band. The first of these featured the Thompson-penned "Meet on the Ledge", which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem.
During the recording of Unhalfbricking, Matthews left after having sung on only one song, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort. He was not replaced; the other male members covered his vocal parts. The album featured a guest appearance by Birmingham folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick on a recording of "A Sailor's Life", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society Library at Cecil Sharp House; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project.
These two albums began to gain the band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now". The record just missed the top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top of the Pops, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time. In 1969 four members of the band, one uncredited and three with pseudonyms, featured as backing musicians on the album Love Chronicles by Scottish folk artist Al Stewart.
Developing British folk rock
On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig at Birmingham venue Mothers, Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway. Martin Lamble, aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. They nearly decided to disband. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking, now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester in Hampshire, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music into rock and roll, which would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief.
Usually considered the highpoint of the band's long career, Liege & Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in a similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics: "Tam Lin", which was over seven minutes in length, and "Matty Groves", at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick's energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions "Come all ye" and "Farewell, Farewell", which, in addition to information on the inside of the gatefold cover on Hutchings' research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album. "Farewell, Farewell" and the final track "Crazy Man Michael", also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from the use of electric instruments and Mattacks' disciplined drumming with Swarbrick's fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the "ethereal" vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from AllMusic put it, the album was characterised by the "fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both".
A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Fairport Convention's achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create a distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it. Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall late in 1969. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.
1970s: A time of change
Disagreements arose about the direction of the band in the wake of this success. Ashley Hutchings wanted to explore more traditional material and left to form two groups that would rival Fairport for significance in English folk rock: Steeleye Span and the Albion Band. Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return, the sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals.
Despite these changes the band produced another album, Full House (1970), which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of "Sir Patrick Spens", with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on "Walk Awhile", which would become a concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with the Band from Rolling Stone magazine who declared that "Fairport Convention is better than ever". The album reached number 13 in the UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single 'Now Be Thankful' and made its American debut, touring with Traffic and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
In the recurring pattern, soon after the album's release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member and Dave Swarbrick emerged as the leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved into The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire and this inspired the next album Angel Delight (1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200 and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John "Babbacombe" Lee, "the man they couldn't hang" and released with the title Babbacombe Lee (1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg. These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last: Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band and he was soon followed by Mattacks.
Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas on vocals and guitar and American Jerry Donahue on lead guitar. From these line-ups the band produced two studio albums: Rosie, notable for the Swarbrick penned title track (1973) and Nine (1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel.
Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny was featured on the album Rising for the Moon (1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200 and the first album to reach the top one-hundred in the UK since Angel Delight, reaching no 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland. Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite the relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs.
Rowland, Pegg, and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer (1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) in the UK, and as 'Fairport featuring Dave Swarbrick' in the US, and with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline and after producing two of four contracted albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) and Tipplers Tales (1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.
1979–1985: The Cropredy era
By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal, and Dave Swarbrick had been diagnosed with tinnitus, which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy, the Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion.
In August 1979, the band played at Knebworth Festival in England. The headline act at both their appearances at the festival, over two consecutive Saturdays on 4 and 11 August, were Led Zeppelin.
No record company wanted to release the live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival. Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as the major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle, rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge.
The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations including the Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base.
The Angel Delight lineup of Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg, and Dave Mattacks played a number of gigs in the UK in the early 80s, then toured extensively in the UK and the US in 1984 and 1985. Band alumni like Richard Thompson and Bruce Rowland would occasionally join in.
The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of the band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport's occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was the first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick's sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984 he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper.
In 1985, Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to the catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf. They also had the help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks; the former of these, "The Hiring Fair", would become a stage fixture of the future Fairport.
The resulting album Gladys' Leap (1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock. Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band's history so far.
1986–1997: Stability
The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the World and prepared material for a new album. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted! (1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87 which managed to capture the energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on.
In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of a songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold (1989) The Five Seasons (1990) and Jewel in the Crown (1995), the last of which was judged "their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years."
At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released the unplugged Old New Borrowed Blue as "Fairport Acoustic Convention" in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin and fiddle, who formerly worked with Swarbrick in Whippersnapper, and had a one-off stint with the band replacing Ric Sanders for 1992 Cropredy Festival. This meant that for the first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1997), particularly the rousing "John Gaudie". By the time of the 30th anniversary Festival at Cropredy in 1997, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of the band.
1998–present
Dave Mattacks moved to the US in 1998, and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then, for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the US and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon. Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008).
2007 was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD.
The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu, Jools Holland, Seth Lakeman, Mike Harding, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner.
In 2011, the band released a new studio album Festival Bell, the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request, a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by a mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans).
As of 2020 the band still continue to write and record music, regularly producing new studio albums, the most recent releases being 2015's Myths and Heroes, 2017's 50:50@50 and 2020's Shuffle and Go. The Covid-19 Pandemic impacted significantly on their ability to tour, and their 2022 tour was initially cut short after several of the touring team developed Covid.
Public recognition
The mainstream media has increasingly recognized Fairport Convention's historical importance. They received a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for "Favourite Folk Track of All Time" for "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?".
Personnel
Members
Current members
Simon Nicol – guitar, vocal (1967–1971, 1976–1979, 1985–present)
Dave Pegg – bass guitar, mandolin, backing vocal (1969–1979, 1985–present)
Ric Sanders – fiddles, occasional keyboards (1985–present)
Chris Leslie – fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, vocal (1996–present)
Gerry Conway – drums, percussion (1998–present)
Former members
Richard Thompson – guitar, vocal (1967–1971)
Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar (1967–1969)
Shaun Frater – drums (1967)
Martin Lamble – drums (1967–1969; died 1969)
Judy Dyble – vocal, autoharp, piano, recorder (1967–1968; died 2020)
Iain Matthews – vocal (1967–1969)
Sandy Denny – vocal, guitar, piano (1968–1969, 1974–1975; died 1978)
Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, mandolin, vocal (1969–1979; died 2016)
Dave Mattacks – drums, keyboards, bass guitar (1969–1972, 1973–1975, 1985–1997)
Roger Hill – guitar, vocal (1971–1972; died 2011)
Tom Farnell – drums (1972)
David Rea – guitar (1972; died 2011)
Trevor Lucas – guitar, vocal (1972–1975; died 1989)
Jerry Donahue – guitar (1972–1975)
Paul Warren – drums (1975)
Bruce Rowland – drums (1975–1979; died 2015)
Dan Ar Braz – guitar (1976)
Bob Brady – piano (1976)
Roger Burridge – mandolin, fiddle (1976; died 2020)
Maartin Allcock – guitar, mandolin, keyboard, vocal (1985–1996; died 2018)
Lineups
Timeline
Discography
Filmography
Tony Palmer's Film of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort, directed by Tony Palmer, featuring Fairport's appearance at the Maidstone Fiesta in 1970. Originally released as a VHS video by MusicFolk/Weintraub, re-released on DVD by Voiceprint Records in 2007, soundtrack CD issued by Voiceprint as Live in Maidstone 1970 in 2009.
References
Citations
General sources
External links
English folk musical groups
English folk rock groups
Ashley Hutchings
1967 establishments in England
Musical groups established in 1967
A&M Records artists
Island Records artists
Polydor Records artists
Rough Trade Records artists
Transatlantic Records artists
Vertigo Records artists
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[
"Terence Hill (born 1939) and Bud Spencer (1929–2016) made numerous films together. They \"garnered world acclaim and attracted millions to theater seats\". Both are Italian. Hill and Spencer's birth names are Mario Girotti and Carlo Pedersoli, respectively.\n\nThey first worked together in Hannibal (1959), but not as a duo. Most of their early films were \"Spaghetti Westerns\", beginning with God Forgives... I Don't! (1967), the first part of a trilogy, followed by Ace High (1968) and Boot Hill (1969). They Call Me Trinity (1970), its sequel, Trinity Is Still My Name (1971), and Troublemakers (1994), their last screen pairing, were in the same genre.\n\nIn 2017, a video game inspired by their films, Bud Spencer & Terence Hill: Slaps and Beans, was released.\n\nFilmography\n\n Hannibal (1959)\n God Forgives... I Don't! (1967)\n Ace High (1968)\n Boot Hill (1969)\n They Call Me Trinity (1970)\n Blackie the Pirate (1971)\n Trinity Is Still My Name (1971)\n ... All the Way, Boys! (1972)\n Two Missionaries (1974)\n Watch Out, We're Mad! (1974)\n Crime Busters (1977)\n Odds and Evens (1978)\n I'm for the Hippopotamus (1979)\n Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure (1981)\n Go for It (1983)\n Double Trouble (1984)\n Miami Supercops (1985)\n Troublemakers (1994)\n\nReferences\n\nHill and Spencer\nTerence Hill and Bud Spencer",
"The SNCF Class Z 9500 electric multiple units were built by Alsthom between 1982–1983. They are, together with the Z 9600 units, the dual-voltage version of the Z2 family. They are operated by TER Franche-Comté, TER Bourgogne and TER Rhône-Alpes.Many units still run in their original livery and have the original orange interior, although the first refurbished units with the unified TER-livery and AGC-style interiors are beginning to appear as of July 2007.\n\nZ 09500\nAlstom multiple units\nElectric multiple units of France"
] |
[
"Tris Speaker",
"Traded to the Indians"
] |
C_96c99ca973ec4e6fb50844468c5c13ea_0
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What was Tris speaker traded for?
| 1 |
What was Tris speaker traded for to the Indians?
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Tris Speaker
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After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (equal to $217,717 today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($1,124,465 today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $899,572 today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371. The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was 460 feet from home plate until it was shortened to 420 feet in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag. While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason. CANNOTANSWER
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After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (
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Tristram Edgar Speaker (April 4, 1888 – December 8, 1958), nicknamed "The Gray Eagle", was an American professional baseball player. Considered one of the greatest offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB), he compiled a career batting average of .345 (sixth all-time). His 792 career doubles represent an MLB career record. His 3,514 hits are fifth in the all-time hits list. Defensively, Speaker holds career records for assists, double plays, and unassisted double plays by an outfielder. His fielding glove was known as the place "where triples go to die."
After playing in the minor leagues in Texas and Arkansas, Speaker debuted with the Boston Red Sox in 1907. He became the regular center fielder by 1909 and led the Red Sox to World Series championships in 1912 and 1915. In 1915, Speaker's batting average dropped to .322 from .338 the previous season; he was traded to the Cleveland Indians when he refused to take a pay cut. As player-manager for Cleveland, he led the team to its first World Series title. In ten of his eleven seasons with Cleveland, he finished with a batting average greater than .350. Speaker resigned as Cleveland's manager in 1926 after he and Ty Cobb faced game fixing allegations; both men were later cleared. During his managerial stint in Cleveland, Speaker introduced the platoon system in the major leagues.
Speaker played with the Washington Senators in 1927 and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1928, then became a minor league manager and part owner. He later held several roles for the Cleveland Indians. Late in life, Speaker led a short-lived indoor baseball league, ran a wholesale liquor business, worked in sales and chaired Cleveland's boxing commission. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. He was named 27th in the Sporting News 100 Greatest Baseball Players (1999) and was also included in the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Early life
Speaker was born on April 4, 1888, in Hubbard, Texas, to Archie and Nancy Poer Speaker. As a youth, Speaker broke his arm after he fell from a horse; the injury forced him to become left-handed. In 1905, Speaker played a year of college baseball for Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute. Newspaper reports have held that Speaker suffered a football injury and nearly had his arm amputated around this time; biographer Timothy Gay characterizes this as "a story that the macho Speaker never ." He worked on a ranch before beginning his professional baseball career.
Speaker's abilities drew the interest of Doak Roberts, owner of the Cleburne Railroaders of the Texas League, in . After losing several games as a pitcher, Speaker converted to outfielder to replace a Cleburne player who had been struck in the head with a pitch. He batted .318 for the Railroaders. Speaker's mother opposed his participation in the major leagues, saying that they reminded her of slavery. Though she relented, for several years Mrs. Speaker questioned why her son had not stayed home and entered the cattle or oil businesses.
He performed well for the Texas League's Houston Buffaloes in 1907, but his mother stated that she would never allow him to go to the Boston Americans. Roberts sold the youngster to the Americans for $750 or $800 (equal to $ or $ today). Speaker played in seven games for the Americans in , with three hits in 19 at-bats for a .158 average. In 1908, Boston Americans owner John I. Taylor changed the team's name to the Boston Red Sox after the bright socks in the team's uniform. That year, the club traded Speaker to the Little Rock Travelers of the Southern League in exchange for use of their facilities for spring training. Speaker batted .350 for the Travelers and his contract was repurchased by the Red Sox. He logged a .224 batting average in 116 at-bats.
Major league career
Early years
Speaker became the regular starting center fielder for Boston in 1909 and light-hitting Denny Sullivan was sold to the Cleveland Naps. Speaker hit .309 in 143 games as the team finished third in the pennant race. Defensively, Speaker was involved in 12 double plays, leading the league's outfielders, and had a .973 fielding percentage, third among outfielders. In the Red Sox signed left fielder Duffy Lewis. Speaker, Lewis and Harry Hooper formed Boston's "Million-Dollar Outfield", one of the finest outfield trios in baseball history. Speaker was the star of the Million-Dollar Outfield. He ran fast enough that he could stand very close to second base, effectively giving the team a fifth infielder, but he still caught the balls hit to center field. In 1910 and 1911, Boston finished fourth in the American League standings.
Speaker's best season came in 1912. He played every game and led the American League (AL) in doubles (53) and home runs (10). He set career highs with 222 hits, 136 runs, 580 at-bats, and 52 stolen bases. Speaker's stolen base tally was a team record until Tommy Harper stole 54 bases in 1973. He batted .383 and his .567 slugging percentage was the highest of his dead-ball days. Speaker set a major league single-season record with three hitting streaks of 20 or more games (30, 23, and 22). He also became the first major leaguer to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases in the same season. In August, Speaker's mother unsuccessfully attempted to convince him to quit baseball and come home. In Fenway Park's first game, Speaker drove in the winning run in the 11th inning, giving Boston the 7–6 win.
The 1912 Red Sox won the AL pennant, finishing 14 games ahead of the Washington Senators and 15 games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics. In the 1912 World Series, Speaker led the Red Sox to their second World Series title by defeating John McGraw's New York Giants. After the second game was called on account of darkness and ended in a tie, the series went to eight games. The Red Sox won the final game after Fred Snodgrass dropped an easy fly ball and later failed to go after a Speaker pop foul. After the pop foul, Speaker tied the game with a single. The Red Sox won the game in the bottom of the tenth inning. He finished the series with a .300 batting average, nine hits and four runs scored. Speaker was named the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) for 1912. Though he did not lead the league in any offensive categories in 1913, Speaker finished fourth in AL MVP voting.
Speaker batted .338 and tied his career high of 12 double plays as an outfielder in . He hit .322 in . The Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 World Series. The Red Sox were led by pitcher Babe Ruth, who was playing in his first full season. Ruth won 18 games and hit a team-high four home runs. Speaker got five hits, including a triple, in 17 at-bats during the series. He scored twice but did not drive in any runs.
Traded to the Indians
After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $ today) to about $9,000 (equal to $ today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($ today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($ today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $ today) of the cash that Boston collected.
For many years, this was considered the worst trade in Red Sox history, and was thought to be far more damaging to the Red Sox than the sale of Babe Ruth more than four years later. In his book about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, Emperors and Idiots, Mike Vaccaro recalled that for some time, "Red Sox fans shook their head(s) in fury" when recalling the trade. Vaccaro recalled that no one knew in the winter of 1919-20 that Ruth would blossom into a superstar. In contrast, Speaker had established himself as "indisputably the best player in the American League" by 1916.
With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $ today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In , he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371.
The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was from home plate until it was shortened to in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag.
While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason.
Stint as player-manager
From the day that Speaker arrived in Cleveland, he was effectively assistant manager to Lee Fohl, who rarely made an important move without consulting him. George Uhle recalled an incident from 1919 during his rookie year with the Indians. Speaker often signaled to Fohl when he thought that a pitcher should be brought in from the bullpen. One day, Fohl misread Speaker's signal and brought in a different pitcher than Speaker had intended. To avoid the appearance of overruling his manager, Speaker let the change stand. Pitcher Fritz Coumbe lost the game, Fohl resigned that night and Speaker became manager. Uhle said that Speaker felt bad for contributing to Fohl's departure.
Speaker guided the 1920 Indians to their first World Series win. In a crucial late season game against the second-place White Sox, Speaker caught a hard line drive hit to deep right-center field by Shoeless Joe Jackson, ending the game. On a dead run, Speaker leaped with both feet off the ground, snaring the ball before crashing into a concrete wall. As he lay unconscious from the impact, Speaker still held the baseball. In the 1920 World Series against Brooklyn, Speaker hit an RBI triple in the deciding game, which the Indians won 3–0. Cleveland's 1920 season was also significant due to the death of Ray Chapman on August 17. Chapman died after being hit in the head by a pitch from Carl Mays. Chapman had been asked about retirement before the season, and he said that he wanted to help Speaker earn Cleveland's first World Series victory before thinking of retirement.
During that championship season, Speaker is credited with introducing the platoon system, which attempted to match right-handed batters against left-handed pitchers and vice versa. Sportswriter John B. Sheridan was among the critics of the system, saying, "The specialist in baseball is no good and won't go very far... The whole effect of the system will be to make the players affected half men... It is farewell, a long farewell to all that player's chance of greatness... It destroys young ball players by destroying their most precious quality – confidence in their ability to hit any pitcher, left or right, alive, dead, or waiting to be born." Baseball Magazine was supportive, pointing out that Speaker had results that backed up his system.
The 1921 Indians remained in a tight pennant race all year, finishing games behind the Yankees. The Indians did not seriously contend for the pennant from 1922 through 1925. Speaker led the league in doubles eight times, including every year between 1920 and 1923. He led the league's outfielders in fielding percentage in 1921 and 1922. On May 17, 1925, Speaker became the fifth member of the 3,000 hit club when he hit a single off pitcher Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators. Only Napoleon Lajoie had previously accomplished the feat as a member of the Indians.
AL President Ban Johnson asked Speaker and Detroit manager Cobb to resign their posts after a scandal broke in . Pitcher Dutch Leonard claimed that Speaker and Cobb fixed at least one game between Cleveland and Detroit. In a newspaper column published shortly before the hearings were to begin, Billy Evans characterized the accusations as "purely a matter of personal revenge" for Leonard. The pitcher was said to be upset with Cobb and Speaker after a trade ended with Leonard in the minor leagues. When Leonard refused to appear at the January 5, 1927, hearings to discuss his accusations, Commissioner Landis cleared both Speaker and Cobb of any wrongdoing. Both were reinstated to their original teams, but each team declared its manager free to sign elsewhere. Speaker did not return to big league managing and he finished his MLB managerial career with a 617–520 record.
At the time of his 1926 resignation, news reports described Speaker as permanently retiring from baseball to pursue business ventures. However, Speaker signed to play with the Washington Senators for . Cobb joined the Philadelphia Athletics. Speaker joined Cobb in Philadelphia for the season; he played part time and finished with a .267 average. Prior to that season, Speaker had not hit for a batting average below .300 since 1908.
Speaker's major league playing career ended after 1928. He retired with 792 doubles, an all-time career record. Defensively, Speaker holds the all-time career records for assists as an outfielder and double plays as an outfielder. He remains the last batter to hit 200 triples in a career.
Later life
In Speaker replaced Walter Johnson as the manager of the Newark Bears of the International League. In two seasons with Newark, he also appeared as a player in 59 games. When Speaker resigned during his second season, the Bears were in seventh place after a sixth-place finish in 1929. In January 1933 he became a part owner and manager of the Kansas City Blues. By May, Speaker had been replaced as manager but remained secretary of the club. By 1936, he had sold his share of the team. In 1937, Speaker was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during its second year of balloting. He was honored at the hall's first induction ceremony in 1939.
After his playing and managing days, Speaker was an entrepreneur and salesman. By 1937, Speaker had opened a wholesale liquor business and worked as a state sales representative for a steel company. He chaired Cleveland's boxing commission between 1936 and 1943. Newspaper coverage credited Speaker with several key reforms to boxing in Cleveland, including the recruitment of new officials and protections against fight fixing. Under Speaker, fight payouts went directly to boxers rather than managers. Speaker sorted out a scheduling conflict for a 1940 boxing match in Cleveland involving former middleweight champion Teddy Yarosz. Yarosz defeated Jimmy Reeves in ten rounds and the fight attracted over 8,300 spectators.
In 1937, Speaker sustained a 16-foot fall while working on a flower box near a second-story window at his home. Upon admission to the hospital, he underwent facial surgery. He was described as having "better than an even chance to live" and was suffering from a skull fracture, a broken arm and possible internal injuries. He ultimately recovered.
In 1939, Speaker was president of the National Professional Indoor Baseball League. The league had teams in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis. The league shut down operations due to poor attendance only two months after its formation. Speaker was one of the founders of Cleveland's Society for Crippled Children and he helped to promote the society's rehabilitation center, Camp Cheerful. Speaker served as vice president of the society, ran fundraising campaigns and received a distinguished service award from the organization. He became seriously ill with pneumonia in 1942. Speaker ultimately recovered, but Gay characterized Speaker's condition as "touch-and-go for several days".
In 1947, Speaker returned to baseball as "ambassador of good will" for Bill Veeck and the Cleveland Indians. He remained in advisory, coaching or scouting roles for the Indians until his death in 1958. In an article in the July 1952 issue of SPORT, Speaker recounted how Veeck hired him in 1947 to be a coaching consultant to Larry Doby, the first black player in the AL and the second in the major leagues. Before the Indians had signed Doby, he was the star second baseman of the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues. A SPORT photograph that accompanied the article shows Speaker mentoring five members of the Indians: Luke Easter, Jim Hegan, Ray Boone, Al Rosen and Doby. Speaker was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1951. Texas was the first state to establish a state sports hall of fame and Speaker was in its inaugural induction class.
Death
Speaker died of a heart attack on December 8, 1958, at the age of 70, at Lake Whitney, Texas. He collapsed as he and a friend were pulling their boat into the dock after a fishing trip. It was his second heart attack in four years. Speaker was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Hubbard, Texas.
After Speaker's death, Cobb said, "Terribly depressed. I never let him know how much I admired him when we were playing against each other... It was only after we finally became teammates and then retired that I could tell Tris Speaker of the underlying respect I had for him." Lajoie said, "He was one of the greatest fellows I ever knew, both as a baseball player and as a gentleman." Former Boston teammate Duffy Lewis said, "He was a team player. As great a hitter as he was, he wasn't looking out for his own average ... Speaker was the bell cow of our outfield. Harry Hooper and I would watch him and know how to play the hitters."
Legacy
Immediately after Speaker's death, the baseball field at the city park in Cleburne, Texas, was renamed in honor of Speaker. In 1961, the Tris Speaker Memorial Award was created by the Baseball Writers' Association of America to honor players or officials who make outstanding contributions to baseball. In 1999, he ranked number 27 on the Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. He was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Speaker is mentioned in the poem "Line-Up for Yesterday"'' by Ogden Nash.
In 2008, former baseball players' union chief Marvin Miller, trying to defend the recently retired catcher Mike Piazza against claims that he should not be elected to the Hall of Fame because of association with the use of steroids, on the basis that the Hall of Fame has various unsavory people in it, opined that Speaker should be removed from the Hall of Fame because of alleged membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Miller said, "Some of the early people inducted in the Hall were members of the Ku Klux Klan: Tris Speaker, Cap Anson, and some people suspect Ty Cobb as well. I think that by and large, the players, and certainly the ones I knew, are good people. But the Hall is full of villains." Miller's comment about Anson has no basis, other than speculating that he could have been a Klansman since he was a racist during his playing career, which ended in 1897, although he was umpiring games with black players by 1901, including featuring the all-black Columbia Giants. Miller, age 91 at the time the 2008 article appeared, is the earliest source for declaring that it is factual that Anson was a member of the Klan, based purely on an Internet search of sources that try to link Anson to the Klan. By contrast, Speaker-Cobb-Rogers Hornsby biographer Charles C. Alexander, a Klan expert in his general history writings, told fellow baseball author Marty Appel, apparently referring to the 1920s (Anson died in 1922), “As I’ve suggested in the biographies, it’s possible that they [Speaker, Cobb and Hornsby] were briefly in the Klan, which was very strong in Texas and especially in Fort Worth and Dallas. The Klan went all out to recruit prominent people in all fields, provided they were native born, Protestant and white.”
Baseball historian Bill James does not dispute this claim in apparently referring to Speaker and possibly Cobb, but says that the Klan had toned down its racist overtures during the 1920s and pulled in hundreds of thousands of men, including Hugo Black. James adds that Speaker was a staunch supporter of Doby when he broke the American League color barrier, working long hours with the former second baseman on how to play the outfield.
Regular season statistics
Managerial record
See also
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball triples records
Notes
References
Further reading
Tris Speaker at the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
External links
1888 births
1958 deaths
American League batting champions
American League home run champions
Baseball players from Texas
Boston Americans players
Boston Red Sox players
Cleburne Railroaders players
Cleveland Indians coaches
Cleveland Indians managers
Cleveland Indians players
Houston Buffaloes players
Kansas City Blues (baseball) managers
Little Rock Travelers players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball center fielders
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Newark Bears (IL) players
People from Hubbard, Texas
Philadelphia Athletics players
Texas Wesleyan Rams baseball players
Washington Senators (1901–1960) players
Sp
Baseball coaches from Texas
| false |
[
"John (Jack) McCallister (January 19, 1879 – October 18, 1946) was manager of the Cleveland Indians during the 1927 season after Tris Speaker abruptly resigned. He would lead the Indians to a sixth-place finish and a 66-87 record.\n\nHe began his professional career in his native Marietta, Ohio. In 1902, he was playing for the Hartford Senators in the Connecticut League, and was expected to play for the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League the following year. However, in the fall of 1902 his knee was severely injured during a benefit game in Marietta, and he was unable to play for two years. After working as an umpire in 1905, he became a manager of the Portsmouth Cobblers of the Ohio State League in 1909; he later managed the Akron team in the Ohio–Pennsylvania and Central leagues. In 1913, the Indians hired him as a coach and scout. McCallister was Tris Speaker's primary assistant during his years as player-manager (1919–1926). McCallister became manager after Speaker's sudden resignation in late 1926. A second-place team in 1926, the Indians entered the 1927 season with a largely unchanged roster, except that Hall of Fame center fielder Speaker now played in Washington; the team won twenty-two fewer games in 1927. When asked about the reasons for the Indians' disappointing performance, McCallister replied, \"I guess it is that I just can't play centerfield.\" Following a change of ownership at the end of the season, McCallister's contract was not renewed. After spending the 1928 season as a coach and scout for the Detroit Tigers, he worked as a scout for the Boston Red Sox (1929–33), the Cincinnati Reds (1934), and the Boston Braves (1936–46). He died in Columbus, Ohio.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nJack McCallister page at Baseball-reference.com\n\n1879 births\n1946 deaths\nCleveland Indians managers\nCleveland Indians coaches\nBoston Braves scouts\nBoston Red Sox coaches\nBoston Red Sox scouts\nBaseball coaches from Ohio\nSportspeople from Marietta, Ohio\nHartford Senators players",
"Joseph Patrick Rabbitt (January 16, 1900 – December 5, 1969) was a Major League Baseball left fielder who played for one season. He played in two games for the Cleveland Indians during the 1922 Cleveland Indians season. Rabbitt was one of a group of players that Indians player-manager Tris Speaker sent in partway through the game on September 21, 1922, which was done as an opportunity for fans to see various minor league prospects.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1900 births\n1969 deaths\nMajor League Baseball left fielders\nCleveland Indians players\nBaseball players from Kansas\nPeople from Frontenac, Kansas"
] |
[
"Tris Speaker",
"Traded to the Indians",
"What was Tris speaker traded for?",
"After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 ("
] |
C_96c99ca973ec4e6fb50844468c5c13ea_0
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Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Besides Tris Speaker trading to the Indians, and a proposed pay cut, are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Tris Speaker
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After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (equal to $217,717 today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($1,124,465 today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $899,572 today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371. The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was 460 feet from home plate until it was shortened to 420 feet in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag. While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason. CANNOTANSWER
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Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In
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Tristram Edgar Speaker (April 4, 1888 – December 8, 1958), nicknamed "The Gray Eagle", was an American professional baseball player. Considered one of the greatest offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB), he compiled a career batting average of .345 (sixth all-time). His 792 career doubles represent an MLB career record. His 3,514 hits are fifth in the all-time hits list. Defensively, Speaker holds career records for assists, double plays, and unassisted double plays by an outfielder. His fielding glove was known as the place "where triples go to die."
After playing in the minor leagues in Texas and Arkansas, Speaker debuted with the Boston Red Sox in 1907. He became the regular center fielder by 1909 and led the Red Sox to World Series championships in 1912 and 1915. In 1915, Speaker's batting average dropped to .322 from .338 the previous season; he was traded to the Cleveland Indians when he refused to take a pay cut. As player-manager for Cleveland, he led the team to its first World Series title. In ten of his eleven seasons with Cleveland, he finished with a batting average greater than .350. Speaker resigned as Cleveland's manager in 1926 after he and Ty Cobb faced game fixing allegations; both men were later cleared. During his managerial stint in Cleveland, Speaker introduced the platoon system in the major leagues.
Speaker played with the Washington Senators in 1927 and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1928, then became a minor league manager and part owner. He later held several roles for the Cleveland Indians. Late in life, Speaker led a short-lived indoor baseball league, ran a wholesale liquor business, worked in sales and chaired Cleveland's boxing commission. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. He was named 27th in the Sporting News 100 Greatest Baseball Players (1999) and was also included in the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Early life
Speaker was born on April 4, 1888, in Hubbard, Texas, to Archie and Nancy Poer Speaker. As a youth, Speaker broke his arm after he fell from a horse; the injury forced him to become left-handed. In 1905, Speaker played a year of college baseball for Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute. Newspaper reports have held that Speaker suffered a football injury and nearly had his arm amputated around this time; biographer Timothy Gay characterizes this as "a story that the macho Speaker never ." He worked on a ranch before beginning his professional baseball career.
Speaker's abilities drew the interest of Doak Roberts, owner of the Cleburne Railroaders of the Texas League, in . After losing several games as a pitcher, Speaker converted to outfielder to replace a Cleburne player who had been struck in the head with a pitch. He batted .318 for the Railroaders. Speaker's mother opposed his participation in the major leagues, saying that they reminded her of slavery. Though she relented, for several years Mrs. Speaker questioned why her son had not stayed home and entered the cattle or oil businesses.
He performed well for the Texas League's Houston Buffaloes in 1907, but his mother stated that she would never allow him to go to the Boston Americans. Roberts sold the youngster to the Americans for $750 or $800 (equal to $ or $ today). Speaker played in seven games for the Americans in , with three hits in 19 at-bats for a .158 average. In 1908, Boston Americans owner John I. Taylor changed the team's name to the Boston Red Sox after the bright socks in the team's uniform. That year, the club traded Speaker to the Little Rock Travelers of the Southern League in exchange for use of their facilities for spring training. Speaker batted .350 for the Travelers and his contract was repurchased by the Red Sox. He logged a .224 batting average in 116 at-bats.
Major league career
Early years
Speaker became the regular starting center fielder for Boston in 1909 and light-hitting Denny Sullivan was sold to the Cleveland Naps. Speaker hit .309 in 143 games as the team finished third in the pennant race. Defensively, Speaker was involved in 12 double plays, leading the league's outfielders, and had a .973 fielding percentage, third among outfielders. In the Red Sox signed left fielder Duffy Lewis. Speaker, Lewis and Harry Hooper formed Boston's "Million-Dollar Outfield", one of the finest outfield trios in baseball history. Speaker was the star of the Million-Dollar Outfield. He ran fast enough that he could stand very close to second base, effectively giving the team a fifth infielder, but he still caught the balls hit to center field. In 1910 and 1911, Boston finished fourth in the American League standings.
Speaker's best season came in 1912. He played every game and led the American League (AL) in doubles (53) and home runs (10). He set career highs with 222 hits, 136 runs, 580 at-bats, and 52 stolen bases. Speaker's stolen base tally was a team record until Tommy Harper stole 54 bases in 1973. He batted .383 and his .567 slugging percentage was the highest of his dead-ball days. Speaker set a major league single-season record with three hitting streaks of 20 or more games (30, 23, and 22). He also became the first major leaguer to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases in the same season. In August, Speaker's mother unsuccessfully attempted to convince him to quit baseball and come home. In Fenway Park's first game, Speaker drove in the winning run in the 11th inning, giving Boston the 7–6 win.
The 1912 Red Sox won the AL pennant, finishing 14 games ahead of the Washington Senators and 15 games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics. In the 1912 World Series, Speaker led the Red Sox to their second World Series title by defeating John McGraw's New York Giants. After the second game was called on account of darkness and ended in a tie, the series went to eight games. The Red Sox won the final game after Fred Snodgrass dropped an easy fly ball and later failed to go after a Speaker pop foul. After the pop foul, Speaker tied the game with a single. The Red Sox won the game in the bottom of the tenth inning. He finished the series with a .300 batting average, nine hits and four runs scored. Speaker was named the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) for 1912. Though he did not lead the league in any offensive categories in 1913, Speaker finished fourth in AL MVP voting.
Speaker batted .338 and tied his career high of 12 double plays as an outfielder in . He hit .322 in . The Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 World Series. The Red Sox were led by pitcher Babe Ruth, who was playing in his first full season. Ruth won 18 games and hit a team-high four home runs. Speaker got five hits, including a triple, in 17 at-bats during the series. He scored twice but did not drive in any runs.
Traded to the Indians
After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $ today) to about $9,000 (equal to $ today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($ today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($ today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $ today) of the cash that Boston collected.
For many years, this was considered the worst trade in Red Sox history, and was thought to be far more damaging to the Red Sox than the sale of Babe Ruth more than four years later. In his book about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, Emperors and Idiots, Mike Vaccaro recalled that for some time, "Red Sox fans shook their head(s) in fury" when recalling the trade. Vaccaro recalled that no one knew in the winter of 1919-20 that Ruth would blossom into a superstar. In contrast, Speaker had established himself as "indisputably the best player in the American League" by 1916.
With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $ today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In , he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371.
The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was from home plate until it was shortened to in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag.
While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason.
Stint as player-manager
From the day that Speaker arrived in Cleveland, he was effectively assistant manager to Lee Fohl, who rarely made an important move without consulting him. George Uhle recalled an incident from 1919 during his rookie year with the Indians. Speaker often signaled to Fohl when he thought that a pitcher should be brought in from the bullpen. One day, Fohl misread Speaker's signal and brought in a different pitcher than Speaker had intended. To avoid the appearance of overruling his manager, Speaker let the change stand. Pitcher Fritz Coumbe lost the game, Fohl resigned that night and Speaker became manager. Uhle said that Speaker felt bad for contributing to Fohl's departure.
Speaker guided the 1920 Indians to their first World Series win. In a crucial late season game against the second-place White Sox, Speaker caught a hard line drive hit to deep right-center field by Shoeless Joe Jackson, ending the game. On a dead run, Speaker leaped with both feet off the ground, snaring the ball before crashing into a concrete wall. As he lay unconscious from the impact, Speaker still held the baseball. In the 1920 World Series against Brooklyn, Speaker hit an RBI triple in the deciding game, which the Indians won 3–0. Cleveland's 1920 season was also significant due to the death of Ray Chapman on August 17. Chapman died after being hit in the head by a pitch from Carl Mays. Chapman had been asked about retirement before the season, and he said that he wanted to help Speaker earn Cleveland's first World Series victory before thinking of retirement.
During that championship season, Speaker is credited with introducing the platoon system, which attempted to match right-handed batters against left-handed pitchers and vice versa. Sportswriter John B. Sheridan was among the critics of the system, saying, "The specialist in baseball is no good and won't go very far... The whole effect of the system will be to make the players affected half men... It is farewell, a long farewell to all that player's chance of greatness... It destroys young ball players by destroying their most precious quality – confidence in their ability to hit any pitcher, left or right, alive, dead, or waiting to be born." Baseball Magazine was supportive, pointing out that Speaker had results that backed up his system.
The 1921 Indians remained in a tight pennant race all year, finishing games behind the Yankees. The Indians did not seriously contend for the pennant from 1922 through 1925. Speaker led the league in doubles eight times, including every year between 1920 and 1923. He led the league's outfielders in fielding percentage in 1921 and 1922. On May 17, 1925, Speaker became the fifth member of the 3,000 hit club when he hit a single off pitcher Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators. Only Napoleon Lajoie had previously accomplished the feat as a member of the Indians.
AL President Ban Johnson asked Speaker and Detroit manager Cobb to resign their posts after a scandal broke in . Pitcher Dutch Leonard claimed that Speaker and Cobb fixed at least one game between Cleveland and Detroit. In a newspaper column published shortly before the hearings were to begin, Billy Evans characterized the accusations as "purely a matter of personal revenge" for Leonard. The pitcher was said to be upset with Cobb and Speaker after a trade ended with Leonard in the minor leagues. When Leonard refused to appear at the January 5, 1927, hearings to discuss his accusations, Commissioner Landis cleared both Speaker and Cobb of any wrongdoing. Both were reinstated to their original teams, but each team declared its manager free to sign elsewhere. Speaker did not return to big league managing and he finished his MLB managerial career with a 617–520 record.
At the time of his 1926 resignation, news reports described Speaker as permanently retiring from baseball to pursue business ventures. However, Speaker signed to play with the Washington Senators for . Cobb joined the Philadelphia Athletics. Speaker joined Cobb in Philadelphia for the season; he played part time and finished with a .267 average. Prior to that season, Speaker had not hit for a batting average below .300 since 1908.
Speaker's major league playing career ended after 1928. He retired with 792 doubles, an all-time career record. Defensively, Speaker holds the all-time career records for assists as an outfielder and double plays as an outfielder. He remains the last batter to hit 200 triples in a career.
Later life
In Speaker replaced Walter Johnson as the manager of the Newark Bears of the International League. In two seasons with Newark, he also appeared as a player in 59 games. When Speaker resigned during his second season, the Bears were in seventh place after a sixth-place finish in 1929. In January 1933 he became a part owner and manager of the Kansas City Blues. By May, Speaker had been replaced as manager but remained secretary of the club. By 1936, he had sold his share of the team. In 1937, Speaker was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during its second year of balloting. He was honored at the hall's first induction ceremony in 1939.
After his playing and managing days, Speaker was an entrepreneur and salesman. By 1937, Speaker had opened a wholesale liquor business and worked as a state sales representative for a steel company. He chaired Cleveland's boxing commission between 1936 and 1943. Newspaper coverage credited Speaker with several key reforms to boxing in Cleveland, including the recruitment of new officials and protections against fight fixing. Under Speaker, fight payouts went directly to boxers rather than managers. Speaker sorted out a scheduling conflict for a 1940 boxing match in Cleveland involving former middleweight champion Teddy Yarosz. Yarosz defeated Jimmy Reeves in ten rounds and the fight attracted over 8,300 spectators.
In 1937, Speaker sustained a 16-foot fall while working on a flower box near a second-story window at his home. Upon admission to the hospital, he underwent facial surgery. He was described as having "better than an even chance to live" and was suffering from a skull fracture, a broken arm and possible internal injuries. He ultimately recovered.
In 1939, Speaker was president of the National Professional Indoor Baseball League. The league had teams in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis. The league shut down operations due to poor attendance only two months after its formation. Speaker was one of the founders of Cleveland's Society for Crippled Children and he helped to promote the society's rehabilitation center, Camp Cheerful. Speaker served as vice president of the society, ran fundraising campaigns and received a distinguished service award from the organization. He became seriously ill with pneumonia in 1942. Speaker ultimately recovered, but Gay characterized Speaker's condition as "touch-and-go for several days".
In 1947, Speaker returned to baseball as "ambassador of good will" for Bill Veeck and the Cleveland Indians. He remained in advisory, coaching or scouting roles for the Indians until his death in 1958. In an article in the July 1952 issue of SPORT, Speaker recounted how Veeck hired him in 1947 to be a coaching consultant to Larry Doby, the first black player in the AL and the second in the major leagues. Before the Indians had signed Doby, he was the star second baseman of the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues. A SPORT photograph that accompanied the article shows Speaker mentoring five members of the Indians: Luke Easter, Jim Hegan, Ray Boone, Al Rosen and Doby. Speaker was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1951. Texas was the first state to establish a state sports hall of fame and Speaker was in its inaugural induction class.
Death
Speaker died of a heart attack on December 8, 1958, at the age of 70, at Lake Whitney, Texas. He collapsed as he and a friend were pulling their boat into the dock after a fishing trip. It was his second heart attack in four years. Speaker was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Hubbard, Texas.
After Speaker's death, Cobb said, "Terribly depressed. I never let him know how much I admired him when we were playing against each other... It was only after we finally became teammates and then retired that I could tell Tris Speaker of the underlying respect I had for him." Lajoie said, "He was one of the greatest fellows I ever knew, both as a baseball player and as a gentleman." Former Boston teammate Duffy Lewis said, "He was a team player. As great a hitter as he was, he wasn't looking out for his own average ... Speaker was the bell cow of our outfield. Harry Hooper and I would watch him and know how to play the hitters."
Legacy
Immediately after Speaker's death, the baseball field at the city park in Cleburne, Texas, was renamed in honor of Speaker. In 1961, the Tris Speaker Memorial Award was created by the Baseball Writers' Association of America to honor players or officials who make outstanding contributions to baseball. In 1999, he ranked number 27 on the Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. He was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Speaker is mentioned in the poem "Line-Up for Yesterday"'' by Ogden Nash.
In 2008, former baseball players' union chief Marvin Miller, trying to defend the recently retired catcher Mike Piazza against claims that he should not be elected to the Hall of Fame because of association with the use of steroids, on the basis that the Hall of Fame has various unsavory people in it, opined that Speaker should be removed from the Hall of Fame because of alleged membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Miller said, "Some of the early people inducted in the Hall were members of the Ku Klux Klan: Tris Speaker, Cap Anson, and some people suspect Ty Cobb as well. I think that by and large, the players, and certainly the ones I knew, are good people. But the Hall is full of villains." Miller's comment about Anson has no basis, other than speculating that he could have been a Klansman since he was a racist during his playing career, which ended in 1897, although he was umpiring games with black players by 1901, including featuring the all-black Columbia Giants. Miller, age 91 at the time the 2008 article appeared, is the earliest source for declaring that it is factual that Anson was a member of the Klan, based purely on an Internet search of sources that try to link Anson to the Klan. By contrast, Speaker-Cobb-Rogers Hornsby biographer Charles C. Alexander, a Klan expert in his general history writings, told fellow baseball author Marty Appel, apparently referring to the 1920s (Anson died in 1922), “As I’ve suggested in the biographies, it’s possible that they [Speaker, Cobb and Hornsby] were briefly in the Klan, which was very strong in Texas and especially in Fort Worth and Dallas. The Klan went all out to recruit prominent people in all fields, provided they were native born, Protestant and white.”
Baseball historian Bill James does not dispute this claim in apparently referring to Speaker and possibly Cobb, but says that the Klan had toned down its racist overtures during the 1920s and pulled in hundreds of thousands of men, including Hugo Black. James adds that Speaker was a staunch supporter of Doby when he broke the American League color barrier, working long hours with the former second baseman on how to play the outfield.
Regular season statistics
Managerial record
See also
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball triples records
Notes
References
Further reading
Tris Speaker at the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
External links
1888 births
1958 deaths
American League batting champions
American League home run champions
Baseball players from Texas
Boston Americans players
Boston Red Sox players
Cleburne Railroaders players
Cleveland Indians coaches
Cleveland Indians managers
Cleveland Indians players
Houston Buffaloes players
Kansas City Blues (baseball) managers
Little Rock Travelers players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball center fielders
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Newark Bears (IL) players
People from Hubbard, Texas
Philadelphia Athletics players
Texas Wesleyan Rams baseball players
Washington Senators (1901–1960) players
Sp
Baseball coaches from Texas
| false |
[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Tris Speaker",
"Traded to the Indians",
"What was Tris speaker traded for?",
"After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In"
] |
C_96c99ca973ec4e6fb50844468c5c13ea_0
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Was Speaker happy with this?
| 3 |
Was Speaker happy with being traded to Cleveland Indians?
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Tris Speaker
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After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (equal to $217,717 today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($1,124,465 today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $899,572 today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371. The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was 460 feet from home plate until it was shortened to 420 feet in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag. While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason. CANNOTANSWER
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The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000
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Tristram Edgar Speaker (April 4, 1888 – December 8, 1958), nicknamed "The Gray Eagle", was an American professional baseball player. Considered one of the greatest offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB), he compiled a career batting average of .345 (sixth all-time). His 792 career doubles represent an MLB career record. His 3,514 hits are fifth in the all-time hits list. Defensively, Speaker holds career records for assists, double plays, and unassisted double plays by an outfielder. His fielding glove was known as the place "where triples go to die."
After playing in the minor leagues in Texas and Arkansas, Speaker debuted with the Boston Red Sox in 1907. He became the regular center fielder by 1909 and led the Red Sox to World Series championships in 1912 and 1915. In 1915, Speaker's batting average dropped to .322 from .338 the previous season; he was traded to the Cleveland Indians when he refused to take a pay cut. As player-manager for Cleveland, he led the team to its first World Series title. In ten of his eleven seasons with Cleveland, he finished with a batting average greater than .350. Speaker resigned as Cleveland's manager in 1926 after he and Ty Cobb faced game fixing allegations; both men were later cleared. During his managerial stint in Cleveland, Speaker introduced the platoon system in the major leagues.
Speaker played with the Washington Senators in 1927 and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1928, then became a minor league manager and part owner. He later held several roles for the Cleveland Indians. Late in life, Speaker led a short-lived indoor baseball league, ran a wholesale liquor business, worked in sales and chaired Cleveland's boxing commission. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. He was named 27th in the Sporting News 100 Greatest Baseball Players (1999) and was also included in the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Early life
Speaker was born on April 4, 1888, in Hubbard, Texas, to Archie and Nancy Poer Speaker. As a youth, Speaker broke his arm after he fell from a horse; the injury forced him to become left-handed. In 1905, Speaker played a year of college baseball for Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute. Newspaper reports have held that Speaker suffered a football injury and nearly had his arm amputated around this time; biographer Timothy Gay characterizes this as "a story that the macho Speaker never ." He worked on a ranch before beginning his professional baseball career.
Speaker's abilities drew the interest of Doak Roberts, owner of the Cleburne Railroaders of the Texas League, in . After losing several games as a pitcher, Speaker converted to outfielder to replace a Cleburne player who had been struck in the head with a pitch. He batted .318 for the Railroaders. Speaker's mother opposed his participation in the major leagues, saying that they reminded her of slavery. Though she relented, for several years Mrs. Speaker questioned why her son had not stayed home and entered the cattle or oil businesses.
He performed well for the Texas League's Houston Buffaloes in 1907, but his mother stated that she would never allow him to go to the Boston Americans. Roberts sold the youngster to the Americans for $750 or $800 (equal to $ or $ today). Speaker played in seven games for the Americans in , with three hits in 19 at-bats for a .158 average. In 1908, Boston Americans owner John I. Taylor changed the team's name to the Boston Red Sox after the bright socks in the team's uniform. That year, the club traded Speaker to the Little Rock Travelers of the Southern League in exchange for use of their facilities for spring training. Speaker batted .350 for the Travelers and his contract was repurchased by the Red Sox. He logged a .224 batting average in 116 at-bats.
Major league career
Early years
Speaker became the regular starting center fielder for Boston in 1909 and light-hitting Denny Sullivan was sold to the Cleveland Naps. Speaker hit .309 in 143 games as the team finished third in the pennant race. Defensively, Speaker was involved in 12 double plays, leading the league's outfielders, and had a .973 fielding percentage, third among outfielders. In the Red Sox signed left fielder Duffy Lewis. Speaker, Lewis and Harry Hooper formed Boston's "Million-Dollar Outfield", one of the finest outfield trios in baseball history. Speaker was the star of the Million-Dollar Outfield. He ran fast enough that he could stand very close to second base, effectively giving the team a fifth infielder, but he still caught the balls hit to center field. In 1910 and 1911, Boston finished fourth in the American League standings.
Speaker's best season came in 1912. He played every game and led the American League (AL) in doubles (53) and home runs (10). He set career highs with 222 hits, 136 runs, 580 at-bats, and 52 stolen bases. Speaker's stolen base tally was a team record until Tommy Harper stole 54 bases in 1973. He batted .383 and his .567 slugging percentage was the highest of his dead-ball days. Speaker set a major league single-season record with three hitting streaks of 20 or more games (30, 23, and 22). He also became the first major leaguer to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases in the same season. In August, Speaker's mother unsuccessfully attempted to convince him to quit baseball and come home. In Fenway Park's first game, Speaker drove in the winning run in the 11th inning, giving Boston the 7–6 win.
The 1912 Red Sox won the AL pennant, finishing 14 games ahead of the Washington Senators and 15 games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics. In the 1912 World Series, Speaker led the Red Sox to their second World Series title by defeating John McGraw's New York Giants. After the second game was called on account of darkness and ended in a tie, the series went to eight games. The Red Sox won the final game after Fred Snodgrass dropped an easy fly ball and later failed to go after a Speaker pop foul. After the pop foul, Speaker tied the game with a single. The Red Sox won the game in the bottom of the tenth inning. He finished the series with a .300 batting average, nine hits and four runs scored. Speaker was named the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) for 1912. Though he did not lead the league in any offensive categories in 1913, Speaker finished fourth in AL MVP voting.
Speaker batted .338 and tied his career high of 12 double plays as an outfielder in . He hit .322 in . The Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 World Series. The Red Sox were led by pitcher Babe Ruth, who was playing in his first full season. Ruth won 18 games and hit a team-high four home runs. Speaker got five hits, including a triple, in 17 at-bats during the series. He scored twice but did not drive in any runs.
Traded to the Indians
After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $ today) to about $9,000 (equal to $ today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($ today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($ today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $ today) of the cash that Boston collected.
For many years, this was considered the worst trade in Red Sox history, and was thought to be far more damaging to the Red Sox than the sale of Babe Ruth more than four years later. In his book about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, Emperors and Idiots, Mike Vaccaro recalled that for some time, "Red Sox fans shook their head(s) in fury" when recalling the trade. Vaccaro recalled that no one knew in the winter of 1919-20 that Ruth would blossom into a superstar. In contrast, Speaker had established himself as "indisputably the best player in the American League" by 1916.
With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $ today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In , he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371.
The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was from home plate until it was shortened to in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag.
While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason.
Stint as player-manager
From the day that Speaker arrived in Cleveland, he was effectively assistant manager to Lee Fohl, who rarely made an important move without consulting him. George Uhle recalled an incident from 1919 during his rookie year with the Indians. Speaker often signaled to Fohl when he thought that a pitcher should be brought in from the bullpen. One day, Fohl misread Speaker's signal and brought in a different pitcher than Speaker had intended. To avoid the appearance of overruling his manager, Speaker let the change stand. Pitcher Fritz Coumbe lost the game, Fohl resigned that night and Speaker became manager. Uhle said that Speaker felt bad for contributing to Fohl's departure.
Speaker guided the 1920 Indians to their first World Series win. In a crucial late season game against the second-place White Sox, Speaker caught a hard line drive hit to deep right-center field by Shoeless Joe Jackson, ending the game. On a dead run, Speaker leaped with both feet off the ground, snaring the ball before crashing into a concrete wall. As he lay unconscious from the impact, Speaker still held the baseball. In the 1920 World Series against Brooklyn, Speaker hit an RBI triple in the deciding game, which the Indians won 3–0. Cleveland's 1920 season was also significant due to the death of Ray Chapman on August 17. Chapman died after being hit in the head by a pitch from Carl Mays. Chapman had been asked about retirement before the season, and he said that he wanted to help Speaker earn Cleveland's first World Series victory before thinking of retirement.
During that championship season, Speaker is credited with introducing the platoon system, which attempted to match right-handed batters against left-handed pitchers and vice versa. Sportswriter John B. Sheridan was among the critics of the system, saying, "The specialist in baseball is no good and won't go very far... The whole effect of the system will be to make the players affected half men... It is farewell, a long farewell to all that player's chance of greatness... It destroys young ball players by destroying their most precious quality – confidence in their ability to hit any pitcher, left or right, alive, dead, or waiting to be born." Baseball Magazine was supportive, pointing out that Speaker had results that backed up his system.
The 1921 Indians remained in a tight pennant race all year, finishing games behind the Yankees. The Indians did not seriously contend for the pennant from 1922 through 1925. Speaker led the league in doubles eight times, including every year between 1920 and 1923. He led the league's outfielders in fielding percentage in 1921 and 1922. On May 17, 1925, Speaker became the fifth member of the 3,000 hit club when he hit a single off pitcher Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators. Only Napoleon Lajoie had previously accomplished the feat as a member of the Indians.
AL President Ban Johnson asked Speaker and Detroit manager Cobb to resign their posts after a scandal broke in . Pitcher Dutch Leonard claimed that Speaker and Cobb fixed at least one game between Cleveland and Detroit. In a newspaper column published shortly before the hearings were to begin, Billy Evans characterized the accusations as "purely a matter of personal revenge" for Leonard. The pitcher was said to be upset with Cobb and Speaker after a trade ended with Leonard in the minor leagues. When Leonard refused to appear at the January 5, 1927, hearings to discuss his accusations, Commissioner Landis cleared both Speaker and Cobb of any wrongdoing. Both were reinstated to their original teams, but each team declared its manager free to sign elsewhere. Speaker did not return to big league managing and he finished his MLB managerial career with a 617–520 record.
At the time of his 1926 resignation, news reports described Speaker as permanently retiring from baseball to pursue business ventures. However, Speaker signed to play with the Washington Senators for . Cobb joined the Philadelphia Athletics. Speaker joined Cobb in Philadelphia for the season; he played part time and finished with a .267 average. Prior to that season, Speaker had not hit for a batting average below .300 since 1908.
Speaker's major league playing career ended after 1928. He retired with 792 doubles, an all-time career record. Defensively, Speaker holds the all-time career records for assists as an outfielder and double plays as an outfielder. He remains the last batter to hit 200 triples in a career.
Later life
In Speaker replaced Walter Johnson as the manager of the Newark Bears of the International League. In two seasons with Newark, he also appeared as a player in 59 games. When Speaker resigned during his second season, the Bears were in seventh place after a sixth-place finish in 1929. In January 1933 he became a part owner and manager of the Kansas City Blues. By May, Speaker had been replaced as manager but remained secretary of the club. By 1936, he had sold his share of the team. In 1937, Speaker was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during its second year of balloting. He was honored at the hall's first induction ceremony in 1939.
After his playing and managing days, Speaker was an entrepreneur and salesman. By 1937, Speaker had opened a wholesale liquor business and worked as a state sales representative for a steel company. He chaired Cleveland's boxing commission between 1936 and 1943. Newspaper coverage credited Speaker with several key reforms to boxing in Cleveland, including the recruitment of new officials and protections against fight fixing. Under Speaker, fight payouts went directly to boxers rather than managers. Speaker sorted out a scheduling conflict for a 1940 boxing match in Cleveland involving former middleweight champion Teddy Yarosz. Yarosz defeated Jimmy Reeves in ten rounds and the fight attracted over 8,300 spectators.
In 1937, Speaker sustained a 16-foot fall while working on a flower box near a second-story window at his home. Upon admission to the hospital, he underwent facial surgery. He was described as having "better than an even chance to live" and was suffering from a skull fracture, a broken arm and possible internal injuries. He ultimately recovered.
In 1939, Speaker was president of the National Professional Indoor Baseball League. The league had teams in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis. The league shut down operations due to poor attendance only two months after its formation. Speaker was one of the founders of Cleveland's Society for Crippled Children and he helped to promote the society's rehabilitation center, Camp Cheerful. Speaker served as vice president of the society, ran fundraising campaigns and received a distinguished service award from the organization. He became seriously ill with pneumonia in 1942. Speaker ultimately recovered, but Gay characterized Speaker's condition as "touch-and-go for several days".
In 1947, Speaker returned to baseball as "ambassador of good will" for Bill Veeck and the Cleveland Indians. He remained in advisory, coaching or scouting roles for the Indians until his death in 1958. In an article in the July 1952 issue of SPORT, Speaker recounted how Veeck hired him in 1947 to be a coaching consultant to Larry Doby, the first black player in the AL and the second in the major leagues. Before the Indians had signed Doby, he was the star second baseman of the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues. A SPORT photograph that accompanied the article shows Speaker mentoring five members of the Indians: Luke Easter, Jim Hegan, Ray Boone, Al Rosen and Doby. Speaker was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1951. Texas was the first state to establish a state sports hall of fame and Speaker was in its inaugural induction class.
Death
Speaker died of a heart attack on December 8, 1958, at the age of 70, at Lake Whitney, Texas. He collapsed as he and a friend were pulling their boat into the dock after a fishing trip. It was his second heart attack in four years. Speaker was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Hubbard, Texas.
After Speaker's death, Cobb said, "Terribly depressed. I never let him know how much I admired him when we were playing against each other... It was only after we finally became teammates and then retired that I could tell Tris Speaker of the underlying respect I had for him." Lajoie said, "He was one of the greatest fellows I ever knew, both as a baseball player and as a gentleman." Former Boston teammate Duffy Lewis said, "He was a team player. As great a hitter as he was, he wasn't looking out for his own average ... Speaker was the bell cow of our outfield. Harry Hooper and I would watch him and know how to play the hitters."
Legacy
Immediately after Speaker's death, the baseball field at the city park in Cleburne, Texas, was renamed in honor of Speaker. In 1961, the Tris Speaker Memorial Award was created by the Baseball Writers' Association of America to honor players or officials who make outstanding contributions to baseball. In 1999, he ranked number 27 on the Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. He was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Speaker is mentioned in the poem "Line-Up for Yesterday"'' by Ogden Nash.
In 2008, former baseball players' union chief Marvin Miller, trying to defend the recently retired catcher Mike Piazza against claims that he should not be elected to the Hall of Fame because of association with the use of steroids, on the basis that the Hall of Fame has various unsavory people in it, opined that Speaker should be removed from the Hall of Fame because of alleged membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Miller said, "Some of the early people inducted in the Hall were members of the Ku Klux Klan: Tris Speaker, Cap Anson, and some people suspect Ty Cobb as well. I think that by and large, the players, and certainly the ones I knew, are good people. But the Hall is full of villains." Miller's comment about Anson has no basis, other than speculating that he could have been a Klansman since he was a racist during his playing career, which ended in 1897, although he was umpiring games with black players by 1901, including featuring the all-black Columbia Giants. Miller, age 91 at the time the 2008 article appeared, is the earliest source for declaring that it is factual that Anson was a member of the Klan, based purely on an Internet search of sources that try to link Anson to the Klan. By contrast, Speaker-Cobb-Rogers Hornsby biographer Charles C. Alexander, a Klan expert in his general history writings, told fellow baseball author Marty Appel, apparently referring to the 1920s (Anson died in 1922), “As I’ve suggested in the biographies, it’s possible that they [Speaker, Cobb and Hornsby] were briefly in the Klan, which was very strong in Texas and especially in Fort Worth and Dallas. The Klan went all out to recruit prominent people in all fields, provided they were native born, Protestant and white.”
Baseball historian Bill James does not dispute this claim in apparently referring to Speaker and possibly Cobb, but says that the Klan had toned down its racist overtures during the 1920s and pulled in hundreds of thousands of men, including Hugo Black. James adds that Speaker was a staunch supporter of Doby when he broke the American League color barrier, working long hours with the former second baseman on how to play the outfield.
Regular season statistics
Managerial record
See also
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball triples records
Notes
References
Further reading
Tris Speaker at the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
External links
1888 births
1958 deaths
American League batting champions
American League home run champions
Baseball players from Texas
Boston Americans players
Boston Red Sox players
Cleburne Railroaders players
Cleveland Indians coaches
Cleveland Indians managers
Cleveland Indians players
Houston Buffaloes players
Kansas City Blues (baseball) managers
Little Rock Travelers players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball center fielders
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Newark Bears (IL) players
People from Hubbard, Texas
Philadelphia Athletics players
Texas Wesleyan Rams baseball players
Washington Senators (1901–1960) players
Sp
Baseball coaches from Texas
| false |
[
"This is a summary of the electoral history of Ali Larijani, an Iranian Principlist politician who is a member and Speaker of Islamic Consultative Assembly since 2008.\n\nMinistry approval \nKhatami was nominated and approved for Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance by Iranian Parliament.\n\nParliament elections\n\n2008 \n\nHe was elected to the Parliament representing Qom with 239,436 (73.01%) votes. He was ranked 1st in the constituency.\n\n2012 \n\nHe was elected to the Parliament representing Qom with 270,382 (65.17%) votes. He was ranked 1st in the constituency.\n\nSpeaker of the Parliament elections \nHe was elected as Speaker of the Parliament of Iran in 2 consecutive terms.\n\nPresidential election\n\n2005 \n\nIn the first round, Ali Larijani finished sixth with 1,713,810 votes (5.83%) and did not advance to the second round.\n\nReferences \n\nElectoral history of Iranian politicians",
"Walk, Don't Run is the soundtrack to the 1966 film of the same name composed by Quincy Jones. It was orchestrated by Jack Hayes and Leo Shuken.\n\nAllmusic's Stephen Cook describes the score as having a \"Henry Mancini inspired sound\", with \"excellent contributions from Toots Thielemans and Harry \"Sweets\" Edison\".\n \nJones collaborated with Peggy Lee on the songs \"Happy Feet\" and \"Stay with Me\". Jones was recommended to score the film by its star, Cary Grant, who had met him through Peggy Lee. This was Cary Grant's last film.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Happy Feet\" – 2:13\n \"Stay with Me\" – 2:57\n \"Copy Cat (Wack a Do)\" – 2:59\n \"Happy Feet - vocal\" – 1:47\n \"Papa San\" – 1:50\n \"Abso-Bleedin'-Lutely\" – 2:50\n \"Stay with Me - vocal\" – 2:22\n \"One More Time\" – 2:49\n \"20th Century Drawers\" – 3:10\n \"Locked Out\" – 2:15\n \"Happy Feet - reprise\" – 1:43\n \"Rabelaisian Rutland\" – 1:49\n \"One More Time - reprise\" – 0:46\n\nPersonnel\n\nPerformance\nQuincy Jones – composer, conductor\nToots Thielemans – harmonica, whistles\nHarry \"Sweets\" Edison – trumpet\nDon Elliot Voices – vocals on \"Happy Feet\"\nTony Clementi – vocals on \"Stay with Me\"\nJack Hayes, Leo Shuken – orchestrations\nRichard Hazard – vocal orchestrations\n\nReferences\n\n1966 soundtrack albums\nJazz soundtracks\nMainstream Records soundtracks\nQuincy Jones soundtracks"
] |
[
"Tris Speaker",
"Traded to the Indians",
"What was Tris speaker traded for?",
"After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In",
"Was Speaker happy with this?",
"The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000"
] |
C_96c99ca973ec4e6fb50844468c5c13ea_0
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what did he do after the trade?
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what did Speaker do after the trade to Indians?
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Tris Speaker
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After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (equal to $217,717 today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($1,124,465 today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $899,572 today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371. The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was 460 feet from home plate until it was shortened to 420 feet in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag. While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason. CANNOTANSWER
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Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in
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Tristram Edgar Speaker (April 4, 1888 – December 8, 1958), nicknamed "The Gray Eagle", was an American professional baseball player. Considered one of the greatest offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB), he compiled a career batting average of .345 (sixth all-time). His 792 career doubles represent an MLB career record. His 3,514 hits are fifth in the all-time hits list. Defensively, Speaker holds career records for assists, double plays, and unassisted double plays by an outfielder. His fielding glove was known as the place "where triples go to die."
After playing in the minor leagues in Texas and Arkansas, Speaker debuted with the Boston Red Sox in 1907. He became the regular center fielder by 1909 and led the Red Sox to World Series championships in 1912 and 1915. In 1915, Speaker's batting average dropped to .322 from .338 the previous season; he was traded to the Cleveland Indians when he refused to take a pay cut. As player-manager for Cleveland, he led the team to its first World Series title. In ten of his eleven seasons with Cleveland, he finished with a batting average greater than .350. Speaker resigned as Cleveland's manager in 1926 after he and Ty Cobb faced game fixing allegations; both men were later cleared. During his managerial stint in Cleveland, Speaker introduced the platoon system in the major leagues.
Speaker played with the Washington Senators in 1927 and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1928, then became a minor league manager and part owner. He later held several roles for the Cleveland Indians. Late in life, Speaker led a short-lived indoor baseball league, ran a wholesale liquor business, worked in sales and chaired Cleveland's boxing commission. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. He was named 27th in the Sporting News 100 Greatest Baseball Players (1999) and was also included in the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Early life
Speaker was born on April 4, 1888, in Hubbard, Texas, to Archie and Nancy Poer Speaker. As a youth, Speaker broke his arm after he fell from a horse; the injury forced him to become left-handed. In 1905, Speaker played a year of college baseball for Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute. Newspaper reports have held that Speaker suffered a football injury and nearly had his arm amputated around this time; biographer Timothy Gay characterizes this as "a story that the macho Speaker never ." He worked on a ranch before beginning his professional baseball career.
Speaker's abilities drew the interest of Doak Roberts, owner of the Cleburne Railroaders of the Texas League, in . After losing several games as a pitcher, Speaker converted to outfielder to replace a Cleburne player who had been struck in the head with a pitch. He batted .318 for the Railroaders. Speaker's mother opposed his participation in the major leagues, saying that they reminded her of slavery. Though she relented, for several years Mrs. Speaker questioned why her son had not stayed home and entered the cattle or oil businesses.
He performed well for the Texas League's Houston Buffaloes in 1907, but his mother stated that she would never allow him to go to the Boston Americans. Roberts sold the youngster to the Americans for $750 or $800 (equal to $ or $ today). Speaker played in seven games for the Americans in , with three hits in 19 at-bats for a .158 average. In 1908, Boston Americans owner John I. Taylor changed the team's name to the Boston Red Sox after the bright socks in the team's uniform. That year, the club traded Speaker to the Little Rock Travelers of the Southern League in exchange for use of their facilities for spring training. Speaker batted .350 for the Travelers and his contract was repurchased by the Red Sox. He logged a .224 batting average in 116 at-bats.
Major league career
Early years
Speaker became the regular starting center fielder for Boston in 1909 and light-hitting Denny Sullivan was sold to the Cleveland Naps. Speaker hit .309 in 143 games as the team finished third in the pennant race. Defensively, Speaker was involved in 12 double plays, leading the league's outfielders, and had a .973 fielding percentage, third among outfielders. In the Red Sox signed left fielder Duffy Lewis. Speaker, Lewis and Harry Hooper formed Boston's "Million-Dollar Outfield", one of the finest outfield trios in baseball history. Speaker was the star of the Million-Dollar Outfield. He ran fast enough that he could stand very close to second base, effectively giving the team a fifth infielder, but he still caught the balls hit to center field. In 1910 and 1911, Boston finished fourth in the American League standings.
Speaker's best season came in 1912. He played every game and led the American League (AL) in doubles (53) and home runs (10). He set career highs with 222 hits, 136 runs, 580 at-bats, and 52 stolen bases. Speaker's stolen base tally was a team record until Tommy Harper stole 54 bases in 1973. He batted .383 and his .567 slugging percentage was the highest of his dead-ball days. Speaker set a major league single-season record with three hitting streaks of 20 or more games (30, 23, and 22). He also became the first major leaguer to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases in the same season. In August, Speaker's mother unsuccessfully attempted to convince him to quit baseball and come home. In Fenway Park's first game, Speaker drove in the winning run in the 11th inning, giving Boston the 7–6 win.
The 1912 Red Sox won the AL pennant, finishing 14 games ahead of the Washington Senators and 15 games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics. In the 1912 World Series, Speaker led the Red Sox to their second World Series title by defeating John McGraw's New York Giants. After the second game was called on account of darkness and ended in a tie, the series went to eight games. The Red Sox won the final game after Fred Snodgrass dropped an easy fly ball and later failed to go after a Speaker pop foul. After the pop foul, Speaker tied the game with a single. The Red Sox won the game in the bottom of the tenth inning. He finished the series with a .300 batting average, nine hits and four runs scored. Speaker was named the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) for 1912. Though he did not lead the league in any offensive categories in 1913, Speaker finished fourth in AL MVP voting.
Speaker batted .338 and tied his career high of 12 double plays as an outfielder in . He hit .322 in . The Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 World Series. The Red Sox were led by pitcher Babe Ruth, who was playing in his first full season. Ruth won 18 games and hit a team-high four home runs. Speaker got five hits, including a triple, in 17 at-bats during the series. He scored twice but did not drive in any runs.
Traded to the Indians
After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $ today) to about $9,000 (equal to $ today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($ today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($ today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $ today) of the cash that Boston collected.
For many years, this was considered the worst trade in Red Sox history, and was thought to be far more damaging to the Red Sox than the sale of Babe Ruth more than four years later. In his book about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, Emperors and Idiots, Mike Vaccaro recalled that for some time, "Red Sox fans shook their head(s) in fury" when recalling the trade. Vaccaro recalled that no one knew in the winter of 1919-20 that Ruth would blossom into a superstar. In contrast, Speaker had established himself as "indisputably the best player in the American League" by 1916.
With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $ today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In , he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371.
The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was from home plate until it was shortened to in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag.
While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason.
Stint as player-manager
From the day that Speaker arrived in Cleveland, he was effectively assistant manager to Lee Fohl, who rarely made an important move without consulting him. George Uhle recalled an incident from 1919 during his rookie year with the Indians. Speaker often signaled to Fohl when he thought that a pitcher should be brought in from the bullpen. One day, Fohl misread Speaker's signal and brought in a different pitcher than Speaker had intended. To avoid the appearance of overruling his manager, Speaker let the change stand. Pitcher Fritz Coumbe lost the game, Fohl resigned that night and Speaker became manager. Uhle said that Speaker felt bad for contributing to Fohl's departure.
Speaker guided the 1920 Indians to their first World Series win. In a crucial late season game against the second-place White Sox, Speaker caught a hard line drive hit to deep right-center field by Shoeless Joe Jackson, ending the game. On a dead run, Speaker leaped with both feet off the ground, snaring the ball before crashing into a concrete wall. As he lay unconscious from the impact, Speaker still held the baseball. In the 1920 World Series against Brooklyn, Speaker hit an RBI triple in the deciding game, which the Indians won 3–0. Cleveland's 1920 season was also significant due to the death of Ray Chapman on August 17. Chapman died after being hit in the head by a pitch from Carl Mays. Chapman had been asked about retirement before the season, and he said that he wanted to help Speaker earn Cleveland's first World Series victory before thinking of retirement.
During that championship season, Speaker is credited with introducing the platoon system, which attempted to match right-handed batters against left-handed pitchers and vice versa. Sportswriter John B. Sheridan was among the critics of the system, saying, "The specialist in baseball is no good and won't go very far... The whole effect of the system will be to make the players affected half men... It is farewell, a long farewell to all that player's chance of greatness... It destroys young ball players by destroying their most precious quality – confidence in their ability to hit any pitcher, left or right, alive, dead, or waiting to be born." Baseball Magazine was supportive, pointing out that Speaker had results that backed up his system.
The 1921 Indians remained in a tight pennant race all year, finishing games behind the Yankees. The Indians did not seriously contend for the pennant from 1922 through 1925. Speaker led the league in doubles eight times, including every year between 1920 and 1923. He led the league's outfielders in fielding percentage in 1921 and 1922. On May 17, 1925, Speaker became the fifth member of the 3,000 hit club when he hit a single off pitcher Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators. Only Napoleon Lajoie had previously accomplished the feat as a member of the Indians.
AL President Ban Johnson asked Speaker and Detroit manager Cobb to resign their posts after a scandal broke in . Pitcher Dutch Leonard claimed that Speaker and Cobb fixed at least one game between Cleveland and Detroit. In a newspaper column published shortly before the hearings were to begin, Billy Evans characterized the accusations as "purely a matter of personal revenge" for Leonard. The pitcher was said to be upset with Cobb and Speaker after a trade ended with Leonard in the minor leagues. When Leonard refused to appear at the January 5, 1927, hearings to discuss his accusations, Commissioner Landis cleared both Speaker and Cobb of any wrongdoing. Both were reinstated to their original teams, but each team declared its manager free to sign elsewhere. Speaker did not return to big league managing and he finished his MLB managerial career with a 617–520 record.
At the time of his 1926 resignation, news reports described Speaker as permanently retiring from baseball to pursue business ventures. However, Speaker signed to play with the Washington Senators for . Cobb joined the Philadelphia Athletics. Speaker joined Cobb in Philadelphia for the season; he played part time and finished with a .267 average. Prior to that season, Speaker had not hit for a batting average below .300 since 1908.
Speaker's major league playing career ended after 1928. He retired with 792 doubles, an all-time career record. Defensively, Speaker holds the all-time career records for assists as an outfielder and double plays as an outfielder. He remains the last batter to hit 200 triples in a career.
Later life
In Speaker replaced Walter Johnson as the manager of the Newark Bears of the International League. In two seasons with Newark, he also appeared as a player in 59 games. When Speaker resigned during his second season, the Bears were in seventh place after a sixth-place finish in 1929. In January 1933 he became a part owner and manager of the Kansas City Blues. By May, Speaker had been replaced as manager but remained secretary of the club. By 1936, he had sold his share of the team. In 1937, Speaker was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during its second year of balloting. He was honored at the hall's first induction ceremony in 1939.
After his playing and managing days, Speaker was an entrepreneur and salesman. By 1937, Speaker had opened a wholesale liquor business and worked as a state sales representative for a steel company. He chaired Cleveland's boxing commission between 1936 and 1943. Newspaper coverage credited Speaker with several key reforms to boxing in Cleveland, including the recruitment of new officials and protections against fight fixing. Under Speaker, fight payouts went directly to boxers rather than managers. Speaker sorted out a scheduling conflict for a 1940 boxing match in Cleveland involving former middleweight champion Teddy Yarosz. Yarosz defeated Jimmy Reeves in ten rounds and the fight attracted over 8,300 spectators.
In 1937, Speaker sustained a 16-foot fall while working on a flower box near a second-story window at his home. Upon admission to the hospital, he underwent facial surgery. He was described as having "better than an even chance to live" and was suffering from a skull fracture, a broken arm and possible internal injuries. He ultimately recovered.
In 1939, Speaker was president of the National Professional Indoor Baseball League. The league had teams in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis. The league shut down operations due to poor attendance only two months after its formation. Speaker was one of the founders of Cleveland's Society for Crippled Children and he helped to promote the society's rehabilitation center, Camp Cheerful. Speaker served as vice president of the society, ran fundraising campaigns and received a distinguished service award from the organization. He became seriously ill with pneumonia in 1942. Speaker ultimately recovered, but Gay characterized Speaker's condition as "touch-and-go for several days".
In 1947, Speaker returned to baseball as "ambassador of good will" for Bill Veeck and the Cleveland Indians. He remained in advisory, coaching or scouting roles for the Indians until his death in 1958. In an article in the July 1952 issue of SPORT, Speaker recounted how Veeck hired him in 1947 to be a coaching consultant to Larry Doby, the first black player in the AL and the second in the major leagues. Before the Indians had signed Doby, he was the star second baseman of the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues. A SPORT photograph that accompanied the article shows Speaker mentoring five members of the Indians: Luke Easter, Jim Hegan, Ray Boone, Al Rosen and Doby. Speaker was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1951. Texas was the first state to establish a state sports hall of fame and Speaker was in its inaugural induction class.
Death
Speaker died of a heart attack on December 8, 1958, at the age of 70, at Lake Whitney, Texas. He collapsed as he and a friend were pulling their boat into the dock after a fishing trip. It was his second heart attack in four years. Speaker was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Hubbard, Texas.
After Speaker's death, Cobb said, "Terribly depressed. I never let him know how much I admired him when we were playing against each other... It was only after we finally became teammates and then retired that I could tell Tris Speaker of the underlying respect I had for him." Lajoie said, "He was one of the greatest fellows I ever knew, both as a baseball player and as a gentleman." Former Boston teammate Duffy Lewis said, "He was a team player. As great a hitter as he was, he wasn't looking out for his own average ... Speaker was the bell cow of our outfield. Harry Hooper and I would watch him and know how to play the hitters."
Legacy
Immediately after Speaker's death, the baseball field at the city park in Cleburne, Texas, was renamed in honor of Speaker. In 1961, the Tris Speaker Memorial Award was created by the Baseball Writers' Association of America to honor players or officials who make outstanding contributions to baseball. In 1999, he ranked number 27 on the Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. He was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Speaker is mentioned in the poem "Line-Up for Yesterday"'' by Ogden Nash.
In 2008, former baseball players' union chief Marvin Miller, trying to defend the recently retired catcher Mike Piazza against claims that he should not be elected to the Hall of Fame because of association with the use of steroids, on the basis that the Hall of Fame has various unsavory people in it, opined that Speaker should be removed from the Hall of Fame because of alleged membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Miller said, "Some of the early people inducted in the Hall were members of the Ku Klux Klan: Tris Speaker, Cap Anson, and some people suspect Ty Cobb as well. I think that by and large, the players, and certainly the ones I knew, are good people. But the Hall is full of villains." Miller's comment about Anson has no basis, other than speculating that he could have been a Klansman since he was a racist during his playing career, which ended in 1897, although he was umpiring games with black players by 1901, including featuring the all-black Columbia Giants. Miller, age 91 at the time the 2008 article appeared, is the earliest source for declaring that it is factual that Anson was a member of the Klan, based purely on an Internet search of sources that try to link Anson to the Klan. By contrast, Speaker-Cobb-Rogers Hornsby biographer Charles C. Alexander, a Klan expert in his general history writings, told fellow baseball author Marty Appel, apparently referring to the 1920s (Anson died in 1922), “As I’ve suggested in the biographies, it’s possible that they [Speaker, Cobb and Hornsby] were briefly in the Klan, which was very strong in Texas and especially in Fort Worth and Dallas. The Klan went all out to recruit prominent people in all fields, provided they were native born, Protestant and white.”
Baseball historian Bill James does not dispute this claim in apparently referring to Speaker and possibly Cobb, but says that the Klan had toned down its racist overtures during the 1920s and pulled in hundreds of thousands of men, including Hugo Black. James adds that Speaker was a staunch supporter of Doby when he broke the American League color barrier, working long hours with the former second baseman on how to play the outfield.
Regular season statistics
Managerial record
See also
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball triples records
Notes
References
Further reading
Tris Speaker at the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
External links
1888 births
1958 deaths
American League batting champions
American League home run champions
Baseball players from Texas
Boston Americans players
Boston Red Sox players
Cleburne Railroaders players
Cleveland Indians coaches
Cleveland Indians managers
Cleveland Indians players
Houston Buffaloes players
Kansas City Blues (baseball) managers
Little Rock Travelers players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball center fielders
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Newark Bears (IL) players
People from Hubbard, Texas
Philadelphia Athletics players
Texas Wesleyan Rams baseball players
Washington Senators (1901–1960) players
Sp
Baseball coaches from Texas
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[
"Protection or Free Trade is a book published in 1886 by the economist and social philosopher, Henry George. Its sub-title is An Examination of the Tariff Question with Especial Regard to the Interests of Labor. As the title suggests, George examined the debate between protectionism and free trade.\n\nGeorge was opposed to tariffs, which were at the time both the major method of protectionist trade policy and an important source of federal revenue. He argued that tariffs kept prices high for consumers, while failing to produce any increase in overall wages. He also believed that tariffs protected monopolistic companies from competition, thus augmenting their power. Like Progress and Poverty, much of the book was devoted to attacking privileges, such as land monopoly, which limit trade and rob value from producers.\n\nLargely as a result of this book, free trade became a major issue in federal politics. Protection or Free Trade was the first book to be read entirely into the Congressional Record. It was read aloud by five Democratic congressmen.\n\n\"True free trade\"\nGeorge defended what he considered \"true free trade\". For him, this required free trade to be coupled with the treatment of land as common property:\n\nFree trade means free production. Now fully to free production it is necessary not only to remove all taxes on production, but also to remove all other restrictions on production. True free trade, in short, requires that the active factor of production, Labor, shall have free access to the passive factor of production, Land. To secure this all monopoly of land must be broken up, and the equal right of all to the use of the natural elements must be secured by the treatment of the land as the common property in usufruct of the whole people.\n\nAcclaim\nIn 1997, Spencer MacCallum wrote that Henry George was \"undeniably the greatest writer and orator on free trade who ever lived.\"\n\nIn 2009, Tyler Cowen wrote that George's 1886 book Protection or Free Trade \"remains perhaps the best-argued tract on free trade to this day.\"\n\nJim Powell said that Protection or Free Trade was probably the best book on trade written by anyone in the Americas, comparing it Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.\n\nMilton Friedman said it was the most rhetorically brilliant work ever written on trade. Friedman also paraphrased one of George's arguments in favor of free trade: \"It’s a very interesting thing that in times of war, we blockade our enemies in order to prevent them from getting goods from us. In time of peace we do to ourselves by tariffs what we do to our enemy in time of war.”\n\nOswald Garrison Villard said, \"Few men made more stirring and valuable contributions to the economic life of modern America than did Henry George,\" and that what George had \"written about protection and free trade is as fresh and as valuable today as it was at the hour in which it was penned.\"\n\nTable of contents\nThe table of contents are as follows:\n Chapter 1 – Introductory\n Chapter 2 – Clearing Ground\n Chapter 3 – Protection as a Universal Need\n Chapter 4 – Trade\n Chapter 5 – Protection and Producers\n Chapter 6 – Tariffs for Revenue\n Chapter 7 – Tariffs for Protection\n Chapter 8 – The Encouragement of Industry\n Chapter 9 – Exports and Imports\n Chapter 10 – Confusions Arising from the Use of Money\n Chapter 11 – Do High Wages Necessitate Protection?\n Chapter 12 – Of Advantages and Disadvantages as Reasons for Protection\n Chapter 13 – Protection and Producers\n Chapter 14 – Protection and Wages\n Chapter 15 – The Abolition of Protection\n Chapter 16 – Inadequacy of the Free Trade Argument\n Chapter 17 – The Real Strength of Protection\n Chapter 18 – The Paradox\n Chapter 19 – The Robber that Takes All that is Left\n Chapter 20 – True Free Trade\n Chapter 21 – Free Trade and Socialism\n Chapter 22 – Practical Politics\n Chapter 23 – Appendices\n\nSee also\n Georgism\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nOnline editions of Protection or Free Trade\n At truefreetrade.org\n At mises.org\n At schalkenbach.org\n At The Online Library of Liberty\n\n1886 non-fiction books\nClassical liberalism\nBooks about economic policy\nGeorgist publications\nProtectionism\nFree trade",
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)"
] |
[
"Tris Speaker",
"Traded to the Indians",
"What was Tris speaker traded for?",
"After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In",
"Was Speaker happy with this?",
"The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000",
"what did he do after the trade?",
"Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in"
] |
C_96c99ca973ec4e6fb50844468c5c13ea_0
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Any notable wins?
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Any notable wins for Tris Speaker?
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Tris Speaker
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After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (equal to $217,717 today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($1,124,465 today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $899,572 today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371. The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was 460 feet from home plate until it was shortened to 420 feet in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag. While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason. CANNOTANSWER
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In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles;
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Tristram Edgar Speaker (April 4, 1888 – December 8, 1958), nicknamed "The Gray Eagle", was an American professional baseball player. Considered one of the greatest offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB), he compiled a career batting average of .345 (sixth all-time). His 792 career doubles represent an MLB career record. His 3,514 hits are fifth in the all-time hits list. Defensively, Speaker holds career records for assists, double plays, and unassisted double plays by an outfielder. His fielding glove was known as the place "where triples go to die."
After playing in the minor leagues in Texas and Arkansas, Speaker debuted with the Boston Red Sox in 1907. He became the regular center fielder by 1909 and led the Red Sox to World Series championships in 1912 and 1915. In 1915, Speaker's batting average dropped to .322 from .338 the previous season; he was traded to the Cleveland Indians when he refused to take a pay cut. As player-manager for Cleveland, he led the team to its first World Series title. In ten of his eleven seasons with Cleveland, he finished with a batting average greater than .350. Speaker resigned as Cleveland's manager in 1926 after he and Ty Cobb faced game fixing allegations; both men were later cleared. During his managerial stint in Cleveland, Speaker introduced the platoon system in the major leagues.
Speaker played with the Washington Senators in 1927 and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1928, then became a minor league manager and part owner. He later held several roles for the Cleveland Indians. Late in life, Speaker led a short-lived indoor baseball league, ran a wholesale liquor business, worked in sales and chaired Cleveland's boxing commission. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. He was named 27th in the Sporting News 100 Greatest Baseball Players (1999) and was also included in the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Early life
Speaker was born on April 4, 1888, in Hubbard, Texas, to Archie and Nancy Poer Speaker. As a youth, Speaker broke his arm after he fell from a horse; the injury forced him to become left-handed. In 1905, Speaker played a year of college baseball for Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute. Newspaper reports have held that Speaker suffered a football injury and nearly had his arm amputated around this time; biographer Timothy Gay characterizes this as "a story that the macho Speaker never ." He worked on a ranch before beginning his professional baseball career.
Speaker's abilities drew the interest of Doak Roberts, owner of the Cleburne Railroaders of the Texas League, in . After losing several games as a pitcher, Speaker converted to outfielder to replace a Cleburne player who had been struck in the head with a pitch. He batted .318 for the Railroaders. Speaker's mother opposed his participation in the major leagues, saying that they reminded her of slavery. Though she relented, for several years Mrs. Speaker questioned why her son had not stayed home and entered the cattle or oil businesses.
He performed well for the Texas League's Houston Buffaloes in 1907, but his mother stated that she would never allow him to go to the Boston Americans. Roberts sold the youngster to the Americans for $750 or $800 (equal to $ or $ today). Speaker played in seven games for the Americans in , with three hits in 19 at-bats for a .158 average. In 1908, Boston Americans owner John I. Taylor changed the team's name to the Boston Red Sox after the bright socks in the team's uniform. That year, the club traded Speaker to the Little Rock Travelers of the Southern League in exchange for use of their facilities for spring training. Speaker batted .350 for the Travelers and his contract was repurchased by the Red Sox. He logged a .224 batting average in 116 at-bats.
Major league career
Early years
Speaker became the regular starting center fielder for Boston in 1909 and light-hitting Denny Sullivan was sold to the Cleveland Naps. Speaker hit .309 in 143 games as the team finished third in the pennant race. Defensively, Speaker was involved in 12 double plays, leading the league's outfielders, and had a .973 fielding percentage, third among outfielders. In the Red Sox signed left fielder Duffy Lewis. Speaker, Lewis and Harry Hooper formed Boston's "Million-Dollar Outfield", one of the finest outfield trios in baseball history. Speaker was the star of the Million-Dollar Outfield. He ran fast enough that he could stand very close to second base, effectively giving the team a fifth infielder, but he still caught the balls hit to center field. In 1910 and 1911, Boston finished fourth in the American League standings.
Speaker's best season came in 1912. He played every game and led the American League (AL) in doubles (53) and home runs (10). He set career highs with 222 hits, 136 runs, 580 at-bats, and 52 stolen bases. Speaker's stolen base tally was a team record until Tommy Harper stole 54 bases in 1973. He batted .383 and his .567 slugging percentage was the highest of his dead-ball days. Speaker set a major league single-season record with three hitting streaks of 20 or more games (30, 23, and 22). He also became the first major leaguer to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases in the same season. In August, Speaker's mother unsuccessfully attempted to convince him to quit baseball and come home. In Fenway Park's first game, Speaker drove in the winning run in the 11th inning, giving Boston the 7–6 win.
The 1912 Red Sox won the AL pennant, finishing 14 games ahead of the Washington Senators and 15 games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics. In the 1912 World Series, Speaker led the Red Sox to their second World Series title by defeating John McGraw's New York Giants. After the second game was called on account of darkness and ended in a tie, the series went to eight games. The Red Sox won the final game after Fred Snodgrass dropped an easy fly ball and later failed to go after a Speaker pop foul. After the pop foul, Speaker tied the game with a single. The Red Sox won the game in the bottom of the tenth inning. He finished the series with a .300 batting average, nine hits and four runs scored. Speaker was named the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) for 1912. Though he did not lead the league in any offensive categories in 1913, Speaker finished fourth in AL MVP voting.
Speaker batted .338 and tied his career high of 12 double plays as an outfielder in . He hit .322 in . The Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 World Series. The Red Sox were led by pitcher Babe Ruth, who was playing in his first full season. Ruth won 18 games and hit a team-high four home runs. Speaker got five hits, including a triple, in 17 at-bats during the series. He scored twice but did not drive in any runs.
Traded to the Indians
After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $ today) to about $9,000 (equal to $ today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($ today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($ today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $ today) of the cash that Boston collected.
For many years, this was considered the worst trade in Red Sox history, and was thought to be far more damaging to the Red Sox than the sale of Babe Ruth more than four years later. In his book about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, Emperors and Idiots, Mike Vaccaro recalled that for some time, "Red Sox fans shook their head(s) in fury" when recalling the trade. Vaccaro recalled that no one knew in the winter of 1919-20 that Ruth would blossom into a superstar. In contrast, Speaker had established himself as "indisputably the best player in the American League" by 1916.
With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $ today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In , he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371.
The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was from home plate until it was shortened to in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag.
While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason.
Stint as player-manager
From the day that Speaker arrived in Cleveland, he was effectively assistant manager to Lee Fohl, who rarely made an important move without consulting him. George Uhle recalled an incident from 1919 during his rookie year with the Indians. Speaker often signaled to Fohl when he thought that a pitcher should be brought in from the bullpen. One day, Fohl misread Speaker's signal and brought in a different pitcher than Speaker had intended. To avoid the appearance of overruling his manager, Speaker let the change stand. Pitcher Fritz Coumbe lost the game, Fohl resigned that night and Speaker became manager. Uhle said that Speaker felt bad for contributing to Fohl's departure.
Speaker guided the 1920 Indians to their first World Series win. In a crucial late season game against the second-place White Sox, Speaker caught a hard line drive hit to deep right-center field by Shoeless Joe Jackson, ending the game. On a dead run, Speaker leaped with both feet off the ground, snaring the ball before crashing into a concrete wall. As he lay unconscious from the impact, Speaker still held the baseball. In the 1920 World Series against Brooklyn, Speaker hit an RBI triple in the deciding game, which the Indians won 3–0. Cleveland's 1920 season was also significant due to the death of Ray Chapman on August 17. Chapman died after being hit in the head by a pitch from Carl Mays. Chapman had been asked about retirement before the season, and he said that he wanted to help Speaker earn Cleveland's first World Series victory before thinking of retirement.
During that championship season, Speaker is credited with introducing the platoon system, which attempted to match right-handed batters against left-handed pitchers and vice versa. Sportswriter John B. Sheridan was among the critics of the system, saying, "The specialist in baseball is no good and won't go very far... The whole effect of the system will be to make the players affected half men... It is farewell, a long farewell to all that player's chance of greatness... It destroys young ball players by destroying their most precious quality – confidence in their ability to hit any pitcher, left or right, alive, dead, or waiting to be born." Baseball Magazine was supportive, pointing out that Speaker had results that backed up his system.
The 1921 Indians remained in a tight pennant race all year, finishing games behind the Yankees. The Indians did not seriously contend for the pennant from 1922 through 1925. Speaker led the league in doubles eight times, including every year between 1920 and 1923. He led the league's outfielders in fielding percentage in 1921 and 1922. On May 17, 1925, Speaker became the fifth member of the 3,000 hit club when he hit a single off pitcher Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators. Only Napoleon Lajoie had previously accomplished the feat as a member of the Indians.
AL President Ban Johnson asked Speaker and Detroit manager Cobb to resign their posts after a scandal broke in . Pitcher Dutch Leonard claimed that Speaker and Cobb fixed at least one game between Cleveland and Detroit. In a newspaper column published shortly before the hearings were to begin, Billy Evans characterized the accusations as "purely a matter of personal revenge" for Leonard. The pitcher was said to be upset with Cobb and Speaker after a trade ended with Leonard in the minor leagues. When Leonard refused to appear at the January 5, 1927, hearings to discuss his accusations, Commissioner Landis cleared both Speaker and Cobb of any wrongdoing. Both were reinstated to their original teams, but each team declared its manager free to sign elsewhere. Speaker did not return to big league managing and he finished his MLB managerial career with a 617–520 record.
At the time of his 1926 resignation, news reports described Speaker as permanently retiring from baseball to pursue business ventures. However, Speaker signed to play with the Washington Senators for . Cobb joined the Philadelphia Athletics. Speaker joined Cobb in Philadelphia for the season; he played part time and finished with a .267 average. Prior to that season, Speaker had not hit for a batting average below .300 since 1908.
Speaker's major league playing career ended after 1928. He retired with 792 doubles, an all-time career record. Defensively, Speaker holds the all-time career records for assists as an outfielder and double plays as an outfielder. He remains the last batter to hit 200 triples in a career.
Later life
In Speaker replaced Walter Johnson as the manager of the Newark Bears of the International League. In two seasons with Newark, he also appeared as a player in 59 games. When Speaker resigned during his second season, the Bears were in seventh place after a sixth-place finish in 1929. In January 1933 he became a part owner and manager of the Kansas City Blues. By May, Speaker had been replaced as manager but remained secretary of the club. By 1936, he had sold his share of the team. In 1937, Speaker was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during its second year of balloting. He was honored at the hall's first induction ceremony in 1939.
After his playing and managing days, Speaker was an entrepreneur and salesman. By 1937, Speaker had opened a wholesale liquor business and worked as a state sales representative for a steel company. He chaired Cleveland's boxing commission between 1936 and 1943. Newspaper coverage credited Speaker with several key reforms to boxing in Cleveland, including the recruitment of new officials and protections against fight fixing. Under Speaker, fight payouts went directly to boxers rather than managers. Speaker sorted out a scheduling conflict for a 1940 boxing match in Cleveland involving former middleweight champion Teddy Yarosz. Yarosz defeated Jimmy Reeves in ten rounds and the fight attracted over 8,300 spectators.
In 1937, Speaker sustained a 16-foot fall while working on a flower box near a second-story window at his home. Upon admission to the hospital, he underwent facial surgery. He was described as having "better than an even chance to live" and was suffering from a skull fracture, a broken arm and possible internal injuries. He ultimately recovered.
In 1939, Speaker was president of the National Professional Indoor Baseball League. The league had teams in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis. The league shut down operations due to poor attendance only two months after its formation. Speaker was one of the founders of Cleveland's Society for Crippled Children and he helped to promote the society's rehabilitation center, Camp Cheerful. Speaker served as vice president of the society, ran fundraising campaigns and received a distinguished service award from the organization. He became seriously ill with pneumonia in 1942. Speaker ultimately recovered, but Gay characterized Speaker's condition as "touch-and-go for several days".
In 1947, Speaker returned to baseball as "ambassador of good will" for Bill Veeck and the Cleveland Indians. He remained in advisory, coaching or scouting roles for the Indians until his death in 1958. In an article in the July 1952 issue of SPORT, Speaker recounted how Veeck hired him in 1947 to be a coaching consultant to Larry Doby, the first black player in the AL and the second in the major leagues. Before the Indians had signed Doby, he was the star second baseman of the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues. A SPORT photograph that accompanied the article shows Speaker mentoring five members of the Indians: Luke Easter, Jim Hegan, Ray Boone, Al Rosen and Doby. Speaker was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1951. Texas was the first state to establish a state sports hall of fame and Speaker was in its inaugural induction class.
Death
Speaker died of a heart attack on December 8, 1958, at the age of 70, at Lake Whitney, Texas. He collapsed as he and a friend were pulling their boat into the dock after a fishing trip. It was his second heart attack in four years. Speaker was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Hubbard, Texas.
After Speaker's death, Cobb said, "Terribly depressed. I never let him know how much I admired him when we were playing against each other... It was only after we finally became teammates and then retired that I could tell Tris Speaker of the underlying respect I had for him." Lajoie said, "He was one of the greatest fellows I ever knew, both as a baseball player and as a gentleman." Former Boston teammate Duffy Lewis said, "He was a team player. As great a hitter as he was, he wasn't looking out for his own average ... Speaker was the bell cow of our outfield. Harry Hooper and I would watch him and know how to play the hitters."
Legacy
Immediately after Speaker's death, the baseball field at the city park in Cleburne, Texas, was renamed in honor of Speaker. In 1961, the Tris Speaker Memorial Award was created by the Baseball Writers' Association of America to honor players or officials who make outstanding contributions to baseball. In 1999, he ranked number 27 on the Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. He was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Speaker is mentioned in the poem "Line-Up for Yesterday"'' by Ogden Nash.
In 2008, former baseball players' union chief Marvin Miller, trying to defend the recently retired catcher Mike Piazza against claims that he should not be elected to the Hall of Fame because of association with the use of steroids, on the basis that the Hall of Fame has various unsavory people in it, opined that Speaker should be removed from the Hall of Fame because of alleged membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Miller said, "Some of the early people inducted in the Hall were members of the Ku Klux Klan: Tris Speaker, Cap Anson, and some people suspect Ty Cobb as well. I think that by and large, the players, and certainly the ones I knew, are good people. But the Hall is full of villains." Miller's comment about Anson has no basis, other than speculating that he could have been a Klansman since he was a racist during his playing career, which ended in 1897, although he was umpiring games with black players by 1901, including featuring the all-black Columbia Giants. Miller, age 91 at the time the 2008 article appeared, is the earliest source for declaring that it is factual that Anson was a member of the Klan, based purely on an Internet search of sources that try to link Anson to the Klan. By contrast, Speaker-Cobb-Rogers Hornsby biographer Charles C. Alexander, a Klan expert in his general history writings, told fellow baseball author Marty Appel, apparently referring to the 1920s (Anson died in 1922), “As I’ve suggested in the biographies, it’s possible that they [Speaker, Cobb and Hornsby] were briefly in the Klan, which was very strong in Texas and especially in Fort Worth and Dallas. The Klan went all out to recruit prominent people in all fields, provided they were native born, Protestant and white.”
Baseball historian Bill James does not dispute this claim in apparently referring to Speaker and possibly Cobb, but says that the Klan had toned down its racist overtures during the 1920s and pulled in hundreds of thousands of men, including Hugo Black. James adds that Speaker was a staunch supporter of Doby when he broke the American League color barrier, working long hours with the former second baseman on how to play the outfield.
Regular season statistics
Managerial record
See also
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball triples records
Notes
References
Further reading
Tris Speaker at the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
External links
1888 births
1958 deaths
American League batting champions
American League home run champions
Baseball players from Texas
Boston Americans players
Boston Red Sox players
Cleburne Railroaders players
Cleveland Indians coaches
Cleveland Indians managers
Cleveland Indians players
Houston Buffaloes players
Kansas City Blues (baseball) managers
Little Rock Travelers players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball center fielders
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Newark Bears (IL) players
People from Hubbard, Texas
Philadelphia Athletics players
Texas Wesleyan Rams baseball players
Washington Senators (1901–1960) players
Sp
Baseball coaches from Texas
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[
"A unanimous decision (UD) is a winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts and other sports involving striking and submission in which all three judges agree on which fighter won the match.\n\nIn boxing, each of the three judges keep score (round by round) of which fighter they feel is winning (and losing). This only includes landed blows to the head or the body. In MMA, judges look for different criteria such as kicks, take downs, punches, knees, elbows, cage control, submission attempts and aggression. A decision is not required to be unanimous for a boxer or mixed martial artist to be given a victory. In modern era of Olympic boxing, UD is utilized more often than other outcomes including stoppages. Unanimous decision should not be confused with a majority decision or split decision.\n\nHistory \nIn the early days of combat fighting, winners were determined only when one party was unable to continue the fight. The National Sporting Club started to promote professional glove fighting, and introduced the use of officials and their capacity to declare the winner of a fight. Officials began using a scoring system to determine the winner of the fight and this made unanimous decisions a logical outcome.\n\nAny combat sports decision has the potential to be overturned. Some reason for this may include counting errors, misdeclaration, and retroactive disqualification due to rule violations. There has never been a unanimous decision overturned.\n\nNotable unanimous decisions\n\nControversial unanimous decisions\n\nNotable athletes\n\nBoxing \n\n Floyd Mayweather Jr. - 20 wins by UD\n Muhammad Ali - 18 wins by UD\n Manny Pacquiao - 18 wins by UD\n Joe Louis - 9 wins by UD\n\nMMA \n\n Jon Jones - 9 wins by UD\n Anderson Silva - 9 wins by UD\n Georges St-Pierre - 10 wins by UD\n Kamaru Usman - 9 wins by UD\n\nSee also\n\n Mixed martial arts\n\n10 Point System\nBoxing\nUltimate Fighting Championship\nOlympic Games\nSplit decision\nMajority decision\nKnockout\n\nReferences\n\nBoxing rules and regulations\nDecision",
"The 1909 Boston Doves season was the 39th season of the franchise.\n\nThe 1909 Doves set an MLB record that still stands for most games behind the first place winner in any season since 1900.\n\nRegular season\n\nSeason standings\n\nRecord vs. opponents\n\nNotable transactions \n July 16, 1909: Charlie Starr and Johnny Bates were traded by the Doves to the Philadelphia Phillies for Buster Brown, Lew Richie and Dave Shean.\n\nRoster\n\nPlayer stats\n\nBatting\n\nStarters by position \nNote: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in\n\nOther batters \nNote: G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in\n\nPitching\n\nStarting pitchers \nNote: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts\n\nOther pitchers \nNote: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts\n\nRelief pitchers \nNote: G = Games pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n1909 Boston Doves season at Baseball Reference\n\nBoston Doves seasons\nBoston Doves\nBoston Doves\n1900s in Boston"
] |
[
"Tris Speaker",
"Traded to the Indians",
"What was Tris speaker traded for?",
"After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In",
"Was Speaker happy with this?",
"The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000",
"what did he do after the trade?",
"Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in",
"Any notable wins?",
"In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles;"
] |
C_96c99ca973ec4e6fb50844468c5c13ea_0
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Did he take the Indians to the championship?
| 6 |
Did Cobb take the Indians to the championship?
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Tris Speaker
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After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (equal to $217,717 today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($1,124,465 today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $899,572 today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371. The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was 460 feet from home plate until it was shortened to 420 feet in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag. While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason. CANNOTANSWER
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Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371.
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Tristram Edgar Speaker (April 4, 1888 – December 8, 1958), nicknamed "The Gray Eagle", was an American professional baseball player. Considered one of the greatest offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB), he compiled a career batting average of .345 (sixth all-time). His 792 career doubles represent an MLB career record. His 3,514 hits are fifth in the all-time hits list. Defensively, Speaker holds career records for assists, double plays, and unassisted double plays by an outfielder. His fielding glove was known as the place "where triples go to die."
After playing in the minor leagues in Texas and Arkansas, Speaker debuted with the Boston Red Sox in 1907. He became the regular center fielder by 1909 and led the Red Sox to World Series championships in 1912 and 1915. In 1915, Speaker's batting average dropped to .322 from .338 the previous season; he was traded to the Cleveland Indians when he refused to take a pay cut. As player-manager for Cleveland, he led the team to its first World Series title. In ten of his eleven seasons with Cleveland, he finished with a batting average greater than .350. Speaker resigned as Cleveland's manager in 1926 after he and Ty Cobb faced game fixing allegations; both men were later cleared. During his managerial stint in Cleveland, Speaker introduced the platoon system in the major leagues.
Speaker played with the Washington Senators in 1927 and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1928, then became a minor league manager and part owner. He later held several roles for the Cleveland Indians. Late in life, Speaker led a short-lived indoor baseball league, ran a wholesale liquor business, worked in sales and chaired Cleveland's boxing commission. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. He was named 27th in the Sporting News 100 Greatest Baseball Players (1999) and was also included in the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Early life
Speaker was born on April 4, 1888, in Hubbard, Texas, to Archie and Nancy Poer Speaker. As a youth, Speaker broke his arm after he fell from a horse; the injury forced him to become left-handed. In 1905, Speaker played a year of college baseball for Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute. Newspaper reports have held that Speaker suffered a football injury and nearly had his arm amputated around this time; biographer Timothy Gay characterizes this as "a story that the macho Speaker never ." He worked on a ranch before beginning his professional baseball career.
Speaker's abilities drew the interest of Doak Roberts, owner of the Cleburne Railroaders of the Texas League, in . After losing several games as a pitcher, Speaker converted to outfielder to replace a Cleburne player who had been struck in the head with a pitch. He batted .318 for the Railroaders. Speaker's mother opposed his participation in the major leagues, saying that they reminded her of slavery. Though she relented, for several years Mrs. Speaker questioned why her son had not stayed home and entered the cattle or oil businesses.
He performed well for the Texas League's Houston Buffaloes in 1907, but his mother stated that she would never allow him to go to the Boston Americans. Roberts sold the youngster to the Americans for $750 or $800 (equal to $ or $ today). Speaker played in seven games for the Americans in , with three hits in 19 at-bats for a .158 average. In 1908, Boston Americans owner John I. Taylor changed the team's name to the Boston Red Sox after the bright socks in the team's uniform. That year, the club traded Speaker to the Little Rock Travelers of the Southern League in exchange for use of their facilities for spring training. Speaker batted .350 for the Travelers and his contract was repurchased by the Red Sox. He logged a .224 batting average in 116 at-bats.
Major league career
Early years
Speaker became the regular starting center fielder for Boston in 1909 and light-hitting Denny Sullivan was sold to the Cleveland Naps. Speaker hit .309 in 143 games as the team finished third in the pennant race. Defensively, Speaker was involved in 12 double plays, leading the league's outfielders, and had a .973 fielding percentage, third among outfielders. In the Red Sox signed left fielder Duffy Lewis. Speaker, Lewis and Harry Hooper formed Boston's "Million-Dollar Outfield", one of the finest outfield trios in baseball history. Speaker was the star of the Million-Dollar Outfield. He ran fast enough that he could stand very close to second base, effectively giving the team a fifth infielder, but he still caught the balls hit to center field. In 1910 and 1911, Boston finished fourth in the American League standings.
Speaker's best season came in 1912. He played every game and led the American League (AL) in doubles (53) and home runs (10). He set career highs with 222 hits, 136 runs, 580 at-bats, and 52 stolen bases. Speaker's stolen base tally was a team record until Tommy Harper stole 54 bases in 1973. He batted .383 and his .567 slugging percentage was the highest of his dead-ball days. Speaker set a major league single-season record with three hitting streaks of 20 or more games (30, 23, and 22). He also became the first major leaguer to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases in the same season. In August, Speaker's mother unsuccessfully attempted to convince him to quit baseball and come home. In Fenway Park's first game, Speaker drove in the winning run in the 11th inning, giving Boston the 7–6 win.
The 1912 Red Sox won the AL pennant, finishing 14 games ahead of the Washington Senators and 15 games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics. In the 1912 World Series, Speaker led the Red Sox to their second World Series title by defeating John McGraw's New York Giants. After the second game was called on account of darkness and ended in a tie, the series went to eight games. The Red Sox won the final game after Fred Snodgrass dropped an easy fly ball and later failed to go after a Speaker pop foul. After the pop foul, Speaker tied the game with a single. The Red Sox won the game in the bottom of the tenth inning. He finished the series with a .300 batting average, nine hits and four runs scored. Speaker was named the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) for 1912. Though he did not lead the league in any offensive categories in 1913, Speaker finished fourth in AL MVP voting.
Speaker batted .338 and tied his career high of 12 double plays as an outfielder in . He hit .322 in . The Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 World Series. The Red Sox were led by pitcher Babe Ruth, who was playing in his first full season. Ruth won 18 games and hit a team-high four home runs. Speaker got five hits, including a triple, in 17 at-bats during the series. He scored twice but did not drive in any runs.
Traded to the Indians
After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $ today) to about $9,000 (equal to $ today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($ today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($ today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $ today) of the cash that Boston collected.
For many years, this was considered the worst trade in Red Sox history, and was thought to be far more damaging to the Red Sox than the sale of Babe Ruth more than four years later. In his book about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, Emperors and Idiots, Mike Vaccaro recalled that for some time, "Red Sox fans shook their head(s) in fury" when recalling the trade. Vaccaro recalled that no one knew in the winter of 1919-20 that Ruth would blossom into a superstar. In contrast, Speaker had established himself as "indisputably the best player in the American League" by 1916.
With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $ today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In , he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371.
The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was from home plate until it was shortened to in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag.
While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason.
Stint as player-manager
From the day that Speaker arrived in Cleveland, he was effectively assistant manager to Lee Fohl, who rarely made an important move without consulting him. George Uhle recalled an incident from 1919 during his rookie year with the Indians. Speaker often signaled to Fohl when he thought that a pitcher should be brought in from the bullpen. One day, Fohl misread Speaker's signal and brought in a different pitcher than Speaker had intended. To avoid the appearance of overruling his manager, Speaker let the change stand. Pitcher Fritz Coumbe lost the game, Fohl resigned that night and Speaker became manager. Uhle said that Speaker felt bad for contributing to Fohl's departure.
Speaker guided the 1920 Indians to their first World Series win. In a crucial late season game against the second-place White Sox, Speaker caught a hard line drive hit to deep right-center field by Shoeless Joe Jackson, ending the game. On a dead run, Speaker leaped with both feet off the ground, snaring the ball before crashing into a concrete wall. As he lay unconscious from the impact, Speaker still held the baseball. In the 1920 World Series against Brooklyn, Speaker hit an RBI triple in the deciding game, which the Indians won 3–0. Cleveland's 1920 season was also significant due to the death of Ray Chapman on August 17. Chapman died after being hit in the head by a pitch from Carl Mays. Chapman had been asked about retirement before the season, and he said that he wanted to help Speaker earn Cleveland's first World Series victory before thinking of retirement.
During that championship season, Speaker is credited with introducing the platoon system, which attempted to match right-handed batters against left-handed pitchers and vice versa. Sportswriter John B. Sheridan was among the critics of the system, saying, "The specialist in baseball is no good and won't go very far... The whole effect of the system will be to make the players affected half men... It is farewell, a long farewell to all that player's chance of greatness... It destroys young ball players by destroying their most precious quality – confidence in their ability to hit any pitcher, left or right, alive, dead, or waiting to be born." Baseball Magazine was supportive, pointing out that Speaker had results that backed up his system.
The 1921 Indians remained in a tight pennant race all year, finishing games behind the Yankees. The Indians did not seriously contend for the pennant from 1922 through 1925. Speaker led the league in doubles eight times, including every year between 1920 and 1923. He led the league's outfielders in fielding percentage in 1921 and 1922. On May 17, 1925, Speaker became the fifth member of the 3,000 hit club when he hit a single off pitcher Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators. Only Napoleon Lajoie had previously accomplished the feat as a member of the Indians.
AL President Ban Johnson asked Speaker and Detroit manager Cobb to resign their posts after a scandal broke in . Pitcher Dutch Leonard claimed that Speaker and Cobb fixed at least one game between Cleveland and Detroit. In a newspaper column published shortly before the hearings were to begin, Billy Evans characterized the accusations as "purely a matter of personal revenge" for Leonard. The pitcher was said to be upset with Cobb and Speaker after a trade ended with Leonard in the minor leagues. When Leonard refused to appear at the January 5, 1927, hearings to discuss his accusations, Commissioner Landis cleared both Speaker and Cobb of any wrongdoing. Both were reinstated to their original teams, but each team declared its manager free to sign elsewhere. Speaker did not return to big league managing and he finished his MLB managerial career with a 617–520 record.
At the time of his 1926 resignation, news reports described Speaker as permanently retiring from baseball to pursue business ventures. However, Speaker signed to play with the Washington Senators for . Cobb joined the Philadelphia Athletics. Speaker joined Cobb in Philadelphia for the season; he played part time and finished with a .267 average. Prior to that season, Speaker had not hit for a batting average below .300 since 1908.
Speaker's major league playing career ended after 1928. He retired with 792 doubles, an all-time career record. Defensively, Speaker holds the all-time career records for assists as an outfielder and double plays as an outfielder. He remains the last batter to hit 200 triples in a career.
Later life
In Speaker replaced Walter Johnson as the manager of the Newark Bears of the International League. In two seasons with Newark, he also appeared as a player in 59 games. When Speaker resigned during his second season, the Bears were in seventh place after a sixth-place finish in 1929. In January 1933 he became a part owner and manager of the Kansas City Blues. By May, Speaker had been replaced as manager but remained secretary of the club. By 1936, he had sold his share of the team. In 1937, Speaker was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during its second year of balloting. He was honored at the hall's first induction ceremony in 1939.
After his playing and managing days, Speaker was an entrepreneur and salesman. By 1937, Speaker had opened a wholesale liquor business and worked as a state sales representative for a steel company. He chaired Cleveland's boxing commission between 1936 and 1943. Newspaper coverage credited Speaker with several key reforms to boxing in Cleveland, including the recruitment of new officials and protections against fight fixing. Under Speaker, fight payouts went directly to boxers rather than managers. Speaker sorted out a scheduling conflict for a 1940 boxing match in Cleveland involving former middleweight champion Teddy Yarosz. Yarosz defeated Jimmy Reeves in ten rounds and the fight attracted over 8,300 spectators.
In 1937, Speaker sustained a 16-foot fall while working on a flower box near a second-story window at his home. Upon admission to the hospital, he underwent facial surgery. He was described as having "better than an even chance to live" and was suffering from a skull fracture, a broken arm and possible internal injuries. He ultimately recovered.
In 1939, Speaker was president of the National Professional Indoor Baseball League. The league had teams in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis. The league shut down operations due to poor attendance only two months after its formation. Speaker was one of the founders of Cleveland's Society for Crippled Children and he helped to promote the society's rehabilitation center, Camp Cheerful. Speaker served as vice president of the society, ran fundraising campaigns and received a distinguished service award from the organization. He became seriously ill with pneumonia in 1942. Speaker ultimately recovered, but Gay characterized Speaker's condition as "touch-and-go for several days".
In 1947, Speaker returned to baseball as "ambassador of good will" for Bill Veeck and the Cleveland Indians. He remained in advisory, coaching or scouting roles for the Indians until his death in 1958. In an article in the July 1952 issue of SPORT, Speaker recounted how Veeck hired him in 1947 to be a coaching consultant to Larry Doby, the first black player in the AL and the second in the major leagues. Before the Indians had signed Doby, he was the star second baseman of the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues. A SPORT photograph that accompanied the article shows Speaker mentoring five members of the Indians: Luke Easter, Jim Hegan, Ray Boone, Al Rosen and Doby. Speaker was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1951. Texas was the first state to establish a state sports hall of fame and Speaker was in its inaugural induction class.
Death
Speaker died of a heart attack on December 8, 1958, at the age of 70, at Lake Whitney, Texas. He collapsed as he and a friend were pulling their boat into the dock after a fishing trip. It was his second heart attack in four years. Speaker was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Hubbard, Texas.
After Speaker's death, Cobb said, "Terribly depressed. I never let him know how much I admired him when we were playing against each other... It was only after we finally became teammates and then retired that I could tell Tris Speaker of the underlying respect I had for him." Lajoie said, "He was one of the greatest fellows I ever knew, both as a baseball player and as a gentleman." Former Boston teammate Duffy Lewis said, "He was a team player. As great a hitter as he was, he wasn't looking out for his own average ... Speaker was the bell cow of our outfield. Harry Hooper and I would watch him and know how to play the hitters."
Legacy
Immediately after Speaker's death, the baseball field at the city park in Cleburne, Texas, was renamed in honor of Speaker. In 1961, the Tris Speaker Memorial Award was created by the Baseball Writers' Association of America to honor players or officials who make outstanding contributions to baseball. In 1999, he ranked number 27 on the Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. He was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Speaker is mentioned in the poem "Line-Up for Yesterday"'' by Ogden Nash.
In 2008, former baseball players' union chief Marvin Miller, trying to defend the recently retired catcher Mike Piazza against claims that he should not be elected to the Hall of Fame because of association with the use of steroids, on the basis that the Hall of Fame has various unsavory people in it, opined that Speaker should be removed from the Hall of Fame because of alleged membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Miller said, "Some of the early people inducted in the Hall were members of the Ku Klux Klan: Tris Speaker, Cap Anson, and some people suspect Ty Cobb as well. I think that by and large, the players, and certainly the ones I knew, are good people. But the Hall is full of villains." Miller's comment about Anson has no basis, other than speculating that he could have been a Klansman since he was a racist during his playing career, which ended in 1897, although he was umpiring games with black players by 1901, including featuring the all-black Columbia Giants. Miller, age 91 at the time the 2008 article appeared, is the earliest source for declaring that it is factual that Anson was a member of the Klan, based purely on an Internet search of sources that try to link Anson to the Klan. By contrast, Speaker-Cobb-Rogers Hornsby biographer Charles C. Alexander, a Klan expert in his general history writings, told fellow baseball author Marty Appel, apparently referring to the 1920s (Anson died in 1922), “As I’ve suggested in the biographies, it’s possible that they [Speaker, Cobb and Hornsby] were briefly in the Klan, which was very strong in Texas and especially in Fort Worth and Dallas. The Klan went all out to recruit prominent people in all fields, provided they were native born, Protestant and white.”
Baseball historian Bill James does not dispute this claim in apparently referring to Speaker and possibly Cobb, but says that the Klan had toned down its racist overtures during the 1920s and pulled in hundreds of thousands of men, including Hugo Black. James adds that Speaker was a staunch supporter of Doby when he broke the American League color barrier, working long hours with the former second baseman on how to play the outfield.
Regular season statistics
Managerial record
See also
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball triples records
Notes
References
Further reading
Tris Speaker at the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
External links
1888 births
1958 deaths
American League batting champions
American League home run champions
Baseball players from Texas
Boston Americans players
Boston Red Sox players
Cleburne Railroaders players
Cleveland Indians coaches
Cleveland Indians managers
Cleveland Indians players
Houston Buffaloes players
Kansas City Blues (baseball) managers
Little Rock Travelers players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball center fielders
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Newark Bears (IL) players
People from Hubbard, Texas
Philadelphia Athletics players
Texas Wesleyan Rams baseball players
Washington Senators (1901–1960) players
Sp
Baseball coaches from Texas
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[
"The 1987 Northeast Louisiana Indians football team represented Northeast Louisiana University (now known as the University of Louisiana at Monroe) as a member of the Southland Conference (SLC) during the 1987 NCAA Division I-AA football season. Northeast Louisiana played their home games on-campus at Malone Stadium in Monroe, Louisiana. This Indians squad won the 1987 NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship Game.\n\nThe Indians were led by seventh-year head coach Pat Collins, and were led by first team All-America Stan Humphries. The squad completed the regular season with an overall record of 9–2 and finished 6–0 to capture their first outright Southland Conference championship. En route to the championship game, NLU defeated , and . The Indians faced off against the Marshall Thundering Herd for the I-AA National Championship. In the championship game, Marshall took a 42–28 lead into the fourth quarter only to have Humphries lead the Indians to a pair of late touchdowns and captured the championship with their 43–42 victory.\n\nSchedule\n\nTeam players in the NFL\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n \n\nNortheast Louisiana\nLouisiana–Monroe Warhawks football seasons\nNCAA Division I Football Champions\nSouthland Conference football champion seasons\nNortheast Louisiana Indians football",
"The Wichita Indians were a Class A level minor league baseball franchise based in Wichita, Kansas. The Wichita Indians played as members of the Western League from 1950 to 1955. Wichita won the 1955 Western League Championship.\n\nThe Wichita Indians were an affiliate of the St. Louis Browns in 1950, Cleveland Indians from 1951 to 1952, St. Louis Browns in 1953 and Baltimore Orioles from 1954 to 1955.\n\nIn 1956, the Indians were succeeded by the Class AAA level Wichita Braves, when the Wichita franchise became a member of the American Association.\n\nHistory\nThe Wichita Indians were preceded in the Western League by the Wichita Aviators (1929–1933), Wichita Larks (1927–1928), Wichita Izzies (1923–1926), Wichita Witches (sometimes called the Wichita Wolves) (1917–1922) and Wichita Jobbers (1905–1920). Wichita hosted teams in various other leagues, with professional baseball having started in Wichita with the Wichita Eagles of the Kansas State League in 1898.\n\nThe Wichita Indians joined the Western League in 1950 as an affiliate of the St. Louis Browns. The Western League had reformed in 1947 with six teams: Denver Bears, Des Moines Bruins, Lincoln A's, Omaha Cardinals, Pueblo Dodgers and Sioux City Soos. All six clubs remained in 1950, when the league expanded to eight teams, adding the Colorado Springs Sky Sox and Wichita Indians.\n\nThe 1950 Indians ended the season with a 77–77 record, placing 4th in the Western League regular season standings, playing under manager Joe Schultz. In the playoffs, Wichita defeated the first–place Omaha Cardinals 3 games to 0 in the semifinals. In the league Finals, Wichita lost 3 games to 1 to the Sioux City Soos. The Indians drew 126,729 fans, ranking 5th in the league.\n\nIn 1951, Wichita became an affiliate of the Cleveland Indians and finished 84–68, placing 3rd in the standings. In the Western League playoffs, Wichita was defeated by the Denver Bears 3 games to 1 as Joe Schultz returned as manager.\n\nThe 1952 Indians finished in a tie for 6th place with the Lincoln A's in the eight–team Western League with an 67–87 record. Wichita finished 22.0 games behind the Denver Bears in the final regular season standings and did not quality for the playoffs. Ralph Winegarner was the manager.\n\nBecoming a St. Louis Browns affiliate, the Wichita Indians finished in last place in 1953, playing under managers George Hausmann, George Kovach and Mark Christman. The ended the season with a record of 58–96 and finished 37.0 games behind the Colorado Springs Sky Sox in the eight–team Western League standings. Wichita had attendance of 68,683 fans, 7th best in the Western League.\n\nIn 1954, the Indians became affiliates of the Baltimore Orioles after the St. Louis Browns relocated. The team ended the season with a 76–77 record, and in 6th place in the regular season standings. playing under managers Herb Brett and Les Layton, Wichita did not qualify for the Western League playoffs, finishing 19.0 games behind the 1st place Denver Bears. The 1954 home season attendance was 87,854, 4th in the league.\n\nWichita won the 1955 Western League Championship. In the regular season, the 1955 Indians finished in a tie for 3rd place at 78–73 and began a Western League Championship run, playing under manager Bud Bates. First, the Indians defeated the Des Moines Bruins in a 3rd place tie–breaker game. In the playoffs, the Indians beat the Pueblo Dodgers 3 games to 1 in the semifinals. Advancing to the Finals, Wichita beat the Des Moines Bruins three games to one to claim the 1955 Western League Championship. Bob Harrison pitched a no–hitter for Wichita in the Finals.\n\nAfter their 1955 Western League Championship, Wichita had a team in new league in 1956. The American Association member Toledo Sox relocated to Wichita and the Wichita Braves became the Triple-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Braves in 1956. The Western League folded after the 1958 season.\n\nThe ballparks\nThe Wichita Indians were noted to have played at historic Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. The ballpark was built in 1934 and was demolished in 2019. Lawrence-Dumont Stadium was replaced on the site by Riverfront Stadium in 2020.\n\nThe Indians were referenced to have played some games at Central Park Stadium in El Dorado, Kansas during the July and August months. Today, the stadium is called McDonald Stadium.\n\nTimeline\n\nYear-by-Year Record\n\nNotable alumni\n\nBobby Balcena (1950)\nBud Bates (1955, MGR)\nJack Bruner (1952)\nMike Blyzka (1950)\nMark Christman (1953, MGR)\nPerry Currin (1950)\nGeorge Elder (1950)\nJohnny Goryl (1955)\nLenny Green (1955)\nBob Harrison (1955)\nGeorge Hausmann (1953)\nMel Held (1950, 1953)\nHal Hudson (1955)\nJulián Ladera (1953)\nDon Larsen (1950) 1956 World Series Most Valuable Player\nGarland Lawing (1954)\nLes Layton (1954)\nChuck Locke (1953)\nHarry MacPherson (1951)\nDon Minnick (1951)\nDon Mossi (1951) MLB All-Star\nJim Pisoni (1953)\nCarl Powis (1950)\nJoe Schultz (1950-1951, MGR)\nJim Snyder (1955)\nBob Turley (1950) 3x MLB All-Star; 1958 AL Cy Young Award; 1958 World Series Most Valuable Player\nLefty Wallace (1952)\nTommy Warren (1954-1955)\n\nSee also\nWichita Indians players\n\nReferences\n\nExternal Reference\nBaseball Reference Bullpen\n\nBaseball teams established in 1950\nSports clubs disestablished in 1955\n1950 establishments in Kansas\nSt. Louis Browns minor league affiliates\nCleveland Guardians minor league affiliates\nWichita, Kansas\nBaltimore Orioles minor league affiliates\nDefunct minor league baseball teams\nDefunct sports teams in Kansas\nBaseball teams disestablished in 1955\nDefunct Western League teams\nSedgwick County, Kansas"
] |
[
"Tris Speaker",
"Traded to the Indians",
"What was Tris speaker traded for?",
"After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In",
"Was Speaker happy with this?",
"The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000",
"what did he do after the trade?",
"Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in",
"Any notable wins?",
"In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles;",
"Did he take the Indians to the championship?",
"Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371."
] |
C_96c99ca973ec4e6fb50844468c5c13ea_0
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What were the terms of his contract?
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What were the terms of Speaker's contract with Indians?
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Tris Speaker
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After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (equal to $217,717 today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($1,124,465 today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $899,572 today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371. The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was 460 feet from home plate until it was shortened to 420 feet in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag. While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason. CANNOTANSWER
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Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($1,124,465 today).
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Tristram Edgar Speaker (April 4, 1888 – December 8, 1958), nicknamed "The Gray Eagle", was an American professional baseball player. Considered one of the greatest offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB), he compiled a career batting average of .345 (sixth all-time). His 792 career doubles represent an MLB career record. His 3,514 hits are fifth in the all-time hits list. Defensively, Speaker holds career records for assists, double plays, and unassisted double plays by an outfielder. His fielding glove was known as the place "where triples go to die."
After playing in the minor leagues in Texas and Arkansas, Speaker debuted with the Boston Red Sox in 1907. He became the regular center fielder by 1909 and led the Red Sox to World Series championships in 1912 and 1915. In 1915, Speaker's batting average dropped to .322 from .338 the previous season; he was traded to the Cleveland Indians when he refused to take a pay cut. As player-manager for Cleveland, he led the team to its first World Series title. In ten of his eleven seasons with Cleveland, he finished with a batting average greater than .350. Speaker resigned as Cleveland's manager in 1926 after he and Ty Cobb faced game fixing allegations; both men were later cleared. During his managerial stint in Cleveland, Speaker introduced the platoon system in the major leagues.
Speaker played with the Washington Senators in 1927 and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1928, then became a minor league manager and part owner. He later held several roles for the Cleveland Indians. Late in life, Speaker led a short-lived indoor baseball league, ran a wholesale liquor business, worked in sales and chaired Cleveland's boxing commission. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. He was named 27th in the Sporting News 100 Greatest Baseball Players (1999) and was also included in the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Early life
Speaker was born on April 4, 1888, in Hubbard, Texas, to Archie and Nancy Poer Speaker. As a youth, Speaker broke his arm after he fell from a horse; the injury forced him to become left-handed. In 1905, Speaker played a year of college baseball for Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute. Newspaper reports have held that Speaker suffered a football injury and nearly had his arm amputated around this time; biographer Timothy Gay characterizes this as "a story that the macho Speaker never ." He worked on a ranch before beginning his professional baseball career.
Speaker's abilities drew the interest of Doak Roberts, owner of the Cleburne Railroaders of the Texas League, in . After losing several games as a pitcher, Speaker converted to outfielder to replace a Cleburne player who had been struck in the head with a pitch. He batted .318 for the Railroaders. Speaker's mother opposed his participation in the major leagues, saying that they reminded her of slavery. Though she relented, for several years Mrs. Speaker questioned why her son had not stayed home and entered the cattle or oil businesses.
He performed well for the Texas League's Houston Buffaloes in 1907, but his mother stated that she would never allow him to go to the Boston Americans. Roberts sold the youngster to the Americans for $750 or $800 (equal to $ or $ today). Speaker played in seven games for the Americans in , with three hits in 19 at-bats for a .158 average. In 1908, Boston Americans owner John I. Taylor changed the team's name to the Boston Red Sox after the bright socks in the team's uniform. That year, the club traded Speaker to the Little Rock Travelers of the Southern League in exchange for use of their facilities for spring training. Speaker batted .350 for the Travelers and his contract was repurchased by the Red Sox. He logged a .224 batting average in 116 at-bats.
Major league career
Early years
Speaker became the regular starting center fielder for Boston in 1909 and light-hitting Denny Sullivan was sold to the Cleveland Naps. Speaker hit .309 in 143 games as the team finished third in the pennant race. Defensively, Speaker was involved in 12 double plays, leading the league's outfielders, and had a .973 fielding percentage, third among outfielders. In the Red Sox signed left fielder Duffy Lewis. Speaker, Lewis and Harry Hooper formed Boston's "Million-Dollar Outfield", one of the finest outfield trios in baseball history. Speaker was the star of the Million-Dollar Outfield. He ran fast enough that he could stand very close to second base, effectively giving the team a fifth infielder, but he still caught the balls hit to center field. In 1910 and 1911, Boston finished fourth in the American League standings.
Speaker's best season came in 1912. He played every game and led the American League (AL) in doubles (53) and home runs (10). He set career highs with 222 hits, 136 runs, 580 at-bats, and 52 stolen bases. Speaker's stolen base tally was a team record until Tommy Harper stole 54 bases in 1973. He batted .383 and his .567 slugging percentage was the highest of his dead-ball days. Speaker set a major league single-season record with three hitting streaks of 20 or more games (30, 23, and 22). He also became the first major leaguer to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases in the same season. In August, Speaker's mother unsuccessfully attempted to convince him to quit baseball and come home. In Fenway Park's first game, Speaker drove in the winning run in the 11th inning, giving Boston the 7–6 win.
The 1912 Red Sox won the AL pennant, finishing 14 games ahead of the Washington Senators and 15 games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics. In the 1912 World Series, Speaker led the Red Sox to their second World Series title by defeating John McGraw's New York Giants. After the second game was called on account of darkness and ended in a tie, the series went to eight games. The Red Sox won the final game after Fred Snodgrass dropped an easy fly ball and later failed to go after a Speaker pop foul. After the pop foul, Speaker tied the game with a single. The Red Sox won the game in the bottom of the tenth inning. He finished the series with a .300 batting average, nine hits and four runs scored. Speaker was named the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) for 1912. Though he did not lead the league in any offensive categories in 1913, Speaker finished fourth in AL MVP voting.
Speaker batted .338 and tied his career high of 12 double plays as an outfielder in . He hit .322 in . The Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 World Series. The Red Sox were led by pitcher Babe Ruth, who was playing in his first full season. Ruth won 18 games and hit a team-high four home runs. Speaker got five hits, including a triple, in 17 at-bats during the series. He scored twice but did not drive in any runs.
Traded to the Indians
After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $ today) to about $9,000 (equal to $ today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($ today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($ today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $ today) of the cash that Boston collected.
For many years, this was considered the worst trade in Red Sox history, and was thought to be far more damaging to the Red Sox than the sale of Babe Ruth more than four years later. In his book about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, Emperors and Idiots, Mike Vaccaro recalled that for some time, "Red Sox fans shook their head(s) in fury" when recalling the trade. Vaccaro recalled that no one knew in the winter of 1919-20 that Ruth would blossom into a superstar. In contrast, Speaker had established himself as "indisputably the best player in the American League" by 1916.
With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $ today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In , he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371.
The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was from home plate until it was shortened to in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag.
While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason.
Stint as player-manager
From the day that Speaker arrived in Cleveland, he was effectively assistant manager to Lee Fohl, who rarely made an important move without consulting him. George Uhle recalled an incident from 1919 during his rookie year with the Indians. Speaker often signaled to Fohl when he thought that a pitcher should be brought in from the bullpen. One day, Fohl misread Speaker's signal and brought in a different pitcher than Speaker had intended. To avoid the appearance of overruling his manager, Speaker let the change stand. Pitcher Fritz Coumbe lost the game, Fohl resigned that night and Speaker became manager. Uhle said that Speaker felt bad for contributing to Fohl's departure.
Speaker guided the 1920 Indians to their first World Series win. In a crucial late season game against the second-place White Sox, Speaker caught a hard line drive hit to deep right-center field by Shoeless Joe Jackson, ending the game. On a dead run, Speaker leaped with both feet off the ground, snaring the ball before crashing into a concrete wall. As he lay unconscious from the impact, Speaker still held the baseball. In the 1920 World Series against Brooklyn, Speaker hit an RBI triple in the deciding game, which the Indians won 3–0. Cleveland's 1920 season was also significant due to the death of Ray Chapman on August 17. Chapman died after being hit in the head by a pitch from Carl Mays. Chapman had been asked about retirement before the season, and he said that he wanted to help Speaker earn Cleveland's first World Series victory before thinking of retirement.
During that championship season, Speaker is credited with introducing the platoon system, which attempted to match right-handed batters against left-handed pitchers and vice versa. Sportswriter John B. Sheridan was among the critics of the system, saying, "The specialist in baseball is no good and won't go very far... The whole effect of the system will be to make the players affected half men... It is farewell, a long farewell to all that player's chance of greatness... It destroys young ball players by destroying their most precious quality – confidence in their ability to hit any pitcher, left or right, alive, dead, or waiting to be born." Baseball Magazine was supportive, pointing out that Speaker had results that backed up his system.
The 1921 Indians remained in a tight pennant race all year, finishing games behind the Yankees. The Indians did not seriously contend for the pennant from 1922 through 1925. Speaker led the league in doubles eight times, including every year between 1920 and 1923. He led the league's outfielders in fielding percentage in 1921 and 1922. On May 17, 1925, Speaker became the fifth member of the 3,000 hit club when he hit a single off pitcher Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators. Only Napoleon Lajoie had previously accomplished the feat as a member of the Indians.
AL President Ban Johnson asked Speaker and Detroit manager Cobb to resign their posts after a scandal broke in . Pitcher Dutch Leonard claimed that Speaker and Cobb fixed at least one game between Cleveland and Detroit. In a newspaper column published shortly before the hearings were to begin, Billy Evans characterized the accusations as "purely a matter of personal revenge" for Leonard. The pitcher was said to be upset with Cobb and Speaker after a trade ended with Leonard in the minor leagues. When Leonard refused to appear at the January 5, 1927, hearings to discuss his accusations, Commissioner Landis cleared both Speaker and Cobb of any wrongdoing. Both were reinstated to their original teams, but each team declared its manager free to sign elsewhere. Speaker did not return to big league managing and he finished his MLB managerial career with a 617–520 record.
At the time of his 1926 resignation, news reports described Speaker as permanently retiring from baseball to pursue business ventures. However, Speaker signed to play with the Washington Senators for . Cobb joined the Philadelphia Athletics. Speaker joined Cobb in Philadelphia for the season; he played part time and finished with a .267 average. Prior to that season, Speaker had not hit for a batting average below .300 since 1908.
Speaker's major league playing career ended after 1928. He retired with 792 doubles, an all-time career record. Defensively, Speaker holds the all-time career records for assists as an outfielder and double plays as an outfielder. He remains the last batter to hit 200 triples in a career.
Later life
In Speaker replaced Walter Johnson as the manager of the Newark Bears of the International League. In two seasons with Newark, he also appeared as a player in 59 games. When Speaker resigned during his second season, the Bears were in seventh place after a sixth-place finish in 1929. In January 1933 he became a part owner and manager of the Kansas City Blues. By May, Speaker had been replaced as manager but remained secretary of the club. By 1936, he had sold his share of the team. In 1937, Speaker was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during its second year of balloting. He was honored at the hall's first induction ceremony in 1939.
After his playing and managing days, Speaker was an entrepreneur and salesman. By 1937, Speaker had opened a wholesale liquor business and worked as a state sales representative for a steel company. He chaired Cleveland's boxing commission between 1936 and 1943. Newspaper coverage credited Speaker with several key reforms to boxing in Cleveland, including the recruitment of new officials and protections against fight fixing. Under Speaker, fight payouts went directly to boxers rather than managers. Speaker sorted out a scheduling conflict for a 1940 boxing match in Cleveland involving former middleweight champion Teddy Yarosz. Yarosz defeated Jimmy Reeves in ten rounds and the fight attracted over 8,300 spectators.
In 1937, Speaker sustained a 16-foot fall while working on a flower box near a second-story window at his home. Upon admission to the hospital, he underwent facial surgery. He was described as having "better than an even chance to live" and was suffering from a skull fracture, a broken arm and possible internal injuries. He ultimately recovered.
In 1939, Speaker was president of the National Professional Indoor Baseball League. The league had teams in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis. The league shut down operations due to poor attendance only two months after its formation. Speaker was one of the founders of Cleveland's Society for Crippled Children and he helped to promote the society's rehabilitation center, Camp Cheerful. Speaker served as vice president of the society, ran fundraising campaigns and received a distinguished service award from the organization. He became seriously ill with pneumonia in 1942. Speaker ultimately recovered, but Gay characterized Speaker's condition as "touch-and-go for several days".
In 1947, Speaker returned to baseball as "ambassador of good will" for Bill Veeck and the Cleveland Indians. He remained in advisory, coaching or scouting roles for the Indians until his death in 1958. In an article in the July 1952 issue of SPORT, Speaker recounted how Veeck hired him in 1947 to be a coaching consultant to Larry Doby, the first black player in the AL and the second in the major leagues. Before the Indians had signed Doby, he was the star second baseman of the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues. A SPORT photograph that accompanied the article shows Speaker mentoring five members of the Indians: Luke Easter, Jim Hegan, Ray Boone, Al Rosen and Doby. Speaker was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1951. Texas was the first state to establish a state sports hall of fame and Speaker was in its inaugural induction class.
Death
Speaker died of a heart attack on December 8, 1958, at the age of 70, at Lake Whitney, Texas. He collapsed as he and a friend were pulling their boat into the dock after a fishing trip. It was his second heart attack in four years. Speaker was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Hubbard, Texas.
After Speaker's death, Cobb said, "Terribly depressed. I never let him know how much I admired him when we were playing against each other... It was only after we finally became teammates and then retired that I could tell Tris Speaker of the underlying respect I had for him." Lajoie said, "He was one of the greatest fellows I ever knew, both as a baseball player and as a gentleman." Former Boston teammate Duffy Lewis said, "He was a team player. As great a hitter as he was, he wasn't looking out for his own average ... Speaker was the bell cow of our outfield. Harry Hooper and I would watch him and know how to play the hitters."
Legacy
Immediately after Speaker's death, the baseball field at the city park in Cleburne, Texas, was renamed in honor of Speaker. In 1961, the Tris Speaker Memorial Award was created by the Baseball Writers' Association of America to honor players or officials who make outstanding contributions to baseball. In 1999, he ranked number 27 on the Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. He was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Speaker is mentioned in the poem "Line-Up for Yesterday"'' by Ogden Nash.
In 2008, former baseball players' union chief Marvin Miller, trying to defend the recently retired catcher Mike Piazza against claims that he should not be elected to the Hall of Fame because of association with the use of steroids, on the basis that the Hall of Fame has various unsavory people in it, opined that Speaker should be removed from the Hall of Fame because of alleged membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Miller said, "Some of the early people inducted in the Hall were members of the Ku Klux Klan: Tris Speaker, Cap Anson, and some people suspect Ty Cobb as well. I think that by and large, the players, and certainly the ones I knew, are good people. But the Hall is full of villains." Miller's comment about Anson has no basis, other than speculating that he could have been a Klansman since he was a racist during his playing career, which ended in 1897, although he was umpiring games with black players by 1901, including featuring the all-black Columbia Giants. Miller, age 91 at the time the 2008 article appeared, is the earliest source for declaring that it is factual that Anson was a member of the Klan, based purely on an Internet search of sources that try to link Anson to the Klan. By contrast, Speaker-Cobb-Rogers Hornsby biographer Charles C. Alexander, a Klan expert in his general history writings, told fellow baseball author Marty Appel, apparently referring to the 1920s (Anson died in 1922), “As I’ve suggested in the biographies, it’s possible that they [Speaker, Cobb and Hornsby] were briefly in the Klan, which was very strong in Texas and especially in Fort Worth and Dallas. The Klan went all out to recruit prominent people in all fields, provided they were native born, Protestant and white.”
Baseball historian Bill James does not dispute this claim in apparently referring to Speaker and possibly Cobb, but says that the Klan had toned down its racist overtures during the 1920s and pulled in hundreds of thousands of men, including Hugo Black. James adds that Speaker was a staunch supporter of Doby when he broke the American League color barrier, working long hours with the former second baseman on how to play the outfield.
Regular season statistics
Managerial record
See also
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball triples records
Notes
References
Further reading
Tris Speaker at the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
External links
1888 births
1958 deaths
American League batting champions
American League home run champions
Baseball players from Texas
Boston Americans players
Boston Red Sox players
Cleburne Railroaders players
Cleveland Indians coaches
Cleveland Indians managers
Cleveland Indians players
Houston Buffaloes players
Kansas City Blues (baseball) managers
Little Rock Travelers players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball center fielders
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Newark Bears (IL) players
People from Hubbard, Texas
Philadelphia Athletics players
Texas Wesleyan Rams baseball players
Washington Senators (1901–1960) players
Sp
Baseball coaches from Texas
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[
"Contractual terms in English law is a topic which deals with four main issues. \n\nwhich terms are incorporated into the contract\nhow are the terms of the contract to be interpreted\nwhether terms are implied into the contract\nwhat controls are placed on unfair terms\n\nThe terms of a contract are the essence of a contract, and tell the reader what the contract will do. For instance, the price of a good, the time of its promised delivery and the description of the good will all be terms of the contract.\n\nWhat are terms\n\nA contractual \"[a]ny provision forming part of a contract\" Each term gives rise to a contractual obligation, breach of which can give rise to litigation. Not all terms are stated expressly and some terms carry less legal gravity as they are peripheral to the objectives of the contract.\n\nCondition or Warranty. Conditions are terms which go to the very root of a contract. Breach of these terms repudiate the contract, allowing the other party to discharge the contract. A warranty is not so imperative so the contract will subsist after a breach. Breach of either will give rise to damages.\n\nIt is an objective matter of fact whether a term goes to the root of a contract. By way of illustration, an actress' obligation to perform the opening night of a theatrical production is a condition, whereas a singers obligation to perform during the first three days of rehearsal is a warranty.\n\nStatute may also declare a term or nature of term to be a condition or warranty; for example the Sale of Goods Act 1979 s15A provides that terms as to title, description, quality and sample (as described in the Act) are conditions save in certain defined circumstances.\n\nInnominate term. Lord Diplock, in Hong Kong Fir Shipping Co Ltd v Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd, created the concept of an innominate term, breach of which may or not go to the root of the contract depending upon the nature of the breach. breach of these terms, as with all terms, will give rise to damages. Whether or not it repudiates the contract depends upon whether legal benefit of the contract has been removed from the innocent party. Megaw LJ, in 1970, preferred the use of the classic categorising into condition or warranty due to legal certainty. This was interpreted by the House of Lords as merely restricting its application in Reardon Smith Line Ltd v Hansen-Tangen.\n\nStatus as a term\nStatus as a term is important as a party can only take legal action for the non fulfillment of a term as opposed to representations or mere puffs. Legally speaking, only statements that amount to a term create contractual obligations. Statements can be split into the following types:\n Puff (sales talk): If no reasonable person hearing this statement would take it seriously, it is a puff, and no action in contract is available if the statement proves to be wrong. It may also be referred to as \"puffery\". This is common in television commercials.\n Representation: A representation is a statement of fact which does not amount to a term of the contract but it is one that the maker of the statement does not guarantee its truth. This gives rise to no contractual obligation but may amount to a tort, for example misrepresentation.\n Term: A term is similar to a representation, but the truth of the statement is guaranteed by the person who made the statement therefore giving rise to a contractual obligation. For the purposes of Breach of Contract a term may further be categories as a condition, warranty or innominate term.\n\nThere are various factors that a court may take into account in determining the nature of a statement. These include:\n Timing: If the contract was concluded soon after the statement was made, this is a strong indication that the statement induced the person to enter into the contract. Lapse of a week within the negotiations of a car sale was held to amount only to a representation in Routledge v McKay\n Content of statement: It is necessary to consider what was said in the given context, which has nothing to do with the importance of a statement.\n Knowledge and expertise: In Oscar Chess Ltd v Williams, a person selling a car to a second-hand car dealer stated that it was a 1948 Morris, when in fact it was a 1939 model car. It was held that the statement did not become a term because a reasonable person in the position of the car dealer would not have thought that an inexperienced person would have guaranteed the truth of the statement.\n Reduction into Writing: Where the contract is consolidated into writing, previous spoken terms, omitted from the consolidation, will probably be relegated to representations. The old case of Birch v Paramount Estates Ltd provided that a very important spoken term may persist even if omitted from the written consolidation; this case concerned the quality of a residential house.\n\nThe parol evidence rule limits what things can be taken into account when trying to interpret a contract. This rule has practically ceased operation under UK law, but remains functional in Australian Law.\n\nImplied terms\n\nA term may either be expressed or implied. An Express term is stated by the parties during negotiation or written in a contractual document. Implied terms are not stated but nevertheless form a provision of the contract.\n\nTerms implied in fact\nThe Privy Council established a five stage test in BP Refinery (Westernport) Pty Ltd v Shire of Hastings:\n Reasonableness and equitableness: The implied term must be reasonable and equitable.\n Business efficacy: The implied term must be necessary for the business efficacy of the contract. For instance, if the term simply causes the contract to operate better, that does not fit this criterion. This is the principle laid out in The Moorcock. The presiding judge created a quaint concept of an officious bystander; if the officious bystander were to propose a term and both the parties would be likely to reply \"oh, of course\", the term is implied.\n Obviousness: The term is so obvious that it goes without saying. Furthermore, there must be one and only one thing that would be implied by the parties. For example, in Codelfa Construction Pty Ltd v State Rail Authority of New South Wales, a term regarding the inability of construction company to work three shifts a day could not be implied because it was unclear what form it would have taken. In English Law, This principle was established in the case of Spring v NASDS, in the context of a Trade Union membership contract.\n Clear expression: The term must be capable of clear expression. No specific technical knowledge should be required.\n Consistency: The implied term may not contradict an express term.\n\nIn Australia, the High Court has ruled that the test in BP Refinery applies only to formal contracts, while the test in Byrne and Frew v Australian Airlines Ltd shall apply to informal contracts:\n Necessity: The term must be necessary to ensure reasonable or effective operation of a contract of the nature before the court.\n Consistency: The implied term may not contradict an express term (same as for formal contracts).\n Clear expression: The term must be capable of clear expression (same as for formal contracts).\n Obvious: McHugh and Gummow JJ have stated that it must also be obvious.\n\nTerms implied in law\nThese are terms that have been implied into standardised relationships.\n\nCommon law.\n\nLiverpool City Council v Irwin established a term to be implied into all contracts between tenant and landlord that the landlord is obliged to keep the common areas in a reasonable state of repair.\nWong Mee Wan v Kwan Kin Travel Services Ltd established that when a tour operator contracts to for the sale of goods. The most important legislation under United Kingdom law is the Sale of Goods Act 1979, the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 and the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 which imply terms into all contracts whereby goods are sold or services provided.\n\nThese terms will be implied into all contracts of the same nature as a matter of law.\n\nStatutory.\n\nThe rules by which many contracts are governed are provided in specialized statutes that deal with particular subjects. Most countries, for example, have statutes which deal directly with sale of goods, lease transactions, and trade practices. For example, each American state except Louisiana has adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, which regulates contracts for the sale of goods. The most important legislation implying terms under United Kingdom law are the Sale of Goods Act 1979, the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 and the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 which imply terms into all contracts whereby goods are sold or services provided.\n\nTerms implied by custom or trade\nOne is generally bound by the custom of the industry that one is in. To imply a term due to custom or trade, one must prove the existence of the custom, which must be notorious, certain, legal and reasonable.\n\nCourse of dealing\nIf two parties have regularly conduct business on certain terms, the terms may be assumed to be same for each contract made, if not expressly agreed to the contrary. The parties must have dealt on numerous occasions and been aware of the term purported to be implied. In Hollier v Rambler Motors Ltd four occasions over five years was held to be sufficient. In British Crane Hire Corp Ltd v Ipswich Plant Hire Ltd written terms were held to have been implied into an oral in which there was no mention of written terms.\n\nGood faith\n\nIt is common for lengthy negotiations to be written into a heads of agreement document that includes a clause to the effect that the rest of the agreement is to be negotiated. Although these cases may appear to fall into the category of agreement to agree, Australian courts will imply an obligation to negotiate in good faith provided that certain conditions are satisfied\n Negotiations were well-advanced and the large proportion of terms have been worked out; and\n There exists some mechanism to resolve disputes if the negotiations broke down.\n\nThe test of whether one has acted in good faith is a subjective one; the cases suggest honesty, and possibly also reasonably. There is no general obligation to act in good faith term under English contract law: an attempt was made by Lord Denning in a series of case during the 70s and 80s but they are no longer considered 'good law'. European legislation imposes this duty, but only in certain circumstances. For the circumstances when an obligation of good faith may in certain circumstances be implied see Yam Seng PTE Ltd v International Trade Corporation Ltd.\n\nThe Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 reg 8 will render ineffective any 'unfair' contractual term if made between a seller or supplier and a consumer.\nRegulation 5 of the Statutory Instrument further elaborates upon the concept of 'unfair', which is rather novel to English law. 'Unfair' is a term that was not individually negotiated (i.e. standard form) that \"causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract to the detriment of the consumer\". This is not possible if the term is not contrary to 'good faith'; such as in Director General of Fair Trading v First National Bank, wherein the lack of a seemingly unfair interest term would leave the bank open to a very poor deal whereby no interest could be charged.\n\n\"Subject to\" contracts\nIf a contract specifies \"subject to contract\", it may fall into one of three categories:\n The parties are immediately bound to the bargain, but they intend to restate the deal in a formalised contract that will not have a different effect; or\n The parties have completely agreed to the terms, but have made the execution of some terms in the contract conditional on the creation of a formalised contract; or\n It is merely an agreement to agree, and the deal will not be concluded until the formalised contract has been drawn up.\nSubsequent authorities have been willing to recognize a fourth category in addition to those stated in Masters v Cameron.</p>\nThe parties intend to immediately bound by the terms agreed upon and expect to create a further contract as a replacement for the initial contract which will contain additional terms (if agreed upon).\nIf a contract specifies \"subject to finance\", it imposes obligations on the purchaser:\n The purchaser must seek finance; and\n When offers of finance arrive, the purchaser must make a decision as to whether the offers of finance are suitable.\n\nThis may also refer to contingent conditions, which come under two categories: condition precedent and condition subsequent.\nConditions precedent are conditions that have to be complied with before performance of a contract\nWith conditions subsequent, parties have to perform until the condition is not met.\nFailure of a condition repudiates the contract this is not to necessarily discharge it. Repudiation will always gives rise to an action for damages.\n\nNotes\n\nEnglish contract law\nLegal documents\nContract clauses\n\npt:Cláusula",
"Carmichael v National Power plc [1999] UKHL 47 is a British labour law case on the contract of employment for the purpose of the Employment Rights Act 1996.\n\nFacts\nTour guides had complained that they hadn't received written statement of the employment contracts under s.1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. They worked at Blyth Power Stations in Northumberland, for the Central Electricity Generating Board. Their hiring contracts said ‘I am pleased to note that you are agreeable to be employed by the C.E.G.B. at Blyth ‘A’ and ‘B’ power stations on a casual as required basis as a station guide.’\n\nJudgment\nThe House of Lords decided that they were not employees for the purpose of s 1, because there was not sufficient 'mutuality of obligation' when the guides were not actually guiding. Lord Irvine of Lairg said that there would not have been an ‘irreducible minimum of mutuality of obligation necessary to create a contract of service’ (relying on Nethermere) between the times actually working (while working the situation would be different). Their claim failed on the basis that on many occasions they would be called up but say they could not work.\n\nLord Hoffmann stated, at 1233,\n\n\"…the terms of the contract are a question of fact. And of course the question of whether the parties intended a document or documents to be the exclusive record of the terms of their agreement is also a question of fact.\"\n\n\"The evidence of a party as to what terms he understood to have been agree is some evidence tending to show that those terms, in an objective sense, were agreed. Of course the tribunal may reject such evidence and conclude that the party misunderstood the effect of what was being said and done. But when both parties are agreed about what they understood their mutual obligations (or lack of them) to be, it is a strong thing to exclude their evidence from consideration.\"\n\nSee also\nUK labour law\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\nE McGaughey, A Casebook on Labour Law (Hart 2018) ch 3\n\nExternal links\nText of the full judgment, 18 November 1999\n\nUnited Kingdom labour case law\nHouse of Lords cases\n1999 in case law\n1999 in British law\nElectric power in the United Kingdom"
] |
[
"Tris Speaker",
"Traded to the Indians",
"What was Tris speaker traded for?",
"After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In",
"Was Speaker happy with this?",
"The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000",
"what did he do after the trade?",
"Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in",
"Any notable wins?",
"In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles;",
"Did he take the Indians to the championship?",
"Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371.",
"What were the terms of his contract?",
"Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($1,124,465 today)."
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C_96c99ca973ec4e6fb50844468c5c13ea_0
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When di this occur?
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When did the trade of Speaker to Cleveland Indians occur?
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Tris Speaker
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After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $362,862 today) to about $9,000 (equal to $217,717 today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($290,289 today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($1,124,465 today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $224,893 today) of the cash that Boston collected. With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $899,572 today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In 1916, he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371. The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was 460 feet from home plate until it was shortened to 420 feet in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag. While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason. CANNOTANSWER
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After 1915,
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Tristram Edgar Speaker (April 4, 1888 – December 8, 1958), nicknamed "The Gray Eagle", was an American professional baseball player. Considered one of the greatest offensive and defensive center fielders in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB), he compiled a career batting average of .345 (sixth all-time). His 792 career doubles represent an MLB career record. His 3,514 hits are fifth in the all-time hits list. Defensively, Speaker holds career records for assists, double plays, and unassisted double plays by an outfielder. His fielding glove was known as the place "where triples go to die."
After playing in the minor leagues in Texas and Arkansas, Speaker debuted with the Boston Red Sox in 1907. He became the regular center fielder by 1909 and led the Red Sox to World Series championships in 1912 and 1915. In 1915, Speaker's batting average dropped to .322 from .338 the previous season; he was traded to the Cleveland Indians when he refused to take a pay cut. As player-manager for Cleveland, he led the team to its first World Series title. In ten of his eleven seasons with Cleveland, he finished with a batting average greater than .350. Speaker resigned as Cleveland's manager in 1926 after he and Ty Cobb faced game fixing allegations; both men were later cleared. During his managerial stint in Cleveland, Speaker introduced the platoon system in the major leagues.
Speaker played with the Washington Senators in 1927 and the Philadelphia Athletics in 1928, then became a minor league manager and part owner. He later held several roles for the Cleveland Indians. Late in life, Speaker led a short-lived indoor baseball league, ran a wholesale liquor business, worked in sales and chaired Cleveland's boxing commission. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. He was named 27th in the Sporting News 100 Greatest Baseball Players (1999) and was also included in the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Early life
Speaker was born on April 4, 1888, in Hubbard, Texas, to Archie and Nancy Poer Speaker. As a youth, Speaker broke his arm after he fell from a horse; the injury forced him to become left-handed. In 1905, Speaker played a year of college baseball for Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute. Newspaper reports have held that Speaker suffered a football injury and nearly had his arm amputated around this time; biographer Timothy Gay characterizes this as "a story that the macho Speaker never ." He worked on a ranch before beginning his professional baseball career.
Speaker's abilities drew the interest of Doak Roberts, owner of the Cleburne Railroaders of the Texas League, in . After losing several games as a pitcher, Speaker converted to outfielder to replace a Cleburne player who had been struck in the head with a pitch. He batted .318 for the Railroaders. Speaker's mother opposed his participation in the major leagues, saying that they reminded her of slavery. Though she relented, for several years Mrs. Speaker questioned why her son had not stayed home and entered the cattle or oil businesses.
He performed well for the Texas League's Houston Buffaloes in 1907, but his mother stated that she would never allow him to go to the Boston Americans. Roberts sold the youngster to the Americans for $750 or $800 (equal to $ or $ today). Speaker played in seven games for the Americans in , with three hits in 19 at-bats for a .158 average. In 1908, Boston Americans owner John I. Taylor changed the team's name to the Boston Red Sox after the bright socks in the team's uniform. That year, the club traded Speaker to the Little Rock Travelers of the Southern League in exchange for use of their facilities for spring training. Speaker batted .350 for the Travelers and his contract was repurchased by the Red Sox. He logged a .224 batting average in 116 at-bats.
Major league career
Early years
Speaker became the regular starting center fielder for Boston in 1909 and light-hitting Denny Sullivan was sold to the Cleveland Naps. Speaker hit .309 in 143 games as the team finished third in the pennant race. Defensively, Speaker was involved in 12 double plays, leading the league's outfielders, and had a .973 fielding percentage, third among outfielders. In the Red Sox signed left fielder Duffy Lewis. Speaker, Lewis and Harry Hooper formed Boston's "Million-Dollar Outfield", one of the finest outfield trios in baseball history. Speaker was the star of the Million-Dollar Outfield. He ran fast enough that he could stand very close to second base, effectively giving the team a fifth infielder, but he still caught the balls hit to center field. In 1910 and 1911, Boston finished fourth in the American League standings.
Speaker's best season came in 1912. He played every game and led the American League (AL) in doubles (53) and home runs (10). He set career highs with 222 hits, 136 runs, 580 at-bats, and 52 stolen bases. Speaker's stolen base tally was a team record until Tommy Harper stole 54 bases in 1973. He batted .383 and his .567 slugging percentage was the highest of his dead-ball days. Speaker set a major league single-season record with three hitting streaks of 20 or more games (30, 23, and 22). He also became the first major leaguer to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases in the same season. In August, Speaker's mother unsuccessfully attempted to convince him to quit baseball and come home. In Fenway Park's first game, Speaker drove in the winning run in the 11th inning, giving Boston the 7–6 win.
The 1912 Red Sox won the AL pennant, finishing 14 games ahead of the Washington Senators and 15 games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics. In the 1912 World Series, Speaker led the Red Sox to their second World Series title by defeating John McGraw's New York Giants. After the second game was called on account of darkness and ended in a tie, the series went to eight games. The Red Sox won the final game after Fred Snodgrass dropped an easy fly ball and later failed to go after a Speaker pop foul. After the pop foul, Speaker tied the game with a single. The Red Sox won the game in the bottom of the tenth inning. He finished the series with a .300 batting average, nine hits and four runs scored. Speaker was named the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) for 1912. Though he did not lead the league in any offensive categories in 1913, Speaker finished fourth in AL MVP voting.
Speaker batted .338 and tied his career high of 12 double plays as an outfielder in . He hit .322 in . The Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1915 World Series. The Red Sox were led by pitcher Babe Ruth, who was playing in his first full season. Ruth won 18 games and hit a team-high four home runs. Speaker got five hits, including a triple, in 17 at-bats during the series. He scored twice but did not drive in any runs.
Traded to the Indians
After 1915, Red Sox president Joseph Lannin wanted Speaker to take a pay cut from about $15,000 (equal to $ today) to about $9,000 (equal to $ today) because of the drop in his batting average; Speaker refused and offered $12,000 ($ today). On April 8, 1916, Lannin traded Speaker to the Cleveland Indians. In exchange, Boston received Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000 ($ today). The angry Speaker held out until he received $10,000 (equal to $ today) of the cash that Boston collected.
For many years, this was considered the worst trade in Red Sox history, and was thought to be far more damaging to the Red Sox than the sale of Babe Ruth more than four years later. In his book about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, Emperors and Idiots, Mike Vaccaro recalled that for some time, "Red Sox fans shook their head(s) in fury" when recalling the trade. Vaccaro recalled that no one knew in the winter of 1919-20 that Ruth would blossom into a superstar. In contrast, Speaker had established himself as "indisputably the best player in the American League" by 1916.
With an annual salary of $40,000 (equal to $ today), Speaker was the highest paid player in baseball. Speaker hit over .350 in nine of his eleven years with Cleveland. In , he led the league in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Cobb had won the previous nine consecutive AL batting titles; Speaker outhit him with a .386 batting average compared to Cobb's .371.
The center field fence at Cleveland's Dunn Field was from home plate until it was shortened to in 1920. Even so, Speaker played so shallow in the outfield that he was able to execute six career unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating baserunners to the bag. At least once he was credited as the pivot man in a routine double play. He was often shallow enough to catch pickoff throws at second base. At one point, Speaker's signature move was to come in behind second base on a bunt and make a tag play on a baserunner who had passed the bag.
While in Cleveland, Speaker participated in diverse activities off the baseball field. Speaker enrolled in an aviator training program in 1918. Though World War I ended less than two months after he enrolled, Speaker completed his training and served in the naval reserves for several years. He also owned a ranch in Texas and competed in roping events during the baseball offseason.
Stint as player-manager
From the day that Speaker arrived in Cleveland, he was effectively assistant manager to Lee Fohl, who rarely made an important move without consulting him. George Uhle recalled an incident from 1919 during his rookie year with the Indians. Speaker often signaled to Fohl when he thought that a pitcher should be brought in from the bullpen. One day, Fohl misread Speaker's signal and brought in a different pitcher than Speaker had intended. To avoid the appearance of overruling his manager, Speaker let the change stand. Pitcher Fritz Coumbe lost the game, Fohl resigned that night and Speaker became manager. Uhle said that Speaker felt bad for contributing to Fohl's departure.
Speaker guided the 1920 Indians to their first World Series win. In a crucial late season game against the second-place White Sox, Speaker caught a hard line drive hit to deep right-center field by Shoeless Joe Jackson, ending the game. On a dead run, Speaker leaped with both feet off the ground, snaring the ball before crashing into a concrete wall. As he lay unconscious from the impact, Speaker still held the baseball. In the 1920 World Series against Brooklyn, Speaker hit an RBI triple in the deciding game, which the Indians won 3–0. Cleveland's 1920 season was also significant due to the death of Ray Chapman on August 17. Chapman died after being hit in the head by a pitch from Carl Mays. Chapman had been asked about retirement before the season, and he said that he wanted to help Speaker earn Cleveland's first World Series victory before thinking of retirement.
During that championship season, Speaker is credited with introducing the platoon system, which attempted to match right-handed batters against left-handed pitchers and vice versa. Sportswriter John B. Sheridan was among the critics of the system, saying, "The specialist in baseball is no good and won't go very far... The whole effect of the system will be to make the players affected half men... It is farewell, a long farewell to all that player's chance of greatness... It destroys young ball players by destroying their most precious quality – confidence in their ability to hit any pitcher, left or right, alive, dead, or waiting to be born." Baseball Magazine was supportive, pointing out that Speaker had results that backed up his system.
The 1921 Indians remained in a tight pennant race all year, finishing games behind the Yankees. The Indians did not seriously contend for the pennant from 1922 through 1925. Speaker led the league in doubles eight times, including every year between 1920 and 1923. He led the league's outfielders in fielding percentage in 1921 and 1922. On May 17, 1925, Speaker became the fifth member of the 3,000 hit club when he hit a single off pitcher Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators. Only Napoleon Lajoie had previously accomplished the feat as a member of the Indians.
AL President Ban Johnson asked Speaker and Detroit manager Cobb to resign their posts after a scandal broke in . Pitcher Dutch Leonard claimed that Speaker and Cobb fixed at least one game between Cleveland and Detroit. In a newspaper column published shortly before the hearings were to begin, Billy Evans characterized the accusations as "purely a matter of personal revenge" for Leonard. The pitcher was said to be upset with Cobb and Speaker after a trade ended with Leonard in the minor leagues. When Leonard refused to appear at the January 5, 1927, hearings to discuss his accusations, Commissioner Landis cleared both Speaker and Cobb of any wrongdoing. Both were reinstated to their original teams, but each team declared its manager free to sign elsewhere. Speaker did not return to big league managing and he finished his MLB managerial career with a 617–520 record.
At the time of his 1926 resignation, news reports described Speaker as permanently retiring from baseball to pursue business ventures. However, Speaker signed to play with the Washington Senators for . Cobb joined the Philadelphia Athletics. Speaker joined Cobb in Philadelphia for the season; he played part time and finished with a .267 average. Prior to that season, Speaker had not hit for a batting average below .300 since 1908.
Speaker's major league playing career ended after 1928. He retired with 792 doubles, an all-time career record. Defensively, Speaker holds the all-time career records for assists as an outfielder and double plays as an outfielder. He remains the last batter to hit 200 triples in a career.
Later life
In Speaker replaced Walter Johnson as the manager of the Newark Bears of the International League. In two seasons with Newark, he also appeared as a player in 59 games. When Speaker resigned during his second season, the Bears were in seventh place after a sixth-place finish in 1929. In January 1933 he became a part owner and manager of the Kansas City Blues. By May, Speaker had been replaced as manager but remained secretary of the club. By 1936, he had sold his share of the team. In 1937, Speaker was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during its second year of balloting. He was honored at the hall's first induction ceremony in 1939.
After his playing and managing days, Speaker was an entrepreneur and salesman. By 1937, Speaker had opened a wholesale liquor business and worked as a state sales representative for a steel company. He chaired Cleveland's boxing commission between 1936 and 1943. Newspaper coverage credited Speaker with several key reforms to boxing in Cleveland, including the recruitment of new officials and protections against fight fixing. Under Speaker, fight payouts went directly to boxers rather than managers. Speaker sorted out a scheduling conflict for a 1940 boxing match in Cleveland involving former middleweight champion Teddy Yarosz. Yarosz defeated Jimmy Reeves in ten rounds and the fight attracted over 8,300 spectators.
In 1937, Speaker sustained a 16-foot fall while working on a flower box near a second-story window at his home. Upon admission to the hospital, he underwent facial surgery. He was described as having "better than an even chance to live" and was suffering from a skull fracture, a broken arm and possible internal injuries. He ultimately recovered.
In 1939, Speaker was president of the National Professional Indoor Baseball League. The league had teams in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis. The league shut down operations due to poor attendance only two months after its formation. Speaker was one of the founders of Cleveland's Society for Crippled Children and he helped to promote the society's rehabilitation center, Camp Cheerful. Speaker served as vice president of the society, ran fundraising campaigns and received a distinguished service award from the organization. He became seriously ill with pneumonia in 1942. Speaker ultimately recovered, but Gay characterized Speaker's condition as "touch-and-go for several days".
In 1947, Speaker returned to baseball as "ambassador of good will" for Bill Veeck and the Cleveland Indians. He remained in advisory, coaching or scouting roles for the Indians until his death in 1958. In an article in the July 1952 issue of SPORT, Speaker recounted how Veeck hired him in 1947 to be a coaching consultant to Larry Doby, the first black player in the AL and the second in the major leagues. Before the Indians had signed Doby, he was the star second baseman of the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues. A SPORT photograph that accompanied the article shows Speaker mentoring five members of the Indians: Luke Easter, Jim Hegan, Ray Boone, Al Rosen and Doby. Speaker was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1951. Texas was the first state to establish a state sports hall of fame and Speaker was in its inaugural induction class.
Death
Speaker died of a heart attack on December 8, 1958, at the age of 70, at Lake Whitney, Texas. He collapsed as he and a friend were pulling their boat into the dock after a fishing trip. It was his second heart attack in four years. Speaker was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Hubbard, Texas.
After Speaker's death, Cobb said, "Terribly depressed. I never let him know how much I admired him when we were playing against each other... It was only after we finally became teammates and then retired that I could tell Tris Speaker of the underlying respect I had for him." Lajoie said, "He was one of the greatest fellows I ever knew, both as a baseball player and as a gentleman." Former Boston teammate Duffy Lewis said, "He was a team player. As great a hitter as he was, he wasn't looking out for his own average ... Speaker was the bell cow of our outfield. Harry Hooper and I would watch him and know how to play the hitters."
Legacy
Immediately after Speaker's death, the baseball field at the city park in Cleburne, Texas, was renamed in honor of Speaker. In 1961, the Tris Speaker Memorial Award was created by the Baseball Writers' Association of America to honor players or officials who make outstanding contributions to baseball. In 1999, he ranked number 27 on the Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. He was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Speaker is mentioned in the poem "Line-Up for Yesterday"'' by Ogden Nash.
In 2008, former baseball players' union chief Marvin Miller, trying to defend the recently retired catcher Mike Piazza against claims that he should not be elected to the Hall of Fame because of association with the use of steroids, on the basis that the Hall of Fame has various unsavory people in it, opined that Speaker should be removed from the Hall of Fame because of alleged membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Miller said, "Some of the early people inducted in the Hall were members of the Ku Klux Klan: Tris Speaker, Cap Anson, and some people suspect Ty Cobb as well. I think that by and large, the players, and certainly the ones I knew, are good people. But the Hall is full of villains." Miller's comment about Anson has no basis, other than speculating that he could have been a Klansman since he was a racist during his playing career, which ended in 1897, although he was umpiring games with black players by 1901, including featuring the all-black Columbia Giants. Miller, age 91 at the time the 2008 article appeared, is the earliest source for declaring that it is factual that Anson was a member of the Klan, based purely on an Internet search of sources that try to link Anson to the Klan. By contrast, Speaker-Cobb-Rogers Hornsby biographer Charles C. Alexander, a Klan expert in his general history writings, told fellow baseball author Marty Appel, apparently referring to the 1920s (Anson died in 1922), “As I’ve suggested in the biographies, it’s possible that they [Speaker, Cobb and Hornsby] were briefly in the Klan, which was very strong in Texas and especially in Fort Worth and Dallas. The Klan went all out to recruit prominent people in all fields, provided they were native born, Protestant and white.”
Baseball historian Bill James does not dispute this claim in apparently referring to Speaker and possibly Cobb, but says that the Klan had toned down its racist overtures during the 1920s and pulled in hundreds of thousands of men, including Hugo Black. James adds that Speaker was a staunch supporter of Doby when he broke the American League color barrier, working long hours with the former second baseman on how to play the outfield.
Regular season statistics
Managerial record
See also
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball player-managers
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball triples records
Notes
References
Further reading
Tris Speaker at the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
External links
1888 births
1958 deaths
American League batting champions
American League home run champions
Baseball players from Texas
Boston Americans players
Boston Red Sox players
Cleburne Railroaders players
Cleveland Indians coaches
Cleveland Indians managers
Cleveland Indians players
Houston Buffaloes players
Kansas City Blues (baseball) managers
Little Rock Travelers players
Major League Baseball player-managers
Major League Baseball center fielders
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Newark Bears (IL) players
People from Hubbard, Texas
Philadelphia Athletics players
Texas Wesleyan Rams baseball players
Washington Senators (1901–1960) players
Sp
Baseball coaches from Texas
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"The average directional movement index (ADX) was developed in 1978 by J. Welles Wilder as an indicator of trend strength in a series of prices of a financial instrument. ADX has become a widely used indicator for technical analysts, and is provided as a standard in collections of indicators offered by various trading platforms.\n\nCalculations\nThe ADX is a combination of two other indicators developed by Wilder, the positive directional indicator (abbreviated +DI) and negative directional indicator (-DI). \nThe ADX combines them and smooths the result with a smoothed moving average.\n\nTo calculate +DI and -DI, one needs price data consisting of high, low, and closing prices each period (typically each day). One first calculates the directional movement (+DM and -DM):\n\nUpMove = today's high − yesterday's high\nDownMove = yesterday's low − today's low\nif UpMove > DownMove and UpMove > 0, then +DM = UpMove, else +DM = 0\nif DownMove > UpMove and DownMove > 0, then -DM = DownMove, else -DM = 0\n\nAfter selecting the number of periods (Wilder used 14 days originally), +DI and -DI are:\n\n+DI = 100 times the smoothed moving average of (+DM) divided by average true range\n-DI = 100 times the smoothed moving average of (-DM) divided by average true range\n\nThe smoothed moving average is calculated over the number of periods selected, and the average true range is a smoothed average of the true ranges. Then:\n\nADX = 100 times the smoothed moving average of the absolute value of (+DI − -DI) divided by (+DI + -DI)\n\nVariations of this calculation typically involve using different types of moving averages, such as an exponential moving average, a weighted moving average or an adaptive moving average.\n\nInterpretation\nThe ADX does not indicate trend direction or momentum, only trend strength. It is a lagging indicator; that is, a trend must have established itself before the ADX will generate a signal that a trend is under way. ADX will range between 0 and 100. Generally, ADX readings below 20 indicate trend weakness, and readings above 40 indicate trend strength. An extremely strong trend is indicated by readings above 50. Alternative interpretations have also been proposed and accepted among technical analysts. For example it has been shown how ADX is a reliable coincident indicator of classical chart pattern development, whereby ADX readings below 20 occur just prior to pattern breakouts. The value of the ADX is proportional to the slope of the trend. The slope of the ADX line is proportional to the acceleration of the price movement (changing trend slope). If the trend is a constant slope then the ADX value tends to flatten out.\n\nTiming\n\nVarious market timing methods have been devised using ADX. One of these methods is discussed by Alexander Elder in his book Trading for a Living. One of the best buy signals is when ADX turns up when below both Directional Lines and +DI is above -DI. You would sell when ADX turns back down.\n\nReferences \n\nTechnical indicators",
"Diabetes insipidus (DI) is a condition characterized by large amounts of dilute urine and increased thirst. The amount of urine produced can be nearly 20 liters per day. Reduction of fluid has little effect on the concentration of the urine. Complications may include dehydration or seizures.\n\nThere are four types of DI, each with a different set of causes. Central DI (CDI) is due to a lack of the hormone vasopressin (antidiuretic hormone). This can be due to injury to the hypothalamus or pituitary gland or genetics. Nephrogenic DI (NDI) occurs when the kidneys do not respond properly to vasopressin. Dipsogenic DI is a result of excessive fluid intake due to damage to the hypothalamic thirst mechanism. It occurs more often in those with certain psychiatric disorders or on certain medications. Gestational DI occurs only during pregnancy. Diagnosis is often based on urine tests, blood tests and the fluid deprivation test. Diabetes insipidus is unrelated to diabetes mellitus and the conditions have a distinct mechanism, though both can result in the production of large amounts of urine.\n\nTreatment involves drinking sufficient fluids to prevent dehydration. Other treatments depend on the type. In central and gestational DI, treatment is with desmopressin. Nephrogenic DI may be treated by addressing the underlying cause or by the use of a thiazide, aspirin or ibuprofen. The number of new cases of diabetes insipidus each year is 3 in 100,000. Central DI usually starts between the ages of 10 and 20 and occurs in males and females equally. Nephrogenic DI can begin at any age. The term \"diabetes\" is derived from the Greek word meaning siphon.\n\nSigns and symptoms\nExcessive urination and extreme thirst and increased fluid intake (especially for cold water and sometimes ice or ice water) are typical for DI. The symptoms of excessive urination and extreme thirst are similar to what is seen in untreated diabetes mellitus, with the distinction that the urine does not contain glucose. Blurred vision is a rarity. Signs of dehydration may also appear in some individuals, since the body cannot conserve much (if any) of the water it takes in.\n\nExtreme urination continues throughout the day and the night. In children, DI can interfere with appetite, eating, weight gain and growth, as well. They may present with fever, vomiting or diarrhea. Adults with untreated DI may remain healthy for decades as long as enough water is consumed to offset the urinary losses. However, there is a continuous risk of dehydration and loss of potassium that may lead to hypokalemia.\n\nCause\nThe several forms of diabetes insipidus are:\n\nCentral\n\nCentral DI has many possible causes. According to the literature, the principal causes of central DI and their oft-cited approximate frequencies are as follows:\n Idiopathic – 30%\n Malignant or benign tumors of the brain or pituitary – 25%\n Cranial surgery – 20%\n Head trauma – 16%\n\nNephrogenic\n\nNephrogenic diabetes insipidus is due to the inability of the kidney to respond normally to vasopressin.\n\nDipsogenic\nDipsogenic DI or primary polydipsia results from excessive intake of fluids as opposed to deficiency of arginine vasopressin. It may be due to a defect or damage to the thirst mechanism, located in the hypothalamus, or due to mental illness. Treatment with desmopressin may lead to water intoxication.\n\nGestational\nGestational DI occurs only during pregnancy and the postpartum period. During pregnancy, women produce vasopressinase in the placenta, which breaks down antidiuretic hormone (ADH). Gestational DI is thought to occur with excessive production and/or impaired clearance of vasopressinase.\n\nMost cases of gestational DI can be treated with desmopressin (DDAVP), but not vasopressin. In rare cases, however, an abnormality in the thirst mechanism causes gestational DI, and desmopressin should not be used.\n\nDiabetes insipidus is also associated with some serious diseases of pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia, HELLP syndrome and acute fatty liver of pregnancy. These cause DI by impairing hepatic clearance of circulating vasopressinase. It is important to consider these diseases if a woman presents with diabetes insipidus in pregnancy, because their treatments require delivery of the baby before the disease will improve. Failure to treat these diseases promptly can lead to maternal or perinatal mortality.\n\nPathophysiology\nElectrolyte and volume homeostasis is a complex mechanism that balances the body's requirements for blood pressure and the main electrolytes sodium and potassium. In general, electrolyte regulation precedes volume regulation. When the volume is severely depleted, however, the body will retain water at the expense of deranging electrolyte levels.\n\nThe regulation of urine production occurs in the hypothalamus, which produces ADH in the supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei. After synthesis, the hormone is transported in neurosecretory granules down the axon of the hypothalamic neuron to the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland, where it is stored for later release. In addition, the hypothalamus regulates the sensation of thirst in the ventromedial nucleus by sensing increases in serum osmolarity and relaying this information to the cortex.\n\nNeurogenic/central DI results from a lack of ADH; occasionally it can present with decreased thirst as regulation of thirst and ADH production occur in close proximity in the hypothalamus. It is encountered as a result of hypoxic encephalopathy, neurosurgery, autoimmunity or cancer, or sometimes without an underlying cause (idiopathic).\n\nThe main effector organ for fluid homeostasis is the kidney. ADH acts by increasing water permeability in the collecting ducts and distal convoluted tubules; specifically, it acts on proteins called aquaporins and more specifically aquaporin 2 in the following cascade. When released, ADH binds to V2 G-protein coupled receptors within the distal convoluted tubules, increasing cyclic AMP, which couples with protein kinase A, stimulating translocation of the aquaporin 2 channel stored in the cytoplasm of the distal convoluted tubules and collecting ducts into the apical membrane. These transcribed channels allow water into the collecting duct cells. The increase in permeability allows for reabsorption of water into the bloodstream, thus concentrating the urine.\n\nNephrogenic DI results from lack of aquaporin channels in the distal collecting duct (decreased surface expression and transcription). It is seen in lithium toxicity, hypercalcemia, hypokalemia, or release of ureteral obstruction. Therefore, a lack of ADH prevents water reabsorption and the osmolarity of the blood increases. With increased osmolarity, the osmoreceptors in the hypothalamus detect this change and stimulate thirst. With increased thirst, the person now experiences a polydipsia and polyuria cycle. \n\nHereditary forms of diabetes insipidus account for less than 10% of the cases of diabetes insipidus seen in clinical practice.\n\nDiagnosis\nTo distinguish DI from other causes of excess urination, blood glucose levels, bicarbonate levels, and calcium levels need to be tested. Measurement of blood electrolytes can reveal a high sodium level (hypernatremia as dehydration develops). Urinalysis demonstrates a dilute urine with a low specific gravity. Urine osmolarity and electrolyte levels are typically low.\n\nA fluid deprivation test is another way of distinguishing DI from other causes of excessive urination. If there is no change in fluid loss, giving desmopressin can determine if DI is caused by:\n a defect in ADH production\n a defect in the kidneys' response to ADH\n\nThis test measures the changes in body weight, urine output, and urine composition when fluids are withheld to induce dehydration. The body's normal response to dehydration is to conserve water by concentrating the urine. Those with DI continue to urinate large amounts of dilute urine in spite of water deprivation. In primary polydipsia, the urine osmolality should increase and stabilize at above 280 mOsm/kg with fluid restriction, while a stabilization at a lower level indicates diabetes insipidus. Stabilization in this test means, more specifically, when the increase in urine osmolality is less than 30 Osm/kg per hour for at least three hours. Sometimes measuring blood levels of ADH toward the end of this test is also necessary, but is more time consuming to perform.\n\nTo distinguish between the main forms, desmopressin stimulation is also used; desmopressin can be taken by injection, a nasal spray, or a tablet. While taking desmopressin, a person should drink fluids or water only when thirsty and not at other times, as this can lead to sudden fluid accumulation in the central nervous system. If desmopressin reduces urine output and increases urine osmolarity, the hypothalamic production of ADH is deficient, and the kidney responds normally to exogenous vasopressin (desmopressin). If the DI is due to kidney pathology, desmopressin does not change either urine output or osmolarity (since the endogenous vasopressin levels are already high).\n\nWhilst diabetes insipidus usually occurs with polydipsia, it can also rarely occur not only in the absence of polydipsia but in the presence of its opposite, adipsia (or hypodipsia). \"Adipsic diabetes insipidus\" is recognised as a marked absence of thirst even in response to hyperosmolality. In some cases of adipsic DI, the person may also fail to respond to desmopressin.\n\nIf central DI is suspected, testing of other hormones of the pituitary, as well as magnetic resonance imaging, particularly a pituitary MRI, is necessary to discover if a disease process (such as a prolactinoma, or histiocytosis, syphilis, tuberculosis or other tumor or granuloma) is affecting pituitary function. Most people with this form have either experienced past head trauma or have stopped ADH production for an unknown reason.\n\nTreatment\nTreatment involves drinking sufficient fluids to prevent dehydration. Other treatments depend on the type. In central and gestational DI treatment is with desmopressin. Nephrogenic DI may be treated by addressing the underlying cause or the use of a thiazide, aspirin, or ibuprofen.\n\nCentral\nCentral DI and gestational DI respond to desmopressin which is given as intranasal or oral tablets. Carbamazepine, an anticonvulsive medication, has also had some success in this type of DI. Also, gestational DI tends to abate on its own four to six weeks following labor, though some women may develop it again in subsequent pregnancies. In dipsogenic DI, desmopressin is not usually an option.\n\nNephrogenic\nDesmopressin will be ineffective in nephrogenic DI which is treated by reversing the underlying cause (if possible) and replacing the free water deficit. A thiazide diuretic, such as chlorthalidone or hydrochlorothiazide, can be used to create mild hypovolemia which encourages salt and water uptake in proximal tubule and thus improve nephrogenic diabetes insipidus. Amiloride has additional benefit of blocking Na uptake. Thiazide diuretics are sometimes combined with amiloride to prevent hypokalemia caused by the thiazides. It seems paradoxical to treat an extreme diuresis with a diuretic, and the exact mechanism of action is unknown but the thiazide diuretics will decrease distal convoluted tubule reabsorption of sodium and water, thereby causing diuresis. This decreases plasma volume, thus lowering the glomerular filtration rate and enhancing the absorption of sodium and water in the proximal nephron. Less fluid reaches the distal nephron, so overall fluid conservation is obtained.\n\nLithium-induced nephrogenic DI may be effectively managed with the administration of amiloride, a potassium-sparing diuretic often used in conjunction with thiazide or loop diuretics. Clinicians have been aware of lithium toxicity for many years, and traditionally have administered thiazide diuretics for lithium-induced polyuria and nephrogenic diabetes insipidus. However, amiloride has recently been shown to be a successful treatment for this condition.\n\nEtymology \nThe word \"diabetes\" ( or ) comes from Latin diabētēs, which in turn comes from Ancient Greek διαβήτης (diabētēs) which literally means \"a passer through; a siphon\". Ancient Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia (fl. in the first century CE) used that word, with the intended meaning \"excessive discharge of urine\", as the name for the disease. Ultimately, the word comes from Greek διαβαίνειν (diabainein), meaning \"to pass through\", which is composed of δια- (dia-), meaning \"through\" and βαίνειν (bainein), meaning \"to go\". The word \"diabetes\" is first recorded in English, in the form \"diabete\", in a medical text written around 1425.\n\n\"Insipidus\" comes from Latin language insipidus (tasteless), from Latin: in- \"not\" + sapidus \"tasty\" from sapere \"have a taste\" — the full meaning is \"lacking flavor or zest; not tasty\". Application of this name to DI arose from the fact that diabetes insipidus does not cause glycosuria (excretion of glucose into the urine).\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\nEndocrine diseases\nNephrology\nRare diseases\nThirst\nWikipedia medicine articles ready to translate\nWikipedia neurology articles ready to translate"
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"Clay Aiken",
"Faith and philosophy"
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Where was he a MC and performer?
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Where was Clay Aiken a MC and performer?
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Clay Aiken
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Aiken was born into a Baptist family. As a toddler, in 1980, he attended Leesville Baptist Church every week. According to his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, he was involved in Bible school, choir, and the youth group. The book made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2004, debuting at number two. It was written with Allison Glock and published by Random House. Barely mentioning American Idol, Aiken instead turned his focus to the people who had the most influence in his life - his mother, grandparents, siblings, teachers, and friends - and to the importance of religion in his life. He describes himself as a proud Southern Baptist who journeyed away from those roots in his late teens in search of a religion with more liberal social policies. He then returned to that church because of family and social ties although he remains at odds with the church on some issues. When asked in a PBS Kids interview to name his idols, he responded, "When people ask me what three people I'd like to have dinner with, living or dead, I say Jesus Christ, Mr. Rogers, and Jimmy Carter." While not self-identified as a Christian music artist, Aiken was featured in Christian Music Planet as an "American Idol Christian" in 2004, and in a cover story, "Clay Aiken's Balancing Act", in the January/February 2005 issue. His pre-Idol demo albums included several selections of Contemporary Christian Music (or CCM) and gospel songs. A performance of the Commodores' "Jesus is Love" at the American Music Awards in 2003 earned Aiken and Ruben Studdard a standing ovation. Aiken has sung a few CCM songs at his pop concerts, and has made Christmas albums, Christmas television specials and performances, and Christmas tours essential elements of his career. Aiken makes it clear that he is aware not everyone shares his religious beliefs and it is not his intention to press these beliefs on others. When he worked as a camp counselor at the YMCA, he challenged other camp faculty by insisting that singing "overtly Christian songs" was inappropriate, as some of the kids were Jewish. "I stood firm... no child is going to have a spiritual crisis on my watch." His public philosophy, geared towards inclusion and service to others, reflects his stance that decisions about religion should be made at home. CANNOTANSWER
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Clayton Holmes Aiken (né Grissom) (born November 30, 1978) is an American singer, television personality, actor, political candidate, and activist. Aiken finished second place on the second season of American Idol in 2003, and his debut album, Measure of a Man, went multi-platinum. He released four more albums on the RCA label, Merry Christmas with Love (2004), A Thousand Different Ways (2006), the Christmas EP All is Well (2006), and On My Way Here (2008). Since then he has released two more albums, both with Decca Records: Tried and True (2010) and Steadfast (2012). Aiken has also had eleven tours in support of his albums. In all, he has sold over 5 million albums, and is the fourth-highest-selling American Idol alumnus.
Aiken co-wrote a bestselling memoir in 2004, Learning to Sing. In 2004 he also had a televised Christmas special, A Clay Aiken Christmas. During much of 2008 he appeared on Broadway in the musical comedy Spamalot, in the role of Sir Robin. In 2010 he hosted the PBS special Tried & True Live!. He has also had numerous cameo and guest appearances on TV shows. In 2012 he competed in the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice, coming in second to Arsenio Hall.
With Diane Bubel, Aiken created the Bubel/Aiken Foundation in 2003, which was later renamed the National Inclusion Project. In 2004 he became a UNICEF ambassador, a position he held until 2013 when he gave it up in order to run for Congress. He traveled extensively in this role. In 2006, he was appointed for a two-year term to the Presidential Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.
In 2014, Aiken ran for the United States House of Representatives in North Carolina's 2nd congressional district. He won the Democratic primary, but lost to Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers in the general election. In January 2022, he announced a run for the Democratic nomination in North Carolina's 6th congressional district.
Early life
Clay Aiken was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a young boy, Aiken sang in the Raleigh Boychoir; and, as a teenager, he sang in school choirs, church choir, musicals and local theatre productions. After high school, he sang lead with a local band, Just By Chance, co-hosting and performing with the band at "Just by Chance and Friends" shows in Dunn, North Carolina. He was also MC and performer at the Johnston Community College Country Showcase in Smithfield and at the North Carolina Music Connection and Hometown Music Connection shows in Garner, and Benson. He performed the national anthem numerous times for the Raleigh IceCaps and the Carolina Hurricanes hockey teams, and performed it at the 2011 NHL All-Star Game at the RBC Center in Raleigh. Three demo albums of Aiken's vocals were created before American Idol with the aid of studio time given as a birthday gift by his mother: a cassette called Look What Love Has Done (by Clayton Grissom), a cassette and CD entitled Redefined (by Clayton Aiken), and a CD that combined some songs from each of the previous demos: "Look What Love Has Done, Vol 2" (by Clay Aiken). Estranged from his abusive birth father Vernon Grissom and with his mother's and grandfather Alvis Aiken's permission, at the age of 19 he legally changed his surname from Grissom to his mother Faye's maiden name, Aiken.
Aiken attended Raleigh's Leesville Road High School and took courses at Campbell University before enrolling at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In 1995, Aiken started working at the YMCA. Still in high school, Aiken learned quickly that he could make a difference in the lives of young people. He found his interest in special education while directing YMCA children's camps as a teenager, and at age 19, he served as a substitute teacher for a classroom of autistic students at Brentwood Elementary School in Raleigh. It was during that experience that he decided to finish college and become a special education teacher. While attending college in Charlotte, he took a part-time job as an assistant to a boy with autism, and it was this child's mother, Diane Bubel, who urged him to audition for American Idol. Although his American Idol activities temporarily delayed his academic pursuits, Aiken completed his course work while on tour and graduated with a bachelor's degree in special education in December 2003.
Personal life
On August 8, 2008, Aiken announced, on his personal blog, the birth of his son in North Carolina: "My dear friend, Jaymes, and I are so excited to announce the birth of Parker Foster Aiken." The child's mother, Jaymes Foster, is the sister of record producer David Foster, executive producer of Aiken's last three albums on the RCA label. "The little man is healthy, happy, and as loud as his daddy", Aiken wrote. "Mama Jaymes is doing quite well also." In his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, Aiken said, "It's a Southern tradition to be given your first name from your grandmama's maiden name." Aiken's middle name came from his paternal grandmother's maiden name; he and Foster used the married surnames of their mothers to name their son.
Public declaration of being gay
After several years of public speculation, Aiken came out as gay in a September 2008 interview with People magazine. In April 2009, Aiken was honored by the Family Equality Council advocacy group at its annual benefit dinner in New York City.
On November 18, 2010, Aiken went to Washington, D.C., on behalf of Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) at a Capitol Hill briefing talking about anti-gay bullying.
Faith and philosophy
Aiken was born into a Baptist family. As a toddler, in 1980, he attended Leesville Baptist Church every week. According to his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, he was involved in Bible school, choir, and the youth group. The book made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2004, debuting at number two. It was written with Allison Glock and published by Random House. Barely mentioning American Idol, Aiken instead turned his focus to the people who had the most influence in his life – his mother, grandparents, siblings, teachers, and friends – and to the importance of religion in his life. He describes himself as a proud Southern Baptist who journeyed away from those roots in his late teens in search of a religion with more liberal social policies. He then returned to that church because of family and social ties although he remains at odds with the church on some issues.
When asked in a PBS Kids interview to name his idols, he responded, "When people ask me what three people I'd like to have dinner with, living or dead, I say Jesus Christ, Mr. Rogers, and Jimmy Carter."
While not self-identified as a Christian music artist, Aiken was featured in Christian Music Planet as an "American Idol Christian" in 2004, and in a cover story, "Clay Aiken's Balancing Act", in the January/February 2005 issue. His pre-Idol demo albums included several selections of Contemporary Christian Music (or CCM) and gospel songs. A performance of the Commodores' "Jesus is Love" at the American Music Awards in 2003 earned Aiken and Ruben Studdard a standing ovation. Aiken has sung a few CCM songs at his pop concerts and has made Christmas albums, Christmas television specials and performances, and Christmas tours essential elements of his career.
Aiken makes it clear that he is aware not everyone shares his religious beliefs and it is not his intention to press these beliefs on others. When he worked as a camp counselor at the YMCA, he challenged other camp faculty by insisting that singing "overtly Christian songs" was inappropriate, as some of the kids were Jewish. "I stood firm ... no child is going to have a spiritual crisis on my watch." His public philosophy, geared towards inclusion and service to others, reflects his stance that decisions about religion should be made at home.
American Idol
Aiken had filled out an application to participate in the reality show The Amazing Race when a friend of his insisted that he try out for American Idol instead. Television viewers first glimpsed Aiken during the audition episodes at the beginning of American Idol's second season. The show's judges first saw Aiken as a nerdy type unlikely to be a typical pop idol, but after hearing him sing Heatwave's "Always and Forever" decided to advance him to the next round. The clip of the judges' surprise during this audition performance was replayed many times over the course of the competition.
Aiken made it to the round of 32 before being cut from the show, but he was invited to return for the "Wild Card" round; his performance of Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" sent him on to the final 12 as the viewer's choice. While noted for his performance of ballads, such as Neil Sedaka's "Solitaire", his upbeat performances, including the Foundations' "Build Me Up Buttercup", were also appreciated. Aiken received enough votes every week to keep him out of the bottom three. Part of his appeal was his "geek to chic" transformation in appearance. "I looked like Opie", Aiken said to People magazine regarding his appearance at his American Idol audition in 2002. He replaced his glasses with contact lenses and agreed to let the show's stylists change his hair style. With longer, flat ironed, spiky hair and a penchant for wearing striped shirts, Aiken had established a trademark look by the final American Idol season 2 show.
On May 21, 2003, Aiken came in a close second to Ruben Studdard, who won the contest by 134,000 votes out of more than 24,000,000 votes cast. The result was controversial, as some hypothesized that Idol voting system was incapable of handling the number of attempted calls. In an interview prior to the start of the fifth season of American Idol, Executive Producer Nigel Lythgoe revealed for the first time that Aiken had led the fan voting every week from the Wild Card week to the finale, when the possibly-random voting result gave Studdard the win.
Rolling Stone featured Aiken on the cover of its July 2003 issue. In the cover article, Aiken said, "One thing I've found of people in the public eye, either you're a womanizer or you've got to be gay. Since I'm neither one of those, people are completely concerned about me." In subsequent interviews he expressed frustration over continued questions about his sexual orientation, telling People magazine in 2006, "It doesn't matter what I say. People are going to believe what they want."
Aiken made a surprise appearance on the final show of the fifth season of American Idol, when failed auditioner Michael Sandecki returned to the show to receive a "Golden Idol" award for Best Impersonator for his Clay Aiken-like appearance. Aiken appeared without introduction in a well-tailored designer suit and longer, darker hair with bangs, looking so different that many did not recognize him until he began to sing "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me".
The second season of the American Idol Rewind series (2007) was narrated by Aiken.
Aiken is reportedly one of the top 10 earners of Idol, earning an estimated $1.5 million in 2010.
American Idol season 2 performances and results
Due to Corey Clark's disqualification, the Top 9 performances became Top 8 when no one was eliminated.
Music
2003–2004: Measure of a Man
On October 14, 2003, Aiken released his first solo album, Measure of a Man, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with 613,000 copies sold in its first week, the highest-selling debut for a solo artist in 10 years. The album received RIAA Double Platinum certification on November 17, 2003 (a Double Platinum plaque was presented to Aiken by Clive Davis on October 22, 2003, during Good Morning America). The album spawned both the hit single "Invisible" and his first hit song, "This Is the Night" (both co-written by British songwriter Chris Braide). Later that year, Aiken won the Fan's Choice Award at the American Music Awards ceremony, and his CD single "This Is The Night/Bridge Over Troubled Water" won the Billboard award for the Best-Selling Single of 2003.
2004–2006: Merry Christmas With Love
On November 16, 2004, Aiken released a holiday album titled Merry Christmas with Love, which set a new record for fastest-selling holiday album in the Soundscan era (since 1991). The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and tied Céline Dion's record for the highest debut by a holiday album in the history of Billboard magazine. Merry Christmas with Love sold over 1,000,000 copies retail in six weeks and was the best-selling holiday album of 2004, receiving RIAA Platinum certification on January 6, 2005.
2006–2008: A Thousand Different Ways And All Is Well
Aiken's second studio album, A Thousand Different Ways, was released September 19, 2006. He worked on the album under the guidance of Canadian producer and A&R executive Jaymes Foster. The album contains ten cover songs and four new songs, one of which Aiken co-wrote. Clive Davis is credited with the cover concept. One additional song, "Lover All Alone", written by Aiken and David Foster, is included with the album on iTunes. Debuting at number two on the Billboard chart, A Thousand Different Ways made Aiken the fourth artist ever to have his first three albums debut in the Top 5 and scan over 200,000 in the first week.
Aiken's second Christmas album, All Is Well (an EP of four Christmas songs), was released exclusively to Walmart on November 28, 2006, and was released to iTunes as a digital download in December 2007.
2008–2009: On My Way Here
Aiken stated in an April 2007 interview with People that he was planning a new album, and during his May 2007 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he mentioned that he was in Los Angeles interviewing producers for the new album. Aiken found a song, "On My Way Here", written by OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder, that struck a chord with him and became the inspiration for the album's theme in addition to the album title. For a cohesive sound, Aiken chose Mark 'Kipper' Eldridge to produce the entire album. On My Way Here was released May 6, 2008, on the RCA label.
According to an article posted on Billboard, Aiken and RCA parted ways shortly after his On My Way Here album was released.
Aiken's rep confirmed to People magazine that Aiken left RCA. Stated in the cited People article, "The buzz about Aiken's exit was fueled earlier this week when his picture disappeared online and Billboard, citing unnamed sources, reported Friday that Aiken, 30, had been dropped by the label. According to Billboard, Aiken's 2008 album "On My Way Here" sold just 159,000 copies in the U.S., compared to his 2003 debut album, "Measure of a Man", which sold 2.78 million copies".
A fifth album, The Very Best of Clay Aiken, was released at the end of March 2009 on Sony's Legacy Recordings Playlist Series. This album was a compilation of songs that had been included on the previous albums released by RCA. First week sales of 3000 copies placed Playlist: The Very Best of Clay Aiken at number 173 on the Billboard 200 chart and at number ten on the Top Internet Albums chart.
2009–2011: Tried and True
On August 10, 2009, it was announced on Aiken's official website that he had signed with Decca Records and he would have new music out by early 2010. Performing the songs from his new album, Tried and True, Aiken held a one night only concert at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh, North Carolina on March 12, 2010. The concert, filmed for PBS broadcast, included guest appearances by Ruben Studdard and Linda Eder. Eder joined Aiken on stage for their duet of "Crying", which they recorded for his album. The album was released on June 1, 2010 and features songs popular in the 1950s and 1960s, including two Aiken covered during his run on American Idol, "Mack the Knife" and "Unchained Melody". In conjunction with the PBS special a companion DVD, Tried & True Live!, was released on July 27, 2010. A tour to promote the album is planned for early 2014.
2011–present: Steadfast
On December 20, 2011, Aiken released a new single, "Bring Back My Love" under the Decca Label. The single is his first original song since the release of his album On My Way Here in 2008. On March 27, 2012 Aiken released Steadfast, a new album of previous recordings and songs only sung in concerts. The album debuted at #120 on the Billboard 200 chart with sales of 4,000 in the first week.
Television
Aiken has made many television appearances.
On Labor Day 2003, Aiken sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water" at the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon and received a standing ovation from the audience. Lewis compared Aiken with Frank Sinatra and marveled at the dedication of Aiken's fan base:
That same year, Aiken sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the opening night of the 2003 World Series and appeared in numerous television specials during the winter of 2003, including Disney's Christmas Day Parade and the Nick at Nite Holiday Special, where he sang the "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" with Bing Crosby via special effects.
Aiken starred in and executive produced his first TV special (December 2004), titled A Clay Aiken Christmas, with special guests Barry Manilow, Yolanda Adams, and Megan Mullally; the special was released on DVD later that month. On July 4, 2004, Aiken was one of the performers in the A Capitol Fourth concert in Washington, D.C. and performed in the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series in 2004 and 2005. He also sang "Isn't She Lovely" on the popular television show Scrubs.
Aiken was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 2004 and participated in several skits. He has appeared multiple times on The Tonight Show, interviewing with Jay Leno as a guest in addition to singing, and has become a regular guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The Kimmel appearances often feature skits: in one, Jimmy Kimmel's then girlfriend Sarah Silverman confessed to an affair with Aiken, and in another, Aiken expressed his distaste for Kimmel's jokes about him by beating him up. In May 2007, he spent the first half of his interview on horseback while talking about his recent UNICEF trip to Afghanistan. A few weeks later he appeared as a spokesperson for "Guillermo's Mustache" in Kimmel's fictional DVD informercial shown on the Dancing With the Stars finale. Aiken made his acting debut on Ed in early 2004, playing himself, and in 2005, he was interviewed by Erica Kane on All My Children. He played the role of cafeteria worker Kenny on the Scrubs episode "My Life in Four Cameras". In December 2006, he made an appearance as himself on Days of Our Lives.
After hosting and performing in the American Idol Christmas special in 2003, Aiken has had several subsequent hosting jobs. He was a special correspondent for The Insider for the 2005 Emmy Awards, and on the sets of the sitcom Reba with Reba McEntire and Dancing With the Stars. He co-hosted The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet in 2006, and on November 17, 2006, filled in for Regis Philbin as guest host on Live with Regis and Kelly. During an interview, Aiken covered Kelly Ripa's mouth with his hand. The incident drew considerable media reaction after Ripa complained at length about the incident on her show the following Monday. Aiken made fun of the controversy on the 2006 American Music Awards the next night with Tori Spelling. On The Tyra Banks Show in 2006, filmed before the Ripa incident, Aiken mentioned wanting to have his own talk show someday, and Banks switched seats with him and let him interview her for one segment of the show. Aiken was a guest judge on the April 8, 2009, segment of Banks show America's Next Top Model; in what the show refers to as a teach, he worked with the remaining eight contestants on their acting skills prior to the judging.
In November 2007, Aiken was a contestant on a celebrity edition of the game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?. Playing for his charity, the National Inclusion Project, he chose to drop out after the ninth question with US$300,000, despite having a copy and a save at his disposal. If he had played the tenth question, he would have won US$500,000; Aiken and the 5th grader playing with him both had the correct answer.
In May 2009, Aiken made a guest appearance on 30 Rock in the season 3 episode "Kidney Now!". It was revealed in this episode that he is the cousin of the show's character Kenneth.
In August 2010, Aiken guest starred in an episode of Phineas and Ferb, called "Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs To You!". Aiken sang an inspirational duet with Chaka Khan, to encourage those who did not believe that Phineas and Ferb could accomplish their goal of circling the globe faster than the sun, thus creating the longest summer day of all time.
On January 30, 2011, Aiken sang the United States' national anthem at the 2011 NHL All-Star game held at the RBC Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, home of the Carolina Hurricanes.
On July 24, 2011, Aiken guest starred on the comedy drama series Drop Dead Diva.
In 2012, Aiken was the runner-up on the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice, raising US$361,500 for the National Inclusion Project.
Aiken appeared in one of the last episodes of The Office, titled "A.A.R.M.". He played himself and was one of the judges for a reality show that Andy was auditioning for.
In 2013, Aiken guest starred on an episode Law & Order: Special Victims Unit along with Taylor Hicks and Ashanti, playing themselves as judges for a singing contest on the episode called "Dissonant Voices".
Broadway
On January 18, 2008, Aiken made his Broadway debut when he joined the cast of Monty Python's Spamalot for a four-month run, ending on May 4, 2008. He played Sir Robin, in the Tony Award-winning musical directed by Mike Nichols. In addition to Sir Robin, Aiken played the 1st Guard and the Brother Maynard roles. On August 12, 2008, it was announced that Aiken would resume his role as Sir Robin beginning on September 19 and ending on January 4, 2009. On December 23, 2008, Aiken had his caricature unveiled at world-famous Sardi's restaurant. In December 2018, Aiken and Ruben Studdard starred in Ruben & Clay's First Annual Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Christmas Show on Broadway.
Other theater work
In May 2013, Aiken starred as "Man in Chair" in North Carolina Theatre's production of The Drowsy Chaperone, along with fellow Raleigh native and Tony Award winner Beth Leavel, who reprised her role as "The Chaperone".
During the summer of 2013, Aiken performed the role of Joseph in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine.
In June 2019, Aiken starred as Teen Angel in Grease at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "The energy level is high, but there's no question it steps up a notch when Clay Aiken struts out in the second act and gives Pittsburgh a taste of why his Claymates are hopelessly devoted to the former American Idol." "As 'Teen Angel' in the Pittsburgh CLO's production of Grease, Aiken is only on stage for about five minutes. Those five minutes, however, are fab-u-lous."
Tours
From February through April 2004, Aiken and Kelly Clarkson embarked on the Independent Tour as co-headliners. Following this tour, he was scheduled for a few summer solo tour dates, but demand ultimately led to the booking of 50 dates across the United States, resulting in what many fans called the "Not-A-Tour". Disney (Buena Vista) was the exclusive sponsor of this unnamed summer tour, promoting their Aladdin Special Edition 2-Disc DVD with a preview of Aiken's rendition of "Proud of Your Boy", a song originally intended for the first release of the film but cut when the Aladdin storyline changed during production. A music video featuring Aiken is on the Aladdin Special Edition DVD. On this tour, he also performed a duet, "Without You", which was released on Kimberley Locke's 2004 debut album One Love.
In November 2004, Aiken launched his third tour of the year, which revolved around a Christmas theme. "The Joyful Noise Tour", sponsored by Ronald McDonald House Charities, featured a conductor and a 30-piece orchestra. In some cities, Aiken was supported by the local philharmonic or symphony, such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Local choirs from high schools and elementary schools also participated at each concert.
During the summer of 2005, Aiken, with a seven-piece band and three back-up singers, toured with the "Jukebox Tour", performing songs of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, as well as a few favorites from Measure of a Man. He also performed a few new songs being considered for his next album.
In early November 2005, Aiken launched his second Christmas tour. The 2005 Joyful Noise tour featured a series of vignettes, written by Aiken, which told the story of an older woman who had lost the Christmas spirit and a young boy who helps her find it again. A cast of actors, dancers and back-up singers traveled with the tour, and members of local theater groups were added in each venue for smaller, non-speaking roles and crowd scenes. The tour opened in Vancouver, British Columbia, on November 2, and ended in Clearwater, Florida on December 30. According to Pollstar, Aiken's first five tours grossed $28 million.
In December 2006, Aiken began his third Christmas tour, comprising performances in 18 Midwest and East Coast cities. Aiken was supported by local orchestras, which also opened the concerts with a program of seasonal music.
A 23-date tour in support of his third album, A Thousand Different Ways, began on July 4, 2007, and ended in Orlando, Florida, on August 19. On this tour Aiken hired local symphonies to back him, along with tour regulars Jesse Vargas, pianist, conductor and arranger; Sean McDaniel, drummer; and Quiana Parler and Angela Fisher, backup singers. Stops included the Greek Theatre (Los Angeles), Chautauqua Institution in New York, and the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. Three days into the tour, Aiken and a woman were involved in an in-flight altercation in which she allegedly shoved him. As a result of the scuffle, Aiken and the woman were later questioned by the FBI. Aiken told Entertainment Tonight that he had been sleeping when the incident occurred.
His fourth annual Christmas tour, "Christmas in the Heartland", began on November 26, 2007, in Wichita, Kansas. That 21-date tour ended on December 22, 2007, in Merrillville, Indiana.
He has ended all of his Christmas tours with his signature Christmas song, "Don't Save It All For Christmas Day".
Aiken and Ruben Studdard brought their "Timeless" tour to cities in the US and Canada beginning in Asheville, North Carolina, on July 23, 2010, and ending in Biloxi, Mississippi, on August 14. Instead of a concert focusing on each singers recordings, Aiken and Studdard opted for a variety show format covering medleys of songs from the 1960s to the 1990s with a few solos and interspersed with comedy bits.
Aiken announced on July 30, 2010, that he will be touring in February and March 2011 in conjunction with PBS to support his album Tried and True and accompanying live DVD Clay Aiken: Tried and True – Live.
Aiken began his fifth Christmas tour "Joyful Noise 2012" in Florida in November 2012.
Activism
In 1995, Aiken started working at the YMCA.
At 19, Aiken taught at Brentwood Elementary School in a class of kids with autism. It was during that experience that he decided to finish college and become a special education teacher.
Aiken has participated in multiple benefit events and concerts, including the 2004 Rosalynn Carter Benefit, the America's Promise Benefit, and Heather Headley's Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit, "Home", where he sang a duet with Headley. He was one of the celebrity readers for the Arthur Celebrity Audiobook (Stories for Heroes Series), which benefits the Bubel/Aiken Foundation (now the National Inclusion Project) and other charities, and served as spokesperson for the series. He was also a spokesperson for the 2004 Toys For Tots drive, and acted as an ambassador for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Aiken worked with the Make A Wish Foundation to make one little boy's dream of singing on stage with Clay Aiken come true.
In September 2006, Aiken was appointed to the Presidential Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities by President George W. Bush. Appointees serve a two-year term; Aiken was sworn on September 14, 2006, by HHS Assistant Secretary for Children and Families Wade F. Horn, PhD
While appearing in Spamalot, Aiken used his free time and celebrity to help raise funds for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) during their fund drives and auctions. In 2010, Aiken spoke out for gay rights at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in North Carolina. He also joined other celebrities in filming an educational video for Cyndi Lauper's web based Give a Damn campaign, a project of her True Colors Fund. In addition to UNICEF and his National Inclusion Project he is promoting GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network as one of his causes on his official website.
National Inclusion Project (formerly BAF)
Aiken's interest in autism issues led him, along with Diane Bubel (whose son Michael is diagnosed with autism and was tutored by Aiken), to found the National Inclusion Project (formerly the Bubel/Aiken Foundation), which supports the integration of children with disabilities into the life environment of their non-disabled peers. The foundation runs summer camps which reflect its mission, and also presents Able to Serve awards to support the volunteer efforts of children with physical and mental disabilities. In July 2005, Raleigh's WRAL-TV reported on an internet campaign mounted by critics questioning how Aiken's foundation used its money. WRAL news hired an independent accountant who reported that program services totaled $920,000 in 2004—around 85 cents on every dollar donated—which is considered a solid percentage compared to other charities. CNN picked up the story, and Aiken appeared on Showbiz Tonight to provide details about the foundation's programs. In late 2004, the foundation was awarded a $500,000 grant by the US government to develop a K–12 model for inclusion in community service projects to be used in schools across the country. In addition, State Farm granted $1.5 million to the foundation to help develop a primary education curriculum focused on teaching social and life skills through service to children of all levels of ability.
On August 5, 2009, in an open letter from the founders, Clay Aiken and Diane Bubel announced that they would rename the organization as the "National Inclusion Project".
UNICEF
In November 2004, Aiken was appointed a U.S. Fund for UNICEF National Ambassador, with a mission to help ensure that children everywhere are afforded a primary education. After the tsunami at the end of 2004, he participated in the NBC4 telethon, which raised over $10 million, and recorded public service announcements in support of South Asian tsunami relief. He later recorded a video, featuring the song "Give A Little Bit", to be used as a public service announcement to raise money for tsunami victims. He was the 2005 spokesperson for the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF drive.
In March 2005, UNICEF sent Aiken to the tsunami-stricken Banda Aceh area to raise awareness of the need to restore education quickly to the children who survived this disaster. UNICEF sent Aiken on another mission in May 2005, to northern Uganda, to witness the plight of children called "night commuters", who flee the villages each night to sleep in streets and shelters in hopes of avoiding being kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army. He was sent to Kabul and Bamyan, in Afghanistan in April 2007, where he was able to spend time with children in their classrooms; he also visited a health center for women and children where he administered oral polio vaccinations to babies. He observed that Afghani children, after being forbidden for so many years by the Taliban regime to attend school, are eager to return to school now that they are once again allowed to receive an education. Aiken spent his 2007 Christmas in Mexico with the children affected by the floods in the states of Chiapas and Tabasco. In late June and early July 2008, UNICEF sent Aiken to Somalia and Kenya.
Politics
2014 Congressional election
In the 2014 midterm elections, Aiken was the Democratic Party's candidate for North Carolina's 2nd congressional district. He won the Democratic primary, held on May 6, 2014, by fewer than 400 votes. His main opponent, Keith Crisco, died days after the primary vote but before the votes could be certified. In the general election, held on November 4, 2014, Aiken was defeated by incumbent Republican Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, 59 to 41 percent. North Carolina's 2nd district is considered a safe Republican seat. Aiken's campaign was captured by a filmmaking team and shown in the 2015 documentary miniseries The Runner-Up, which aired on the Esquire Network.
Since coming out as gay in 2008, Aiken has been more politically outspoken, particularly on gay rights and same-sex marriage. He spoke out against North Carolina Amendment 1, adopted in 2012, which banned gay marriage and civil unions in the state. When he ran for Congress, however, he said he did not want to be perceived as a single-issue candidate and said gay marriage was "not the issue" he was campaigning on. He said he wanted to focus on issues that were more important to people in his district. His assertion earned him a number of critics among supporters of same-sex marriage, including Bill Maher.
Citing his appearance on The Apprentice, Aiken defended Donald Trump against accusations of racism during the 2016 presidential race. However, following the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aiken tweeted an apology for denying Trump was racist, going so far to say, "I'm a fucking dumbass." Aiken reiterated that he was a Democrat and did not vote for Trump.
2022 Congressional election
In January 2022, Aiken released a video titled "Warming Up", in which he announced that he would run for the Democratic nomination in North Carolina's 6th congressional district. In this video, Aiken is quoted as saying, "If the loudest and most hateful voices think they are going to speak for us, just tell them I'm warming up the old vocal chords."
Sara Pacqueño, a member of the Raleigh-based The News & Observer editorial board, criticized Aiken for jumping into the race when other Democratic candidates had more political experience and questioned "what has he done to serve North Carolina?"
Electoral history
Fans
Aiken was voted the Favorite Reality Star of 2003 by TV Guide readers and "the most-loved reality star of all time" in a TV Guide poll conducted in the summer of 2005. In February 2006, People magazine readers voted Aiken their "Favorite American Idol".
While the origin of the term "Claymates" is unknown, Aiken trademarked the term. While in Los Angeles in September 2006 for a CD signing and appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Aiken talked with Jann Carl of Entertainment Tonight about the names various sub-groups have given themselves: "Claysians" (Asian fans), "Claynadians" (Canadian fans), "Clayropeans" (European fans) and "Claydawgs" (male fans). She then teased him about having his own "Clay Nation". At the CD signing, two young fans asked Aiken to autograph their shoulderblades and then went to the local tattoo parlor to make them permanent; later that day on Jimmy Kimmel Live! they were brought on stage to show the tattoos. Although some of his fans have been criticized at times by the media as being obsessive, he defends the group as a whole. When Kimmel said to Aiken that his fans were "crazy", Aiken stated that they were merely "enthusiastic". In 2003, in anticipation of the release of Measure of a Man, fans all over the country decided to get together and hold parties to celebrate the release of the CD and purchase copies at midnight. In 2006, for the release of A Thousand Different Ways, release parties were held in more than 80 cities in the United States, Canada, and Singapore.
Discography
Studio albums
Measure of a Man (2003)
Merry Christmas with Love (2004)
A Thousand Different Ways (2006)
On My Way Here (2008)
Tried and True (2010)
Steadfast (2012)
EPs
All Is Well (2006)
Compilations
The Very Best of Clay Aiken (2009)
A Thousand Different Ways/Measure of a Man (2010)
DVDs
A Clay Aiken Christmas (2004)
Tried and True Live (2010)
Awards and nominations
Professional
American Music Awards
2003: Won – Fan's Choice Award
2003: Nominated – Favorite Male Artist – Pop or Rock
Billboard Awards
2003: Won – Best Selling Single of 2003 – "Bridge Over Troubled Water/This Is The Night"
2004: Won – Best Selling Christmas Album – Merry Christmas with Love
2004: Won – Best Selling Christian Album – Merry Christmas with Love
2005: Won – Best Selling Christian Album – Merry Christmas with Love
New Music Weekly Awards
2004: Won – Top 40 Male Artist of the Year
American Christian Music Awards
2005: Won – Outstanding Yule CD – Merry Christmas with Love
Achievement
2005 Robert M. Barg Memorial Achievement Award
2006 UNC Charlotte Alumni Association Outstanding Young Alumnus Award
2007 National Center for Learning Disabilities' Children's Advocacy Award
2009 The Family Circle Award from the Family Equality Council
See also
List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
List of Decca Records artists
List of number-one hits (United States)
List of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
References
External links
Official websites
Decca Records – Clay Aiken
Clay Aiken – UNICEF Celebrity Ambassador
Reference sites
Clay Aiken at Rolling Stone
19 Recordings artists
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American singers
21st-century American male singers
Activists from North Carolina
American Idol participants
American male non-fiction writers
American male pop singers
21st-century American memoirists
Autism activists
Baptists from North Carolina
Campbell University alumni
Candidates in the 2014 United States elections
Decca Records artists
American gay actors
American gay musicians
Gay politicians
American gay writers
Leesville Road High School alumni
LGBT Baptists
LGBT memoirists
LGBT people from North Carolina
LGBT politicians from the United States
LGBT rights activists from the United States
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Living people
Male actors from North Carolina
Musicians from Raleigh, North Carolina
Politicians from Raleigh, North Carolina
North Carolina Democrats
Philanthropists from North Carolina
Southern Baptists
The Apprentice (franchise) contestants
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
University of North Carolina at Charlotte alumni
Writers from North Carolina
Singers from North Carolina
21st-century LGBT people
1978 births
| false |
[
"The New Breed is the second solo studio album by American hip hop recording artist and producer MC Breed from Flint, Michigan. It was released on April 27, 1993 via Wrap Records with distribution by Ichiban Records. Production was handled by MC Breed, Colin Wolfe, Warren G and The D.O.C. It features guest appearances from 2Pac, DFC, Jibri, Admiral D and Black Ceasar. The New Breed found decent success, making it to #156 on the Billboard 200 and #16 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart in the United States. The album spawned three singles: \"Gotta Get Mine\", \"Tight\" and \"Everyday Ho\"/\"Flashbacks\". Its lead single, \"Gotta Get Mine\", reached #96 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, #61 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, #6 on the Hot Rap Songs chart, and appeared in 2002 film 8 Mile. Another single, \"Tight\", made it to #19 on the Hot Rap Songs chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nEric Tyrone Breed – performer, producer\nTupac Amaru Shakur – performer (tracks: 3, 5)\nDale Jabrigar – performer (tracks: 1, 7)\nBobby T. Thompson – performer (track 4)\nAlpha \"Al\" Breed – performer (track 10)\nAdmiral D – performer (track 4)\nBlack Ceasar – performer (track 4)\nColin Wolfe – producer (tracks: 1-7, 9-12)\nWarren Griffin III – producer (tracks: 3, 5, 7-8)\nTracy Lynn Curry – producer (tracks: 2, 11)\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1993 albums\nMC Breed albums\nAlbums produced by Warren G\nG-funk albums",
"\"Ain't No Future in Yo' Frontin'\" is a song performed by American hip hop group MC Breed and DFC from Flint, Michigan. It was released in 1991 through S.D.E.G. Records with distribution via Ichiban Records, as a lead single from the trio's debut studio album MC Breed & DFC. It was written, arranged and produced by MC Breed, Herman Lang and S. Harris.\n\nThe song was later included in MC Breed's 1995 greatest hits album The Best of Breed, and was featured in the soundtrack to the 1998 film Ringmaster. It was covered by Erick Sermon retitled \"Ain't No Future...2001\" from his 2001 album Music, by Johnny Richter for Subnoize Souljaz's 2009 album Blast From tha Past, and by Insane Clown Posse for their 2012 album Smothered, Covered & Chunked.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \n\n Eric Tyrone Breed – performer, arranger, producer\n Herman Lang, Jr. – arranger, producer, re-mixing\n Schzelle Salomon Harris – arranger, producer\n Bernard Terry – re-mixing\n\nCharts \nThe single peaked at number 66 on the Billboard Hot 100, at number 47 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and at number 12 on the Hot Rap Songs in the United States, making it the most successful single for both MC Breed and DFC.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\n1991 debut singles\nAmerican hip hop songs\n1991 songs"
] |
[
"Clay Aiken",
"Faith and philosophy",
"Where was he a MC and performer?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_afa9ccbb26e2472ba9b06f4b32c2cea7_1
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Where was he born and raised?
| 2 |
Where was Clay Aiken born and raised?
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Clay Aiken
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Aiken was born into a Baptist family. As a toddler, in 1980, he attended Leesville Baptist Church every week. According to his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, he was involved in Bible school, choir, and the youth group. The book made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2004, debuting at number two. It was written with Allison Glock and published by Random House. Barely mentioning American Idol, Aiken instead turned his focus to the people who had the most influence in his life - his mother, grandparents, siblings, teachers, and friends - and to the importance of religion in his life. He describes himself as a proud Southern Baptist who journeyed away from those roots in his late teens in search of a religion with more liberal social policies. He then returned to that church because of family and social ties although he remains at odds with the church on some issues. When asked in a PBS Kids interview to name his idols, he responded, "When people ask me what three people I'd like to have dinner with, living or dead, I say Jesus Christ, Mr. Rogers, and Jimmy Carter." While not self-identified as a Christian music artist, Aiken was featured in Christian Music Planet as an "American Idol Christian" in 2004, and in a cover story, "Clay Aiken's Balancing Act", in the January/February 2005 issue. His pre-Idol demo albums included several selections of Contemporary Christian Music (or CCM) and gospel songs. A performance of the Commodores' "Jesus is Love" at the American Music Awards in 2003 earned Aiken and Ruben Studdard a standing ovation. Aiken has sung a few CCM songs at his pop concerts, and has made Christmas albums, Christmas television specials and performances, and Christmas tours essential elements of his career. Aiken makes it clear that he is aware not everyone shares his religious beliefs and it is not his intention to press these beliefs on others. When he worked as a camp counselor at the YMCA, he challenged other camp faculty by insisting that singing "overtly Christian songs" was inappropriate, as some of the kids were Jewish. "I stood firm... no child is going to have a spiritual crisis on my watch." His public philosophy, geared towards inclusion and service to others, reflects his stance that decisions about religion should be made at home. CANNOTANSWER
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he attended Leesville Baptist Church
|
Clayton Holmes Aiken (né Grissom) (born November 30, 1978) is an American singer, television personality, actor, political candidate, and activist. Aiken finished second place on the second season of American Idol in 2003, and his debut album, Measure of a Man, went multi-platinum. He released four more albums on the RCA label, Merry Christmas with Love (2004), A Thousand Different Ways (2006), the Christmas EP All is Well (2006), and On My Way Here (2008). Since then he has released two more albums, both with Decca Records: Tried and True (2010) and Steadfast (2012). Aiken has also had eleven tours in support of his albums. In all, he has sold over 5 million albums, and is the fourth-highest-selling American Idol alumnus.
Aiken co-wrote a bestselling memoir in 2004, Learning to Sing. In 2004 he also had a televised Christmas special, A Clay Aiken Christmas. During much of 2008 he appeared on Broadway in the musical comedy Spamalot, in the role of Sir Robin. In 2010 he hosted the PBS special Tried & True Live!. He has also had numerous cameo and guest appearances on TV shows. In 2012 he competed in the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice, coming in second to Arsenio Hall.
With Diane Bubel, Aiken created the Bubel/Aiken Foundation in 2003, which was later renamed the National Inclusion Project. In 2004 he became a UNICEF ambassador, a position he held until 2013 when he gave it up in order to run for Congress. He traveled extensively in this role. In 2006, he was appointed for a two-year term to the Presidential Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.
In 2014, Aiken ran for the United States House of Representatives in North Carolina's 2nd congressional district. He won the Democratic primary, but lost to Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers in the general election. In January 2022, he announced a run for the Democratic nomination in North Carolina's 6th congressional district.
Early life
Clay Aiken was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a young boy, Aiken sang in the Raleigh Boychoir; and, as a teenager, he sang in school choirs, church choir, musicals and local theatre productions. After high school, he sang lead with a local band, Just By Chance, co-hosting and performing with the band at "Just by Chance and Friends" shows in Dunn, North Carolina. He was also MC and performer at the Johnston Community College Country Showcase in Smithfield and at the North Carolina Music Connection and Hometown Music Connection shows in Garner, and Benson. He performed the national anthem numerous times for the Raleigh IceCaps and the Carolina Hurricanes hockey teams, and performed it at the 2011 NHL All-Star Game at the RBC Center in Raleigh. Three demo albums of Aiken's vocals were created before American Idol with the aid of studio time given as a birthday gift by his mother: a cassette called Look What Love Has Done (by Clayton Grissom), a cassette and CD entitled Redefined (by Clayton Aiken), and a CD that combined some songs from each of the previous demos: "Look What Love Has Done, Vol 2" (by Clay Aiken). Estranged from his abusive birth father Vernon Grissom and with his mother's and grandfather Alvis Aiken's permission, at the age of 19 he legally changed his surname from Grissom to his mother Faye's maiden name, Aiken.
Aiken attended Raleigh's Leesville Road High School and took courses at Campbell University before enrolling at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In 1995, Aiken started working at the YMCA. Still in high school, Aiken learned quickly that he could make a difference in the lives of young people. He found his interest in special education while directing YMCA children's camps as a teenager, and at age 19, he served as a substitute teacher for a classroom of autistic students at Brentwood Elementary School in Raleigh. It was during that experience that he decided to finish college and become a special education teacher. While attending college in Charlotte, he took a part-time job as an assistant to a boy with autism, and it was this child's mother, Diane Bubel, who urged him to audition for American Idol. Although his American Idol activities temporarily delayed his academic pursuits, Aiken completed his course work while on tour and graduated with a bachelor's degree in special education in December 2003.
Personal life
On August 8, 2008, Aiken announced, on his personal blog, the birth of his son in North Carolina: "My dear friend, Jaymes, and I are so excited to announce the birth of Parker Foster Aiken." The child's mother, Jaymes Foster, is the sister of record producer David Foster, executive producer of Aiken's last three albums on the RCA label. "The little man is healthy, happy, and as loud as his daddy", Aiken wrote. "Mama Jaymes is doing quite well also." In his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, Aiken said, "It's a Southern tradition to be given your first name from your grandmama's maiden name." Aiken's middle name came from his paternal grandmother's maiden name; he and Foster used the married surnames of their mothers to name their son.
Public declaration of being gay
After several years of public speculation, Aiken came out as gay in a September 2008 interview with People magazine. In April 2009, Aiken was honored by the Family Equality Council advocacy group at its annual benefit dinner in New York City.
On November 18, 2010, Aiken went to Washington, D.C., on behalf of Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) at a Capitol Hill briefing talking about anti-gay bullying.
Faith and philosophy
Aiken was born into a Baptist family. As a toddler, in 1980, he attended Leesville Baptist Church every week. According to his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, he was involved in Bible school, choir, and the youth group. The book made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2004, debuting at number two. It was written with Allison Glock and published by Random House. Barely mentioning American Idol, Aiken instead turned his focus to the people who had the most influence in his life – his mother, grandparents, siblings, teachers, and friends – and to the importance of religion in his life. He describes himself as a proud Southern Baptist who journeyed away from those roots in his late teens in search of a religion with more liberal social policies. He then returned to that church because of family and social ties although he remains at odds with the church on some issues.
When asked in a PBS Kids interview to name his idols, he responded, "When people ask me what three people I'd like to have dinner with, living or dead, I say Jesus Christ, Mr. Rogers, and Jimmy Carter."
While not self-identified as a Christian music artist, Aiken was featured in Christian Music Planet as an "American Idol Christian" in 2004, and in a cover story, "Clay Aiken's Balancing Act", in the January/February 2005 issue. His pre-Idol demo albums included several selections of Contemporary Christian Music (or CCM) and gospel songs. A performance of the Commodores' "Jesus is Love" at the American Music Awards in 2003 earned Aiken and Ruben Studdard a standing ovation. Aiken has sung a few CCM songs at his pop concerts and has made Christmas albums, Christmas television specials and performances, and Christmas tours essential elements of his career.
Aiken makes it clear that he is aware not everyone shares his religious beliefs and it is not his intention to press these beliefs on others. When he worked as a camp counselor at the YMCA, he challenged other camp faculty by insisting that singing "overtly Christian songs" was inappropriate, as some of the kids were Jewish. "I stood firm ... no child is going to have a spiritual crisis on my watch." His public philosophy, geared towards inclusion and service to others, reflects his stance that decisions about religion should be made at home.
American Idol
Aiken had filled out an application to participate in the reality show The Amazing Race when a friend of his insisted that he try out for American Idol instead. Television viewers first glimpsed Aiken during the audition episodes at the beginning of American Idol's second season. The show's judges first saw Aiken as a nerdy type unlikely to be a typical pop idol, but after hearing him sing Heatwave's "Always and Forever" decided to advance him to the next round. The clip of the judges' surprise during this audition performance was replayed many times over the course of the competition.
Aiken made it to the round of 32 before being cut from the show, but he was invited to return for the "Wild Card" round; his performance of Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" sent him on to the final 12 as the viewer's choice. While noted for his performance of ballads, such as Neil Sedaka's "Solitaire", his upbeat performances, including the Foundations' "Build Me Up Buttercup", were also appreciated. Aiken received enough votes every week to keep him out of the bottom three. Part of his appeal was his "geek to chic" transformation in appearance. "I looked like Opie", Aiken said to People magazine regarding his appearance at his American Idol audition in 2002. He replaced his glasses with contact lenses and agreed to let the show's stylists change his hair style. With longer, flat ironed, spiky hair and a penchant for wearing striped shirts, Aiken had established a trademark look by the final American Idol season 2 show.
On May 21, 2003, Aiken came in a close second to Ruben Studdard, who won the contest by 134,000 votes out of more than 24,000,000 votes cast. The result was controversial, as some hypothesized that Idol voting system was incapable of handling the number of attempted calls. In an interview prior to the start of the fifth season of American Idol, Executive Producer Nigel Lythgoe revealed for the first time that Aiken had led the fan voting every week from the Wild Card week to the finale, when the possibly-random voting result gave Studdard the win.
Rolling Stone featured Aiken on the cover of its July 2003 issue. In the cover article, Aiken said, "One thing I've found of people in the public eye, either you're a womanizer or you've got to be gay. Since I'm neither one of those, people are completely concerned about me." In subsequent interviews he expressed frustration over continued questions about his sexual orientation, telling People magazine in 2006, "It doesn't matter what I say. People are going to believe what they want."
Aiken made a surprise appearance on the final show of the fifth season of American Idol, when failed auditioner Michael Sandecki returned to the show to receive a "Golden Idol" award for Best Impersonator for his Clay Aiken-like appearance. Aiken appeared without introduction in a well-tailored designer suit and longer, darker hair with bangs, looking so different that many did not recognize him until he began to sing "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me".
The second season of the American Idol Rewind series (2007) was narrated by Aiken.
Aiken is reportedly one of the top 10 earners of Idol, earning an estimated $1.5 million in 2010.
American Idol season 2 performances and results
Due to Corey Clark's disqualification, the Top 9 performances became Top 8 when no one was eliminated.
Music
2003–2004: Measure of a Man
On October 14, 2003, Aiken released his first solo album, Measure of a Man, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with 613,000 copies sold in its first week, the highest-selling debut for a solo artist in 10 years. The album received RIAA Double Platinum certification on November 17, 2003 (a Double Platinum plaque was presented to Aiken by Clive Davis on October 22, 2003, during Good Morning America). The album spawned both the hit single "Invisible" and his first hit song, "This Is the Night" (both co-written by British songwriter Chris Braide). Later that year, Aiken won the Fan's Choice Award at the American Music Awards ceremony, and his CD single "This Is The Night/Bridge Over Troubled Water" won the Billboard award for the Best-Selling Single of 2003.
2004–2006: Merry Christmas With Love
On November 16, 2004, Aiken released a holiday album titled Merry Christmas with Love, which set a new record for fastest-selling holiday album in the Soundscan era (since 1991). The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and tied Céline Dion's record for the highest debut by a holiday album in the history of Billboard magazine. Merry Christmas with Love sold over 1,000,000 copies retail in six weeks and was the best-selling holiday album of 2004, receiving RIAA Platinum certification on January 6, 2005.
2006–2008: A Thousand Different Ways And All Is Well
Aiken's second studio album, A Thousand Different Ways, was released September 19, 2006. He worked on the album under the guidance of Canadian producer and A&R executive Jaymes Foster. The album contains ten cover songs and four new songs, one of which Aiken co-wrote. Clive Davis is credited with the cover concept. One additional song, "Lover All Alone", written by Aiken and David Foster, is included with the album on iTunes. Debuting at number two on the Billboard chart, A Thousand Different Ways made Aiken the fourth artist ever to have his first three albums debut in the Top 5 and scan over 200,000 in the first week.
Aiken's second Christmas album, All Is Well (an EP of four Christmas songs), was released exclusively to Walmart on November 28, 2006, and was released to iTunes as a digital download in December 2007.
2008–2009: On My Way Here
Aiken stated in an April 2007 interview with People that he was planning a new album, and during his May 2007 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he mentioned that he was in Los Angeles interviewing producers for the new album. Aiken found a song, "On My Way Here", written by OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder, that struck a chord with him and became the inspiration for the album's theme in addition to the album title. For a cohesive sound, Aiken chose Mark 'Kipper' Eldridge to produce the entire album. On My Way Here was released May 6, 2008, on the RCA label.
According to an article posted on Billboard, Aiken and RCA parted ways shortly after his On My Way Here album was released.
Aiken's rep confirmed to People magazine that Aiken left RCA. Stated in the cited People article, "The buzz about Aiken's exit was fueled earlier this week when his picture disappeared online and Billboard, citing unnamed sources, reported Friday that Aiken, 30, had been dropped by the label. According to Billboard, Aiken's 2008 album "On My Way Here" sold just 159,000 copies in the U.S., compared to his 2003 debut album, "Measure of a Man", which sold 2.78 million copies".
A fifth album, The Very Best of Clay Aiken, was released at the end of March 2009 on Sony's Legacy Recordings Playlist Series. This album was a compilation of songs that had been included on the previous albums released by RCA. First week sales of 3000 copies placed Playlist: The Very Best of Clay Aiken at number 173 on the Billboard 200 chart and at number ten on the Top Internet Albums chart.
2009–2011: Tried and True
On August 10, 2009, it was announced on Aiken's official website that he had signed with Decca Records and he would have new music out by early 2010. Performing the songs from his new album, Tried and True, Aiken held a one night only concert at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh, North Carolina on March 12, 2010. The concert, filmed for PBS broadcast, included guest appearances by Ruben Studdard and Linda Eder. Eder joined Aiken on stage for their duet of "Crying", which they recorded for his album. The album was released on June 1, 2010 and features songs popular in the 1950s and 1960s, including two Aiken covered during his run on American Idol, "Mack the Knife" and "Unchained Melody". In conjunction with the PBS special a companion DVD, Tried & True Live!, was released on July 27, 2010. A tour to promote the album is planned for early 2014.
2011–present: Steadfast
On December 20, 2011, Aiken released a new single, "Bring Back My Love" under the Decca Label. The single is his first original song since the release of his album On My Way Here in 2008. On March 27, 2012 Aiken released Steadfast, a new album of previous recordings and songs only sung in concerts. The album debuted at #120 on the Billboard 200 chart with sales of 4,000 in the first week.
Television
Aiken has made many television appearances.
On Labor Day 2003, Aiken sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water" at the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon and received a standing ovation from the audience. Lewis compared Aiken with Frank Sinatra and marveled at the dedication of Aiken's fan base:
That same year, Aiken sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the opening night of the 2003 World Series and appeared in numerous television specials during the winter of 2003, including Disney's Christmas Day Parade and the Nick at Nite Holiday Special, where he sang the "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" with Bing Crosby via special effects.
Aiken starred in and executive produced his first TV special (December 2004), titled A Clay Aiken Christmas, with special guests Barry Manilow, Yolanda Adams, and Megan Mullally; the special was released on DVD later that month. On July 4, 2004, Aiken was one of the performers in the A Capitol Fourth concert in Washington, D.C. and performed in the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series in 2004 and 2005. He also sang "Isn't She Lovely" on the popular television show Scrubs.
Aiken was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 2004 and participated in several skits. He has appeared multiple times on The Tonight Show, interviewing with Jay Leno as a guest in addition to singing, and has become a regular guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The Kimmel appearances often feature skits: in one, Jimmy Kimmel's then girlfriend Sarah Silverman confessed to an affair with Aiken, and in another, Aiken expressed his distaste for Kimmel's jokes about him by beating him up. In May 2007, he spent the first half of his interview on horseback while talking about his recent UNICEF trip to Afghanistan. A few weeks later he appeared as a spokesperson for "Guillermo's Mustache" in Kimmel's fictional DVD informercial shown on the Dancing With the Stars finale. Aiken made his acting debut on Ed in early 2004, playing himself, and in 2005, he was interviewed by Erica Kane on All My Children. He played the role of cafeteria worker Kenny on the Scrubs episode "My Life in Four Cameras". In December 2006, he made an appearance as himself on Days of Our Lives.
After hosting and performing in the American Idol Christmas special in 2003, Aiken has had several subsequent hosting jobs. He was a special correspondent for The Insider for the 2005 Emmy Awards, and on the sets of the sitcom Reba with Reba McEntire and Dancing With the Stars. He co-hosted The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet in 2006, and on November 17, 2006, filled in for Regis Philbin as guest host on Live with Regis and Kelly. During an interview, Aiken covered Kelly Ripa's mouth with his hand. The incident drew considerable media reaction after Ripa complained at length about the incident on her show the following Monday. Aiken made fun of the controversy on the 2006 American Music Awards the next night with Tori Spelling. On The Tyra Banks Show in 2006, filmed before the Ripa incident, Aiken mentioned wanting to have his own talk show someday, and Banks switched seats with him and let him interview her for one segment of the show. Aiken was a guest judge on the April 8, 2009, segment of Banks show America's Next Top Model; in what the show refers to as a teach, he worked with the remaining eight contestants on their acting skills prior to the judging.
In November 2007, Aiken was a contestant on a celebrity edition of the game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?. Playing for his charity, the National Inclusion Project, he chose to drop out after the ninth question with US$300,000, despite having a copy and a save at his disposal. If he had played the tenth question, he would have won US$500,000; Aiken and the 5th grader playing with him both had the correct answer.
In May 2009, Aiken made a guest appearance on 30 Rock in the season 3 episode "Kidney Now!". It was revealed in this episode that he is the cousin of the show's character Kenneth.
In August 2010, Aiken guest starred in an episode of Phineas and Ferb, called "Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs To You!". Aiken sang an inspirational duet with Chaka Khan, to encourage those who did not believe that Phineas and Ferb could accomplish their goal of circling the globe faster than the sun, thus creating the longest summer day of all time.
On January 30, 2011, Aiken sang the United States' national anthem at the 2011 NHL All-Star game held at the RBC Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, home of the Carolina Hurricanes.
On July 24, 2011, Aiken guest starred on the comedy drama series Drop Dead Diva.
In 2012, Aiken was the runner-up on the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice, raising US$361,500 for the National Inclusion Project.
Aiken appeared in one of the last episodes of The Office, titled "A.A.R.M.". He played himself and was one of the judges for a reality show that Andy was auditioning for.
In 2013, Aiken guest starred on an episode Law & Order: Special Victims Unit along with Taylor Hicks and Ashanti, playing themselves as judges for a singing contest on the episode called "Dissonant Voices".
Broadway
On January 18, 2008, Aiken made his Broadway debut when he joined the cast of Monty Python's Spamalot for a four-month run, ending on May 4, 2008. He played Sir Robin, in the Tony Award-winning musical directed by Mike Nichols. In addition to Sir Robin, Aiken played the 1st Guard and the Brother Maynard roles. On August 12, 2008, it was announced that Aiken would resume his role as Sir Robin beginning on September 19 and ending on January 4, 2009. On December 23, 2008, Aiken had his caricature unveiled at world-famous Sardi's restaurant. In December 2018, Aiken and Ruben Studdard starred in Ruben & Clay's First Annual Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Christmas Show on Broadway.
Other theater work
In May 2013, Aiken starred as "Man in Chair" in North Carolina Theatre's production of The Drowsy Chaperone, along with fellow Raleigh native and Tony Award winner Beth Leavel, who reprised her role as "The Chaperone".
During the summer of 2013, Aiken performed the role of Joseph in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine.
In June 2019, Aiken starred as Teen Angel in Grease at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "The energy level is high, but there's no question it steps up a notch when Clay Aiken struts out in the second act and gives Pittsburgh a taste of why his Claymates are hopelessly devoted to the former American Idol." "As 'Teen Angel' in the Pittsburgh CLO's production of Grease, Aiken is only on stage for about five minutes. Those five minutes, however, are fab-u-lous."
Tours
From February through April 2004, Aiken and Kelly Clarkson embarked on the Independent Tour as co-headliners. Following this tour, he was scheduled for a few summer solo tour dates, but demand ultimately led to the booking of 50 dates across the United States, resulting in what many fans called the "Not-A-Tour". Disney (Buena Vista) was the exclusive sponsor of this unnamed summer tour, promoting their Aladdin Special Edition 2-Disc DVD with a preview of Aiken's rendition of "Proud of Your Boy", a song originally intended for the first release of the film but cut when the Aladdin storyline changed during production. A music video featuring Aiken is on the Aladdin Special Edition DVD. On this tour, he also performed a duet, "Without You", which was released on Kimberley Locke's 2004 debut album One Love.
In November 2004, Aiken launched his third tour of the year, which revolved around a Christmas theme. "The Joyful Noise Tour", sponsored by Ronald McDonald House Charities, featured a conductor and a 30-piece orchestra. In some cities, Aiken was supported by the local philharmonic or symphony, such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Local choirs from high schools and elementary schools also participated at each concert.
During the summer of 2005, Aiken, with a seven-piece band and three back-up singers, toured with the "Jukebox Tour", performing songs of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, as well as a few favorites from Measure of a Man. He also performed a few new songs being considered for his next album.
In early November 2005, Aiken launched his second Christmas tour. The 2005 Joyful Noise tour featured a series of vignettes, written by Aiken, which told the story of an older woman who had lost the Christmas spirit and a young boy who helps her find it again. A cast of actors, dancers and back-up singers traveled with the tour, and members of local theater groups were added in each venue for smaller, non-speaking roles and crowd scenes. The tour opened in Vancouver, British Columbia, on November 2, and ended in Clearwater, Florida on December 30. According to Pollstar, Aiken's first five tours grossed $28 million.
In December 2006, Aiken began his third Christmas tour, comprising performances in 18 Midwest and East Coast cities. Aiken was supported by local orchestras, which also opened the concerts with a program of seasonal music.
A 23-date tour in support of his third album, A Thousand Different Ways, began on July 4, 2007, and ended in Orlando, Florida, on August 19. On this tour Aiken hired local symphonies to back him, along with tour regulars Jesse Vargas, pianist, conductor and arranger; Sean McDaniel, drummer; and Quiana Parler and Angela Fisher, backup singers. Stops included the Greek Theatre (Los Angeles), Chautauqua Institution in New York, and the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. Three days into the tour, Aiken and a woman were involved in an in-flight altercation in which she allegedly shoved him. As a result of the scuffle, Aiken and the woman were later questioned by the FBI. Aiken told Entertainment Tonight that he had been sleeping when the incident occurred.
His fourth annual Christmas tour, "Christmas in the Heartland", began on November 26, 2007, in Wichita, Kansas. That 21-date tour ended on December 22, 2007, in Merrillville, Indiana.
He has ended all of his Christmas tours with his signature Christmas song, "Don't Save It All For Christmas Day".
Aiken and Ruben Studdard brought their "Timeless" tour to cities in the US and Canada beginning in Asheville, North Carolina, on July 23, 2010, and ending in Biloxi, Mississippi, on August 14. Instead of a concert focusing on each singers recordings, Aiken and Studdard opted for a variety show format covering medleys of songs from the 1960s to the 1990s with a few solos and interspersed with comedy bits.
Aiken announced on July 30, 2010, that he will be touring in February and March 2011 in conjunction with PBS to support his album Tried and True and accompanying live DVD Clay Aiken: Tried and True – Live.
Aiken began his fifth Christmas tour "Joyful Noise 2012" in Florida in November 2012.
Activism
In 1995, Aiken started working at the YMCA.
At 19, Aiken taught at Brentwood Elementary School in a class of kids with autism. It was during that experience that he decided to finish college and become a special education teacher.
Aiken has participated in multiple benefit events and concerts, including the 2004 Rosalynn Carter Benefit, the America's Promise Benefit, and Heather Headley's Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit, "Home", where he sang a duet with Headley. He was one of the celebrity readers for the Arthur Celebrity Audiobook (Stories for Heroes Series), which benefits the Bubel/Aiken Foundation (now the National Inclusion Project) and other charities, and served as spokesperson for the series. He was also a spokesperson for the 2004 Toys For Tots drive, and acted as an ambassador for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Aiken worked with the Make A Wish Foundation to make one little boy's dream of singing on stage with Clay Aiken come true.
In September 2006, Aiken was appointed to the Presidential Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities by President George W. Bush. Appointees serve a two-year term; Aiken was sworn on September 14, 2006, by HHS Assistant Secretary for Children and Families Wade F. Horn, PhD
While appearing in Spamalot, Aiken used his free time and celebrity to help raise funds for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) during their fund drives and auctions. In 2010, Aiken spoke out for gay rights at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in North Carolina. He also joined other celebrities in filming an educational video for Cyndi Lauper's web based Give a Damn campaign, a project of her True Colors Fund. In addition to UNICEF and his National Inclusion Project he is promoting GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network as one of his causes on his official website.
National Inclusion Project (formerly BAF)
Aiken's interest in autism issues led him, along with Diane Bubel (whose son Michael is diagnosed with autism and was tutored by Aiken), to found the National Inclusion Project (formerly the Bubel/Aiken Foundation), which supports the integration of children with disabilities into the life environment of their non-disabled peers. The foundation runs summer camps which reflect its mission, and also presents Able to Serve awards to support the volunteer efforts of children with physical and mental disabilities. In July 2005, Raleigh's WRAL-TV reported on an internet campaign mounted by critics questioning how Aiken's foundation used its money. WRAL news hired an independent accountant who reported that program services totaled $920,000 in 2004—around 85 cents on every dollar donated—which is considered a solid percentage compared to other charities. CNN picked up the story, and Aiken appeared on Showbiz Tonight to provide details about the foundation's programs. In late 2004, the foundation was awarded a $500,000 grant by the US government to develop a K–12 model for inclusion in community service projects to be used in schools across the country. In addition, State Farm granted $1.5 million to the foundation to help develop a primary education curriculum focused on teaching social and life skills through service to children of all levels of ability.
On August 5, 2009, in an open letter from the founders, Clay Aiken and Diane Bubel announced that they would rename the organization as the "National Inclusion Project".
UNICEF
In November 2004, Aiken was appointed a U.S. Fund for UNICEF National Ambassador, with a mission to help ensure that children everywhere are afforded a primary education. After the tsunami at the end of 2004, he participated in the NBC4 telethon, which raised over $10 million, and recorded public service announcements in support of South Asian tsunami relief. He later recorded a video, featuring the song "Give A Little Bit", to be used as a public service announcement to raise money for tsunami victims. He was the 2005 spokesperson for the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF drive.
In March 2005, UNICEF sent Aiken to the tsunami-stricken Banda Aceh area to raise awareness of the need to restore education quickly to the children who survived this disaster. UNICEF sent Aiken on another mission in May 2005, to northern Uganda, to witness the plight of children called "night commuters", who flee the villages each night to sleep in streets and shelters in hopes of avoiding being kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army. He was sent to Kabul and Bamyan, in Afghanistan in April 2007, where he was able to spend time with children in their classrooms; he also visited a health center for women and children where he administered oral polio vaccinations to babies. He observed that Afghani children, after being forbidden for so many years by the Taliban regime to attend school, are eager to return to school now that they are once again allowed to receive an education. Aiken spent his 2007 Christmas in Mexico with the children affected by the floods in the states of Chiapas and Tabasco. In late June and early July 2008, UNICEF sent Aiken to Somalia and Kenya.
Politics
2014 Congressional election
In the 2014 midterm elections, Aiken was the Democratic Party's candidate for North Carolina's 2nd congressional district. He won the Democratic primary, held on May 6, 2014, by fewer than 400 votes. His main opponent, Keith Crisco, died days after the primary vote but before the votes could be certified. In the general election, held on November 4, 2014, Aiken was defeated by incumbent Republican Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, 59 to 41 percent. North Carolina's 2nd district is considered a safe Republican seat. Aiken's campaign was captured by a filmmaking team and shown in the 2015 documentary miniseries The Runner-Up, which aired on the Esquire Network.
Since coming out as gay in 2008, Aiken has been more politically outspoken, particularly on gay rights and same-sex marriage. He spoke out against North Carolina Amendment 1, adopted in 2012, which banned gay marriage and civil unions in the state. When he ran for Congress, however, he said he did not want to be perceived as a single-issue candidate and said gay marriage was "not the issue" he was campaigning on. He said he wanted to focus on issues that were more important to people in his district. His assertion earned him a number of critics among supporters of same-sex marriage, including Bill Maher.
Citing his appearance on The Apprentice, Aiken defended Donald Trump against accusations of racism during the 2016 presidential race. However, following the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aiken tweeted an apology for denying Trump was racist, going so far to say, "I'm a fucking dumbass." Aiken reiterated that he was a Democrat and did not vote for Trump.
2022 Congressional election
In January 2022, Aiken released a video titled "Warming Up", in which he announced that he would run for the Democratic nomination in North Carolina's 6th congressional district. In this video, Aiken is quoted as saying, "If the loudest and most hateful voices think they are going to speak for us, just tell them I'm warming up the old vocal chords."
Sara Pacqueño, a member of the Raleigh-based The News & Observer editorial board, criticized Aiken for jumping into the race when other Democratic candidates had more political experience and questioned "what has he done to serve North Carolina?"
Electoral history
Fans
Aiken was voted the Favorite Reality Star of 2003 by TV Guide readers and "the most-loved reality star of all time" in a TV Guide poll conducted in the summer of 2005. In February 2006, People magazine readers voted Aiken their "Favorite American Idol".
While the origin of the term "Claymates" is unknown, Aiken trademarked the term. While in Los Angeles in September 2006 for a CD signing and appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Aiken talked with Jann Carl of Entertainment Tonight about the names various sub-groups have given themselves: "Claysians" (Asian fans), "Claynadians" (Canadian fans), "Clayropeans" (European fans) and "Claydawgs" (male fans). She then teased him about having his own "Clay Nation". At the CD signing, two young fans asked Aiken to autograph their shoulderblades and then went to the local tattoo parlor to make them permanent; later that day on Jimmy Kimmel Live! they were brought on stage to show the tattoos. Although some of his fans have been criticized at times by the media as being obsessive, he defends the group as a whole. When Kimmel said to Aiken that his fans were "crazy", Aiken stated that they were merely "enthusiastic". In 2003, in anticipation of the release of Measure of a Man, fans all over the country decided to get together and hold parties to celebrate the release of the CD and purchase copies at midnight. In 2006, for the release of A Thousand Different Ways, release parties were held in more than 80 cities in the United States, Canada, and Singapore.
Discography
Studio albums
Measure of a Man (2003)
Merry Christmas with Love (2004)
A Thousand Different Ways (2006)
On My Way Here (2008)
Tried and True (2010)
Steadfast (2012)
EPs
All Is Well (2006)
Compilations
The Very Best of Clay Aiken (2009)
A Thousand Different Ways/Measure of a Man (2010)
DVDs
A Clay Aiken Christmas (2004)
Tried and True Live (2010)
Awards and nominations
Professional
American Music Awards
2003: Won – Fan's Choice Award
2003: Nominated – Favorite Male Artist – Pop or Rock
Billboard Awards
2003: Won – Best Selling Single of 2003 – "Bridge Over Troubled Water/This Is The Night"
2004: Won – Best Selling Christmas Album – Merry Christmas with Love
2004: Won – Best Selling Christian Album – Merry Christmas with Love
2005: Won – Best Selling Christian Album – Merry Christmas with Love
New Music Weekly Awards
2004: Won – Top 40 Male Artist of the Year
American Christian Music Awards
2005: Won – Outstanding Yule CD – Merry Christmas with Love
Achievement
2005 Robert M. Barg Memorial Achievement Award
2006 UNC Charlotte Alumni Association Outstanding Young Alumnus Award
2007 National Center for Learning Disabilities' Children's Advocacy Award
2009 The Family Circle Award from the Family Equality Council
See also
List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
List of Decca Records artists
List of number-one hits (United States)
List of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
References
External links
Official websites
Decca Records – Clay Aiken
Clay Aiken – UNICEF Celebrity Ambassador
Reference sites
Clay Aiken at Rolling Stone
19 Recordings artists
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American singers
21st-century American male singers
Activists from North Carolina
American Idol participants
American male non-fiction writers
American male pop singers
21st-century American memoirists
Autism activists
Baptists from North Carolina
Campbell University alumni
Candidates in the 2014 United States elections
Decca Records artists
American gay actors
American gay musicians
Gay politicians
American gay writers
Leesville Road High School alumni
LGBT Baptists
LGBT memoirists
LGBT people from North Carolina
LGBT politicians from the United States
LGBT rights activists from the United States
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Living people
Male actors from North Carolina
Musicians from Raleigh, North Carolina
Politicians from Raleigh, North Carolina
North Carolina Democrats
Philanthropists from North Carolina
Southern Baptists
The Apprentice (franchise) contestants
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
University of North Carolina at Charlotte alumni
Writers from North Carolina
Singers from North Carolina
21st-century LGBT people
1978 births
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"This is a list of notable political endorsements for declared candidates for the Republican primaries for the 2016 United States presidential election. Endorsements are part of the \"invisible primary\" process, which occurs not only long before the general election in November 2016, but also largely occurs before even the caucuses and primaries have begun in February 2016.\n\nEarly endorsements were correlated with the success candidates achieved in caucuses and primaries, for elections from 1980 through 2004.\n(See the UCLA School of Political Parties.)\nHistorically, there has been a correlation (\"76% of the eventual vote percentage\") between the percentage of political endorsements from sitting and former elected officials earned by a Republican candidate in the first half of the year prior to a presidential election (for the purposes of this article, January–June, 2015), with the percentage of votes cast for that candidate in Republican primaries during the first half of the election year (i.e., January–June, 2016).\n\nThe value of political endorsements varies, depending on whom they are from, when they are given, and other factors. Endorsements from politicians who live in states with early primaries are highly sought after. So are endorsements from governors, federal senators, and federal representatives. Endorsements from people from the candidate's home state are less valuable, unless multiple candidates from that state are running.\nThe impact of celebrity endorsements of political candidates is less clear, but can increase general election turnout,\nor increase fundraising totals and media exposure.\n\nDonald Trump (won presidency)\n\nBackground: Donald Trump (born in New York in 1946 and raised there) is a real estate CEO (1971–present), with investments in New York, Florida, and several other states and countries. He is an author (1987–present) and television personality (2003–2015).\n\nDonald Trump endorsements\n\nJeb Bush (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Jeb Bush (born in 1953) was the 43rd Governor of Florida (1999–2007). He was raised in Texas, where his brother, George was governor (1995–2000) and his father, George H. W. Bush, was a representative (1967–1971). He was a Texas banker (1974–1979) and Florida real estate developer (1980–1986) before entering politics. He suspended his campaign on February 21, 2016, and endorsed Ted Cruz on March 23, 2016.\n\nJeb Bush endorsements\n\nBen Carson (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Dr. Ben Carson (born in 1951) was a Maryland brain surgeon and professor (1984–2013). He was raised in Michigan. He is an author, speaker, and runs a scholarship fund. He also served on the board of directors for Kellogg and Costco Wholesale Corporation for 18 and 16 years respectively. He suspended his campaign on March 4 and later endorsed Trump on March 11.\n\nBen Carson endorsements\n\nChris Christie (withdrawn)\n\nChris Christie (born in 1962) has been Governor of New Jersey since 2010. He was raised in New Jersey. He was a lawyer in New Jersey (1987–2002) before entering politics. He was elected Morris County legislator in 1995 and served until 1998. In 2002, he was appointed by George W. Bush to the position of United States Attorney for New Jersey, he held this position until 2008. On February 10, 2016, he suspended his campaign. He later endorsed Trump on the 26th.\n\nChris Christie endorsements\n\nTed Cruz (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Ted Cruz (born in 1970) is a Texas U.S. Senator (2013–present). Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he was raised in Texas. He was a Texas lawyer (1997–98) before entering politics. He suspended his campaign on May 3, 2016, and eventually endorsed Trump.\n\nTed Cruz endorsements\n\nCarly Fiorina (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Carly Fiorina (born in 1954) was CEO of HP/Compaq in 1999–2005, and an east coast manager at AT&T/Lucent (1980–1999). She was raised in multiple states. She led the CIA External Advisory Board (2007–2009), was the 2010 U.S. Senate nominee in California, and runs several organizations. On February 10, 2016, she suspended her campaign and endorsed Ted Cruz on March 9, 2016.\n\nCarly Fiorina endorsements\n\nJim Gilmore (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Jim Gilmore (born in 1949) was Governor of Virginia (1998–2002), and ran for president in 2008. He was raised in Virginia. He was an overseas Army Intel officer (1971–1974) and Virginia lawyer (1977–1987) before entering politics.\n\nJim Gilmore endorsements\n\nMike Huckabee (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Mike Huckabee (born in 1955) was Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, and ran for president in 2008. He was raised in Arkansas. He was a minister (1980–1992) before entering politics, an author (1997–2015), and television host (2008–2015). He suspended his campaign February 1, 2016, after the Iowa Caucus.\n\nMike Huckabee endorsements\n\nJohn Kasich (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: John Kasich (born in 1952) is Governor of Ohio (2010–present), ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, and was U.S. Representative from Ohio (1983–2001). He was raised in Pennsylvania. He has an Ohio degree in political science before entering politics, then was a television commentator and banker (2001–2008).\n\nJohn Kasich endorsements\n\nRand Paul (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Rand Paul (born in 1963) is a U.S. Senator from Kentucky (2010–present). He was raised in Texas, where his father, Ron Paul was a U.S. Representative (1976–1977, 1979–1985, 1997–2013) and presidential candidate (1988/2008/2012). He was a Kentucky eye surgeon (1993–2010) before entering politics. He withdrew on February 3, 2016.\n\nRand Paul endorsements\n\nMarco Rubio (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Marco Rubio (born in 1971) is a U.S. Senator from Florida (2010–present). He was raised in Florida (and Nevada). He was a Florida lawyer (1996–98) before entering politics. On March 15, 2016, Rubio announced he has suspended his campaign.\n\nMarco Rubio endorsements\n\nRick Santorum (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Rick Santorum (born in 1958) was a Pennsylvania U.S. Senator from 1995 to 2007, and ran for president in 2012. He was raised in Pennsylvania (and West Virginia). He was a Pennsylvania lawyer (1987–1990) before entering politics. He withdrew on February 3, 2016, and endorsed Marco Rubio.\n\nRick Santorum endorsements\n\nLindsey Graham (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Lindsey Graham (born in 1955) is a U.S. Senator from South Carolina (2003–present). B, he was raised in South Carolina. He was a lawyer (USAF overseas [1982–89], privately in South Carolina (1989–1992) before entering politics. He withdrew on December 21, 2015. He first endorsed Jeb Bush on January 15, 2016, and then endorsed Ted Cruz on March 17, 2016.\n\nLindsey Graham endorsements\n\nRick Perry (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Rick Perry (born in 1950) was Governor of Texas from 2000 to 2014, and ran for president in 2012. He was raised in Texas. He was a Texas-and-overseas USAF pilot (1972–1977) and Texas farmer (1977–1984) before entering politics. He withdrew on September 11, 2015, and endorsed Ted Cruz on January 25, 2016.\n\nRick Perry endorsements\n\nBobby Jindal (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Bobby Jindal (born in 1971) is Governor of Louisiana (2008–2016). He was raised in Louisiana. He was a Rhodes Scholar in political science before entering politics. He withdrew on November 17, 2015, and endorsed Marco Rubio on February 5, 2016.\n\nBobby Jindal endorsements\n\nScott Walker (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: Scott Walker (born in 1967) is Governor of Wisconsin (2011–present). He was raised in Wisconsin (and Iowa). He was at Marquette University in politics and economics before entering politics. He withdrew on September 21, 2015, and endorsed Ted Cruz on March 29, 2016.\n\nScott Walker endorsements\n\nGeorge Pataki (withdrawn)\n\nBackground: George Pataki (born in 1945) was Governor of New York from 1995 to 2006. He was raised in New York. He was a New York lawyer (1970–1981) before politics. He withdrew on December 29, 2015, and endorsed John Kasich on April 14, 2016, having previously endorsed Marco Rubio on January 26, 2016.\n\nGeorge Pataki endorsements\n\nEndorsement withholding\nThe intentional withholding of an endorsement (aka \"negative-endorsement\") is a relevant and important category for this topic. At a minimum, it represents the loss of an endorsing entity for a candidate. It also represents the introduction of a minimum threshold.\nThe editorial department of the Miami-based Sun-Sentinel on March 4, 2016, announced that it would endorse no GOP candidates as, \"The kind of person who should be running is not in the race\".\n\nThe Dallas News, after more than 75 years of endorsing Republicans, went the additional step of endorsing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.\n\nSee also\nEndorsements in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries\n\nReferences\n\nRepublican Party primaries\n2016 United States Republican presidential primaries",
"Kungälv () (old ) is a city and the seat of Kungälv Municipality in Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It had 22,768 inhabitants in 2010. In 2021, the main Kungälv - Ytterby - Kareby conurbation had a combined population approaching 30,000. In total, the whole region had 47,050 inhabitants.\n\nHistory\n\nAccording to official Swedish sources the city was founded in 1612, when the city of Konghelle was moved closer to the Bohus Fortress. However, this is disputed because other sources indicate that it was just a strategic relocation of the existing Norwegian city, the capital of Norway at one point under Sigurd I Magnusson, something frequently used for marketing and tourist purposes. For this reason, Kungälv could celebrate its \"1000-year anniversary\" in 1959.\n\nSigurd I Magnusson (Sigurd Jorsalfare, i.e., Sigurd the Crusader) was the King of Norway (1103–1130) and is the best-known crusader king of Scandinavia. He was also the first European king to join the crusades at a time where Kungälv was Norwegian territory.\n\nSigurd returned to Norway in 1111, where he made his capital in Konghelle (in the vicinity of Kungälv in present-day Sweden) and built a castle there, where he kept a relic given to him by King Baldwin, a splinter reputed to be from the True Cross. Sigurd died in 1130 and was buried in Hallvardskirken (Hallvards church) in Oslo, in present-day Norway.\n\nIn the 1120s Pomeranian ships from Stettin (present-day Szczecin, Poland), from the southern coast of the Baltic Sea attacked the Danish coast. On 10 August 1135 Duke Ratibor assaulted the Norwegian towns. Konghelle, was captured and burnt to the ground by the forces of prince Ratibor, assisted by a fleet of 550 ships with cavalry on board (each carrying forty-four men and two horses). They laid the town to ruins, killed a large part of the population, and abducted most of the survivors as thralls to Szczecin. Snorri Sturluson, writing a century later, said that Konghelle never completely recovered.\n\nThe former settlement at Konghelle burned down in 1612, and was subsequently moved by Christian IV of Denmark and Norway to the open slope below Bohus Fortress, and rebuilt as Kongelf.\n\nThe Bohus Fortress and the cookie and biscuit store Bräckboden are the most popular tourist attractions in Kungälv.\n\nNotable people\nMikael Andersson, Former NHL-forward and Olympian was raised in Kungälv.\nNiklas Andersson, Former NHL-forward and younger brother of Mikael was born and raised in Kungälv.\nP. J. Axelsson, Former Boston Bruins forward and Olympian was born and raised in Kungälv.\nMirsad Bektašević the jihadist was born in Serbia and grew up in Kungälv\nCarin Koch, Professional golfer was born and raised in Kungälv.\nErik Lindh, Former table tennis player and Olympic bronze medalist\nLise Meitner, Austrian physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics; resided in Kungälv\nJohn Hron, the victim of a high-profile murder / hate crime was raised in Kungälv\nFredrik Sjöström, Former NHL-forward was raised in Kungälv.\nErnst Skarstedt, Swedish-American author, journalist and editor was born in Kungälv.\nPontus Wernbloom, Professional football player.\n\nTransport\nEuropean route E6\nVästtrafik regional buses\nBohusbanan railway (Ytterby station)\n\nSports\nThe following sports clubs are located in Kungälv:\n Kungälvs VBK - multiple Swedish champions in volleyball in the 1980s and 90s\n IFK Kungälv \n Ytterby IS\n IK Kongahälla\n Kungälvs SK \n Kungälvs simsällskap\n Kongahälla AIK\n\nReferences \n\n \nPopulated places in Västra Götaland County\nPopulated places in Kungälv Municipality\nMunicipal seats of Västra Götaland County\nSwedish municipal seats\nFormer Norwegian towns"
] |
[
"Clay Aiken",
"Faith and philosophy",
"Where was he a MC and performer?",
"I don't know.",
"Where was he born and raised?",
"he attended Leesville Baptist Church"
] |
C_afa9ccbb26e2472ba9b06f4b32c2cea7_1
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What was his fifth album called?
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What was Clay Aiken fifth album called?
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Clay Aiken
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Aiken was born into a Baptist family. As a toddler, in 1980, he attended Leesville Baptist Church every week. According to his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, he was involved in Bible school, choir, and the youth group. The book made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2004, debuting at number two. It was written with Allison Glock and published by Random House. Barely mentioning American Idol, Aiken instead turned his focus to the people who had the most influence in his life - his mother, grandparents, siblings, teachers, and friends - and to the importance of religion in his life. He describes himself as a proud Southern Baptist who journeyed away from those roots in his late teens in search of a religion with more liberal social policies. He then returned to that church because of family and social ties although he remains at odds with the church on some issues. When asked in a PBS Kids interview to name his idols, he responded, "When people ask me what three people I'd like to have dinner with, living or dead, I say Jesus Christ, Mr. Rogers, and Jimmy Carter." While not self-identified as a Christian music artist, Aiken was featured in Christian Music Planet as an "American Idol Christian" in 2004, and in a cover story, "Clay Aiken's Balancing Act", in the January/February 2005 issue. His pre-Idol demo albums included several selections of Contemporary Christian Music (or CCM) and gospel songs. A performance of the Commodores' "Jesus is Love" at the American Music Awards in 2003 earned Aiken and Ruben Studdard a standing ovation. Aiken has sung a few CCM songs at his pop concerts, and has made Christmas albums, Christmas television specials and performances, and Christmas tours essential elements of his career. Aiken makes it clear that he is aware not everyone shares his religious beliefs and it is not his intention to press these beliefs on others. When he worked as a camp counselor at the YMCA, he challenged other camp faculty by insisting that singing "overtly Christian songs" was inappropriate, as some of the kids were Jewish. "I stood firm... no child is going to have a spiritual crisis on my watch." His public philosophy, geared towards inclusion and service to others, reflects his stance that decisions about religion should be made at home. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Clayton Holmes Aiken (né Grissom) (born November 30, 1978) is an American singer, television personality, actor, political candidate, and activist. Aiken finished second place on the second season of American Idol in 2003, and his debut album, Measure of a Man, went multi-platinum. He released four more albums on the RCA label, Merry Christmas with Love (2004), A Thousand Different Ways (2006), the Christmas EP All is Well (2006), and On My Way Here (2008). Since then he has released two more albums, both with Decca Records: Tried and True (2010) and Steadfast (2012). Aiken has also had eleven tours in support of his albums. In all, he has sold over 5 million albums, and is the fourth-highest-selling American Idol alumnus.
Aiken co-wrote a bestselling memoir in 2004, Learning to Sing. In 2004 he also had a televised Christmas special, A Clay Aiken Christmas. During much of 2008 he appeared on Broadway in the musical comedy Spamalot, in the role of Sir Robin. In 2010 he hosted the PBS special Tried & True Live!. He has also had numerous cameo and guest appearances on TV shows. In 2012 he competed in the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice, coming in second to Arsenio Hall.
With Diane Bubel, Aiken created the Bubel/Aiken Foundation in 2003, which was later renamed the National Inclusion Project. In 2004 he became a UNICEF ambassador, a position he held until 2013 when he gave it up in order to run for Congress. He traveled extensively in this role. In 2006, he was appointed for a two-year term to the Presidential Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.
In 2014, Aiken ran for the United States House of Representatives in North Carolina's 2nd congressional district. He won the Democratic primary, but lost to Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers in the general election. In January 2022, he announced a run for the Democratic nomination in North Carolina's 6th congressional district.
Early life
Clay Aiken was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a young boy, Aiken sang in the Raleigh Boychoir; and, as a teenager, he sang in school choirs, church choir, musicals and local theatre productions. After high school, he sang lead with a local band, Just By Chance, co-hosting and performing with the band at "Just by Chance and Friends" shows in Dunn, North Carolina. He was also MC and performer at the Johnston Community College Country Showcase in Smithfield and at the North Carolina Music Connection and Hometown Music Connection shows in Garner, and Benson. He performed the national anthem numerous times for the Raleigh IceCaps and the Carolina Hurricanes hockey teams, and performed it at the 2011 NHL All-Star Game at the RBC Center in Raleigh. Three demo albums of Aiken's vocals were created before American Idol with the aid of studio time given as a birthday gift by his mother: a cassette called Look What Love Has Done (by Clayton Grissom), a cassette and CD entitled Redefined (by Clayton Aiken), and a CD that combined some songs from each of the previous demos: "Look What Love Has Done, Vol 2" (by Clay Aiken). Estranged from his abusive birth father Vernon Grissom and with his mother's and grandfather Alvis Aiken's permission, at the age of 19 he legally changed his surname from Grissom to his mother Faye's maiden name, Aiken.
Aiken attended Raleigh's Leesville Road High School and took courses at Campbell University before enrolling at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In 1995, Aiken started working at the YMCA. Still in high school, Aiken learned quickly that he could make a difference in the lives of young people. He found his interest in special education while directing YMCA children's camps as a teenager, and at age 19, he served as a substitute teacher for a classroom of autistic students at Brentwood Elementary School in Raleigh. It was during that experience that he decided to finish college and become a special education teacher. While attending college in Charlotte, he took a part-time job as an assistant to a boy with autism, and it was this child's mother, Diane Bubel, who urged him to audition for American Idol. Although his American Idol activities temporarily delayed his academic pursuits, Aiken completed his course work while on tour and graduated with a bachelor's degree in special education in December 2003.
Personal life
On August 8, 2008, Aiken announced, on his personal blog, the birth of his son in North Carolina: "My dear friend, Jaymes, and I are so excited to announce the birth of Parker Foster Aiken." The child's mother, Jaymes Foster, is the sister of record producer David Foster, executive producer of Aiken's last three albums on the RCA label. "The little man is healthy, happy, and as loud as his daddy", Aiken wrote. "Mama Jaymes is doing quite well also." In his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, Aiken said, "It's a Southern tradition to be given your first name from your grandmama's maiden name." Aiken's middle name came from his paternal grandmother's maiden name; he and Foster used the married surnames of their mothers to name their son.
Public declaration of being gay
After several years of public speculation, Aiken came out as gay in a September 2008 interview with People magazine. In April 2009, Aiken was honored by the Family Equality Council advocacy group at its annual benefit dinner in New York City.
On November 18, 2010, Aiken went to Washington, D.C., on behalf of Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) at a Capitol Hill briefing talking about anti-gay bullying.
Faith and philosophy
Aiken was born into a Baptist family. As a toddler, in 1980, he attended Leesville Baptist Church every week. According to his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, he was involved in Bible school, choir, and the youth group. The book made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2004, debuting at number two. It was written with Allison Glock and published by Random House. Barely mentioning American Idol, Aiken instead turned his focus to the people who had the most influence in his life – his mother, grandparents, siblings, teachers, and friends – and to the importance of religion in his life. He describes himself as a proud Southern Baptist who journeyed away from those roots in his late teens in search of a religion with more liberal social policies. He then returned to that church because of family and social ties although he remains at odds with the church on some issues.
When asked in a PBS Kids interview to name his idols, he responded, "When people ask me what three people I'd like to have dinner with, living or dead, I say Jesus Christ, Mr. Rogers, and Jimmy Carter."
While not self-identified as a Christian music artist, Aiken was featured in Christian Music Planet as an "American Idol Christian" in 2004, and in a cover story, "Clay Aiken's Balancing Act", in the January/February 2005 issue. His pre-Idol demo albums included several selections of Contemporary Christian Music (or CCM) and gospel songs. A performance of the Commodores' "Jesus is Love" at the American Music Awards in 2003 earned Aiken and Ruben Studdard a standing ovation. Aiken has sung a few CCM songs at his pop concerts and has made Christmas albums, Christmas television specials and performances, and Christmas tours essential elements of his career.
Aiken makes it clear that he is aware not everyone shares his religious beliefs and it is not his intention to press these beliefs on others. When he worked as a camp counselor at the YMCA, he challenged other camp faculty by insisting that singing "overtly Christian songs" was inappropriate, as some of the kids were Jewish. "I stood firm ... no child is going to have a spiritual crisis on my watch." His public philosophy, geared towards inclusion and service to others, reflects his stance that decisions about religion should be made at home.
American Idol
Aiken had filled out an application to participate in the reality show The Amazing Race when a friend of his insisted that he try out for American Idol instead. Television viewers first glimpsed Aiken during the audition episodes at the beginning of American Idol's second season. The show's judges first saw Aiken as a nerdy type unlikely to be a typical pop idol, but after hearing him sing Heatwave's "Always and Forever" decided to advance him to the next round. The clip of the judges' surprise during this audition performance was replayed many times over the course of the competition.
Aiken made it to the round of 32 before being cut from the show, but he was invited to return for the "Wild Card" round; his performance of Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" sent him on to the final 12 as the viewer's choice. While noted for his performance of ballads, such as Neil Sedaka's "Solitaire", his upbeat performances, including the Foundations' "Build Me Up Buttercup", were also appreciated. Aiken received enough votes every week to keep him out of the bottom three. Part of his appeal was his "geek to chic" transformation in appearance. "I looked like Opie", Aiken said to People magazine regarding his appearance at his American Idol audition in 2002. He replaced his glasses with contact lenses and agreed to let the show's stylists change his hair style. With longer, flat ironed, spiky hair and a penchant for wearing striped shirts, Aiken had established a trademark look by the final American Idol season 2 show.
On May 21, 2003, Aiken came in a close second to Ruben Studdard, who won the contest by 134,000 votes out of more than 24,000,000 votes cast. The result was controversial, as some hypothesized that Idol voting system was incapable of handling the number of attempted calls. In an interview prior to the start of the fifth season of American Idol, Executive Producer Nigel Lythgoe revealed for the first time that Aiken had led the fan voting every week from the Wild Card week to the finale, when the possibly-random voting result gave Studdard the win.
Rolling Stone featured Aiken on the cover of its July 2003 issue. In the cover article, Aiken said, "One thing I've found of people in the public eye, either you're a womanizer or you've got to be gay. Since I'm neither one of those, people are completely concerned about me." In subsequent interviews he expressed frustration over continued questions about his sexual orientation, telling People magazine in 2006, "It doesn't matter what I say. People are going to believe what they want."
Aiken made a surprise appearance on the final show of the fifth season of American Idol, when failed auditioner Michael Sandecki returned to the show to receive a "Golden Idol" award for Best Impersonator for his Clay Aiken-like appearance. Aiken appeared without introduction in a well-tailored designer suit and longer, darker hair with bangs, looking so different that many did not recognize him until he began to sing "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me".
The second season of the American Idol Rewind series (2007) was narrated by Aiken.
Aiken is reportedly one of the top 10 earners of Idol, earning an estimated $1.5 million in 2010.
American Idol season 2 performances and results
Due to Corey Clark's disqualification, the Top 9 performances became Top 8 when no one was eliminated.
Music
2003–2004: Measure of a Man
On October 14, 2003, Aiken released his first solo album, Measure of a Man, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with 613,000 copies sold in its first week, the highest-selling debut for a solo artist in 10 years. The album received RIAA Double Platinum certification on November 17, 2003 (a Double Platinum plaque was presented to Aiken by Clive Davis on October 22, 2003, during Good Morning America). The album spawned both the hit single "Invisible" and his first hit song, "This Is the Night" (both co-written by British songwriter Chris Braide). Later that year, Aiken won the Fan's Choice Award at the American Music Awards ceremony, and his CD single "This Is The Night/Bridge Over Troubled Water" won the Billboard award for the Best-Selling Single of 2003.
2004–2006: Merry Christmas With Love
On November 16, 2004, Aiken released a holiday album titled Merry Christmas with Love, which set a new record for fastest-selling holiday album in the Soundscan era (since 1991). The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and tied Céline Dion's record for the highest debut by a holiday album in the history of Billboard magazine. Merry Christmas with Love sold over 1,000,000 copies retail in six weeks and was the best-selling holiday album of 2004, receiving RIAA Platinum certification on January 6, 2005.
2006–2008: A Thousand Different Ways And All Is Well
Aiken's second studio album, A Thousand Different Ways, was released September 19, 2006. He worked on the album under the guidance of Canadian producer and A&R executive Jaymes Foster. The album contains ten cover songs and four new songs, one of which Aiken co-wrote. Clive Davis is credited with the cover concept. One additional song, "Lover All Alone", written by Aiken and David Foster, is included with the album on iTunes. Debuting at number two on the Billboard chart, A Thousand Different Ways made Aiken the fourth artist ever to have his first three albums debut in the Top 5 and scan over 200,000 in the first week.
Aiken's second Christmas album, All Is Well (an EP of four Christmas songs), was released exclusively to Walmart on November 28, 2006, and was released to iTunes as a digital download in December 2007.
2008–2009: On My Way Here
Aiken stated in an April 2007 interview with People that he was planning a new album, and during his May 2007 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he mentioned that he was in Los Angeles interviewing producers for the new album. Aiken found a song, "On My Way Here", written by OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder, that struck a chord with him and became the inspiration for the album's theme in addition to the album title. For a cohesive sound, Aiken chose Mark 'Kipper' Eldridge to produce the entire album. On My Way Here was released May 6, 2008, on the RCA label.
According to an article posted on Billboard, Aiken and RCA parted ways shortly after his On My Way Here album was released.
Aiken's rep confirmed to People magazine that Aiken left RCA. Stated in the cited People article, "The buzz about Aiken's exit was fueled earlier this week when his picture disappeared online and Billboard, citing unnamed sources, reported Friday that Aiken, 30, had been dropped by the label. According to Billboard, Aiken's 2008 album "On My Way Here" sold just 159,000 copies in the U.S., compared to his 2003 debut album, "Measure of a Man", which sold 2.78 million copies".
A fifth album, The Very Best of Clay Aiken, was released at the end of March 2009 on Sony's Legacy Recordings Playlist Series. This album was a compilation of songs that had been included on the previous albums released by RCA. First week sales of 3000 copies placed Playlist: The Very Best of Clay Aiken at number 173 on the Billboard 200 chart and at number ten on the Top Internet Albums chart.
2009–2011: Tried and True
On August 10, 2009, it was announced on Aiken's official website that he had signed with Decca Records and he would have new music out by early 2010. Performing the songs from his new album, Tried and True, Aiken held a one night only concert at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh, North Carolina on March 12, 2010. The concert, filmed for PBS broadcast, included guest appearances by Ruben Studdard and Linda Eder. Eder joined Aiken on stage for their duet of "Crying", which they recorded for his album. The album was released on June 1, 2010 and features songs popular in the 1950s and 1960s, including two Aiken covered during his run on American Idol, "Mack the Knife" and "Unchained Melody". In conjunction with the PBS special a companion DVD, Tried & True Live!, was released on July 27, 2010. A tour to promote the album is planned for early 2014.
2011–present: Steadfast
On December 20, 2011, Aiken released a new single, "Bring Back My Love" under the Decca Label. The single is his first original song since the release of his album On My Way Here in 2008. On March 27, 2012 Aiken released Steadfast, a new album of previous recordings and songs only sung in concerts. The album debuted at #120 on the Billboard 200 chart with sales of 4,000 in the first week.
Television
Aiken has made many television appearances.
On Labor Day 2003, Aiken sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water" at the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon and received a standing ovation from the audience. Lewis compared Aiken with Frank Sinatra and marveled at the dedication of Aiken's fan base:
That same year, Aiken sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the opening night of the 2003 World Series and appeared in numerous television specials during the winter of 2003, including Disney's Christmas Day Parade and the Nick at Nite Holiday Special, where he sang the "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" with Bing Crosby via special effects.
Aiken starred in and executive produced his first TV special (December 2004), titled A Clay Aiken Christmas, with special guests Barry Manilow, Yolanda Adams, and Megan Mullally; the special was released on DVD later that month. On July 4, 2004, Aiken was one of the performers in the A Capitol Fourth concert in Washington, D.C. and performed in the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series in 2004 and 2005. He also sang "Isn't She Lovely" on the popular television show Scrubs.
Aiken was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 2004 and participated in several skits. He has appeared multiple times on The Tonight Show, interviewing with Jay Leno as a guest in addition to singing, and has become a regular guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The Kimmel appearances often feature skits: in one, Jimmy Kimmel's then girlfriend Sarah Silverman confessed to an affair with Aiken, and in another, Aiken expressed his distaste for Kimmel's jokes about him by beating him up. In May 2007, he spent the first half of his interview on horseback while talking about his recent UNICEF trip to Afghanistan. A few weeks later he appeared as a spokesperson for "Guillermo's Mustache" in Kimmel's fictional DVD informercial shown on the Dancing With the Stars finale. Aiken made his acting debut on Ed in early 2004, playing himself, and in 2005, he was interviewed by Erica Kane on All My Children. He played the role of cafeteria worker Kenny on the Scrubs episode "My Life in Four Cameras". In December 2006, he made an appearance as himself on Days of Our Lives.
After hosting and performing in the American Idol Christmas special in 2003, Aiken has had several subsequent hosting jobs. He was a special correspondent for The Insider for the 2005 Emmy Awards, and on the sets of the sitcom Reba with Reba McEntire and Dancing With the Stars. He co-hosted The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet in 2006, and on November 17, 2006, filled in for Regis Philbin as guest host on Live with Regis and Kelly. During an interview, Aiken covered Kelly Ripa's mouth with his hand. The incident drew considerable media reaction after Ripa complained at length about the incident on her show the following Monday. Aiken made fun of the controversy on the 2006 American Music Awards the next night with Tori Spelling. On The Tyra Banks Show in 2006, filmed before the Ripa incident, Aiken mentioned wanting to have his own talk show someday, and Banks switched seats with him and let him interview her for one segment of the show. Aiken was a guest judge on the April 8, 2009, segment of Banks show America's Next Top Model; in what the show refers to as a teach, he worked with the remaining eight contestants on their acting skills prior to the judging.
In November 2007, Aiken was a contestant on a celebrity edition of the game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?. Playing for his charity, the National Inclusion Project, he chose to drop out after the ninth question with US$300,000, despite having a copy and a save at his disposal. If he had played the tenth question, he would have won US$500,000; Aiken and the 5th grader playing with him both had the correct answer.
In May 2009, Aiken made a guest appearance on 30 Rock in the season 3 episode "Kidney Now!". It was revealed in this episode that he is the cousin of the show's character Kenneth.
In August 2010, Aiken guest starred in an episode of Phineas and Ferb, called "Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs To You!". Aiken sang an inspirational duet with Chaka Khan, to encourage those who did not believe that Phineas and Ferb could accomplish their goal of circling the globe faster than the sun, thus creating the longest summer day of all time.
On January 30, 2011, Aiken sang the United States' national anthem at the 2011 NHL All-Star game held at the RBC Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, home of the Carolina Hurricanes.
On July 24, 2011, Aiken guest starred on the comedy drama series Drop Dead Diva.
In 2012, Aiken was the runner-up on the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice, raising US$361,500 for the National Inclusion Project.
Aiken appeared in one of the last episodes of The Office, titled "A.A.R.M.". He played himself and was one of the judges for a reality show that Andy was auditioning for.
In 2013, Aiken guest starred on an episode Law & Order: Special Victims Unit along with Taylor Hicks and Ashanti, playing themselves as judges for a singing contest on the episode called "Dissonant Voices".
Broadway
On January 18, 2008, Aiken made his Broadway debut when he joined the cast of Monty Python's Spamalot for a four-month run, ending on May 4, 2008. He played Sir Robin, in the Tony Award-winning musical directed by Mike Nichols. In addition to Sir Robin, Aiken played the 1st Guard and the Brother Maynard roles. On August 12, 2008, it was announced that Aiken would resume his role as Sir Robin beginning on September 19 and ending on January 4, 2009. On December 23, 2008, Aiken had his caricature unveiled at world-famous Sardi's restaurant. In December 2018, Aiken and Ruben Studdard starred in Ruben & Clay's First Annual Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Christmas Show on Broadway.
Other theater work
In May 2013, Aiken starred as "Man in Chair" in North Carolina Theatre's production of The Drowsy Chaperone, along with fellow Raleigh native and Tony Award winner Beth Leavel, who reprised her role as "The Chaperone".
During the summer of 2013, Aiken performed the role of Joseph in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine.
In June 2019, Aiken starred as Teen Angel in Grease at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "The energy level is high, but there's no question it steps up a notch when Clay Aiken struts out in the second act and gives Pittsburgh a taste of why his Claymates are hopelessly devoted to the former American Idol." "As 'Teen Angel' in the Pittsburgh CLO's production of Grease, Aiken is only on stage for about five minutes. Those five minutes, however, are fab-u-lous."
Tours
From February through April 2004, Aiken and Kelly Clarkson embarked on the Independent Tour as co-headliners. Following this tour, he was scheduled for a few summer solo tour dates, but demand ultimately led to the booking of 50 dates across the United States, resulting in what many fans called the "Not-A-Tour". Disney (Buena Vista) was the exclusive sponsor of this unnamed summer tour, promoting their Aladdin Special Edition 2-Disc DVD with a preview of Aiken's rendition of "Proud of Your Boy", a song originally intended for the first release of the film but cut when the Aladdin storyline changed during production. A music video featuring Aiken is on the Aladdin Special Edition DVD. On this tour, he also performed a duet, "Without You", which was released on Kimberley Locke's 2004 debut album One Love.
In November 2004, Aiken launched his third tour of the year, which revolved around a Christmas theme. "The Joyful Noise Tour", sponsored by Ronald McDonald House Charities, featured a conductor and a 30-piece orchestra. In some cities, Aiken was supported by the local philharmonic or symphony, such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Local choirs from high schools and elementary schools also participated at each concert.
During the summer of 2005, Aiken, with a seven-piece band and three back-up singers, toured with the "Jukebox Tour", performing songs of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, as well as a few favorites from Measure of a Man. He also performed a few new songs being considered for his next album.
In early November 2005, Aiken launched his second Christmas tour. The 2005 Joyful Noise tour featured a series of vignettes, written by Aiken, which told the story of an older woman who had lost the Christmas spirit and a young boy who helps her find it again. A cast of actors, dancers and back-up singers traveled with the tour, and members of local theater groups were added in each venue for smaller, non-speaking roles and crowd scenes. The tour opened in Vancouver, British Columbia, on November 2, and ended in Clearwater, Florida on December 30. According to Pollstar, Aiken's first five tours grossed $28 million.
In December 2006, Aiken began his third Christmas tour, comprising performances in 18 Midwest and East Coast cities. Aiken was supported by local orchestras, which also opened the concerts with a program of seasonal music.
A 23-date tour in support of his third album, A Thousand Different Ways, began on July 4, 2007, and ended in Orlando, Florida, on August 19. On this tour Aiken hired local symphonies to back him, along with tour regulars Jesse Vargas, pianist, conductor and arranger; Sean McDaniel, drummer; and Quiana Parler and Angela Fisher, backup singers. Stops included the Greek Theatre (Los Angeles), Chautauqua Institution in New York, and the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. Three days into the tour, Aiken and a woman were involved in an in-flight altercation in which she allegedly shoved him. As a result of the scuffle, Aiken and the woman were later questioned by the FBI. Aiken told Entertainment Tonight that he had been sleeping when the incident occurred.
His fourth annual Christmas tour, "Christmas in the Heartland", began on November 26, 2007, in Wichita, Kansas. That 21-date tour ended on December 22, 2007, in Merrillville, Indiana.
He has ended all of his Christmas tours with his signature Christmas song, "Don't Save It All For Christmas Day".
Aiken and Ruben Studdard brought their "Timeless" tour to cities in the US and Canada beginning in Asheville, North Carolina, on July 23, 2010, and ending in Biloxi, Mississippi, on August 14. Instead of a concert focusing on each singers recordings, Aiken and Studdard opted for a variety show format covering medleys of songs from the 1960s to the 1990s with a few solos and interspersed with comedy bits.
Aiken announced on July 30, 2010, that he will be touring in February and March 2011 in conjunction with PBS to support his album Tried and True and accompanying live DVD Clay Aiken: Tried and True – Live.
Aiken began his fifth Christmas tour "Joyful Noise 2012" in Florida in November 2012.
Activism
In 1995, Aiken started working at the YMCA.
At 19, Aiken taught at Brentwood Elementary School in a class of kids with autism. It was during that experience that he decided to finish college and become a special education teacher.
Aiken has participated in multiple benefit events and concerts, including the 2004 Rosalynn Carter Benefit, the America's Promise Benefit, and Heather Headley's Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit, "Home", where he sang a duet with Headley. He was one of the celebrity readers for the Arthur Celebrity Audiobook (Stories for Heroes Series), which benefits the Bubel/Aiken Foundation (now the National Inclusion Project) and other charities, and served as spokesperson for the series. He was also a spokesperson for the 2004 Toys For Tots drive, and acted as an ambassador for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Aiken worked with the Make A Wish Foundation to make one little boy's dream of singing on stage with Clay Aiken come true.
In September 2006, Aiken was appointed to the Presidential Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities by President George W. Bush. Appointees serve a two-year term; Aiken was sworn on September 14, 2006, by HHS Assistant Secretary for Children and Families Wade F. Horn, PhD
While appearing in Spamalot, Aiken used his free time and celebrity to help raise funds for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) during their fund drives and auctions. In 2010, Aiken spoke out for gay rights at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in North Carolina. He also joined other celebrities in filming an educational video for Cyndi Lauper's web based Give a Damn campaign, a project of her True Colors Fund. In addition to UNICEF and his National Inclusion Project he is promoting GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network as one of his causes on his official website.
National Inclusion Project (formerly BAF)
Aiken's interest in autism issues led him, along with Diane Bubel (whose son Michael is diagnosed with autism and was tutored by Aiken), to found the National Inclusion Project (formerly the Bubel/Aiken Foundation), which supports the integration of children with disabilities into the life environment of their non-disabled peers. The foundation runs summer camps which reflect its mission, and also presents Able to Serve awards to support the volunteer efforts of children with physical and mental disabilities. In July 2005, Raleigh's WRAL-TV reported on an internet campaign mounted by critics questioning how Aiken's foundation used its money. WRAL news hired an independent accountant who reported that program services totaled $920,000 in 2004—around 85 cents on every dollar donated—which is considered a solid percentage compared to other charities. CNN picked up the story, and Aiken appeared on Showbiz Tonight to provide details about the foundation's programs. In late 2004, the foundation was awarded a $500,000 grant by the US government to develop a K–12 model for inclusion in community service projects to be used in schools across the country. In addition, State Farm granted $1.5 million to the foundation to help develop a primary education curriculum focused on teaching social and life skills through service to children of all levels of ability.
On August 5, 2009, in an open letter from the founders, Clay Aiken and Diane Bubel announced that they would rename the organization as the "National Inclusion Project".
UNICEF
In November 2004, Aiken was appointed a U.S. Fund for UNICEF National Ambassador, with a mission to help ensure that children everywhere are afforded a primary education. After the tsunami at the end of 2004, he participated in the NBC4 telethon, which raised over $10 million, and recorded public service announcements in support of South Asian tsunami relief. He later recorded a video, featuring the song "Give A Little Bit", to be used as a public service announcement to raise money for tsunami victims. He was the 2005 spokesperson for the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF drive.
In March 2005, UNICEF sent Aiken to the tsunami-stricken Banda Aceh area to raise awareness of the need to restore education quickly to the children who survived this disaster. UNICEF sent Aiken on another mission in May 2005, to northern Uganda, to witness the plight of children called "night commuters", who flee the villages each night to sleep in streets and shelters in hopes of avoiding being kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army. He was sent to Kabul and Bamyan, in Afghanistan in April 2007, where he was able to spend time with children in their classrooms; he also visited a health center for women and children where he administered oral polio vaccinations to babies. He observed that Afghani children, after being forbidden for so many years by the Taliban regime to attend school, are eager to return to school now that they are once again allowed to receive an education. Aiken spent his 2007 Christmas in Mexico with the children affected by the floods in the states of Chiapas and Tabasco. In late June and early July 2008, UNICEF sent Aiken to Somalia and Kenya.
Politics
2014 Congressional election
In the 2014 midterm elections, Aiken was the Democratic Party's candidate for North Carolina's 2nd congressional district. He won the Democratic primary, held on May 6, 2014, by fewer than 400 votes. His main opponent, Keith Crisco, died days after the primary vote but before the votes could be certified. In the general election, held on November 4, 2014, Aiken was defeated by incumbent Republican Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, 59 to 41 percent. North Carolina's 2nd district is considered a safe Republican seat. Aiken's campaign was captured by a filmmaking team and shown in the 2015 documentary miniseries The Runner-Up, which aired on the Esquire Network.
Since coming out as gay in 2008, Aiken has been more politically outspoken, particularly on gay rights and same-sex marriage. He spoke out against North Carolina Amendment 1, adopted in 2012, which banned gay marriage and civil unions in the state. When he ran for Congress, however, he said he did not want to be perceived as a single-issue candidate and said gay marriage was "not the issue" he was campaigning on. He said he wanted to focus on issues that were more important to people in his district. His assertion earned him a number of critics among supporters of same-sex marriage, including Bill Maher.
Citing his appearance on The Apprentice, Aiken defended Donald Trump against accusations of racism during the 2016 presidential race. However, following the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aiken tweeted an apology for denying Trump was racist, going so far to say, "I'm a fucking dumbass." Aiken reiterated that he was a Democrat and did not vote for Trump.
2022 Congressional election
In January 2022, Aiken released a video titled "Warming Up", in which he announced that he would run for the Democratic nomination in North Carolina's 6th congressional district. In this video, Aiken is quoted as saying, "If the loudest and most hateful voices think they are going to speak for us, just tell them I'm warming up the old vocal chords."
Sara Pacqueño, a member of the Raleigh-based The News & Observer editorial board, criticized Aiken for jumping into the race when other Democratic candidates had more political experience and questioned "what has he done to serve North Carolina?"
Electoral history
Fans
Aiken was voted the Favorite Reality Star of 2003 by TV Guide readers and "the most-loved reality star of all time" in a TV Guide poll conducted in the summer of 2005. In February 2006, People magazine readers voted Aiken their "Favorite American Idol".
While the origin of the term "Claymates" is unknown, Aiken trademarked the term. While in Los Angeles in September 2006 for a CD signing and appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Aiken talked with Jann Carl of Entertainment Tonight about the names various sub-groups have given themselves: "Claysians" (Asian fans), "Claynadians" (Canadian fans), "Clayropeans" (European fans) and "Claydawgs" (male fans). She then teased him about having his own "Clay Nation". At the CD signing, two young fans asked Aiken to autograph their shoulderblades and then went to the local tattoo parlor to make them permanent; later that day on Jimmy Kimmel Live! they were brought on stage to show the tattoos. Although some of his fans have been criticized at times by the media as being obsessive, he defends the group as a whole. When Kimmel said to Aiken that his fans were "crazy", Aiken stated that they were merely "enthusiastic". In 2003, in anticipation of the release of Measure of a Man, fans all over the country decided to get together and hold parties to celebrate the release of the CD and purchase copies at midnight. In 2006, for the release of A Thousand Different Ways, release parties were held in more than 80 cities in the United States, Canada, and Singapore.
Discography
Studio albums
Measure of a Man (2003)
Merry Christmas with Love (2004)
A Thousand Different Ways (2006)
On My Way Here (2008)
Tried and True (2010)
Steadfast (2012)
EPs
All Is Well (2006)
Compilations
The Very Best of Clay Aiken (2009)
A Thousand Different Ways/Measure of a Man (2010)
DVDs
A Clay Aiken Christmas (2004)
Tried and True Live (2010)
Awards and nominations
Professional
American Music Awards
2003: Won – Fan's Choice Award
2003: Nominated – Favorite Male Artist – Pop or Rock
Billboard Awards
2003: Won – Best Selling Single of 2003 – "Bridge Over Troubled Water/This Is The Night"
2004: Won – Best Selling Christmas Album – Merry Christmas with Love
2004: Won – Best Selling Christian Album – Merry Christmas with Love
2005: Won – Best Selling Christian Album – Merry Christmas with Love
New Music Weekly Awards
2004: Won – Top 40 Male Artist of the Year
American Christian Music Awards
2005: Won – Outstanding Yule CD – Merry Christmas with Love
Achievement
2005 Robert M. Barg Memorial Achievement Award
2006 UNC Charlotte Alumni Association Outstanding Young Alumnus Award
2007 National Center for Learning Disabilities' Children's Advocacy Award
2009 The Family Circle Award from the Family Equality Council
See also
List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
List of Decca Records artists
List of number-one hits (United States)
List of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
References
External links
Official websites
Decca Records – Clay Aiken
Clay Aiken – UNICEF Celebrity Ambassador
Reference sites
Clay Aiken at Rolling Stone
19 Recordings artists
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American singers
21st-century American male singers
Activists from North Carolina
American Idol participants
American male non-fiction writers
American male pop singers
21st-century American memoirists
Autism activists
Baptists from North Carolina
Campbell University alumni
Candidates in the 2014 United States elections
Decca Records artists
American gay actors
American gay musicians
Gay politicians
American gay writers
Leesville Road High School alumni
LGBT Baptists
LGBT memoirists
LGBT people from North Carolina
LGBT politicians from the United States
LGBT rights activists from the United States
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Living people
Male actors from North Carolina
Musicians from Raleigh, North Carolina
Politicians from Raleigh, North Carolina
North Carolina Democrats
Philanthropists from North Carolina
Southern Baptists
The Apprentice (franchise) contestants
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
University of North Carolina at Charlotte alumni
Writers from North Carolina
Singers from North Carolina
21st-century LGBT people
1978 births
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[
"Stories to Tell is the fifth studio album released by singer-songwriter Dave Barnes. A lot like his older albums, Stories To Tell has a mix of pop, country, rock, and soul. The album was recorded in Los Angeles and was the first time Barnes has recorded an album outside of his hometown of Nashville. The producer of the album was John Fields. Fields has produced with other bands including Lifehouse, Switchfoot, Goo Goo Dolls, and Pink. This was his fourth release on Razor & Tie record label, his previous release, What We Want, What We Get, was a success.\n\nReception\nWithin a week of the album being released, it was already #11 on the iTunes top Singer/Songwriter page. On March 31, 2012, the album was #59 on the Billboard 200 chart.\n\nTrack listing\n \"White Flag\" – 3:23\n \"How Long\" – 3:02\n \"Mine To Love\" – 3:45\n \"Heaven Help Me\" – 2:56\n \"Love Will Be Enough For Us\" – 3:45\n \"Seventeen\" – 3:41\n \"Missing You\" – 3:21\n \"Find Your Way Home\" – 3:00\n \"Stories To Tell\" – 3:27\n \"Warm Heart In a Cold World\" – 4:09\n \"One of Us\" – 3:47\n \"Baby Needs New Shoes\" – 3:22 (iTunes exclusive)\n\nReferences\n\nDave Barnes albums\n2012 albums",
"\"Give You What You Like\" is a song recorded by Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne from her self-titled fifth studio album released in 2013. It was written by Lavigne with her husband Chad Kroeger and David Hodges. The song has been praised by critics for expanding Lavigne's musical diversity and exposing her to new genres of music and is the sixth track on the album. Musically, \"Give You What You Like\" is a folk-pop song with lyrics that describe combating loneliness through swapping sex.\n\nOn 30 March 2014, Lavigne confirmed that \"Give You What You Like\" would be released as the album's fifth single. It would be released exclusively to North America and Europe, while \"Hello Kitty\" was released as the album's fourth single exclusively to Asia. After nearly one year, Lavigne posted the song's single artwork on Twitter and confirmed that it would be featured in the Lifetime TV movie Babysitter's Black Book. The song was released to the radio by Epic Records on 30 March 2015 as the album's fifth single.\n\nBackground\n\nPrior to the album's release, snippets of three of the album's tracks were posted online for a short time by Lavigne's record label: \"Let Me Go\", \"Sippin' On Sunshine\", and \"Give You What You Like\". Upon the album's release, Lavigne revealed on Twitter that \"Give You What You Like\" was one of her favorite songs from the album, and she is considering releasing it as the fourth single from the album, with the other option being \"Hello Kitty\". She told Idolator that \"Give You What You Like\", along with \"Hello Kitty\", \"Bad Girl\", and \"Hush Hush\", were her favorite songs from the album. The song has been described as \"sexual\" by many of its critics and listeners, with many agreeing that the new sound Lavigne has on this song in particular shows a very dark and mature side of her.\nLavigne later confirmed that she was hungover when she recorded the song, \"One day I was hungover, tired, vulnerable, and didn't want to sing, but he (Chad Kroeger) made me go in on 'Give You What You Like,' and do it anyway. The rawness of my vocals comes across in the song, which made it better. I'd have to do harmonies sometimes, and I'd start whining, and he'd want me to do 10 takes of vocals.\"\n\nCritical reception\n\n\"Give You What You Like\" garnered critical acclaim from critics, who complimented the mature sound that Lavigne showed on the song and praised its equally matured themes. Jason Lipshutz of Billboard wrote that \"the bright-eyed innocence of '17' and 'Bitchin' Summer' has vanished on 'Give You What You Like'\". He further called it \"a harrowing glimpse inside the exchange of physical pleasures to combat loneliness\" but criticized the song's production. He ended his review by comparing Lavigne's vocals in the song to those of her 2002 hit, \"I'm with You\".\n\nAllan Raible of ABC News also praised the song, writing, \"As the tempos slow down, things get less juvenile and slightly more interesting. 'Give You What You Like' begins with the words, 'Please wrap your drunken arms around me.' (At last, darker material!) This is a rather sleazy song, but it is way more interesting than the shallow stabs at teen pop. At least there is some sort of grit. It's not just a middle finger (referencing the album's opening track, \"Rock n Roll\").\"\n\nSam Lansky of Idolator called the middle of the album (including \"Give You What You Like\") \"less-effective\", but praised \"Let Me Go\" and \"Give You What You Like\", writing that while \"Let Me Go\" was the superior track, \"Give You What You Like\" is \"a fantastically eerie paean to a miserable one-night stand.\"\n\nMusic video\nA trailer of \"Give You What You Like\" was first released on Lavigne's official Vevo on 2 February 2015 at a total length of thirty seconds. The full music video was released on her official Vevo on 10 February 2015. The music video includes footage from the Lifetime TV movie Babysitter's Black Book, which was released on February 21, 2015.\n\nChart\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Avril Lavigne's website\n \n\n2010s ballads\n2013 songs\n2015 singles\nAvril Lavigne songs\nEpic Records singles\nSongs written by Avril Lavigne\nSongs written by Chad Kroeger\nSongs written by David Hodges\nSongs about sexuality\nFolk ballads\nPop ballads\nAmerican folk songs"
] |
[
"Clay Aiken",
"Faith and philosophy",
"Where was he a MC and performer?",
"I don't know.",
"Where was he born and raised?",
"he attended Leesville Baptist Church",
"What was his fifth album called?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_afa9ccbb26e2472ba9b06f4b32c2cea7_1
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Did he ever end up leaving RCA?
| 4 |
Did Clay Aiken ever end up leaving RCA records?
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Clay Aiken
|
Aiken was born into a Baptist family. As a toddler, in 1980, he attended Leesville Baptist Church every week. According to his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, he was involved in Bible school, choir, and the youth group. The book made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2004, debuting at number two. It was written with Allison Glock and published by Random House. Barely mentioning American Idol, Aiken instead turned his focus to the people who had the most influence in his life - his mother, grandparents, siblings, teachers, and friends - and to the importance of religion in his life. He describes himself as a proud Southern Baptist who journeyed away from those roots in his late teens in search of a religion with more liberal social policies. He then returned to that church because of family and social ties although he remains at odds with the church on some issues. When asked in a PBS Kids interview to name his idols, he responded, "When people ask me what three people I'd like to have dinner with, living or dead, I say Jesus Christ, Mr. Rogers, and Jimmy Carter." While not self-identified as a Christian music artist, Aiken was featured in Christian Music Planet as an "American Idol Christian" in 2004, and in a cover story, "Clay Aiken's Balancing Act", in the January/February 2005 issue. His pre-Idol demo albums included several selections of Contemporary Christian Music (or CCM) and gospel songs. A performance of the Commodores' "Jesus is Love" at the American Music Awards in 2003 earned Aiken and Ruben Studdard a standing ovation. Aiken has sung a few CCM songs at his pop concerts, and has made Christmas albums, Christmas television specials and performances, and Christmas tours essential elements of his career. Aiken makes it clear that he is aware not everyone shares his religious beliefs and it is not his intention to press these beliefs on others. When he worked as a camp counselor at the YMCA, he challenged other camp faculty by insisting that singing "overtly Christian songs" was inappropriate, as some of the kids were Jewish. "I stood firm... no child is going to have a spiritual crisis on my watch." His public philosophy, geared towards inclusion and service to others, reflects his stance that decisions about religion should be made at home. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Clayton Holmes Aiken (né Grissom) (born November 30, 1978) is an American singer, television personality, actor, political candidate, and activist. Aiken finished second place on the second season of American Idol in 2003, and his debut album, Measure of a Man, went multi-platinum. He released four more albums on the RCA label, Merry Christmas with Love (2004), A Thousand Different Ways (2006), the Christmas EP All is Well (2006), and On My Way Here (2008). Since then he has released two more albums, both with Decca Records: Tried and True (2010) and Steadfast (2012). Aiken has also had eleven tours in support of his albums. In all, he has sold over 5 million albums, and is the fourth-highest-selling American Idol alumnus.
Aiken co-wrote a bestselling memoir in 2004, Learning to Sing. In 2004 he also had a televised Christmas special, A Clay Aiken Christmas. During much of 2008 he appeared on Broadway in the musical comedy Spamalot, in the role of Sir Robin. In 2010 he hosted the PBS special Tried & True Live!. He has also had numerous cameo and guest appearances on TV shows. In 2012 he competed in the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice, coming in second to Arsenio Hall.
With Diane Bubel, Aiken created the Bubel/Aiken Foundation in 2003, which was later renamed the National Inclusion Project. In 2004 he became a UNICEF ambassador, a position he held until 2013 when he gave it up in order to run for Congress. He traveled extensively in this role. In 2006, he was appointed for a two-year term to the Presidential Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.
In 2014, Aiken ran for the United States House of Representatives in North Carolina's 2nd congressional district. He won the Democratic primary, but lost to Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers in the general election. In January 2022, he announced a run for the Democratic nomination in North Carolina's 6th congressional district.
Early life
Clay Aiken was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a young boy, Aiken sang in the Raleigh Boychoir; and, as a teenager, he sang in school choirs, church choir, musicals and local theatre productions. After high school, he sang lead with a local band, Just By Chance, co-hosting and performing with the band at "Just by Chance and Friends" shows in Dunn, North Carolina. He was also MC and performer at the Johnston Community College Country Showcase in Smithfield and at the North Carolina Music Connection and Hometown Music Connection shows in Garner, and Benson. He performed the national anthem numerous times for the Raleigh IceCaps and the Carolina Hurricanes hockey teams, and performed it at the 2011 NHL All-Star Game at the RBC Center in Raleigh. Three demo albums of Aiken's vocals were created before American Idol with the aid of studio time given as a birthday gift by his mother: a cassette called Look What Love Has Done (by Clayton Grissom), a cassette and CD entitled Redefined (by Clayton Aiken), and a CD that combined some songs from each of the previous demos: "Look What Love Has Done, Vol 2" (by Clay Aiken). Estranged from his abusive birth father Vernon Grissom and with his mother's and grandfather Alvis Aiken's permission, at the age of 19 he legally changed his surname from Grissom to his mother Faye's maiden name, Aiken.
Aiken attended Raleigh's Leesville Road High School and took courses at Campbell University before enrolling at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In 1995, Aiken started working at the YMCA. Still in high school, Aiken learned quickly that he could make a difference in the lives of young people. He found his interest in special education while directing YMCA children's camps as a teenager, and at age 19, he served as a substitute teacher for a classroom of autistic students at Brentwood Elementary School in Raleigh. It was during that experience that he decided to finish college and become a special education teacher. While attending college in Charlotte, he took a part-time job as an assistant to a boy with autism, and it was this child's mother, Diane Bubel, who urged him to audition for American Idol. Although his American Idol activities temporarily delayed his academic pursuits, Aiken completed his course work while on tour and graduated with a bachelor's degree in special education in December 2003.
Personal life
On August 8, 2008, Aiken announced, on his personal blog, the birth of his son in North Carolina: "My dear friend, Jaymes, and I are so excited to announce the birth of Parker Foster Aiken." The child's mother, Jaymes Foster, is the sister of record producer David Foster, executive producer of Aiken's last three albums on the RCA label. "The little man is healthy, happy, and as loud as his daddy", Aiken wrote. "Mama Jaymes is doing quite well also." In his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, Aiken said, "It's a Southern tradition to be given your first name from your grandmama's maiden name." Aiken's middle name came from his paternal grandmother's maiden name; he and Foster used the married surnames of their mothers to name their son.
Public declaration of being gay
After several years of public speculation, Aiken came out as gay in a September 2008 interview with People magazine. In April 2009, Aiken was honored by the Family Equality Council advocacy group at its annual benefit dinner in New York City.
On November 18, 2010, Aiken went to Washington, D.C., on behalf of Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) at a Capitol Hill briefing talking about anti-gay bullying.
Faith and philosophy
Aiken was born into a Baptist family. As a toddler, in 1980, he attended Leesville Baptist Church every week. According to his book, Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life, he was involved in Bible school, choir, and the youth group. The book made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2004, debuting at number two. It was written with Allison Glock and published by Random House. Barely mentioning American Idol, Aiken instead turned his focus to the people who had the most influence in his life – his mother, grandparents, siblings, teachers, and friends – and to the importance of religion in his life. He describes himself as a proud Southern Baptist who journeyed away from those roots in his late teens in search of a religion with more liberal social policies. He then returned to that church because of family and social ties although he remains at odds with the church on some issues.
When asked in a PBS Kids interview to name his idols, he responded, "When people ask me what three people I'd like to have dinner with, living or dead, I say Jesus Christ, Mr. Rogers, and Jimmy Carter."
While not self-identified as a Christian music artist, Aiken was featured in Christian Music Planet as an "American Idol Christian" in 2004, and in a cover story, "Clay Aiken's Balancing Act", in the January/February 2005 issue. His pre-Idol demo albums included several selections of Contemporary Christian Music (or CCM) and gospel songs. A performance of the Commodores' "Jesus is Love" at the American Music Awards in 2003 earned Aiken and Ruben Studdard a standing ovation. Aiken has sung a few CCM songs at his pop concerts and has made Christmas albums, Christmas television specials and performances, and Christmas tours essential elements of his career.
Aiken makes it clear that he is aware not everyone shares his religious beliefs and it is not his intention to press these beliefs on others. When he worked as a camp counselor at the YMCA, he challenged other camp faculty by insisting that singing "overtly Christian songs" was inappropriate, as some of the kids were Jewish. "I stood firm ... no child is going to have a spiritual crisis on my watch." His public philosophy, geared towards inclusion and service to others, reflects his stance that decisions about religion should be made at home.
American Idol
Aiken had filled out an application to participate in the reality show The Amazing Race when a friend of his insisted that he try out for American Idol instead. Television viewers first glimpsed Aiken during the audition episodes at the beginning of American Idol's second season. The show's judges first saw Aiken as a nerdy type unlikely to be a typical pop idol, but after hearing him sing Heatwave's "Always and Forever" decided to advance him to the next round. The clip of the judges' surprise during this audition performance was replayed many times over the course of the competition.
Aiken made it to the round of 32 before being cut from the show, but he was invited to return for the "Wild Card" round; his performance of Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" sent him on to the final 12 as the viewer's choice. While noted for his performance of ballads, such as Neil Sedaka's "Solitaire", his upbeat performances, including the Foundations' "Build Me Up Buttercup", were also appreciated. Aiken received enough votes every week to keep him out of the bottom three. Part of his appeal was his "geek to chic" transformation in appearance. "I looked like Opie", Aiken said to People magazine regarding his appearance at his American Idol audition in 2002. He replaced his glasses with contact lenses and agreed to let the show's stylists change his hair style. With longer, flat ironed, spiky hair and a penchant for wearing striped shirts, Aiken had established a trademark look by the final American Idol season 2 show.
On May 21, 2003, Aiken came in a close second to Ruben Studdard, who won the contest by 134,000 votes out of more than 24,000,000 votes cast. The result was controversial, as some hypothesized that Idol voting system was incapable of handling the number of attempted calls. In an interview prior to the start of the fifth season of American Idol, Executive Producer Nigel Lythgoe revealed for the first time that Aiken had led the fan voting every week from the Wild Card week to the finale, when the possibly-random voting result gave Studdard the win.
Rolling Stone featured Aiken on the cover of its July 2003 issue. In the cover article, Aiken said, "One thing I've found of people in the public eye, either you're a womanizer or you've got to be gay. Since I'm neither one of those, people are completely concerned about me." In subsequent interviews he expressed frustration over continued questions about his sexual orientation, telling People magazine in 2006, "It doesn't matter what I say. People are going to believe what they want."
Aiken made a surprise appearance on the final show of the fifth season of American Idol, when failed auditioner Michael Sandecki returned to the show to receive a "Golden Idol" award for Best Impersonator for his Clay Aiken-like appearance. Aiken appeared without introduction in a well-tailored designer suit and longer, darker hair with bangs, looking so different that many did not recognize him until he began to sing "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me".
The second season of the American Idol Rewind series (2007) was narrated by Aiken.
Aiken is reportedly one of the top 10 earners of Idol, earning an estimated $1.5 million in 2010.
American Idol season 2 performances and results
Due to Corey Clark's disqualification, the Top 9 performances became Top 8 when no one was eliminated.
Music
2003–2004: Measure of a Man
On October 14, 2003, Aiken released his first solo album, Measure of a Man, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with 613,000 copies sold in its first week, the highest-selling debut for a solo artist in 10 years. The album received RIAA Double Platinum certification on November 17, 2003 (a Double Platinum plaque was presented to Aiken by Clive Davis on October 22, 2003, during Good Morning America). The album spawned both the hit single "Invisible" and his first hit song, "This Is the Night" (both co-written by British songwriter Chris Braide). Later that year, Aiken won the Fan's Choice Award at the American Music Awards ceremony, and his CD single "This Is The Night/Bridge Over Troubled Water" won the Billboard award for the Best-Selling Single of 2003.
2004–2006: Merry Christmas With Love
On November 16, 2004, Aiken released a holiday album titled Merry Christmas with Love, which set a new record for fastest-selling holiday album in the Soundscan era (since 1991). The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and tied Céline Dion's record for the highest debut by a holiday album in the history of Billboard magazine. Merry Christmas with Love sold over 1,000,000 copies retail in six weeks and was the best-selling holiday album of 2004, receiving RIAA Platinum certification on January 6, 2005.
2006–2008: A Thousand Different Ways And All Is Well
Aiken's second studio album, A Thousand Different Ways, was released September 19, 2006. He worked on the album under the guidance of Canadian producer and A&R executive Jaymes Foster. The album contains ten cover songs and four new songs, one of which Aiken co-wrote. Clive Davis is credited with the cover concept. One additional song, "Lover All Alone", written by Aiken and David Foster, is included with the album on iTunes. Debuting at number two on the Billboard chart, A Thousand Different Ways made Aiken the fourth artist ever to have his first three albums debut in the Top 5 and scan over 200,000 in the first week.
Aiken's second Christmas album, All Is Well (an EP of four Christmas songs), was released exclusively to Walmart on November 28, 2006, and was released to iTunes as a digital download in December 2007.
2008–2009: On My Way Here
Aiken stated in an April 2007 interview with People that he was planning a new album, and during his May 2007 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he mentioned that he was in Los Angeles interviewing producers for the new album. Aiken found a song, "On My Way Here", written by OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder, that struck a chord with him and became the inspiration for the album's theme in addition to the album title. For a cohesive sound, Aiken chose Mark 'Kipper' Eldridge to produce the entire album. On My Way Here was released May 6, 2008, on the RCA label.
According to an article posted on Billboard, Aiken and RCA parted ways shortly after his On My Way Here album was released.
Aiken's rep confirmed to People magazine that Aiken left RCA. Stated in the cited People article, "The buzz about Aiken's exit was fueled earlier this week when his picture disappeared online and Billboard, citing unnamed sources, reported Friday that Aiken, 30, had been dropped by the label. According to Billboard, Aiken's 2008 album "On My Way Here" sold just 159,000 copies in the U.S., compared to his 2003 debut album, "Measure of a Man", which sold 2.78 million copies".
A fifth album, The Very Best of Clay Aiken, was released at the end of March 2009 on Sony's Legacy Recordings Playlist Series. This album was a compilation of songs that had been included on the previous albums released by RCA. First week sales of 3000 copies placed Playlist: The Very Best of Clay Aiken at number 173 on the Billboard 200 chart and at number ten on the Top Internet Albums chart.
2009–2011: Tried and True
On August 10, 2009, it was announced on Aiken's official website that he had signed with Decca Records and he would have new music out by early 2010. Performing the songs from his new album, Tried and True, Aiken held a one night only concert at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh, North Carolina on March 12, 2010. The concert, filmed for PBS broadcast, included guest appearances by Ruben Studdard and Linda Eder. Eder joined Aiken on stage for their duet of "Crying", which they recorded for his album. The album was released on June 1, 2010 and features songs popular in the 1950s and 1960s, including two Aiken covered during his run on American Idol, "Mack the Knife" and "Unchained Melody". In conjunction with the PBS special a companion DVD, Tried & True Live!, was released on July 27, 2010. A tour to promote the album is planned for early 2014.
2011–present: Steadfast
On December 20, 2011, Aiken released a new single, "Bring Back My Love" under the Decca Label. The single is his first original song since the release of his album On My Way Here in 2008. On March 27, 2012 Aiken released Steadfast, a new album of previous recordings and songs only sung in concerts. The album debuted at #120 on the Billboard 200 chart with sales of 4,000 in the first week.
Television
Aiken has made many television appearances.
On Labor Day 2003, Aiken sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water" at the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon and received a standing ovation from the audience. Lewis compared Aiken with Frank Sinatra and marveled at the dedication of Aiken's fan base:
That same year, Aiken sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the opening night of the 2003 World Series and appeared in numerous television specials during the winter of 2003, including Disney's Christmas Day Parade and the Nick at Nite Holiday Special, where he sang the "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" with Bing Crosby via special effects.
Aiken starred in and executive produced his first TV special (December 2004), titled A Clay Aiken Christmas, with special guests Barry Manilow, Yolanda Adams, and Megan Mullally; the special was released on DVD later that month. On July 4, 2004, Aiken was one of the performers in the A Capitol Fourth concert in Washington, D.C. and performed in the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series in 2004 and 2005. He also sang "Isn't She Lovely" on the popular television show Scrubs.
Aiken was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 2004 and participated in several skits. He has appeared multiple times on The Tonight Show, interviewing with Jay Leno as a guest in addition to singing, and has become a regular guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The Kimmel appearances often feature skits: in one, Jimmy Kimmel's then girlfriend Sarah Silverman confessed to an affair with Aiken, and in another, Aiken expressed his distaste for Kimmel's jokes about him by beating him up. In May 2007, he spent the first half of his interview on horseback while talking about his recent UNICEF trip to Afghanistan. A few weeks later he appeared as a spokesperson for "Guillermo's Mustache" in Kimmel's fictional DVD informercial shown on the Dancing With the Stars finale. Aiken made his acting debut on Ed in early 2004, playing himself, and in 2005, he was interviewed by Erica Kane on All My Children. He played the role of cafeteria worker Kenny on the Scrubs episode "My Life in Four Cameras". In December 2006, he made an appearance as himself on Days of Our Lives.
After hosting and performing in the American Idol Christmas special in 2003, Aiken has had several subsequent hosting jobs. He was a special correspondent for The Insider for the 2005 Emmy Awards, and on the sets of the sitcom Reba with Reba McEntire and Dancing With the Stars. He co-hosted The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet in 2006, and on November 17, 2006, filled in for Regis Philbin as guest host on Live with Regis and Kelly. During an interview, Aiken covered Kelly Ripa's mouth with his hand. The incident drew considerable media reaction after Ripa complained at length about the incident on her show the following Monday. Aiken made fun of the controversy on the 2006 American Music Awards the next night with Tori Spelling. On The Tyra Banks Show in 2006, filmed before the Ripa incident, Aiken mentioned wanting to have his own talk show someday, and Banks switched seats with him and let him interview her for one segment of the show. Aiken was a guest judge on the April 8, 2009, segment of Banks show America's Next Top Model; in what the show refers to as a teach, he worked with the remaining eight contestants on their acting skills prior to the judging.
In November 2007, Aiken was a contestant on a celebrity edition of the game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?. Playing for his charity, the National Inclusion Project, he chose to drop out after the ninth question with US$300,000, despite having a copy and a save at his disposal. If he had played the tenth question, he would have won US$500,000; Aiken and the 5th grader playing with him both had the correct answer.
In May 2009, Aiken made a guest appearance on 30 Rock in the season 3 episode "Kidney Now!". It was revealed in this episode that he is the cousin of the show's character Kenneth.
In August 2010, Aiken guest starred in an episode of Phineas and Ferb, called "Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs To You!". Aiken sang an inspirational duet with Chaka Khan, to encourage those who did not believe that Phineas and Ferb could accomplish their goal of circling the globe faster than the sun, thus creating the longest summer day of all time.
On January 30, 2011, Aiken sang the United States' national anthem at the 2011 NHL All-Star game held at the RBC Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, home of the Carolina Hurricanes.
On July 24, 2011, Aiken guest starred on the comedy drama series Drop Dead Diva.
In 2012, Aiken was the runner-up on the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice, raising US$361,500 for the National Inclusion Project.
Aiken appeared in one of the last episodes of The Office, titled "A.A.R.M.". He played himself and was one of the judges for a reality show that Andy was auditioning for.
In 2013, Aiken guest starred on an episode Law & Order: Special Victims Unit along with Taylor Hicks and Ashanti, playing themselves as judges for a singing contest on the episode called "Dissonant Voices".
Broadway
On January 18, 2008, Aiken made his Broadway debut when he joined the cast of Monty Python's Spamalot for a four-month run, ending on May 4, 2008. He played Sir Robin, in the Tony Award-winning musical directed by Mike Nichols. In addition to Sir Robin, Aiken played the 1st Guard and the Brother Maynard roles. On August 12, 2008, it was announced that Aiken would resume his role as Sir Robin beginning on September 19 and ending on January 4, 2009. On December 23, 2008, Aiken had his caricature unveiled at world-famous Sardi's restaurant. In December 2018, Aiken and Ruben Studdard starred in Ruben & Clay's First Annual Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Christmas Show on Broadway.
Other theater work
In May 2013, Aiken starred as "Man in Chair" in North Carolina Theatre's production of The Drowsy Chaperone, along with fellow Raleigh native and Tony Award winner Beth Leavel, who reprised her role as "The Chaperone".
During the summer of 2013, Aiken performed the role of Joseph in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine.
In June 2019, Aiken starred as Teen Angel in Grease at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "The energy level is high, but there's no question it steps up a notch when Clay Aiken struts out in the second act and gives Pittsburgh a taste of why his Claymates are hopelessly devoted to the former American Idol." "As 'Teen Angel' in the Pittsburgh CLO's production of Grease, Aiken is only on stage for about five minutes. Those five minutes, however, are fab-u-lous."
Tours
From February through April 2004, Aiken and Kelly Clarkson embarked on the Independent Tour as co-headliners. Following this tour, he was scheduled for a few summer solo tour dates, but demand ultimately led to the booking of 50 dates across the United States, resulting in what many fans called the "Not-A-Tour". Disney (Buena Vista) was the exclusive sponsor of this unnamed summer tour, promoting their Aladdin Special Edition 2-Disc DVD with a preview of Aiken's rendition of "Proud of Your Boy", a song originally intended for the first release of the film but cut when the Aladdin storyline changed during production. A music video featuring Aiken is on the Aladdin Special Edition DVD. On this tour, he also performed a duet, "Without You", which was released on Kimberley Locke's 2004 debut album One Love.
In November 2004, Aiken launched his third tour of the year, which revolved around a Christmas theme. "The Joyful Noise Tour", sponsored by Ronald McDonald House Charities, featured a conductor and a 30-piece orchestra. In some cities, Aiken was supported by the local philharmonic or symphony, such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Local choirs from high schools and elementary schools also participated at each concert.
During the summer of 2005, Aiken, with a seven-piece band and three back-up singers, toured with the "Jukebox Tour", performing songs of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, as well as a few favorites from Measure of a Man. He also performed a few new songs being considered for his next album.
In early November 2005, Aiken launched his second Christmas tour. The 2005 Joyful Noise tour featured a series of vignettes, written by Aiken, which told the story of an older woman who had lost the Christmas spirit and a young boy who helps her find it again. A cast of actors, dancers and back-up singers traveled with the tour, and members of local theater groups were added in each venue for smaller, non-speaking roles and crowd scenes. The tour opened in Vancouver, British Columbia, on November 2, and ended in Clearwater, Florida on December 30. According to Pollstar, Aiken's first five tours grossed $28 million.
In December 2006, Aiken began his third Christmas tour, comprising performances in 18 Midwest and East Coast cities. Aiken was supported by local orchestras, which also opened the concerts with a program of seasonal music.
A 23-date tour in support of his third album, A Thousand Different Ways, began on July 4, 2007, and ended in Orlando, Florida, on August 19. On this tour Aiken hired local symphonies to back him, along with tour regulars Jesse Vargas, pianist, conductor and arranger; Sean McDaniel, drummer; and Quiana Parler and Angela Fisher, backup singers. Stops included the Greek Theatre (Los Angeles), Chautauqua Institution in New York, and the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. Three days into the tour, Aiken and a woman were involved in an in-flight altercation in which she allegedly shoved him. As a result of the scuffle, Aiken and the woman were later questioned by the FBI. Aiken told Entertainment Tonight that he had been sleeping when the incident occurred.
His fourth annual Christmas tour, "Christmas in the Heartland", began on November 26, 2007, in Wichita, Kansas. That 21-date tour ended on December 22, 2007, in Merrillville, Indiana.
He has ended all of his Christmas tours with his signature Christmas song, "Don't Save It All For Christmas Day".
Aiken and Ruben Studdard brought their "Timeless" tour to cities in the US and Canada beginning in Asheville, North Carolina, on July 23, 2010, and ending in Biloxi, Mississippi, on August 14. Instead of a concert focusing on each singers recordings, Aiken and Studdard opted for a variety show format covering medleys of songs from the 1960s to the 1990s with a few solos and interspersed with comedy bits.
Aiken announced on July 30, 2010, that he will be touring in February and March 2011 in conjunction with PBS to support his album Tried and True and accompanying live DVD Clay Aiken: Tried and True – Live.
Aiken began his fifth Christmas tour "Joyful Noise 2012" in Florida in November 2012.
Activism
In 1995, Aiken started working at the YMCA.
At 19, Aiken taught at Brentwood Elementary School in a class of kids with autism. It was during that experience that he decided to finish college and become a special education teacher.
Aiken has participated in multiple benefit events and concerts, including the 2004 Rosalynn Carter Benefit, the America's Promise Benefit, and Heather Headley's Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit, "Home", where he sang a duet with Headley. He was one of the celebrity readers for the Arthur Celebrity Audiobook (Stories for Heroes Series), which benefits the Bubel/Aiken Foundation (now the National Inclusion Project) and other charities, and served as spokesperson for the series. He was also a spokesperson for the 2004 Toys For Tots drive, and acted as an ambassador for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Aiken worked with the Make A Wish Foundation to make one little boy's dream of singing on stage with Clay Aiken come true.
In September 2006, Aiken was appointed to the Presidential Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities by President George W. Bush. Appointees serve a two-year term; Aiken was sworn on September 14, 2006, by HHS Assistant Secretary for Children and Families Wade F. Horn, PhD
While appearing in Spamalot, Aiken used his free time and celebrity to help raise funds for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) during their fund drives and auctions. In 2010, Aiken spoke out for gay rights at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in North Carolina. He also joined other celebrities in filming an educational video for Cyndi Lauper's web based Give a Damn campaign, a project of her True Colors Fund. In addition to UNICEF and his National Inclusion Project he is promoting GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network as one of his causes on his official website.
National Inclusion Project (formerly BAF)
Aiken's interest in autism issues led him, along with Diane Bubel (whose son Michael is diagnosed with autism and was tutored by Aiken), to found the National Inclusion Project (formerly the Bubel/Aiken Foundation), which supports the integration of children with disabilities into the life environment of their non-disabled peers. The foundation runs summer camps which reflect its mission, and also presents Able to Serve awards to support the volunteer efforts of children with physical and mental disabilities. In July 2005, Raleigh's WRAL-TV reported on an internet campaign mounted by critics questioning how Aiken's foundation used its money. WRAL news hired an independent accountant who reported that program services totaled $920,000 in 2004—around 85 cents on every dollar donated—which is considered a solid percentage compared to other charities. CNN picked up the story, and Aiken appeared on Showbiz Tonight to provide details about the foundation's programs. In late 2004, the foundation was awarded a $500,000 grant by the US government to develop a K–12 model for inclusion in community service projects to be used in schools across the country. In addition, State Farm granted $1.5 million to the foundation to help develop a primary education curriculum focused on teaching social and life skills through service to children of all levels of ability.
On August 5, 2009, in an open letter from the founders, Clay Aiken and Diane Bubel announced that they would rename the organization as the "National Inclusion Project".
UNICEF
In November 2004, Aiken was appointed a U.S. Fund for UNICEF National Ambassador, with a mission to help ensure that children everywhere are afforded a primary education. After the tsunami at the end of 2004, he participated in the NBC4 telethon, which raised over $10 million, and recorded public service announcements in support of South Asian tsunami relief. He later recorded a video, featuring the song "Give A Little Bit", to be used as a public service announcement to raise money for tsunami victims. He was the 2005 spokesperson for the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF drive.
In March 2005, UNICEF sent Aiken to the tsunami-stricken Banda Aceh area to raise awareness of the need to restore education quickly to the children who survived this disaster. UNICEF sent Aiken on another mission in May 2005, to northern Uganda, to witness the plight of children called "night commuters", who flee the villages each night to sleep in streets and shelters in hopes of avoiding being kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army. He was sent to Kabul and Bamyan, in Afghanistan in April 2007, where he was able to spend time with children in their classrooms; he also visited a health center for women and children where he administered oral polio vaccinations to babies. He observed that Afghani children, after being forbidden for so many years by the Taliban regime to attend school, are eager to return to school now that they are once again allowed to receive an education. Aiken spent his 2007 Christmas in Mexico with the children affected by the floods in the states of Chiapas and Tabasco. In late June and early July 2008, UNICEF sent Aiken to Somalia and Kenya.
Politics
2014 Congressional election
In the 2014 midterm elections, Aiken was the Democratic Party's candidate for North Carolina's 2nd congressional district. He won the Democratic primary, held on May 6, 2014, by fewer than 400 votes. His main opponent, Keith Crisco, died days after the primary vote but before the votes could be certified. In the general election, held on November 4, 2014, Aiken was defeated by incumbent Republican Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, 59 to 41 percent. North Carolina's 2nd district is considered a safe Republican seat. Aiken's campaign was captured by a filmmaking team and shown in the 2015 documentary miniseries The Runner-Up, which aired on the Esquire Network.
Since coming out as gay in 2008, Aiken has been more politically outspoken, particularly on gay rights and same-sex marriage. He spoke out against North Carolina Amendment 1, adopted in 2012, which banned gay marriage and civil unions in the state. When he ran for Congress, however, he said he did not want to be perceived as a single-issue candidate and said gay marriage was "not the issue" he was campaigning on. He said he wanted to focus on issues that were more important to people in his district. His assertion earned him a number of critics among supporters of same-sex marriage, including Bill Maher.
Citing his appearance on The Apprentice, Aiken defended Donald Trump against accusations of racism during the 2016 presidential race. However, following the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aiken tweeted an apology for denying Trump was racist, going so far to say, "I'm a fucking dumbass." Aiken reiterated that he was a Democrat and did not vote for Trump.
2022 Congressional election
In January 2022, Aiken released a video titled "Warming Up", in which he announced that he would run for the Democratic nomination in North Carolina's 6th congressional district. In this video, Aiken is quoted as saying, "If the loudest and most hateful voices think they are going to speak for us, just tell them I'm warming up the old vocal chords."
Sara Pacqueño, a member of the Raleigh-based The News & Observer editorial board, criticized Aiken for jumping into the race when other Democratic candidates had more political experience and questioned "what has he done to serve North Carolina?"
Electoral history
Fans
Aiken was voted the Favorite Reality Star of 2003 by TV Guide readers and "the most-loved reality star of all time" in a TV Guide poll conducted in the summer of 2005. In February 2006, People magazine readers voted Aiken their "Favorite American Idol".
While the origin of the term "Claymates" is unknown, Aiken trademarked the term. While in Los Angeles in September 2006 for a CD signing and appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Aiken talked with Jann Carl of Entertainment Tonight about the names various sub-groups have given themselves: "Claysians" (Asian fans), "Claynadians" (Canadian fans), "Clayropeans" (European fans) and "Claydawgs" (male fans). She then teased him about having his own "Clay Nation". At the CD signing, two young fans asked Aiken to autograph their shoulderblades and then went to the local tattoo parlor to make them permanent; later that day on Jimmy Kimmel Live! they were brought on stage to show the tattoos. Although some of his fans have been criticized at times by the media as being obsessive, he defends the group as a whole. When Kimmel said to Aiken that his fans were "crazy", Aiken stated that they were merely "enthusiastic". In 2003, in anticipation of the release of Measure of a Man, fans all over the country decided to get together and hold parties to celebrate the release of the CD and purchase copies at midnight. In 2006, for the release of A Thousand Different Ways, release parties were held in more than 80 cities in the United States, Canada, and Singapore.
Discography
Studio albums
Measure of a Man (2003)
Merry Christmas with Love (2004)
A Thousand Different Ways (2006)
On My Way Here (2008)
Tried and True (2010)
Steadfast (2012)
EPs
All Is Well (2006)
Compilations
The Very Best of Clay Aiken (2009)
A Thousand Different Ways/Measure of a Man (2010)
DVDs
A Clay Aiken Christmas (2004)
Tried and True Live (2010)
Awards and nominations
Professional
American Music Awards
2003: Won – Fan's Choice Award
2003: Nominated – Favorite Male Artist – Pop or Rock
Billboard Awards
2003: Won – Best Selling Single of 2003 – "Bridge Over Troubled Water/This Is The Night"
2004: Won – Best Selling Christmas Album – Merry Christmas with Love
2004: Won – Best Selling Christian Album – Merry Christmas with Love
2005: Won – Best Selling Christian Album – Merry Christmas with Love
New Music Weekly Awards
2004: Won – Top 40 Male Artist of the Year
American Christian Music Awards
2005: Won – Outstanding Yule CD – Merry Christmas with Love
Achievement
2005 Robert M. Barg Memorial Achievement Award
2006 UNC Charlotte Alumni Association Outstanding Young Alumnus Award
2007 National Center for Learning Disabilities' Children's Advocacy Award
2009 The Family Circle Award from the Family Equality Council
See also
List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
List of Decca Records artists
List of number-one hits (United States)
List of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
References
External links
Official websites
Decca Records – Clay Aiken
Clay Aiken – UNICEF Celebrity Ambassador
Reference sites
Clay Aiken at Rolling Stone
19 Recordings artists
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American singers
21st-century American male singers
Activists from North Carolina
American Idol participants
American male non-fiction writers
American male pop singers
21st-century American memoirists
Autism activists
Baptists from North Carolina
Campbell University alumni
Candidates in the 2014 United States elections
Decca Records artists
American gay actors
American gay musicians
Gay politicians
American gay writers
Leesville Road High School alumni
LGBT Baptists
LGBT memoirists
LGBT people from North Carolina
LGBT politicians from the United States
LGBT rights activists from the United States
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Living people
Male actors from North Carolina
Musicians from Raleigh, North Carolina
Politicians from Raleigh, North Carolina
North Carolina Democrats
Philanthropists from North Carolina
Southern Baptists
The Apprentice (franchise) contestants
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
University of North Carolina at Charlotte alumni
Writers from North Carolina
Singers from North Carolina
21st-century LGBT people
1978 births
| false |
[
"The XL-100 was a line of RCA solid-state television sets that emerged in 1971 and continued into the late 1990s. The \"XL\" stands for extended life chassis while the 100 refers to RCA's emphasis of 100% solid-state chassis. Initially the top-of-the-line RCA color televisions, they would become lower-end as the Colortrak and Dimensia series were introduced (in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, respectively) The original models replaced the RCA \"Vista\" and \"New Vista\" color television series.\n\nExpansion of RCA model lines based on the XL-100 chassis \nDuring later model years, the XL-100 line became the middle and then lower-priced color televisions in the RCA lineup. RCA introduced the \"Colortrak\" in 1976 and toward the end of analog television, the \"Dimensia\" lines in the mid 1980s. In later years, all three TV lines used the same RCA CTC-xxx (CTC is RCA's acronym for Color TV Chassis) chassis and the main differences were in cabinet design and electronic features. The evolution of XL-100 to Colortrak is featured in a 1976 magazine advertisement and at the end RCA introduces the \"Colortrak\" as \"XL-100 Colortrak\", RCA also launched TV commercials touting XL-100 Colortrak.\n\nTowards the end of its availability, XL-100 had been downgraded to a basic television with few features. When color TVs began providing video inputs and other features, XL-100 models in the late 1980s often had only a standard 75 ohm unbalanced dipole coaxial cable input. Higher-end XL-100 models in the 1980s had a digital keypad and a digital channel indicator, but did not have remote capabilities, while the lower XL-100 sets had basic rotary dial tuners. The models sold in the early 1990s also had RCA jacks for composite video and stereo audio input accessed by tuning the TV to channel 91 and console models had remote control operation.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n1971 XL-100 TV Commercial\n\nRCA brands",
"Ian Cussick (born 17 June 1954) is a singer-songwriter from Dundee, Scotland. After leaving school at the age of fifteen, Cussick formed several local bands, with moderate success. In 1973, he answered an advertisement in Melody Maker for a \"singer wanted\", and flew to Germany to work with the popular showband Lake. He was the singer and bassist of Lake until 1974 and again in the year 2002. Two years later, he was a member of Linda and the Funky Boys, who scored a hit with the early disco song \"Shame Shame Shame\", which sold around six million singles.\n\nIan Cussick went on to record twelve solo albums, two EP's and four Live albums over a period of thirty years.\n\nThe most famous songs are \"Meet Me by the Water\", \"Wonderlove\", a homage to Stevie Wonder, and \"The Supernatural\". He also worked extensively on other productions, including the orchestral Beatles tribute album Norwegian Wood by Rainer \"R.A.M.\" Pietsch which also featured the vocalists Dan McCafferty and Mary Hopkin.\n\nHe is a prolific songwriter, and has written hits for other artists, including \"Call Me Up\" (\"Talisman\" in the Spanish version) for the female duo Baccara in 1987. \"Call Me Up\" reached the top 5 in the Spanish charts and the top 40 in Germany. At present, Ian Cussick is part owner in IceBerg Media & Records based in Austin, Texas, USA – from where he works exclusively.\n\nDiscography\nSolo albums\n 1978 Ian Cussick (Metronome)\n 1980 Right Through the Heart (RCA Victor)\n 1981 Hypertension (RCA Victor)\n 1983 Danger in the Air (RCA Victor)\n 1985 The Great Escape (RCA Victor)\n 1986 Treasure Island (Constant)\n 1989 Love Is the System (Line)\n 1990 Live: The Voice from Scotland (Line)\n 1991 Forever (Line)\n 1993 Necromancer (Niteflite)\n 1995 Live at the Fabrik Hamburg (Line)\n 2000 Rock beim Bund (Live)\n 2004 29-12-03 Live in Hamburg\n\nSingles\n 1978 \"Easy Way Out\" (Barclay)\n 1980 \"Meet Me by the Water\" (RCA Victor)\n 1980 \"Take Me to Your Leader\" (RCA Victor)\n 1981 \"The Clapping Song\" (RCA Victor)\n 1982 \"Don't Turn Your Back on the Man\" (RCA Victor)\n 1982 \"Wonderlove\" (RCA Victor)\n 1983 \"The Supernatural\" (A&M)\n 1983 \"The Meaning\" (RCA Victor)\n 1983 \"I Read Your Letter\" (RCA Victor)\n 1985 \"Everything Will Turn Out Fine\" (RCA Victor)\n 1985 \"Journey out of the Body\" (RCA Victor)\n 1986 \"Who Dares Wins\" (Constant)\n 1986 \"Treasure Island\" (Constant)\n 1988 \"Too Lonely to Win\" (EMI)\n 1988 \"We Can Work It Out\" (SPV)\n 1988 \"Mighty Love\" (Joschua Music)\n 1989 \"Love Is the System\" (Line)\n 1991 \"Runaway Train\" (Line)\n 1992 \"Meet Me by the Water (Remake '92)\" (BMG Ariola Media)\n 1992 \"A Bridge So Far\" (Line)\n 1993 \"Slowly Ends the Day\" (RCA Victor)\n 2008 Powerboat Racing (EP)\n\nContributions\n 1986 \"Ice in the Sunshine\" (singer of original jingle)\n 1988 R.A.M. Pietsch – Norwegian Wood\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n https://talentschmiede.wixsite.com/iancussick\n Page of Ian Cussick's Label Iceberg Media LLC\n\n1954 births\nLiving people\n20th-century Scottish male singers\nMusicians from Dundee\nScottish songwriters\n21st-century Scottish male singers\nBritish male songwriters"
] |
[
"Maldivians",
"Southern group of Maldivians"
] |
C_0db16dc336b04e2ab7dbb1b6833006a9_0
|
What is the relation between Maldivians and Southern group of Maldivians?
| 1 |
What is the relation between Maldivians and Southern group of Maldivians?
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Maldivians
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As a result of some political activities which occurred in the South during the early 1960s, the term Suvadivian has been adopted by some authors to refer to the southern group of Maldivians. From 1959 to 1963 there was a short-lived breakaway government named United Suvadive Republic which was formed by the Southerners, from which the name originated though there are no such native names. The names Suvadive and Suvadivian suggest that the origin of the names lye in the ancient name for the three southernmost atolls of Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu which was Suvadiva. The Suvadivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds. The reason behind this suggested by researchers and proven from historical records is that there were less interference from the outside world to this group. Unlike the other group of Maldivians, this group was not affected by the Portuguese rule in the Maldives as it does not exceed the Suvadiva channel. Also there were no interference from traders and travellers as much as in the case of the other. Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas and Addu bas), which are much different from the rest and as suggested by researchers, having a closer affinity to what may have been the original. Thus, the native features of the original Maldivian people are preserved in this group greater than any other group of Maldivians. CANNOTANSWER
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According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds.
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Maldivians (; ދިވެހިން, dhivehin) are a nation and Indo-Aryan ethnic group native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising what is now the Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union Territory of Lakshadweep, India. All Maldivians share the same culture and speak the Maldivian language which is a member of the southern group of Indo-Aryan languages. For ethnographic and linguistic purposes as well as geo-political reasons, anthropologists divide the Maldivian people into 3 subgroups.
Subgroups
The main group of Maldivians, numbering more than 250,000. This is the group inhabiting the numerous atolls stretching from Ihavandhippolhu (Haa Alif) to Haddhunmathi (Laamu) in Maldives. They constitute over 70% of the total population of all Maldivians. In a larger scale, the third group also comes under this group. From this group comes the standard dialect of Maldivian language which is spoken in the Maldives capital Male' along with the central atolls. Slightly differing variants which are very closely related to the former are spoken in rest of the islands from the far north of Maldives down to Laamu Atoll.
The southern group of Maldivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) in Maldives. This group numbers approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of all Maldivians. The earliest known settlements have been found in this region. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as ethnicity. Each of the 3 atolls of this region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas, Addu bas), which are significantly different from the rest and as researchers suggest having a closer affinity to what may have been the original.
The people of Minicoy (Malikun) – Mahls, numbering about 10,000. The island of Minicoy lies in the northern end of the atoll chain inhabited by Maldivians and is the northernmost group of the Maldivian people. They are only about 3% of the total amount of Maldivians. Although the people of Minicoy are identical to the main group of Maldivians from the first group in terms of ethnicity and linguistics and in a larger scale comes under that group, the day to day politics of Minicoy and after on the secession of the island from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government, thus acquiring a non-Maldivian citizenship has made this group to be labelled as one among the subgroups of Maldivians. Due to reasons such as politics, having to live in great isolation from the remaining Maldivian people, the Minicoians are steadily undergoing a process of acculturation. This group has its own dialect (called Maliku bas or Mahl) which retains some features of an older Maldivian, and shows Malayalam influences as well. Still, the dialect is mutually intelligible with the standard Maldivian dialect and is more related to the slighter variants of northern Maldives from the first group.
Myths and legends
There is no historical evidence about the origin of Maldivians; there is also no indication that there was any negrito or other aboriginal population, such as the Andamanese. No archaeology has been conducted to investigate the prehistory of the islands. There is, however, a Tamil–Malayalam substratum, in addition to other later cultural influences in the islands.
Bengali, Odia and Sinhalese people have had trading connections to Dhivehi people in the past.
Conjectures have been made by scholars who argue that the ancestors of Maldivian people arrived to the Maldives from North West and West India, from Kalibangan between 2500 and 1700 BC and that they formed a distinct ethnic group around the 6th century BC.
Myths of origin
According to Maldivian folklore the main myths of origin are reflecting the dependence of the Maldivians on the coconut tree and the tuna fish.
A legend says that the first inhabitants of the Maldives died in great numbers, but a great sorcerer or fandita man made coconut trees grow out of the skulls of the buried corpses of the first settlers. Therefore, the coconut tree is said to have an anthropomorphic origin according to Maldive lore for this reason. The word naashi (coconut shell) is also the word used for skull in Dhivehi language.
The coconut tree occupies a central place in the present-day Maldive national emblem.
The tuna fish is said to have been brought to the Maldivian waters by a mythical seafarer (maalimi) called Bodu Niyami Kalēfanu who went close to the Dagas (the mythical tree at the end of the world) to bring this valuable fish.
Legend of the first settlers
One of the earliest people who settled in the Maldives were from the Malabar Coast of India and northwestern shores of Sri Lanka, and are of Tamils and Malayalis ancestry, which is clear through strong Tamil–Malayalam substratum in language and culture. The Giraavaru people are considered as one of the earliest settlers.They were technologically advanced people, building sailing boats called dhonis.
These people used words such as varam for the islands in which they lived. Examples given in the old manuscript are: Noḷivaram, Kuruhinnavaram, and Girāvaram. Many of the old terms used by Maldivian fishermen come from the Dravidian languages, leading one to the assumption that these terms were brought by people from southern coastal India in ancient times. Historical records show that in the southern and central atolls of the Maldives, occupations such as farming and weaving were important in the early days.
A short time after the arrival of the Indo-Aryans and the introduction of the Hindu religion, a prince of India is said to have arrived in the Maldives. This is the period calculated earlier from oral tradition, and the story also corresponds to that from the Mahavamsa chronicle of Sri Lanka, about the king's son who was exiled from his country and arrived in Lanka, one of his ships losing its way and arriving in the Maldives. In the Maldivian legend, the prince who arrived in the Maldives, was the son of Brahmaditiya, king of Kalinga (Brahmadatta, King of Kalinga at the time of Buddha's death c. 500 – 350 BC), a kingdom on the south-east of India (modern Orissa). King Brahmaditiya was displeased with his son and sent him to Dheeva Maari (Maldives). The name of this prince was Sri Soorudasaruna.
Sri Soorudasaruna established a kingdom of the Adeetha Vansha Dynasty (Solar Dynasty) in Dhiva Maari, a short period before the reign of Emperor Ashoka in India. This would place the establishment of the first kingdom in the Maldives circa the 4th century BC. The tradition then states that Emperor Ashoka established his kingdom in Pataliputra in India, and that his people went preaching the religion and teachings of Buddha to a place called Bairat, to the west of Pataliputra. A group of people came to the Maldives from Bairat in order to teach the religion of Buddha. These people are said to have arrived in these islands during Ashoka's reign, probably when he sent Buddhist missionaries to all the neighbouring countries, in the 3rd century BC. At the time the Buddhist missionaries arrived in the Maldives, the country was called Dheeva Mahl.
Around the 2nd century AD there was an influx of Arab traders who travelled and stopped by at the Maldives en route to the Far East – their first record of the Maldives islands, which they called Mahal Dibiyat, is from the Arab travellers. Maldives provided enormous quantities of cowry shells, an international currency of the early ages. The cowry is now the symbol of the Maldives Monetary Authority. Mahal Dibiyat is the name given to the islands by medieval Arab travellers.
Abu al-Barakat Yusuf al-Barbari, a North African Arab, is credited with converting the Maldivians to Islam in 1153.
Legend of the first ruling dynasty
The myth of the origin of the ruling dynasty is the story of a prince named Koimala. In the Muslim traditions recorded in the Lōamāafāanu and Rādavaḷi chronicles all the pre-Muslim royalty are represented by a king, whose successor was converted to Islam. The name Koimala Kalo is also suggestive: koi or koyi in Maldivian language means son, lad or prince (derived from Malayalam koya, son, prince, master, cf. the Dravidian root kō, king). The component malā may or may not be derived from māla as in Māla-dīv, but, if so, the name would mean 'prince of the Maldives'. The term kalō is a common word of man, used as a term of endearment. The title of former Maldivian kings was kattiri bovana mahaa radun, 'Kattiri' (ކައްތިރި) meaning Kshatriya in Maldivian language.
One oral tradition says that the Giraavaru people are the indigenous people of the Maldives who were in the islands before Koimala arrived. They are of Tamil origin, and the earliest island community of the Maldives; their presence predates Buddhism and the arrival of Indo-Aryans in the archipelago. This may be the reason that the Dhivehi kinship system is partly of Dravidian origin, and bears evidence of some matriliny, like the Nayar and other matrilineal groups of Kerala. Some of the kinship terms are clearly derived from Malayalam.
Five versions of the myth are given here and their significance in terms of culture history explained.
1. The following version was recorded by Bell in 1922:
Once upon a time, when the Maldives were still sparsely inhabited, a prince of royal birth named Koimala, who had married the daughter of the king of Ceylon, made a voyage with her in two vessels from Srendib [Sri Lanka] Island. Reaching the Maldives they were becalmed and rested a while at Rasgetheemu island in North Maalhosmadulu Atoll.
The Maldive Islanders, learning that the two chief visitors were of Ceylon Royal descent invited them to remain; and ultimately proclaimed Koimala their king at Rasgetheemu, the original 'King's Island'.
Subsequently, Koimala and his spouse migrated thence to Male' and settled there with the consent of the aborigines of Giraavaru Island, then the most important community of Male' Atoll.
The two ships were dispatched to Lanka, and brought over other people of 'the Lion Race' (Sinhalese).
To Koimala and his queen was born a male child who was called Kalaminja. He reigned as a Buddhist for twelve years, and was then converted to Islam, ruling for thirteen years more before finally departing for Mecca.
This ruler's daughter married the chief minister and reigned as a nominal Sultana. She gave birth to a son also called Kalaminja, who, in turn, married a lady of the country.
From them the subsequent rulers of the Maldives were descended.
2. According to this version, which Maloney heard in Male', Koimala's parents came from India, not Sri Lanka: The Indian king was angry with his son, and sent him off with his wife in two boats; they had 700 soldiers. They came to Rasgetheemu in Raa Atoll, and when he became king there, people called that island Rasgetheemu "King's Landing". Then the king and queen came to Male', and Koimala was born from that Indian couple.
3. The following variant Maloney heard in Noon Atoll: "... When Koimala and his wife came, there were already people here. Because she was a princess of royal lineage, people asked her husband to rule. Koimala sent ships to Sri Lanka and brought back more people. It is said that a beautiful woman named Malakamana from the Maldives was one of the early people who settled Sri Lanka."
4. A myth Maloney heard in Manadhoo, Noon Atoll, is, in condensed form, as follows:
One day, while a hunter king of Sri Lanka was hunting, he caught a man-beast in his net. The man-beast couldn't walk, so the king taught him to do it. The man-beast then married the king's daughter, but he made political trouble in Sri Lanka, so was forced to leave. He and the princess arrived in Rasgetheemu and they lived there for some time, where the locals there asked them to rule them.
5. Another version Maloney heard in Hulhumeedhoo, Addu Atoll, in the far south of the country, is as follows:
There was a king of India who was a hunter. Once, while out hunting with a net, he saw a creature which is like a human, but which walked on all fours, and which disturbed the people. This creature would also take hunters' nets and steal their prey, so the king couldn't get any catch. The king considered how he might capture this creature. He made big weights for his net, which no ordinary human could lift, and which would prevent the creature from taking the hunting net. One day, the king, with the help of many men, put the net over the creature, which could not get out because of the large stone weights. The king took the creature to the palace and looked after him well, and because he knew no language, the king taught him language, which took a long time. The creature started helping the king by showing him treasures in the forest, and the king came to respect him.
The king had a daughter who fell in love with this creature (in an alternate version, the king forced his daughter to marry the creature). The king, being angry, put the couple on a ship and sent them off into exile. Their ship came to Laam (Hadummati) Atoll (towards the south), where the exiled pair saw a crow which cried. They thought the crow was not a good omen, and it was therefore undesirable to land there, so they went on to Male'. They settled in what is now Sultan Park (site of the former palace) and started a kingdom.
After fifteen years, a jinni began to come from the ocean every once a month and disturbed the people... (from here follows the story of the saint who came and dispelled the jinni and caused all the people to become converted to Islam from Buddhism and Hinduism).
Gujaratis
Maloney says Gujarat, with its indented coastline and its proximity to the old navigation routes of the Mesopotamian and Indus civilisations, has apparently maintained a tradition of navigation over the past 4000 years. Certainly the earliest Buddhist literature indicates active seafaring from its ports. It was from Gujarat that North Indian civilisation impinged upon the Maldives and Sri Lanka. From Gujarat, North Indian civilisation also expanded to Java and other parts of South-east Asia. The export of this civilisation to all coasts of South Asia and South-east Asia began about 500 B.C., but during the Mauryan period and the diffusion of Buddhism, sea traffic in the Bay of Bengal supplemented and, to some extent, surpassed that originating along the coasts of Western India.
Three Jataka tales cited above seem to refer to the Maldives, particularly the comment that exiles from Bharukaccha went to a thousand islands [Laccadive and Maldive islands] where they found standing room, and that these were near an island named for coconuts [Kerala]. This suggests that not only did seafarers emanating from Bharukaccha and Suppara visit the Maldives, but Gujaratis actually settled there in pre-Buddhist times. The other Jataka tales suggest that ships from Gujarat going to South-east Asia stopped in the Maldives, and that merchants in search of treasures sailed in several seas called – maala (or maara).
The Maldives might well have been settled parallel with the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers in Sri Lanka, as suggested in the above interpretations of the Sri Lanka myths and the Koimala story.
Mariners from the north-western coasts of the peninsula, from the time they commenced sailing to southern India, must have on occasion been blown over to the Maldives—unmanned canoes and rafts from Kerala even now get wafted there from time to time – and the dangers of shipwreck vividly described in several of the Jātakas might have arisen from contact with some of the thousands of reefs in the Maldives, which sailors have long dreaded. It may be, therefore, that shipwrecked Gujaratis, as well as exiles, were early settlers on the islands of the Laccadive-Maldives archipelago.
Geographic distribution
Maldives
All Maldivians are native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising what is now the Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union territory of Lakshadweep, India. The secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government gradually led to the emergence of a Maldivian population of Indian citizenship who came to be known as Mahls.
Being the heartland of Maldivian people, more than 97% of all Maldivians are from the Maldives. For all the Maldivian communities across the world (including the people of Minicoy) their origin lies in the Maldives. The Maldivian community of the Maldives consist of the two major groups from the three subgroups of Maldivians: The main group of Maldivians, the southern group of Maldivians (also known as Suvadivians) and the Mahls (ethnic Maldivians from Indian island of Minicoy).
Southern group of Maldivians
As a result of some political activities which occurred in the South during the early 1960s, the term Suvadivian has been adopted by some authors to refer to the southern group of Maldivians. From 1959 to 1963 there was a short-lived breakaway government named United Suvadive Republic which was formed by the Southerners, from which the name originated though there are no such native names. The names Suvadive and Suvadivian suggest that the origin of the names lye in the ancient name for the three southernmost atolls of Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu which was Suvadiva.
The Suvadivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds. The reason behind this suggested by researchers and proven from historical records is that there were less interference from the outside world to this group. Unlike the other group of Maldivians, this group was not affected by the Portuguese rule in the Maldives as it does not exceed the Suvadiva channel. Also there were no interference from traders and travellers as much as in the case of the other.
Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas and Addu bas), which are much different from the rest and as suggested by researchers, having a closer affinity to what may have been the original. Thus, the native features of the original Maldivian people are preserved in this group greater than any other group of Maldivians.
Main group of Maldivians
Unlike the southern minority, this group of Maldivians were subject to foreign intercourse. There were numerous occasions of reported interference from outsiders such as traders, travellers, etc... Also, the Portuguese rule and many other factors pushed this group into a state that imported materials got mixed into their linguistics as well as ethnic background to a large extent.
India
The secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government gradually led to the emergence of a Maldivian population holding Indian citizenship. This group of Maldivians consist of the people of Minicoy and migrant communities from Minicoy across India and elsewhere. Except for the people from Minicoy, there is no community of ethnic Maldivians with Indian citizenship. This group of Maldivians are officially referred as Mahls. The people locally identify themselves as Malikun. The Mahls make up the third subgroup of Maldivians.
People of Minicoy (Malikun) – Mahls
Mahls are the third subgroup of Maldivians centred in the island of Minicoy making up the only community of ethnic Maldivians in India. This group has its own dialect (called Maliku bas or Mahl) which retains some features of archaic Maldivian language, and shows Malayalam influences as well. Still, the dialect is mutually intelligible with the standard dialect of Maldivian and is more related to the slighter variants of northern Maldives.
In case of linguistics and ethnic grounds, this group of Maldivians are identical to the main group of Maldivians in the Maldives. However, the secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and gradually becoming part of India, thus becoming the only group of ethnic Maldivians with a non-Maldivian citizenship made anthropologists to label the Mahls among the subgroups. The isolation of this group from the rest of the Maldivians and the acculturation process which the Mahls are undergoing as a result of this as well as the change in nationality is one of the reasons for separation of this group from the main group of Maldivians. The origin of this group like any other group of Maldivians lie in the Maldives. The story of the Tivarun, the linguistics of the people in Minicoy and many other factors prove this side of the story.
Mahls are the only community of ethnic Maldivians (excluding migrant communities) outside the Republic of Maldives. They make up about 3% of the total population of all Maldivians.
Most Mahls live in their native land of Maliku (Minicoy). Mahls are 15.67% of the total population of Lakshadweep emerging as a separate ethnic group among the rest of the population. All Mahl communities in India emerged from Minicoy.
There are Mahl communities (migrant communities from Minicoy) in other parts of India too. A number of Mahls have settled in the districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) in the southern state of Kerala. The ancestors of present Mahl communities in Kerala migrated from Minicoy and settled there in the 17th century, when the islands of Lakshadweep came under the rule of Ali Rajahs/Arakkal Bheevi of Kannur.
Since 1957, this group of Maldivians in Minicoy are totally off-limits for their Maldivian counterparts in the Maldives. The direct transport between Minicoy and the Maldives was forbidden by the Indian government. Thus, this Indian group of Maldivians are steadily undergoing a process of acculturation owing to lack of contact with the remaining Maldivian people and pressure to use other languages such as Malayalam, English and Hindi. This proves to have a big influence upon the culture, linguistics and other day-to-day affairs of this group of Maldivians.
Emigrant communities
A significant number of Maldivian emigrant communities can be found in several countries. The emigrant communities could only be located from the Maldivian side as it is only the Maldivians who are all of the same ethnicity unlike India where the presence of thousands of cultures and ethnicities make the records more stringent on this matter. Since ethnic Maldivians of Minicoy are only no more than 0.0015% of the total population of India compared to 100% for their counterparts in the Maldives, it is only from the Maldivian embassies across the world that this information could be gathered.
Sri Lanka
There are approximately 20,000 people of Maldivian ethnicity living in Sri Lanka, as of 2013.
Genetics and Research Studies
In 1899, Professor John Stanley Gardiner visited Maldives, during which time; he collected anthropometrical data of a number of Maldivians from many islands. Analysis of this data by Dr. Wynfrid Duckworth, suggested that there were three major sources of immigration into the country. These are:
The peninsula of Hindustan with Ceylon,
The coast of Arabia and possibly of Africa,
The western shores of the Malay Peninsula, and the islands of the Malaya Archipelago.
(Duckworth 1912: 8–30).
In 1997, a Maldivian NGO, Society for Health Education, conducted a study on the mutations of thalassaemia found in the Maldives. This study showed one mutation that probably originated in the Middle East, another mutation which could have been derived from Portuguese or Algerians, and another which probably originated from South Asia and Malays. The observations are consistent with the historical records of Maldives, showing that early travellers from India, Indonesia, North Africa, the Red Sea and Persian Gulf areas, settled in the Maldives. (Firdous et al. 1998:148,149). Thalassaemia is the commonest genetically transmitted blood disease found in Maldives, and the results of this study suggest that many of the people now living in the Maldives had ancestors who came from the above-mentioned countries.
Anthropological studies, as well as ethnographic and linguistic researches, suggest that in terms of ancestry Maldivians share similar genes principally with the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka as well as western Indian populations, such as Marathis, Konkanis and Gujaratis with traces of Arab, Malay, southern Indian and North African genes in the population.
In 2013, genetic study about the Maldivian population by department of Human Genetics, Liden University, which was published online on the American Journal of Physical Anthropology has revealed very interesting facts about the genetic origin of Maldivian people.
The research studied autosomal DNA-, mitochondrial DNA-, and Y-chromosomal DNA markers in a representative sample of 141 unrelated Maldivians, with 119 from six major settlements. The researchers found a total of 63 different mtDNA haplotypes that could be allocated to 29 mtDNAs, mostly within the M, R and U clades. They also found 66 different Y-STR haplotypes in 10 Y chromosome haplogroups, predominantly R1a1, R2, H, L and J2. The study concluded that their new genetic data agree with the commonly reported Maldivian ancestry in South Asia, but furthermore suggest multiple, independent immigration events and asymmetrical migration of females and males across the archipelago.
The genetic study confirmed that the most likely origin of the Maldivian population is in South Asia with possible gene flow from the Middle East. Also it has pointed out that the Dhivehi language of the Maldives being the southernmost Indo-Aryan language, and sharing of specific haplogroups with Indo-Aryan populations mostly from India and from Sri Lanka, could point to a common origin of these populations.
Culture
Language and literature
Maldivians have strong feelings towards the Maldivian language. It has historically been, and to large extent still is, central to the Maldivian identity. Unlike the other languages of South India, it is an Indo-European language, while other South Indian languages are Dravidian languages. However the language shows some influences of neighbouring Dravidian languages on it, and have a number of loanwords from Dravidian vocabulary.
Religion
The Maldivians are entirely Muslims, adhering to the Sunni school of thought. In the Maldives which is the heartland of Maldivians and home for more than 97% of the Maldivian people, the national religion is Islam. Islam is the country's state religion as well as the backbone of the society with daily life in the country being regulated according to the tenets of Islam and government regulations too being based on the regulations of Islamic law (Shari'a). The law of the country prohibits the practice of any other religion by the country's citizens. In general all Maldivians from the island of Minicoy too are Sunni Muslims.
Visual art and architecture
Most traditional Maldivian art is influenced by Perso-Arabic tradition in some form and usually centres on Islam, since all the Maldivians are Muslims. The skill of visual art and architecture among the Maldivians is centered in the Maldives since the people of Minicoy are mainly sailors.
Various fine art practices exist in the Maldives at present. Primary among them is drawing and painting. Sculpture and crafts that overlap with art making also exist in the country. However, due to various limitations, they have not flourished as art forms. Painting and drawing also exist in similar circumstances. Lack of avenues in which to exhibit, and lack of arts education and training, combined with a growing understanding that these arts are best served in the tourist souvenir trade, has hampered a healthy development of these arts.
However, with the establishment of private galleries and with various exhibitions organized by the government and the artists themselves, in the last 15 years, the awareness that painting can be an expressive art form apart from also being a lucrative commercial activity has provided encouragement for several young Maldivians to pursue painting, and to an extent sculpture and other public and commercial art forms. Renewed interest in these arts have also led to various individuals to pursue on their own whatever education they can obtain, whether through distance learning courses from foreign universities, or via books and magazines. In addition, privately funded students have also been obtaining arts education and training at undergraduate and graduate levels in international universities.
More indirectly, artists also get the opportunity to meet foreign artists through the tourism trade when foreign artists visit the country as tourists. This provides the much needed contact with artists that is so necessary to the development of any art form.
Until recently, fine arts in the Maldives have been usually defined as the various crafts and skills of craft making. These include the use of locally found materials to produce decorative and functional objects such as mats, hand held or displayed objects, etc. The present situation of the arts has come about because of a lack of critical and theoretical interpretation and a lack of dialogue and discourse in an organized, sustained or documented form.
Performing arts
The traditional Maldivian performing arts have Indian and even African roots.
Martial arts
Martial arts among Maldivians are known as hevikamuge kulhivaruthak, while gulhamathi hifun is traditional wrestling among Maldivians.
Festivals
Most of the Maldivian festivals are related to Islam, however there are some festivals which belongs to old Maldivian traditions, like kite flying festival. Naming a newborn child, Mauloodhu (a prayer accompanied with festive meal), Eid festival and circumcision of male child are few events that take place where the taste of rich cultural 'cocktail' can be experienced.
A traditional meal called Keyn is prepared for the above Mauloodhus consisting of a number of courses. A single Keyn would serve 10 – 12 people and includes rice, curries, salads, grilled fish, coconut cream, coconut syrup, bananas, puddings and other delights.
Keyn is set out in a very large wooden dish called a Malaafaiy. The outside of this dish is placed within the dish and small individual plates are filled with curries, salads, and other items and set around the rice. This would be covered with the lid and wrapped in a white cloth and tied at the top. At the meal times this would be carried into the Mauloodh Haruge (dining hall specially made for this event) and placed on straw mats for service. Individual plates and other food items in individual dishes are placed as well. Beverages are individually set in glasses. Water is served in a ceramic jug. Food is consumed using the fingers of the right hand. At the end of the meal hand is washed using a copper jug into a copper basin. 10 December is marked as Kandu Rōdi duvas and 14 April as Gamu Rōdi duvas on which date Maldivian language day is marked from 2011 onwards.
Dress
Traditionally Maldivian men wear a Mundu with a shirt, it is very similar to that of Malayali people. Maldivian women wear a red-top called a Libaas and a long black skirt.
Cuisine
Rice, the major staple food in most Maldivian households, is usually cooked and served with Garudiya (Tuna Fish soup). Here are some of the speciality cuisines.
Bocholhi
Made of rice flour, coconut – semi-firm (grated) and coconut palm syrup by mixing all the ingredients until freed from lump and cooked over a moderate heat until the mixture is thickened.
Godhan Furhu Boa Folhi
Made of flour, coconut – semi-hard (blended to a smooth paste), eggs, coconut cream, jasmine water, coconut palm syrup, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder and oil by mixing all the ingredients apart from the oil together. Cooked over a moderate heat and once the top of the pancake dries up, turned over and cooked.
Han’dulu Aurus
Made of rice (soaked overnight), washed and blended to a smooth paste), coconut palm syrup, Jasmine water and jasmine flowers by placing all the ingredients apart from the flowers in a thick-bottomed pan and cooked over a moderate heat by stirring constantly to avoid the mixture getting stuck to the bottom. Wrapped entirely with banana leaf and placed jasmine flowers over the sweets. This sweet will keep for two to three months without spoiling.
'
Han’dulu Furhu Kubus
Made of Patna Rice (soaked overnight, washed and blended to a smooth paste), coconut – semi-firm (grated), coconut palm syrup, caster sugar, banana leaf by cooking over a moderate heat the grated coconut, palm sugar and caster sugar until the mixture has thickened. Removed from heat and allowed cooling and added in the blended rice and kneaded thoroughly and combined all the ingredients well. Divided the mixture into eight portions and placed each portion on a banana leaf and wrapped entirely to seal and wrapped a second banana leaf around it and secured well.
Dug a suitable hole in the ground in which all the wrapped dough pieces could be placed neatly. Placed coconut fibres and coconut shells and burned them in the dug hole and removed the charcoals.
Placed banana leaves within the hole and placed the wrapped dough in the heated hole and placed neatly one against another.
Covered the dough parcels placed in the hole with another large piece of banana leaf and covered the leaf with two-inch white sand. Placed the charcoals and coconut fibres and coconut shells over it and burned the coconut fibres and shells for half an hour.
Left the cooked kubus parcels overnight in the hole. In the morning scraped off the burnt ashes and charcoals aside and the sand covering the banana leaf and slowly lifted the wrapped kubus parcels.
Hukkaru
Made of coconut palm syrup by boiling the syrup over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it starts to thicken. Removed from heat and whisked until frothy and cooled.
Huni Folhi
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut – semi-hard (grated), coconut palm syrup by cooking all the ingredients over a moderate heat in a thick-bottomed pan stirring continuously.
When the mixture starts to come loose from the side of the pan removed from heat and taken a tablespoonful of the cooked mixture, spread on a cork wood leaf. Smoked and dried the leaves spread with the sweet over the fireplace.
Karukuri Banbukeyo
Made of fried bread fruit (crushed coarsely), coconut palm syrup, jasmine water by bringing the syrup and the jasmine water to boil and cooked it over a moderate heat until it comes to ribbon stage. Added in the crushed breadfruit into the sugar and coated well. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and kept in an airtight container.
Karukuri Ala
Made of fried taro (crushed coarsely), coconut palm syrup and jasmine water by boiling the syrup and the jasmine water and cooked it over a moderate heat until it comes to ribbon stage. Added in the crushed taro in to the sugar and coated well. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and kept in an airtight container.
Kulhi Bis Fathafolhi
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut (grated), Rihaakuru, Rihaakuru Bondi (blended), eggs, onion (sliced thinly), curry leaves (chopped), cherry pepper, juice of two limes, ginger, salt to season and oil by crushing the onion, curry leaves, cherry pepper, ginger with salt. Added and mixed the rice flour and coconut to make sandy texture. Formed a bay in the center of the rice mixture and add in the eggs and Rihaakuru and Rihaakuru Bondi. Mixed/kneaded the dough and divided the dough into 15 gram balls. Spread each ball to about ¼ inch thickness. Cut using a round cutter of 3 – inch diameter and pre-heated oil.
Meeraa
Made of coconut sap (collected at noon) by boiling the sap over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it comes to ribbon stage. Removed from heat, greased a large tray and taken a spoonful of the cooked thickened syrup and placed it over the greased sheet in strings.
Thela Kubus
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut palm syrup, eggs and coconut oil by whisking the egg and the syrup and added in the rice flour and beaten further. Poured a table spoonful of the mixture into the oil and deep-fried until golden.
Thelli Keyo
Made of plantain (peeled and cut length-wise) and oil by frying the bananas until crisped. Drained on absorbent kitchen paper and kept airtight container.
Veli Hakuru
Made of coconut palm syrup by boiling the syrup over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it starts to crystallise. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and put into jars and seal well.
Other Cuisines Regularly Cooked
Falhoa Aurus
Naaroh Faludha
Fuppi Baiy
Gerhi Banbukeyo
Gerhi Kattala
Kaliyaa Kuri Kattala
Varukuri Baiy
Communities
Maldivian names
A generation ago, most Maldivian people were not commonly known by their birth names. Instead they were called by an alternative name such as Dohuttu, Lahuttu, Tutteedi, Kudamaniku, or Don Goma. The rationale behind this practice was that if the evil spirits did not know one's real name, one would be free from their spells. However ancient Maldivian naming system is similar to that of Gujaratis and Marathas. Even now some people follow that system. For example, the first name of historian Mohamed Ibrahim Lutfy is "Mohamed;" "Ibrahim" is his father's name, and "Lutfy" is the family name.
Frequent Maldivian family names include Bee, Beefan, Boo, Didi, Fan, Fulhu, Kader, Kalaminja, Kalinga, Kalo, Kavah, Kavya, Koi, Koya, Manik, Manika, Manike, Manikfan, Naha, Raha, Rana, Tarkan, Thakhan, Thakur, Thakurfan, Veer.
See also
Maldivian folklore
Minicoy
Giraavaru people
References
Further reading
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External links
Maldives Ethnography, by Xavier Romero-Frias
A Guide to Mahl Language, Minicoy
Clarence Maloney, his vision, his work and the ancient underlying cultural influences in the Maldives
01
Ethnic groups in the Indian Ocean
Indo-Aryan peoples
Ethnic groups in India
Ethnic groups in Sri Lanka
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[
"There are over 5,000 expatriates from the Maldives who live in India. It is recorded to be the second largest population of Maldivians living abroad after Sri Lanka. They mostly travel to the nearest Indian city and capital of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, for educational and health facilities.\n\nMaldivian students\nA large number of Maldivian students study in Trivandrum, Mysuru and Bengaluru.\n\nMahl people\nMost Mahls live in their native land of Maliku (Minicoy) in the union territory of Lakshadweep, India. In Lakshadweep the Mahls emerged as a separate ethnic group and are 15.67% of the total population of Lakshadweep. There are migrant communities of Mahls in other parts of India too. The origin of all the Mahl communities in India and elsewhere lies in the island of Minicoy. A number of Mahls have settled in the districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) in the southern state of Kerala. There is a community of Mahls in Kerala who came and settled there in the 17th century, when the islands of Lakshadweep came under the rule of Ali Rajahs/Arakkal Bheevi of Kannur.\n\nSee also\n Mahl people, ethnic Maldivians of Lakshadweep, India\n Indians in Maldives\n India–Maldives relations\n\nReferences\n\nIndia\nIndia\nImmigration to India\nIndia–Maldives relations",
"Among the dialects of Maldivian language, the Mahl dialect (Maliku bas) has something extra in the writing system. Like the communities speaking other dialects, among the speakers of this dialect too the Thaana alphabet is used in common for writing. However, it was secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with India which have resulted in the importation of some additional features to the dialect as well as writing system of the Minicoyans.\n\nIn 1950s, the Indian government forbade direct travel between Maldivians from the heartland of Maldivian language and Minicoyans. As a result, the group of Maldivians living in Minicoy were isolated from their Maldivian counterparts, thus being presented before all dangers of an acculturation process. It was this point which marked the origin of the Mahl writing systems. From 1950s onward Devanagari script got adopted in writing Mahl. Due to owing to lack of contact during an era of modernization efforts in the Maldivian language during the time of Mohamed Amin Didi and afterwards, 'Malikuthaana' emerged as a distinct form of the Thaana script. Thus it was the start of the Post-Maldivian era in Minicoy which originated the Mahl writing system. Today, being united with the Maldivians by means of technological advancements as well as some other reasons the usage of the 'Malikuthaana' has become extinct and it is once again the standard Thaana alphabets which is being used in place of 'Malikuthaana' in the Mahl writing system.\n\nDevanagari script for Mahl \nThough Mahl is written with Thaana alphabet, around the 1950s a Devanagari script was modified to write Mahl Language.\n\nUnicode support for Thaana characters\nThaana occupies Unicode codepoints 1920-1983 (hexadecimal 0780-07BF).\n\nMaldivian scripts\nMahls"
] |
[
"Maldivians",
"Southern group of Maldivians",
"What is the relation between Maldivians and Southern group of Maldivians?",
"According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds."
] |
C_0db16dc336b04e2ab7dbb1b6833006a9_0
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Do they have other part of Maldivians that they talk about?
| 2 |
Do researchers have other part of Maldivians that they talk about besides linguistics and ethnic grounds?
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Maldivians
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As a result of some political activities which occurred in the South during the early 1960s, the term Suvadivian has been adopted by some authors to refer to the southern group of Maldivians. From 1959 to 1963 there was a short-lived breakaway government named United Suvadive Republic which was formed by the Southerners, from which the name originated though there are no such native names. The names Suvadive and Suvadivian suggest that the origin of the names lye in the ancient name for the three southernmost atolls of Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu which was Suvadiva. The Suvadivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds. The reason behind this suggested by researchers and proven from historical records is that there were less interference from the outside world to this group. Unlike the other group of Maldivians, this group was not affected by the Portuguese rule in the Maldives as it does not exceed the Suvadiva channel. Also there were no interference from traders and travellers as much as in the case of the other. Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas and Addu bas), which are much different from the rest and as suggested by researchers, having a closer affinity to what may have been the original. Thus, the native features of the original Maldivian people are preserved in this group greater than any other group of Maldivians. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Maldivians (; ދިވެހިން, dhivehin) are a nation and Indo-Aryan ethnic group native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising what is now the Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union Territory of Lakshadweep, India. All Maldivians share the same culture and speak the Maldivian language which is a member of the southern group of Indo-Aryan languages. For ethnographic and linguistic purposes as well as geo-political reasons, anthropologists divide the Maldivian people into 3 subgroups.
Subgroups
The main group of Maldivians, numbering more than 250,000. This is the group inhabiting the numerous atolls stretching from Ihavandhippolhu (Haa Alif) to Haddhunmathi (Laamu) in Maldives. They constitute over 70% of the total population of all Maldivians. In a larger scale, the third group also comes under this group. From this group comes the standard dialect of Maldivian language which is spoken in the Maldives capital Male' along with the central atolls. Slightly differing variants which are very closely related to the former are spoken in rest of the islands from the far north of Maldives down to Laamu Atoll.
The southern group of Maldivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) in Maldives. This group numbers approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of all Maldivians. The earliest known settlements have been found in this region. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as ethnicity. Each of the 3 atolls of this region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas, Addu bas), which are significantly different from the rest and as researchers suggest having a closer affinity to what may have been the original.
The people of Minicoy (Malikun) – Mahls, numbering about 10,000. The island of Minicoy lies in the northern end of the atoll chain inhabited by Maldivians and is the northernmost group of the Maldivian people. They are only about 3% of the total amount of Maldivians. Although the people of Minicoy are identical to the main group of Maldivians from the first group in terms of ethnicity and linguistics and in a larger scale comes under that group, the day to day politics of Minicoy and after on the secession of the island from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government, thus acquiring a non-Maldivian citizenship has made this group to be labelled as one among the subgroups of Maldivians. Due to reasons such as politics, having to live in great isolation from the remaining Maldivian people, the Minicoians are steadily undergoing a process of acculturation. This group has its own dialect (called Maliku bas or Mahl) which retains some features of an older Maldivian, and shows Malayalam influences as well. Still, the dialect is mutually intelligible with the standard Maldivian dialect and is more related to the slighter variants of northern Maldives from the first group.
Myths and legends
There is no historical evidence about the origin of Maldivians; there is also no indication that there was any negrito or other aboriginal population, such as the Andamanese. No archaeology has been conducted to investigate the prehistory of the islands. There is, however, a Tamil–Malayalam substratum, in addition to other later cultural influences in the islands.
Bengali, Odia and Sinhalese people have had trading connections to Dhivehi people in the past.
Conjectures have been made by scholars who argue that the ancestors of Maldivian people arrived to the Maldives from North West and West India, from Kalibangan between 2500 and 1700 BC and that they formed a distinct ethnic group around the 6th century BC.
Myths of origin
According to Maldivian folklore the main myths of origin are reflecting the dependence of the Maldivians on the coconut tree and the tuna fish.
A legend says that the first inhabitants of the Maldives died in great numbers, but a great sorcerer or fandita man made coconut trees grow out of the skulls of the buried corpses of the first settlers. Therefore, the coconut tree is said to have an anthropomorphic origin according to Maldive lore for this reason. The word naashi (coconut shell) is also the word used for skull in Dhivehi language.
The coconut tree occupies a central place in the present-day Maldive national emblem.
The tuna fish is said to have been brought to the Maldivian waters by a mythical seafarer (maalimi) called Bodu Niyami Kalēfanu who went close to the Dagas (the mythical tree at the end of the world) to bring this valuable fish.
Legend of the first settlers
One of the earliest people who settled in the Maldives were from the Malabar Coast of India and northwestern shores of Sri Lanka, and are of Tamils and Malayalis ancestry, which is clear through strong Tamil–Malayalam substratum in language and culture. The Giraavaru people are considered as one of the earliest settlers.They were technologically advanced people, building sailing boats called dhonis.
These people used words such as varam for the islands in which they lived. Examples given in the old manuscript are: Noḷivaram, Kuruhinnavaram, and Girāvaram. Many of the old terms used by Maldivian fishermen come from the Dravidian languages, leading one to the assumption that these terms were brought by people from southern coastal India in ancient times. Historical records show that in the southern and central atolls of the Maldives, occupations such as farming and weaving were important in the early days.
A short time after the arrival of the Indo-Aryans and the introduction of the Hindu religion, a prince of India is said to have arrived in the Maldives. This is the period calculated earlier from oral tradition, and the story also corresponds to that from the Mahavamsa chronicle of Sri Lanka, about the king's son who was exiled from his country and arrived in Lanka, one of his ships losing its way and arriving in the Maldives. In the Maldivian legend, the prince who arrived in the Maldives, was the son of Brahmaditiya, king of Kalinga (Brahmadatta, King of Kalinga at the time of Buddha's death c. 500 – 350 BC), a kingdom on the south-east of India (modern Orissa). King Brahmaditiya was displeased with his son and sent him to Dheeva Maari (Maldives). The name of this prince was Sri Soorudasaruna.
Sri Soorudasaruna established a kingdom of the Adeetha Vansha Dynasty (Solar Dynasty) in Dhiva Maari, a short period before the reign of Emperor Ashoka in India. This would place the establishment of the first kingdom in the Maldives circa the 4th century BC. The tradition then states that Emperor Ashoka established his kingdom in Pataliputra in India, and that his people went preaching the religion and teachings of Buddha to a place called Bairat, to the west of Pataliputra. A group of people came to the Maldives from Bairat in order to teach the religion of Buddha. These people are said to have arrived in these islands during Ashoka's reign, probably when he sent Buddhist missionaries to all the neighbouring countries, in the 3rd century BC. At the time the Buddhist missionaries arrived in the Maldives, the country was called Dheeva Mahl.
Around the 2nd century AD there was an influx of Arab traders who travelled and stopped by at the Maldives en route to the Far East – their first record of the Maldives islands, which they called Mahal Dibiyat, is from the Arab travellers. Maldives provided enormous quantities of cowry shells, an international currency of the early ages. The cowry is now the symbol of the Maldives Monetary Authority. Mahal Dibiyat is the name given to the islands by medieval Arab travellers.
Abu al-Barakat Yusuf al-Barbari, a North African Arab, is credited with converting the Maldivians to Islam in 1153.
Legend of the first ruling dynasty
The myth of the origin of the ruling dynasty is the story of a prince named Koimala. In the Muslim traditions recorded in the Lōamāafāanu and Rādavaḷi chronicles all the pre-Muslim royalty are represented by a king, whose successor was converted to Islam. The name Koimala Kalo is also suggestive: koi or koyi in Maldivian language means son, lad or prince (derived from Malayalam koya, son, prince, master, cf. the Dravidian root kō, king). The component malā may or may not be derived from māla as in Māla-dīv, but, if so, the name would mean 'prince of the Maldives'. The term kalō is a common word of man, used as a term of endearment. The title of former Maldivian kings was kattiri bovana mahaa radun, 'Kattiri' (ކައްތިރި) meaning Kshatriya in Maldivian language.
One oral tradition says that the Giraavaru people are the indigenous people of the Maldives who were in the islands before Koimala arrived. They are of Tamil origin, and the earliest island community of the Maldives; their presence predates Buddhism and the arrival of Indo-Aryans in the archipelago. This may be the reason that the Dhivehi kinship system is partly of Dravidian origin, and bears evidence of some matriliny, like the Nayar and other matrilineal groups of Kerala. Some of the kinship terms are clearly derived from Malayalam.
Five versions of the myth are given here and their significance in terms of culture history explained.
1. The following version was recorded by Bell in 1922:
Once upon a time, when the Maldives were still sparsely inhabited, a prince of royal birth named Koimala, who had married the daughter of the king of Ceylon, made a voyage with her in two vessels from Srendib [Sri Lanka] Island. Reaching the Maldives they were becalmed and rested a while at Rasgetheemu island in North Maalhosmadulu Atoll.
The Maldive Islanders, learning that the two chief visitors were of Ceylon Royal descent invited them to remain; and ultimately proclaimed Koimala their king at Rasgetheemu, the original 'King's Island'.
Subsequently, Koimala and his spouse migrated thence to Male' and settled there with the consent of the aborigines of Giraavaru Island, then the most important community of Male' Atoll.
The two ships were dispatched to Lanka, and brought over other people of 'the Lion Race' (Sinhalese).
To Koimala and his queen was born a male child who was called Kalaminja. He reigned as a Buddhist for twelve years, and was then converted to Islam, ruling for thirteen years more before finally departing for Mecca.
This ruler's daughter married the chief minister and reigned as a nominal Sultana. She gave birth to a son also called Kalaminja, who, in turn, married a lady of the country.
From them the subsequent rulers of the Maldives were descended.
2. According to this version, which Maloney heard in Male', Koimala's parents came from India, not Sri Lanka: The Indian king was angry with his son, and sent him off with his wife in two boats; they had 700 soldiers. They came to Rasgetheemu in Raa Atoll, and when he became king there, people called that island Rasgetheemu "King's Landing". Then the king and queen came to Male', and Koimala was born from that Indian couple.
3. The following variant Maloney heard in Noon Atoll: "... When Koimala and his wife came, there were already people here. Because she was a princess of royal lineage, people asked her husband to rule. Koimala sent ships to Sri Lanka and brought back more people. It is said that a beautiful woman named Malakamana from the Maldives was one of the early people who settled Sri Lanka."
4. A myth Maloney heard in Manadhoo, Noon Atoll, is, in condensed form, as follows:
One day, while a hunter king of Sri Lanka was hunting, he caught a man-beast in his net. The man-beast couldn't walk, so the king taught him to do it. The man-beast then married the king's daughter, but he made political trouble in Sri Lanka, so was forced to leave. He and the princess arrived in Rasgetheemu and they lived there for some time, where the locals there asked them to rule them.
5. Another version Maloney heard in Hulhumeedhoo, Addu Atoll, in the far south of the country, is as follows:
There was a king of India who was a hunter. Once, while out hunting with a net, he saw a creature which is like a human, but which walked on all fours, and which disturbed the people. This creature would also take hunters' nets and steal their prey, so the king couldn't get any catch. The king considered how he might capture this creature. He made big weights for his net, which no ordinary human could lift, and which would prevent the creature from taking the hunting net. One day, the king, with the help of many men, put the net over the creature, which could not get out because of the large stone weights. The king took the creature to the palace and looked after him well, and because he knew no language, the king taught him language, which took a long time. The creature started helping the king by showing him treasures in the forest, and the king came to respect him.
The king had a daughter who fell in love with this creature (in an alternate version, the king forced his daughter to marry the creature). The king, being angry, put the couple on a ship and sent them off into exile. Their ship came to Laam (Hadummati) Atoll (towards the south), where the exiled pair saw a crow which cried. They thought the crow was not a good omen, and it was therefore undesirable to land there, so they went on to Male'. They settled in what is now Sultan Park (site of the former palace) and started a kingdom.
After fifteen years, a jinni began to come from the ocean every once a month and disturbed the people... (from here follows the story of the saint who came and dispelled the jinni and caused all the people to become converted to Islam from Buddhism and Hinduism).
Gujaratis
Maloney says Gujarat, with its indented coastline and its proximity to the old navigation routes of the Mesopotamian and Indus civilisations, has apparently maintained a tradition of navigation over the past 4000 years. Certainly the earliest Buddhist literature indicates active seafaring from its ports. It was from Gujarat that North Indian civilisation impinged upon the Maldives and Sri Lanka. From Gujarat, North Indian civilisation also expanded to Java and other parts of South-east Asia. The export of this civilisation to all coasts of South Asia and South-east Asia began about 500 B.C., but during the Mauryan period and the diffusion of Buddhism, sea traffic in the Bay of Bengal supplemented and, to some extent, surpassed that originating along the coasts of Western India.
Three Jataka tales cited above seem to refer to the Maldives, particularly the comment that exiles from Bharukaccha went to a thousand islands [Laccadive and Maldive islands] where they found standing room, and that these were near an island named for coconuts [Kerala]. This suggests that not only did seafarers emanating from Bharukaccha and Suppara visit the Maldives, but Gujaratis actually settled there in pre-Buddhist times. The other Jataka tales suggest that ships from Gujarat going to South-east Asia stopped in the Maldives, and that merchants in search of treasures sailed in several seas called – maala (or maara).
The Maldives might well have been settled parallel with the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers in Sri Lanka, as suggested in the above interpretations of the Sri Lanka myths and the Koimala story.
Mariners from the north-western coasts of the peninsula, from the time they commenced sailing to southern India, must have on occasion been blown over to the Maldives—unmanned canoes and rafts from Kerala even now get wafted there from time to time – and the dangers of shipwreck vividly described in several of the Jātakas might have arisen from contact with some of the thousands of reefs in the Maldives, which sailors have long dreaded. It may be, therefore, that shipwrecked Gujaratis, as well as exiles, were early settlers on the islands of the Laccadive-Maldives archipelago.
Geographic distribution
Maldives
All Maldivians are native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising what is now the Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union territory of Lakshadweep, India. The secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government gradually led to the emergence of a Maldivian population of Indian citizenship who came to be known as Mahls.
Being the heartland of Maldivian people, more than 97% of all Maldivians are from the Maldives. For all the Maldivian communities across the world (including the people of Minicoy) their origin lies in the Maldives. The Maldivian community of the Maldives consist of the two major groups from the three subgroups of Maldivians: The main group of Maldivians, the southern group of Maldivians (also known as Suvadivians) and the Mahls (ethnic Maldivians from Indian island of Minicoy).
Southern group of Maldivians
As a result of some political activities which occurred in the South during the early 1960s, the term Suvadivian has been adopted by some authors to refer to the southern group of Maldivians. From 1959 to 1963 there was a short-lived breakaway government named United Suvadive Republic which was formed by the Southerners, from which the name originated though there are no such native names. The names Suvadive and Suvadivian suggest that the origin of the names lye in the ancient name for the three southernmost atolls of Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu which was Suvadiva.
The Suvadivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds. The reason behind this suggested by researchers and proven from historical records is that there were less interference from the outside world to this group. Unlike the other group of Maldivians, this group was not affected by the Portuguese rule in the Maldives as it does not exceed the Suvadiva channel. Also there were no interference from traders and travellers as much as in the case of the other.
Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas and Addu bas), which are much different from the rest and as suggested by researchers, having a closer affinity to what may have been the original. Thus, the native features of the original Maldivian people are preserved in this group greater than any other group of Maldivians.
Main group of Maldivians
Unlike the southern minority, this group of Maldivians were subject to foreign intercourse. There were numerous occasions of reported interference from outsiders such as traders, travellers, etc... Also, the Portuguese rule and many other factors pushed this group into a state that imported materials got mixed into their linguistics as well as ethnic background to a large extent.
India
The secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government gradually led to the emergence of a Maldivian population holding Indian citizenship. This group of Maldivians consist of the people of Minicoy and migrant communities from Minicoy across India and elsewhere. Except for the people from Minicoy, there is no community of ethnic Maldivians with Indian citizenship. This group of Maldivians are officially referred as Mahls. The people locally identify themselves as Malikun. The Mahls make up the third subgroup of Maldivians.
People of Minicoy (Malikun) – Mahls
Mahls are the third subgroup of Maldivians centred in the island of Minicoy making up the only community of ethnic Maldivians in India. This group has its own dialect (called Maliku bas or Mahl) which retains some features of archaic Maldivian language, and shows Malayalam influences as well. Still, the dialect is mutually intelligible with the standard dialect of Maldivian and is more related to the slighter variants of northern Maldives.
In case of linguistics and ethnic grounds, this group of Maldivians are identical to the main group of Maldivians in the Maldives. However, the secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and gradually becoming part of India, thus becoming the only group of ethnic Maldivians with a non-Maldivian citizenship made anthropologists to label the Mahls among the subgroups. The isolation of this group from the rest of the Maldivians and the acculturation process which the Mahls are undergoing as a result of this as well as the change in nationality is one of the reasons for separation of this group from the main group of Maldivians. The origin of this group like any other group of Maldivians lie in the Maldives. The story of the Tivarun, the linguistics of the people in Minicoy and many other factors prove this side of the story.
Mahls are the only community of ethnic Maldivians (excluding migrant communities) outside the Republic of Maldives. They make up about 3% of the total population of all Maldivians.
Most Mahls live in their native land of Maliku (Minicoy). Mahls are 15.67% of the total population of Lakshadweep emerging as a separate ethnic group among the rest of the population. All Mahl communities in India emerged from Minicoy.
There are Mahl communities (migrant communities from Minicoy) in other parts of India too. A number of Mahls have settled in the districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) in the southern state of Kerala. The ancestors of present Mahl communities in Kerala migrated from Minicoy and settled there in the 17th century, when the islands of Lakshadweep came under the rule of Ali Rajahs/Arakkal Bheevi of Kannur.
Since 1957, this group of Maldivians in Minicoy are totally off-limits for their Maldivian counterparts in the Maldives. The direct transport between Minicoy and the Maldives was forbidden by the Indian government. Thus, this Indian group of Maldivians are steadily undergoing a process of acculturation owing to lack of contact with the remaining Maldivian people and pressure to use other languages such as Malayalam, English and Hindi. This proves to have a big influence upon the culture, linguistics and other day-to-day affairs of this group of Maldivians.
Emigrant communities
A significant number of Maldivian emigrant communities can be found in several countries. The emigrant communities could only be located from the Maldivian side as it is only the Maldivians who are all of the same ethnicity unlike India where the presence of thousands of cultures and ethnicities make the records more stringent on this matter. Since ethnic Maldivians of Minicoy are only no more than 0.0015% of the total population of India compared to 100% for their counterparts in the Maldives, it is only from the Maldivian embassies across the world that this information could be gathered.
Sri Lanka
There are approximately 20,000 people of Maldivian ethnicity living in Sri Lanka, as of 2013.
Genetics and Research Studies
In 1899, Professor John Stanley Gardiner visited Maldives, during which time; he collected anthropometrical data of a number of Maldivians from many islands. Analysis of this data by Dr. Wynfrid Duckworth, suggested that there were three major sources of immigration into the country. These are:
The peninsula of Hindustan with Ceylon,
The coast of Arabia and possibly of Africa,
The western shores of the Malay Peninsula, and the islands of the Malaya Archipelago.
(Duckworth 1912: 8–30).
In 1997, a Maldivian NGO, Society for Health Education, conducted a study on the mutations of thalassaemia found in the Maldives. This study showed one mutation that probably originated in the Middle East, another mutation which could have been derived from Portuguese or Algerians, and another which probably originated from South Asia and Malays. The observations are consistent with the historical records of Maldives, showing that early travellers from India, Indonesia, North Africa, the Red Sea and Persian Gulf areas, settled in the Maldives. (Firdous et al. 1998:148,149). Thalassaemia is the commonest genetically transmitted blood disease found in Maldives, and the results of this study suggest that many of the people now living in the Maldives had ancestors who came from the above-mentioned countries.
Anthropological studies, as well as ethnographic and linguistic researches, suggest that in terms of ancestry Maldivians share similar genes principally with the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka as well as western Indian populations, such as Marathis, Konkanis and Gujaratis with traces of Arab, Malay, southern Indian and North African genes in the population.
In 2013, genetic study about the Maldivian population by department of Human Genetics, Liden University, which was published online on the American Journal of Physical Anthropology has revealed very interesting facts about the genetic origin of Maldivian people.
The research studied autosomal DNA-, mitochondrial DNA-, and Y-chromosomal DNA markers in a representative sample of 141 unrelated Maldivians, with 119 from six major settlements. The researchers found a total of 63 different mtDNA haplotypes that could be allocated to 29 mtDNAs, mostly within the M, R and U clades. They also found 66 different Y-STR haplotypes in 10 Y chromosome haplogroups, predominantly R1a1, R2, H, L and J2. The study concluded that their new genetic data agree with the commonly reported Maldivian ancestry in South Asia, but furthermore suggest multiple, independent immigration events and asymmetrical migration of females and males across the archipelago.
The genetic study confirmed that the most likely origin of the Maldivian population is in South Asia with possible gene flow from the Middle East. Also it has pointed out that the Dhivehi language of the Maldives being the southernmost Indo-Aryan language, and sharing of specific haplogroups with Indo-Aryan populations mostly from India and from Sri Lanka, could point to a common origin of these populations.
Culture
Language and literature
Maldivians have strong feelings towards the Maldivian language. It has historically been, and to large extent still is, central to the Maldivian identity. Unlike the other languages of South India, it is an Indo-European language, while other South Indian languages are Dravidian languages. However the language shows some influences of neighbouring Dravidian languages on it, and have a number of loanwords from Dravidian vocabulary.
Religion
The Maldivians are entirely Muslims, adhering to the Sunni school of thought. In the Maldives which is the heartland of Maldivians and home for more than 97% of the Maldivian people, the national religion is Islam. Islam is the country's state religion as well as the backbone of the society with daily life in the country being regulated according to the tenets of Islam and government regulations too being based on the regulations of Islamic law (Shari'a). The law of the country prohibits the practice of any other religion by the country's citizens. In general all Maldivians from the island of Minicoy too are Sunni Muslims.
Visual art and architecture
Most traditional Maldivian art is influenced by Perso-Arabic tradition in some form and usually centres on Islam, since all the Maldivians are Muslims. The skill of visual art and architecture among the Maldivians is centered in the Maldives since the people of Minicoy are mainly sailors.
Various fine art practices exist in the Maldives at present. Primary among them is drawing and painting. Sculpture and crafts that overlap with art making also exist in the country. However, due to various limitations, they have not flourished as art forms. Painting and drawing also exist in similar circumstances. Lack of avenues in which to exhibit, and lack of arts education and training, combined with a growing understanding that these arts are best served in the tourist souvenir trade, has hampered a healthy development of these arts.
However, with the establishment of private galleries and with various exhibitions organized by the government and the artists themselves, in the last 15 years, the awareness that painting can be an expressive art form apart from also being a lucrative commercial activity has provided encouragement for several young Maldivians to pursue painting, and to an extent sculpture and other public and commercial art forms. Renewed interest in these arts have also led to various individuals to pursue on their own whatever education they can obtain, whether through distance learning courses from foreign universities, or via books and magazines. In addition, privately funded students have also been obtaining arts education and training at undergraduate and graduate levels in international universities.
More indirectly, artists also get the opportunity to meet foreign artists through the tourism trade when foreign artists visit the country as tourists. This provides the much needed contact with artists that is so necessary to the development of any art form.
Until recently, fine arts in the Maldives have been usually defined as the various crafts and skills of craft making. These include the use of locally found materials to produce decorative and functional objects such as mats, hand held or displayed objects, etc. The present situation of the arts has come about because of a lack of critical and theoretical interpretation and a lack of dialogue and discourse in an organized, sustained or documented form.
Performing arts
The traditional Maldivian performing arts have Indian and even African roots.
Martial arts
Martial arts among Maldivians are known as hevikamuge kulhivaruthak, while gulhamathi hifun is traditional wrestling among Maldivians.
Festivals
Most of the Maldivian festivals are related to Islam, however there are some festivals which belongs to old Maldivian traditions, like kite flying festival. Naming a newborn child, Mauloodhu (a prayer accompanied with festive meal), Eid festival and circumcision of male child are few events that take place where the taste of rich cultural 'cocktail' can be experienced.
A traditional meal called Keyn is prepared for the above Mauloodhus consisting of a number of courses. A single Keyn would serve 10 – 12 people and includes rice, curries, salads, grilled fish, coconut cream, coconut syrup, bananas, puddings and other delights.
Keyn is set out in a very large wooden dish called a Malaafaiy. The outside of this dish is placed within the dish and small individual plates are filled with curries, salads, and other items and set around the rice. This would be covered with the lid and wrapped in a white cloth and tied at the top. At the meal times this would be carried into the Mauloodh Haruge (dining hall specially made for this event) and placed on straw mats for service. Individual plates and other food items in individual dishes are placed as well. Beverages are individually set in glasses. Water is served in a ceramic jug. Food is consumed using the fingers of the right hand. At the end of the meal hand is washed using a copper jug into a copper basin. 10 December is marked as Kandu Rōdi duvas and 14 April as Gamu Rōdi duvas on which date Maldivian language day is marked from 2011 onwards.
Dress
Traditionally Maldivian men wear a Mundu with a shirt, it is very similar to that of Malayali people. Maldivian women wear a red-top called a Libaas and a long black skirt.
Cuisine
Rice, the major staple food in most Maldivian households, is usually cooked and served with Garudiya (Tuna Fish soup). Here are some of the speciality cuisines.
Bocholhi
Made of rice flour, coconut – semi-firm (grated) and coconut palm syrup by mixing all the ingredients until freed from lump and cooked over a moderate heat until the mixture is thickened.
Godhan Furhu Boa Folhi
Made of flour, coconut – semi-hard (blended to a smooth paste), eggs, coconut cream, jasmine water, coconut palm syrup, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder and oil by mixing all the ingredients apart from the oil together. Cooked over a moderate heat and once the top of the pancake dries up, turned over and cooked.
Han’dulu Aurus
Made of rice (soaked overnight), washed and blended to a smooth paste), coconut palm syrup, Jasmine water and jasmine flowers by placing all the ingredients apart from the flowers in a thick-bottomed pan and cooked over a moderate heat by stirring constantly to avoid the mixture getting stuck to the bottom. Wrapped entirely with banana leaf and placed jasmine flowers over the sweets. This sweet will keep for two to three months without spoiling.
'
Han’dulu Furhu Kubus
Made of Patna Rice (soaked overnight, washed and blended to a smooth paste), coconut – semi-firm (grated), coconut palm syrup, caster sugar, banana leaf by cooking over a moderate heat the grated coconut, palm sugar and caster sugar until the mixture has thickened. Removed from heat and allowed cooling and added in the blended rice and kneaded thoroughly and combined all the ingredients well. Divided the mixture into eight portions and placed each portion on a banana leaf and wrapped entirely to seal and wrapped a second banana leaf around it and secured well.
Dug a suitable hole in the ground in which all the wrapped dough pieces could be placed neatly. Placed coconut fibres and coconut shells and burned them in the dug hole and removed the charcoals.
Placed banana leaves within the hole and placed the wrapped dough in the heated hole and placed neatly one against another.
Covered the dough parcels placed in the hole with another large piece of banana leaf and covered the leaf with two-inch white sand. Placed the charcoals and coconut fibres and coconut shells over it and burned the coconut fibres and shells for half an hour.
Left the cooked kubus parcels overnight in the hole. In the morning scraped off the burnt ashes and charcoals aside and the sand covering the banana leaf and slowly lifted the wrapped kubus parcels.
Hukkaru
Made of coconut palm syrup by boiling the syrup over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it starts to thicken. Removed from heat and whisked until frothy and cooled.
Huni Folhi
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut – semi-hard (grated), coconut palm syrup by cooking all the ingredients over a moderate heat in a thick-bottomed pan stirring continuously.
When the mixture starts to come loose from the side of the pan removed from heat and taken a tablespoonful of the cooked mixture, spread on a cork wood leaf. Smoked and dried the leaves spread with the sweet over the fireplace.
Karukuri Banbukeyo
Made of fried bread fruit (crushed coarsely), coconut palm syrup, jasmine water by bringing the syrup and the jasmine water to boil and cooked it over a moderate heat until it comes to ribbon stage. Added in the crushed breadfruit into the sugar and coated well. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and kept in an airtight container.
Karukuri Ala
Made of fried taro (crushed coarsely), coconut palm syrup and jasmine water by boiling the syrup and the jasmine water and cooked it over a moderate heat until it comes to ribbon stage. Added in the crushed taro in to the sugar and coated well. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and kept in an airtight container.
Kulhi Bis Fathafolhi
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut (grated), Rihaakuru, Rihaakuru Bondi (blended), eggs, onion (sliced thinly), curry leaves (chopped), cherry pepper, juice of two limes, ginger, salt to season and oil by crushing the onion, curry leaves, cherry pepper, ginger with salt. Added and mixed the rice flour and coconut to make sandy texture. Formed a bay in the center of the rice mixture and add in the eggs and Rihaakuru and Rihaakuru Bondi. Mixed/kneaded the dough and divided the dough into 15 gram balls. Spread each ball to about ¼ inch thickness. Cut using a round cutter of 3 – inch diameter and pre-heated oil.
Meeraa
Made of coconut sap (collected at noon) by boiling the sap over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it comes to ribbon stage. Removed from heat, greased a large tray and taken a spoonful of the cooked thickened syrup and placed it over the greased sheet in strings.
Thela Kubus
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut palm syrup, eggs and coconut oil by whisking the egg and the syrup and added in the rice flour and beaten further. Poured a table spoonful of the mixture into the oil and deep-fried until golden.
Thelli Keyo
Made of plantain (peeled and cut length-wise) and oil by frying the bananas until crisped. Drained on absorbent kitchen paper and kept airtight container.
Veli Hakuru
Made of coconut palm syrup by boiling the syrup over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it starts to crystallise. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and put into jars and seal well.
Other Cuisines Regularly Cooked
Falhoa Aurus
Naaroh Faludha
Fuppi Baiy
Gerhi Banbukeyo
Gerhi Kattala
Kaliyaa Kuri Kattala
Varukuri Baiy
Communities
Maldivian names
A generation ago, most Maldivian people were not commonly known by their birth names. Instead they were called by an alternative name such as Dohuttu, Lahuttu, Tutteedi, Kudamaniku, or Don Goma. The rationale behind this practice was that if the evil spirits did not know one's real name, one would be free from their spells. However ancient Maldivian naming system is similar to that of Gujaratis and Marathas. Even now some people follow that system. For example, the first name of historian Mohamed Ibrahim Lutfy is "Mohamed;" "Ibrahim" is his father's name, and "Lutfy" is the family name.
Frequent Maldivian family names include Bee, Beefan, Boo, Didi, Fan, Fulhu, Kader, Kalaminja, Kalinga, Kalo, Kavah, Kavya, Koi, Koya, Manik, Manika, Manike, Manikfan, Naha, Raha, Rana, Tarkan, Thakhan, Thakur, Thakurfan, Veer.
See also
Maldivian folklore
Minicoy
Giraavaru people
References
Further reading
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External links
Maldives Ethnography, by Xavier Romero-Frias
A Guide to Mahl Language, Minicoy
Clarence Maloney, his vision, his work and the ancient underlying cultural influences in the Maldives
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Ethnic groups in the Indian Ocean
Indo-Aryan peoples
Ethnic groups in India
Ethnic groups in Sri Lanka
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"The Maldivian diaspora refers to the community of Maldivians, speakers of the Maldivian language, who have either emigrated from the Republic of Maldives or grew up outside of the Maldives speaking Dhivehi as a first language. The Republic of Maldives is a South Asian country geographically located in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. Maldivians have historically emigrated from the Maldives for numerous reasons including low economic opportunity, political repression, environmental instability, and education. India and Sri Lanka currently host the most Maldivians living outside of the Maldives, but other diaspora communities can be found in Malaysia, Singapore, Pakistan, and Australia.\n\nBackground\n\nThe Maldivian diaspora can be divided into two major subcategories: Maldivian citizens living abroad and Dhivehi speaking communities with no legal connection to the Maldivian state. The 2014 census found a total of 5,589 Maldivian citizens living abroad. However, there is little information on the exact size of the non-citizen Dhivehi speaking diaspora. While a 2011 UNESCO report found that the majority of Maldivian citizens living outside of the Maldives were sailors operating foreign commercial vessels, Maldivians have also left their country for political, economic, and academic reasons.\n\nMaldivians in South Asia\n\nThe majority of Maldivian speakers living abroad can currently be found in India and Sri Lanka. Maldivians in India, the largest community of Maldivians abroad, are predominantly found in the union territory of Lakshadweep that lies off the coast of the Indian mainland. Ethnic Maldivians living in Lakshadweep are concentrated on the island of Minicoy, an Indian territory of the Maldive Islands. These Maldivians are known as the Mahl people. The first Maldivians in Sri Lanka are thought to have migrated to the island nation centuries ago, but many still maintain their cultural ties to the greater Maldivian community.\n\nWhile the largest Maldivian communities outside of the Maldives can be found in India and Sri Lanka, there are currently numerous Maldivians in Pakistan as well. These Maldivians are largely students who travel to Pakistan to study in madrassas across the country. Some of these students remain abroad after their studies in order to fight for various Islamist organizations based outside of the Maldives.\n\nPolitics\n\nPolitical repression is one reason many Maldivians have chosen to emigrate. Many journalists have been arrested after expressing anti-government views, and some have disappeared entirely under suspicious circumstances. Journalists have even been sentenced to death for their reporting, at least five of whom were below the age of 18. In 2017, four independent Maldivian journalists living abroad were threatened with arrest for espousing pro-democratic and openly secular viewpoints on their respective blogs. Human rights observers such as Amnesty International have noted that the criminal justice system has been used to silence political opponents as well as the free press.\n\nMohamed Nasheed, the former president of the Maldives, has also found himself living in exile in the United Kingdom after being charged with terrorism in a 2015 trial many outside observers perceived as being politically motivated. After the charges were cleared by the Maldives' Supreme Court in 2018, Nasheed announced that he would run against the previously unopposed President Abdulla Yameen in the upcoming 2018 presidential election. Nasheed's presidential campaign has included numerous trips to Maldivian communities living outside of the Maldives, such as the sizable Maldivian community in Sri Lanka. However, it remains unclear whether the Yameen administration will bow to U.N. pressure and allow Mohamed Nasheed to run as a candidate in the 2018 election.\n\nMaldivians have also left the country in order to fight for various insurgent groups such as the Islamic State. In fact, a 2015 study by The Soufan Group found the Maldives to be the world's greatest supplier per-capita of independent foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria. Many of these insurgent fighters have been known to bring their families with them, either immediately or a few months after becoming established in their new location. Maldivian foreign fighters have become radicalized in both Malé and the Maldives' many smaller island communities. Some have attributed the proportionally high number of radicalized individuals leaving the Maldives to fight in conflicts abroad to the growing strength of the Islamist movement in the country and the Yameen administration's newfound support for its proponents.\n\nEducation\n\nA significant percentage of Maldivians living abroad are students pursuing an education at various foreign universities. Maldivian students go abroad for both secular and religious educations and often find themselves studying in universities and madrassas in Malaysia, Australia, the United Kingdom, India, Sri Lanka, and other countries. A 2011 UNESCO report found that approximately 1,200 Maldivian students were studying abroad in 2007. This student diaspora can in large part be attributed to the lack of educational facilities on most of the Maldives' islands. Until recently, the only secondary education provider was located in Malé. Some wealthy Maldivians have also chosen to migrate in order to ensure that their children will have access to superior primary, secondary, and tertiary educational facilities.\n\nEconomy\n\nYouth unemployment is a growing social issue in the Maldives. 45% of the population was under 24 years of age as of 2014, and the competition for work among young Maldivians remains severe. A 2010 study found that the unemployment rate in the Maldives was 25% for those between 15 and 24. Youth unemployment has become a major reason for emigration from the Maldives. Maldivians often consider migrating in order to improve their access to financial resources, especially the wealth of job opportunities that exist in foreign countries. In fact, Maldivians’ primary migration-related interests remain jobs. When young Maldivians move abroad for work, older members of their families sometimes join them as migrants in order to continue living alongside their children and grandchildren. This pattern of migration can also be seen in Maldivians moving from the outlying islands to Malé.\n\nMaldivians also choose to move abroad because the cost of living in Malé is higher than most places in Sri Lanka and India. Some also attribute this migration to a lack of housing and overcrowding around the Maldivian capital, a problem which has grown increasingly pressing as Maldivians continue to migrate from the outer islands to the capital.\n\nHealthcare\n\nThe government of the Maldives has recently made efforts to deepen its relationship with Maldivians living abroad. In 2013, the government expanded the Maldives' universal health insurance, Aasandha, to Maldivians living abroad in Sri Lanka and India provided they visit a select few \"empanelled\" hospitals. This expansion of health insurance to Maldivians living abroad has come under criticism given the poor state of the Maldivian healthcare system and the difficulty many Maldivians currently face finding adequate healthcare services in their home country.\n\nClimate\n\nThe Maldives has, in recent years, become one of the epicenters of the climate refugee debate. The Maldives has an average estimated elevation of 1.5 meters above sea-level, with 80 percent of its islands currently resting less than 1 meter above sea-level. The total landmass of the islands is continuously decreasing due to rising sea-levels, and many of the smaller islands are thought to be years away from becoming completely submerged. Climate change has recently become a long-term security issue for the Maldives which, according to numerous climate scientists, could disappear entirely within one or two centuries.\n\nRising ocean temperatures are also a major environmental challenge facing the Maldives. Rising sea surface temperatures cause significant damage to coral reefs, which serve as natural breakwaters. The death of the coral reefs surrounding the Maldives could lead to the loss of the natural protection those reefs provide from waves and currents, in turn increasing the likelihood of beach erosion. The rise in sea surface temperatures also leads to coral bleaching. A significant increase in the water temperature causes coral to expel the zooxanthellae which live in the tissue of the coral, making the coral turn white in color. Since the devastating El Niño of 1998, marine biologists in the Maldives have been particularly concerned about the impact on the local marine environment. Since 2015 was the warmest year on record, by September 2015, many coral reefs in the Maldives had become severely bleached. The rapid degradation of the coral reefs around the Maldives could negatively influences the country's tourism industry, which currently makes up 34% of the Maldives's GDP. Fishing, the country's second largest industry, could also be affected by climate change. Fish might migrate to other ocean areas if the sea temperatures around the Maldives continue to increase, which could lead to a decrease in the country's GDP as high as 7%.\n\nSeveral kinds of natural disasters affect the Maldives, including tsunamis, cyclones, earthquakes, thunderstorms, and flash floods caused by heavy rains and swell waves. The threats posed by many of these environmental hazards have been amplified by climate changes in recent decades. Rainfall has been erratic and drought patterns have changed, causing prolonged dry seasons and unusual monsoon patterns. This directly affects the Maldives’ agriculture, causing the already limited farmland to shrink continuously. As a consequence, the country has had to depend on imported goods for a steadily increasing percentage of its food supply. For the same reason, communities have had to manage increasingly saline groundwater. The majority of islands in the Maldives do not have a secure supply of fresh water or distribution networks that can ensure sufficient safe freshwater during dry periods. It is also due to these prolonged dry periods that many islands have experienced severe shortages of drinking water, often necessitating emergency water supply initiatives on the part of the government. Freshwater security is currently a pressing issue in the Maldives.\n\nMany climate related diseases, such as dengue and scrub typhus, have also become more common. The incidence of these vector-borne diseases in the Maldives are expected to steadily increase over the next few decades. In December 2006, the country had its first outbreak of Chikungunya, another climate related vector-borne disease.\n\nWhile many Maldivians are expected to become either climate refugees or internally displaced due to rising sea levels, the 1951 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees does not recognize climate change as a valid reason for refugee status. While the ongoing environmental changes have affected housing, freshwater access, food production, and fisheries, Maldivians are currently more likely to consider leaving their homeland in order to improve their financial education or to receive a tertiary education. In fact, migration is only one of the strategies being considered by the government of the Maldives for dealing with the threat posed by climate change.\n\nGovernment response\n\nIn 2008, the government of Mohamed Nasheed began to spend a portion of its annual tourist revenue on the search for a new homeland. Nasheed argued that \"We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own and so we have to buy land elsewhere. It's an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome. After all, the Israelis [began by buying] land in Palestine.\" Before his ouster in 2012, Nasheed launched numerous initiatives and publicity stunts in order to raise global awareness about the threat posed by rising sea levels to the Maldives. One of the most famous of which was an underwater cabinet meeting in which he and his cabinet donned scuba gear in order to discuss state environmental policies at the bottom of the Indian Ocean in 2009. In 2012, the Nasheed administration set aside a sovereign savings account with which to buy land in Australia in preparation for the eventual evacuation of the citizens of the Maldives from their country. However, the Nasheed administration also considered moving the country's population to India or Sri Lanka as well.\n\nAfter Nasheed's close defeat in the contested elections that proceeded his ouster, he was replaced by Abdulla Yameen. The Yameen administration has been less concerned with the environmental threat to the Maldives and reemphasized the need to focus on development and foreign investment. This move has been criticized by Nasheed and his supporters as politically motivated and a Chinese bid for influence over the islands. However, the Yameen administration has touted Chinese investment as a critical factor in the land restoration projects being pursued by his administration in order to preserve the islands. Numerous policy analysts have pointed to the conflict between proponents of land restoration and proponents of relocation in the Maldives as part of the greater struggle between China and India for influence in South Asia.\n\nBoth the Maldivian government and a number of external research agencies have considered numerous methods for adapting to and overcoming the environmental problems currently facing the Maldives. Their proposals include sea walls, land reclamation, expansion of beach vegetation, population relocation, flood warning systems, and large-scale island expansion and reconstruction. The Maldivian government has put some of these suggestions into practice, but there are still major uncertainties regarding future climate change and its impact. While the current policies of the Yameen administration indicate that the mass migration of the Maldives' residents to Australia or Sri Lanka is no longer the government's primary strategy for dealing with rising sea levels, it remains to be seen how future administrations will deal with this problem.\n\nInternational assistance \n\nInternational organizations such as the World Bank have provided assistance to the Maldives in order to help it mitigate the environmental and socio-economic problems which have led to emigration from the country. This assistance has taken the form of improving the economic opportunities available to the local population both in the island nation's traditional economic areas such as tourism and fishing as well as entirely new industries. Such assistance has also strengthened the Maldives' capacity for natural resource management and climate resilience, as well as enhanced its ability to manage its public finances efficiently. The World Bank Group also provides consultation in policy-making.\n\nThe Maldives also regularly receives economic aid from countries such as Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. Between 1987 and 2002, Japan helped construct six kilometers of coastal protection works around the city of Malé in order to protect the capital from major storms, tsunamis, and the constant threat of sea level rise. After the completion of these coastal barriers, Japan has continued to be a major supplier of economic aid and other forms of non-monetary assistance to the Maldives.\n\nCriticism of the term \"climate migrants\" \n\nPhrases such as \"climate refugees\" and \"climate migrants\" have come under an increasing amount of scrutiny by various political analysts and researchers. Some analysts, such as Robert Stojanov and Ilan Kelman, have suggested the Maldivian government should, instead of simply responding to climate change in a vacuum, place climate change within wider development contexts, such as employment, education, health care, public services and the livelihoods of Maldivian citizens. They argue that climate change must always be considered in relation to other social and environmental issues, especially considering the fact that climate change is currently far from the dominant reason behind emigration from the Maldives. These critics believe that a more nuanced analysis of Maldivian social and environmental conditions would allow the government to make migration-related policies based on more than assumptions about climate change.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links",
"For information about the Maldivian people as a whole, see Demographics of the Maldives and Culture of the Maldives.\n\nMaldivians are persons from the Maldives, or of Maldivian descent. Below is a list of notable Maldivians:\n\nGeneral people\n Muhammad Thakurufaanu Al Auzam\n Mohamed Zahir Hussain\n Ilyas Hussain Ibrahim\n Moosa Ali Jaleel\n Imad Latheef\n Jennifer Latheef\n Ahmed Shafeeq Ibrahim Moosa\n Mohamed Munavvar\n Hassan Evan Naseem\n Hassan Saeed\n Sultan Saeed\n Husain Salaahuddin\n Fathimath Shafeega\n Mohamed bin Hajj Ali Thukkala\n Hassan Ugail\n Naushad Waheed\n Mohamed Zahir\n\nMilitary Personnel\n Major General Abdulla Shamaal \n Colonel Dr. Ali Shahid Mohamed\n\nComputer scientists\n Hassan Ugail\n\nLawyers\n Mohamed Munavvar\n Hassan Saeed\n\nMathematicians\n Hassan Ugail\n\nExtrajudicial prisoners of the United States\n Ibrahim Fauzee\n\nRoyal families\n Dhiyamigili dynasty\n Hilaalee dynasty\n Huraa dynasty\n Isdhoo dynasty\n House of Theemuge\n Utheemu dynasty\n\nMaldivians\n \nMaldivians\nMaldivians"
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"Maldivians",
"Southern group of Maldivians",
"What is the relation between Maldivians and Southern group of Maldivians?",
"According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds.",
"Do they have other part of Maldivians that they talk about?",
"I don't know."
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Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Besides the relation between Maldivians and Southern group of Maldivians, are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Maldivians
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As a result of some political activities which occurred in the South during the early 1960s, the term Suvadivian has been adopted by some authors to refer to the southern group of Maldivians. From 1959 to 1963 there was a short-lived breakaway government named United Suvadive Republic which was formed by the Southerners, from which the name originated though there are no such native names. The names Suvadive and Suvadivian suggest that the origin of the names lye in the ancient name for the three southernmost atolls of Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu which was Suvadiva. The Suvadivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds. The reason behind this suggested by researchers and proven from historical records is that there were less interference from the outside world to this group. Unlike the other group of Maldivians, this group was not affected by the Portuguese rule in the Maldives as it does not exceed the Suvadiva channel. Also there were no interference from traders and travellers as much as in the case of the other. Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas and Addu bas), which are much different from the rest and as suggested by researchers, having a closer affinity to what may have been the original. Thus, the native features of the original Maldivian people are preserved in this group greater than any other group of Maldivians. CANNOTANSWER
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Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language
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Maldivians (; ދިވެހިން, dhivehin) are a nation and Indo-Aryan ethnic group native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising what is now the Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union Territory of Lakshadweep, India. All Maldivians share the same culture and speak the Maldivian language which is a member of the southern group of Indo-Aryan languages. For ethnographic and linguistic purposes as well as geo-political reasons, anthropologists divide the Maldivian people into 3 subgroups.
Subgroups
The main group of Maldivians, numbering more than 250,000. This is the group inhabiting the numerous atolls stretching from Ihavandhippolhu (Haa Alif) to Haddhunmathi (Laamu) in Maldives. They constitute over 70% of the total population of all Maldivians. In a larger scale, the third group also comes under this group. From this group comes the standard dialect of Maldivian language which is spoken in the Maldives capital Male' along with the central atolls. Slightly differing variants which are very closely related to the former are spoken in rest of the islands from the far north of Maldives down to Laamu Atoll.
The southern group of Maldivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) in Maldives. This group numbers approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of all Maldivians. The earliest known settlements have been found in this region. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as ethnicity. Each of the 3 atolls of this region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas, Addu bas), which are significantly different from the rest and as researchers suggest having a closer affinity to what may have been the original.
The people of Minicoy (Malikun) – Mahls, numbering about 10,000. The island of Minicoy lies in the northern end of the atoll chain inhabited by Maldivians and is the northernmost group of the Maldivian people. They are only about 3% of the total amount of Maldivians. Although the people of Minicoy are identical to the main group of Maldivians from the first group in terms of ethnicity and linguistics and in a larger scale comes under that group, the day to day politics of Minicoy and after on the secession of the island from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government, thus acquiring a non-Maldivian citizenship has made this group to be labelled as one among the subgroups of Maldivians. Due to reasons such as politics, having to live in great isolation from the remaining Maldivian people, the Minicoians are steadily undergoing a process of acculturation. This group has its own dialect (called Maliku bas or Mahl) which retains some features of an older Maldivian, and shows Malayalam influences as well. Still, the dialect is mutually intelligible with the standard Maldivian dialect and is more related to the slighter variants of northern Maldives from the first group.
Myths and legends
There is no historical evidence about the origin of Maldivians; there is also no indication that there was any negrito or other aboriginal population, such as the Andamanese. No archaeology has been conducted to investigate the prehistory of the islands. There is, however, a Tamil–Malayalam substratum, in addition to other later cultural influences in the islands.
Bengali, Odia and Sinhalese people have had trading connections to Dhivehi people in the past.
Conjectures have been made by scholars who argue that the ancestors of Maldivian people arrived to the Maldives from North West and West India, from Kalibangan between 2500 and 1700 BC and that they formed a distinct ethnic group around the 6th century BC.
Myths of origin
According to Maldivian folklore the main myths of origin are reflecting the dependence of the Maldivians on the coconut tree and the tuna fish.
A legend says that the first inhabitants of the Maldives died in great numbers, but a great sorcerer or fandita man made coconut trees grow out of the skulls of the buried corpses of the first settlers. Therefore, the coconut tree is said to have an anthropomorphic origin according to Maldive lore for this reason. The word naashi (coconut shell) is also the word used for skull in Dhivehi language.
The coconut tree occupies a central place in the present-day Maldive national emblem.
The tuna fish is said to have been brought to the Maldivian waters by a mythical seafarer (maalimi) called Bodu Niyami Kalēfanu who went close to the Dagas (the mythical tree at the end of the world) to bring this valuable fish.
Legend of the first settlers
One of the earliest people who settled in the Maldives were from the Malabar Coast of India and northwestern shores of Sri Lanka, and are of Tamils and Malayalis ancestry, which is clear through strong Tamil–Malayalam substratum in language and culture. The Giraavaru people are considered as one of the earliest settlers.They were technologically advanced people, building sailing boats called dhonis.
These people used words such as varam for the islands in which they lived. Examples given in the old manuscript are: Noḷivaram, Kuruhinnavaram, and Girāvaram. Many of the old terms used by Maldivian fishermen come from the Dravidian languages, leading one to the assumption that these terms were brought by people from southern coastal India in ancient times. Historical records show that in the southern and central atolls of the Maldives, occupations such as farming and weaving were important in the early days.
A short time after the arrival of the Indo-Aryans and the introduction of the Hindu religion, a prince of India is said to have arrived in the Maldives. This is the period calculated earlier from oral tradition, and the story also corresponds to that from the Mahavamsa chronicle of Sri Lanka, about the king's son who was exiled from his country and arrived in Lanka, one of his ships losing its way and arriving in the Maldives. In the Maldivian legend, the prince who arrived in the Maldives, was the son of Brahmaditiya, king of Kalinga (Brahmadatta, King of Kalinga at the time of Buddha's death c. 500 – 350 BC), a kingdom on the south-east of India (modern Orissa). King Brahmaditiya was displeased with his son and sent him to Dheeva Maari (Maldives). The name of this prince was Sri Soorudasaruna.
Sri Soorudasaruna established a kingdom of the Adeetha Vansha Dynasty (Solar Dynasty) in Dhiva Maari, a short period before the reign of Emperor Ashoka in India. This would place the establishment of the first kingdom in the Maldives circa the 4th century BC. The tradition then states that Emperor Ashoka established his kingdom in Pataliputra in India, and that his people went preaching the religion and teachings of Buddha to a place called Bairat, to the west of Pataliputra. A group of people came to the Maldives from Bairat in order to teach the religion of Buddha. These people are said to have arrived in these islands during Ashoka's reign, probably when he sent Buddhist missionaries to all the neighbouring countries, in the 3rd century BC. At the time the Buddhist missionaries arrived in the Maldives, the country was called Dheeva Mahl.
Around the 2nd century AD there was an influx of Arab traders who travelled and stopped by at the Maldives en route to the Far East – their first record of the Maldives islands, which they called Mahal Dibiyat, is from the Arab travellers. Maldives provided enormous quantities of cowry shells, an international currency of the early ages. The cowry is now the symbol of the Maldives Monetary Authority. Mahal Dibiyat is the name given to the islands by medieval Arab travellers.
Abu al-Barakat Yusuf al-Barbari, a North African Arab, is credited with converting the Maldivians to Islam in 1153.
Legend of the first ruling dynasty
The myth of the origin of the ruling dynasty is the story of a prince named Koimala. In the Muslim traditions recorded in the Lōamāafāanu and Rādavaḷi chronicles all the pre-Muslim royalty are represented by a king, whose successor was converted to Islam. The name Koimala Kalo is also suggestive: koi or koyi in Maldivian language means son, lad or prince (derived from Malayalam koya, son, prince, master, cf. the Dravidian root kō, king). The component malā may or may not be derived from māla as in Māla-dīv, but, if so, the name would mean 'prince of the Maldives'. The term kalō is a common word of man, used as a term of endearment. The title of former Maldivian kings was kattiri bovana mahaa radun, 'Kattiri' (ކައްތިރި) meaning Kshatriya in Maldivian language.
One oral tradition says that the Giraavaru people are the indigenous people of the Maldives who were in the islands before Koimala arrived. They are of Tamil origin, and the earliest island community of the Maldives; their presence predates Buddhism and the arrival of Indo-Aryans in the archipelago. This may be the reason that the Dhivehi kinship system is partly of Dravidian origin, and bears evidence of some matriliny, like the Nayar and other matrilineal groups of Kerala. Some of the kinship terms are clearly derived from Malayalam.
Five versions of the myth are given here and their significance in terms of culture history explained.
1. The following version was recorded by Bell in 1922:
Once upon a time, when the Maldives were still sparsely inhabited, a prince of royal birth named Koimala, who had married the daughter of the king of Ceylon, made a voyage with her in two vessels from Srendib [Sri Lanka] Island. Reaching the Maldives they were becalmed and rested a while at Rasgetheemu island in North Maalhosmadulu Atoll.
The Maldive Islanders, learning that the two chief visitors were of Ceylon Royal descent invited them to remain; and ultimately proclaimed Koimala their king at Rasgetheemu, the original 'King's Island'.
Subsequently, Koimala and his spouse migrated thence to Male' and settled there with the consent of the aborigines of Giraavaru Island, then the most important community of Male' Atoll.
The two ships were dispatched to Lanka, and brought over other people of 'the Lion Race' (Sinhalese).
To Koimala and his queen was born a male child who was called Kalaminja. He reigned as a Buddhist for twelve years, and was then converted to Islam, ruling for thirteen years more before finally departing for Mecca.
This ruler's daughter married the chief minister and reigned as a nominal Sultana. She gave birth to a son also called Kalaminja, who, in turn, married a lady of the country.
From them the subsequent rulers of the Maldives were descended.
2. According to this version, which Maloney heard in Male', Koimala's parents came from India, not Sri Lanka: The Indian king was angry with his son, and sent him off with his wife in two boats; they had 700 soldiers. They came to Rasgetheemu in Raa Atoll, and when he became king there, people called that island Rasgetheemu "King's Landing". Then the king and queen came to Male', and Koimala was born from that Indian couple.
3. The following variant Maloney heard in Noon Atoll: "... When Koimala and his wife came, there were already people here. Because she was a princess of royal lineage, people asked her husband to rule. Koimala sent ships to Sri Lanka and brought back more people. It is said that a beautiful woman named Malakamana from the Maldives was one of the early people who settled Sri Lanka."
4. A myth Maloney heard in Manadhoo, Noon Atoll, is, in condensed form, as follows:
One day, while a hunter king of Sri Lanka was hunting, he caught a man-beast in his net. The man-beast couldn't walk, so the king taught him to do it. The man-beast then married the king's daughter, but he made political trouble in Sri Lanka, so was forced to leave. He and the princess arrived in Rasgetheemu and they lived there for some time, where the locals there asked them to rule them.
5. Another version Maloney heard in Hulhumeedhoo, Addu Atoll, in the far south of the country, is as follows:
There was a king of India who was a hunter. Once, while out hunting with a net, he saw a creature which is like a human, but which walked on all fours, and which disturbed the people. This creature would also take hunters' nets and steal their prey, so the king couldn't get any catch. The king considered how he might capture this creature. He made big weights for his net, which no ordinary human could lift, and which would prevent the creature from taking the hunting net. One day, the king, with the help of many men, put the net over the creature, which could not get out because of the large stone weights. The king took the creature to the palace and looked after him well, and because he knew no language, the king taught him language, which took a long time. The creature started helping the king by showing him treasures in the forest, and the king came to respect him.
The king had a daughter who fell in love with this creature (in an alternate version, the king forced his daughter to marry the creature). The king, being angry, put the couple on a ship and sent them off into exile. Their ship came to Laam (Hadummati) Atoll (towards the south), where the exiled pair saw a crow which cried. They thought the crow was not a good omen, and it was therefore undesirable to land there, so they went on to Male'. They settled in what is now Sultan Park (site of the former palace) and started a kingdom.
After fifteen years, a jinni began to come from the ocean every once a month and disturbed the people... (from here follows the story of the saint who came and dispelled the jinni and caused all the people to become converted to Islam from Buddhism and Hinduism).
Gujaratis
Maloney says Gujarat, with its indented coastline and its proximity to the old navigation routes of the Mesopotamian and Indus civilisations, has apparently maintained a tradition of navigation over the past 4000 years. Certainly the earliest Buddhist literature indicates active seafaring from its ports. It was from Gujarat that North Indian civilisation impinged upon the Maldives and Sri Lanka. From Gujarat, North Indian civilisation also expanded to Java and other parts of South-east Asia. The export of this civilisation to all coasts of South Asia and South-east Asia began about 500 B.C., but during the Mauryan period and the diffusion of Buddhism, sea traffic in the Bay of Bengal supplemented and, to some extent, surpassed that originating along the coasts of Western India.
Three Jataka tales cited above seem to refer to the Maldives, particularly the comment that exiles from Bharukaccha went to a thousand islands [Laccadive and Maldive islands] where they found standing room, and that these were near an island named for coconuts [Kerala]. This suggests that not only did seafarers emanating from Bharukaccha and Suppara visit the Maldives, but Gujaratis actually settled there in pre-Buddhist times. The other Jataka tales suggest that ships from Gujarat going to South-east Asia stopped in the Maldives, and that merchants in search of treasures sailed in several seas called – maala (or maara).
The Maldives might well have been settled parallel with the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers in Sri Lanka, as suggested in the above interpretations of the Sri Lanka myths and the Koimala story.
Mariners from the north-western coasts of the peninsula, from the time they commenced sailing to southern India, must have on occasion been blown over to the Maldives—unmanned canoes and rafts from Kerala even now get wafted there from time to time – and the dangers of shipwreck vividly described in several of the Jātakas might have arisen from contact with some of the thousands of reefs in the Maldives, which sailors have long dreaded. It may be, therefore, that shipwrecked Gujaratis, as well as exiles, were early settlers on the islands of the Laccadive-Maldives archipelago.
Geographic distribution
Maldives
All Maldivians are native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising what is now the Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union territory of Lakshadweep, India. The secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government gradually led to the emergence of a Maldivian population of Indian citizenship who came to be known as Mahls.
Being the heartland of Maldivian people, more than 97% of all Maldivians are from the Maldives. For all the Maldivian communities across the world (including the people of Minicoy) their origin lies in the Maldives. The Maldivian community of the Maldives consist of the two major groups from the three subgroups of Maldivians: The main group of Maldivians, the southern group of Maldivians (also known as Suvadivians) and the Mahls (ethnic Maldivians from Indian island of Minicoy).
Southern group of Maldivians
As a result of some political activities which occurred in the South during the early 1960s, the term Suvadivian has been adopted by some authors to refer to the southern group of Maldivians. From 1959 to 1963 there was a short-lived breakaway government named United Suvadive Republic which was formed by the Southerners, from which the name originated though there are no such native names. The names Suvadive and Suvadivian suggest that the origin of the names lye in the ancient name for the three southernmost atolls of Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu which was Suvadiva.
The Suvadivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds. The reason behind this suggested by researchers and proven from historical records is that there were less interference from the outside world to this group. Unlike the other group of Maldivians, this group was not affected by the Portuguese rule in the Maldives as it does not exceed the Suvadiva channel. Also there were no interference from traders and travellers as much as in the case of the other.
Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas and Addu bas), which are much different from the rest and as suggested by researchers, having a closer affinity to what may have been the original. Thus, the native features of the original Maldivian people are preserved in this group greater than any other group of Maldivians.
Main group of Maldivians
Unlike the southern minority, this group of Maldivians were subject to foreign intercourse. There were numerous occasions of reported interference from outsiders such as traders, travellers, etc... Also, the Portuguese rule and many other factors pushed this group into a state that imported materials got mixed into their linguistics as well as ethnic background to a large extent.
India
The secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government gradually led to the emergence of a Maldivian population holding Indian citizenship. This group of Maldivians consist of the people of Minicoy and migrant communities from Minicoy across India and elsewhere. Except for the people from Minicoy, there is no community of ethnic Maldivians with Indian citizenship. This group of Maldivians are officially referred as Mahls. The people locally identify themselves as Malikun. The Mahls make up the third subgroup of Maldivians.
People of Minicoy (Malikun) – Mahls
Mahls are the third subgroup of Maldivians centred in the island of Minicoy making up the only community of ethnic Maldivians in India. This group has its own dialect (called Maliku bas or Mahl) which retains some features of archaic Maldivian language, and shows Malayalam influences as well. Still, the dialect is mutually intelligible with the standard dialect of Maldivian and is more related to the slighter variants of northern Maldives.
In case of linguistics and ethnic grounds, this group of Maldivians are identical to the main group of Maldivians in the Maldives. However, the secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and gradually becoming part of India, thus becoming the only group of ethnic Maldivians with a non-Maldivian citizenship made anthropologists to label the Mahls among the subgroups. The isolation of this group from the rest of the Maldivians and the acculturation process which the Mahls are undergoing as a result of this as well as the change in nationality is one of the reasons for separation of this group from the main group of Maldivians. The origin of this group like any other group of Maldivians lie in the Maldives. The story of the Tivarun, the linguistics of the people in Minicoy and many other factors prove this side of the story.
Mahls are the only community of ethnic Maldivians (excluding migrant communities) outside the Republic of Maldives. They make up about 3% of the total population of all Maldivians.
Most Mahls live in their native land of Maliku (Minicoy). Mahls are 15.67% of the total population of Lakshadweep emerging as a separate ethnic group among the rest of the population. All Mahl communities in India emerged from Minicoy.
There are Mahl communities (migrant communities from Minicoy) in other parts of India too. A number of Mahls have settled in the districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) in the southern state of Kerala. The ancestors of present Mahl communities in Kerala migrated from Minicoy and settled there in the 17th century, when the islands of Lakshadweep came under the rule of Ali Rajahs/Arakkal Bheevi of Kannur.
Since 1957, this group of Maldivians in Minicoy are totally off-limits for their Maldivian counterparts in the Maldives. The direct transport between Minicoy and the Maldives was forbidden by the Indian government. Thus, this Indian group of Maldivians are steadily undergoing a process of acculturation owing to lack of contact with the remaining Maldivian people and pressure to use other languages such as Malayalam, English and Hindi. This proves to have a big influence upon the culture, linguistics and other day-to-day affairs of this group of Maldivians.
Emigrant communities
A significant number of Maldivian emigrant communities can be found in several countries. The emigrant communities could only be located from the Maldivian side as it is only the Maldivians who are all of the same ethnicity unlike India where the presence of thousands of cultures and ethnicities make the records more stringent on this matter. Since ethnic Maldivians of Minicoy are only no more than 0.0015% of the total population of India compared to 100% for their counterparts in the Maldives, it is only from the Maldivian embassies across the world that this information could be gathered.
Sri Lanka
There are approximately 20,000 people of Maldivian ethnicity living in Sri Lanka, as of 2013.
Genetics and Research Studies
In 1899, Professor John Stanley Gardiner visited Maldives, during which time; he collected anthropometrical data of a number of Maldivians from many islands. Analysis of this data by Dr. Wynfrid Duckworth, suggested that there were three major sources of immigration into the country. These are:
The peninsula of Hindustan with Ceylon,
The coast of Arabia and possibly of Africa,
The western shores of the Malay Peninsula, and the islands of the Malaya Archipelago.
(Duckworth 1912: 8–30).
In 1997, a Maldivian NGO, Society for Health Education, conducted a study on the mutations of thalassaemia found in the Maldives. This study showed one mutation that probably originated in the Middle East, another mutation which could have been derived from Portuguese or Algerians, and another which probably originated from South Asia and Malays. The observations are consistent with the historical records of Maldives, showing that early travellers from India, Indonesia, North Africa, the Red Sea and Persian Gulf areas, settled in the Maldives. (Firdous et al. 1998:148,149). Thalassaemia is the commonest genetically transmitted blood disease found in Maldives, and the results of this study suggest that many of the people now living in the Maldives had ancestors who came from the above-mentioned countries.
Anthropological studies, as well as ethnographic and linguistic researches, suggest that in terms of ancestry Maldivians share similar genes principally with the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka as well as western Indian populations, such as Marathis, Konkanis and Gujaratis with traces of Arab, Malay, southern Indian and North African genes in the population.
In 2013, genetic study about the Maldivian population by department of Human Genetics, Liden University, which was published online on the American Journal of Physical Anthropology has revealed very interesting facts about the genetic origin of Maldivian people.
The research studied autosomal DNA-, mitochondrial DNA-, and Y-chromosomal DNA markers in a representative sample of 141 unrelated Maldivians, with 119 from six major settlements. The researchers found a total of 63 different mtDNA haplotypes that could be allocated to 29 mtDNAs, mostly within the M, R and U clades. They also found 66 different Y-STR haplotypes in 10 Y chromosome haplogroups, predominantly R1a1, R2, H, L and J2. The study concluded that their new genetic data agree with the commonly reported Maldivian ancestry in South Asia, but furthermore suggest multiple, independent immigration events and asymmetrical migration of females and males across the archipelago.
The genetic study confirmed that the most likely origin of the Maldivian population is in South Asia with possible gene flow from the Middle East. Also it has pointed out that the Dhivehi language of the Maldives being the southernmost Indo-Aryan language, and sharing of specific haplogroups with Indo-Aryan populations mostly from India and from Sri Lanka, could point to a common origin of these populations.
Culture
Language and literature
Maldivians have strong feelings towards the Maldivian language. It has historically been, and to large extent still is, central to the Maldivian identity. Unlike the other languages of South India, it is an Indo-European language, while other South Indian languages are Dravidian languages. However the language shows some influences of neighbouring Dravidian languages on it, and have a number of loanwords from Dravidian vocabulary.
Religion
The Maldivians are entirely Muslims, adhering to the Sunni school of thought. In the Maldives which is the heartland of Maldivians and home for more than 97% of the Maldivian people, the national religion is Islam. Islam is the country's state religion as well as the backbone of the society with daily life in the country being regulated according to the tenets of Islam and government regulations too being based on the regulations of Islamic law (Shari'a). The law of the country prohibits the practice of any other religion by the country's citizens. In general all Maldivians from the island of Minicoy too are Sunni Muslims.
Visual art and architecture
Most traditional Maldivian art is influenced by Perso-Arabic tradition in some form and usually centres on Islam, since all the Maldivians are Muslims. The skill of visual art and architecture among the Maldivians is centered in the Maldives since the people of Minicoy are mainly sailors.
Various fine art practices exist in the Maldives at present. Primary among them is drawing and painting. Sculpture and crafts that overlap with art making also exist in the country. However, due to various limitations, they have not flourished as art forms. Painting and drawing also exist in similar circumstances. Lack of avenues in which to exhibit, and lack of arts education and training, combined with a growing understanding that these arts are best served in the tourist souvenir trade, has hampered a healthy development of these arts.
However, with the establishment of private galleries and with various exhibitions organized by the government and the artists themselves, in the last 15 years, the awareness that painting can be an expressive art form apart from also being a lucrative commercial activity has provided encouragement for several young Maldivians to pursue painting, and to an extent sculpture and other public and commercial art forms. Renewed interest in these arts have also led to various individuals to pursue on their own whatever education they can obtain, whether through distance learning courses from foreign universities, or via books and magazines. In addition, privately funded students have also been obtaining arts education and training at undergraduate and graduate levels in international universities.
More indirectly, artists also get the opportunity to meet foreign artists through the tourism trade when foreign artists visit the country as tourists. This provides the much needed contact with artists that is so necessary to the development of any art form.
Until recently, fine arts in the Maldives have been usually defined as the various crafts and skills of craft making. These include the use of locally found materials to produce decorative and functional objects such as mats, hand held or displayed objects, etc. The present situation of the arts has come about because of a lack of critical and theoretical interpretation and a lack of dialogue and discourse in an organized, sustained or documented form.
Performing arts
The traditional Maldivian performing arts have Indian and even African roots.
Martial arts
Martial arts among Maldivians are known as hevikamuge kulhivaruthak, while gulhamathi hifun is traditional wrestling among Maldivians.
Festivals
Most of the Maldivian festivals are related to Islam, however there are some festivals which belongs to old Maldivian traditions, like kite flying festival. Naming a newborn child, Mauloodhu (a prayer accompanied with festive meal), Eid festival and circumcision of male child are few events that take place where the taste of rich cultural 'cocktail' can be experienced.
A traditional meal called Keyn is prepared for the above Mauloodhus consisting of a number of courses. A single Keyn would serve 10 – 12 people and includes rice, curries, salads, grilled fish, coconut cream, coconut syrup, bananas, puddings and other delights.
Keyn is set out in a very large wooden dish called a Malaafaiy. The outside of this dish is placed within the dish and small individual plates are filled with curries, salads, and other items and set around the rice. This would be covered with the lid and wrapped in a white cloth and tied at the top. At the meal times this would be carried into the Mauloodh Haruge (dining hall specially made for this event) and placed on straw mats for service. Individual plates and other food items in individual dishes are placed as well. Beverages are individually set in glasses. Water is served in a ceramic jug. Food is consumed using the fingers of the right hand. At the end of the meal hand is washed using a copper jug into a copper basin. 10 December is marked as Kandu Rōdi duvas and 14 April as Gamu Rōdi duvas on which date Maldivian language day is marked from 2011 onwards.
Dress
Traditionally Maldivian men wear a Mundu with a shirt, it is very similar to that of Malayali people. Maldivian women wear a red-top called a Libaas and a long black skirt.
Cuisine
Rice, the major staple food in most Maldivian households, is usually cooked and served with Garudiya (Tuna Fish soup). Here are some of the speciality cuisines.
Bocholhi
Made of rice flour, coconut – semi-firm (grated) and coconut palm syrup by mixing all the ingredients until freed from lump and cooked over a moderate heat until the mixture is thickened.
Godhan Furhu Boa Folhi
Made of flour, coconut – semi-hard (blended to a smooth paste), eggs, coconut cream, jasmine water, coconut palm syrup, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder and oil by mixing all the ingredients apart from the oil together. Cooked over a moderate heat and once the top of the pancake dries up, turned over and cooked.
Han’dulu Aurus
Made of rice (soaked overnight), washed and blended to a smooth paste), coconut palm syrup, Jasmine water and jasmine flowers by placing all the ingredients apart from the flowers in a thick-bottomed pan and cooked over a moderate heat by stirring constantly to avoid the mixture getting stuck to the bottom. Wrapped entirely with banana leaf and placed jasmine flowers over the sweets. This sweet will keep for two to three months without spoiling.
'
Han’dulu Furhu Kubus
Made of Patna Rice (soaked overnight, washed and blended to a smooth paste), coconut – semi-firm (grated), coconut palm syrup, caster sugar, banana leaf by cooking over a moderate heat the grated coconut, palm sugar and caster sugar until the mixture has thickened. Removed from heat and allowed cooling and added in the blended rice and kneaded thoroughly and combined all the ingredients well. Divided the mixture into eight portions and placed each portion on a banana leaf and wrapped entirely to seal and wrapped a second banana leaf around it and secured well.
Dug a suitable hole in the ground in which all the wrapped dough pieces could be placed neatly. Placed coconut fibres and coconut shells and burned them in the dug hole and removed the charcoals.
Placed banana leaves within the hole and placed the wrapped dough in the heated hole and placed neatly one against another.
Covered the dough parcels placed in the hole with another large piece of banana leaf and covered the leaf with two-inch white sand. Placed the charcoals and coconut fibres and coconut shells over it and burned the coconut fibres and shells for half an hour.
Left the cooked kubus parcels overnight in the hole. In the morning scraped off the burnt ashes and charcoals aside and the sand covering the banana leaf and slowly lifted the wrapped kubus parcels.
Hukkaru
Made of coconut palm syrup by boiling the syrup over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it starts to thicken. Removed from heat and whisked until frothy and cooled.
Huni Folhi
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut – semi-hard (grated), coconut palm syrup by cooking all the ingredients over a moderate heat in a thick-bottomed pan stirring continuously.
When the mixture starts to come loose from the side of the pan removed from heat and taken a tablespoonful of the cooked mixture, spread on a cork wood leaf. Smoked and dried the leaves spread with the sweet over the fireplace.
Karukuri Banbukeyo
Made of fried bread fruit (crushed coarsely), coconut palm syrup, jasmine water by bringing the syrup and the jasmine water to boil and cooked it over a moderate heat until it comes to ribbon stage. Added in the crushed breadfruit into the sugar and coated well. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and kept in an airtight container.
Karukuri Ala
Made of fried taro (crushed coarsely), coconut palm syrup and jasmine water by boiling the syrup and the jasmine water and cooked it over a moderate heat until it comes to ribbon stage. Added in the crushed taro in to the sugar and coated well. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and kept in an airtight container.
Kulhi Bis Fathafolhi
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut (grated), Rihaakuru, Rihaakuru Bondi (blended), eggs, onion (sliced thinly), curry leaves (chopped), cherry pepper, juice of two limes, ginger, salt to season and oil by crushing the onion, curry leaves, cherry pepper, ginger with salt. Added and mixed the rice flour and coconut to make sandy texture. Formed a bay in the center of the rice mixture and add in the eggs and Rihaakuru and Rihaakuru Bondi. Mixed/kneaded the dough and divided the dough into 15 gram balls. Spread each ball to about ¼ inch thickness. Cut using a round cutter of 3 – inch diameter and pre-heated oil.
Meeraa
Made of coconut sap (collected at noon) by boiling the sap over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it comes to ribbon stage. Removed from heat, greased a large tray and taken a spoonful of the cooked thickened syrup and placed it over the greased sheet in strings.
Thela Kubus
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut palm syrup, eggs and coconut oil by whisking the egg and the syrup and added in the rice flour and beaten further. Poured a table spoonful of the mixture into the oil and deep-fried until golden.
Thelli Keyo
Made of plantain (peeled and cut length-wise) and oil by frying the bananas until crisped. Drained on absorbent kitchen paper and kept airtight container.
Veli Hakuru
Made of coconut palm syrup by boiling the syrup over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it starts to crystallise. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and put into jars and seal well.
Other Cuisines Regularly Cooked
Falhoa Aurus
Naaroh Faludha
Fuppi Baiy
Gerhi Banbukeyo
Gerhi Kattala
Kaliyaa Kuri Kattala
Varukuri Baiy
Communities
Maldivian names
A generation ago, most Maldivian people were not commonly known by their birth names. Instead they were called by an alternative name such as Dohuttu, Lahuttu, Tutteedi, Kudamaniku, or Don Goma. The rationale behind this practice was that if the evil spirits did not know one's real name, one would be free from their spells. However ancient Maldivian naming system is similar to that of Gujaratis and Marathas. Even now some people follow that system. For example, the first name of historian Mohamed Ibrahim Lutfy is "Mohamed;" "Ibrahim" is his father's name, and "Lutfy" is the family name.
Frequent Maldivian family names include Bee, Beefan, Boo, Didi, Fan, Fulhu, Kader, Kalaminja, Kalinga, Kalo, Kavah, Kavya, Koi, Koya, Manik, Manika, Manike, Manikfan, Naha, Raha, Rana, Tarkan, Thakhan, Thakur, Thakurfan, Veer.
See also
Maldivian folklore
Minicoy
Giraavaru people
References
Further reading
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External links
Maldives Ethnography, by Xavier Romero-Frias
A Guide to Mahl Language, Minicoy
Clarence Maloney, his vision, his work and the ancient underlying cultural influences in the Maldives
01
Ethnic groups in the Indian Ocean
Indo-Aryan peoples
Ethnic groups in India
Ethnic groups in Sri Lanka
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[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Maldivians",
"Southern group of Maldivians",
"What is the relation between Maldivians and Southern group of Maldivians?",
"According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds.",
"Do they have other part of Maldivians that they talk about?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language"
] |
C_0db16dc336b04e2ab7dbb1b6833006a9_0
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Which people are inhabited in each atoll?
| 4 |
Which Maldivians are inhabited in each atoll?
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Maldivians
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As a result of some political activities which occurred in the South during the early 1960s, the term Suvadivian has been adopted by some authors to refer to the southern group of Maldivians. From 1959 to 1963 there was a short-lived breakaway government named United Suvadive Republic which was formed by the Southerners, from which the name originated though there are no such native names. The names Suvadive and Suvadivian suggest that the origin of the names lye in the ancient name for the three southernmost atolls of Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu which was Suvadiva. The Suvadivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds. The reason behind this suggested by researchers and proven from historical records is that there were less interference from the outside world to this group. Unlike the other group of Maldivians, this group was not affected by the Portuguese rule in the Maldives as it does not exceed the Suvadiva channel. Also there were no interference from traders and travellers as much as in the case of the other. Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas and Addu bas), which are much different from the rest and as suggested by researchers, having a closer affinity to what may have been the original. Thus, the native features of the original Maldivian people are preserved in this group greater than any other group of Maldivians. CANNOTANSWER
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Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu
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Maldivians (; ދިވެހިން, dhivehin) are a nation and Indo-Aryan ethnic group native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising what is now the Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union Territory of Lakshadweep, India. All Maldivians share the same culture and speak the Maldivian language which is a member of the southern group of Indo-Aryan languages. For ethnographic and linguistic purposes as well as geo-political reasons, anthropologists divide the Maldivian people into 3 subgroups.
Subgroups
The main group of Maldivians, numbering more than 250,000. This is the group inhabiting the numerous atolls stretching from Ihavandhippolhu (Haa Alif) to Haddhunmathi (Laamu) in Maldives. They constitute over 70% of the total population of all Maldivians. In a larger scale, the third group also comes under this group. From this group comes the standard dialect of Maldivian language which is spoken in the Maldives capital Male' along with the central atolls. Slightly differing variants which are very closely related to the former are spoken in rest of the islands from the far north of Maldives down to Laamu Atoll.
The southern group of Maldivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) in Maldives. This group numbers approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of all Maldivians. The earliest known settlements have been found in this region. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as ethnicity. Each of the 3 atolls of this region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas, Addu bas), which are significantly different from the rest and as researchers suggest having a closer affinity to what may have been the original.
The people of Minicoy (Malikun) – Mahls, numbering about 10,000. The island of Minicoy lies in the northern end of the atoll chain inhabited by Maldivians and is the northernmost group of the Maldivian people. They are only about 3% of the total amount of Maldivians. Although the people of Minicoy are identical to the main group of Maldivians from the first group in terms of ethnicity and linguistics and in a larger scale comes under that group, the day to day politics of Minicoy and after on the secession of the island from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government, thus acquiring a non-Maldivian citizenship has made this group to be labelled as one among the subgroups of Maldivians. Due to reasons such as politics, having to live in great isolation from the remaining Maldivian people, the Minicoians are steadily undergoing a process of acculturation. This group has its own dialect (called Maliku bas or Mahl) which retains some features of an older Maldivian, and shows Malayalam influences as well. Still, the dialect is mutually intelligible with the standard Maldivian dialect and is more related to the slighter variants of northern Maldives from the first group.
Myths and legends
There is no historical evidence about the origin of Maldivians; there is also no indication that there was any negrito or other aboriginal population, such as the Andamanese. No archaeology has been conducted to investigate the prehistory of the islands. There is, however, a Tamil–Malayalam substratum, in addition to other later cultural influences in the islands.
Bengali, Odia and Sinhalese people have had trading connections to Dhivehi people in the past.
Conjectures have been made by scholars who argue that the ancestors of Maldivian people arrived to the Maldives from North West and West India, from Kalibangan between 2500 and 1700 BC and that they formed a distinct ethnic group around the 6th century BC.
Myths of origin
According to Maldivian folklore the main myths of origin are reflecting the dependence of the Maldivians on the coconut tree and the tuna fish.
A legend says that the first inhabitants of the Maldives died in great numbers, but a great sorcerer or fandita man made coconut trees grow out of the skulls of the buried corpses of the first settlers. Therefore, the coconut tree is said to have an anthropomorphic origin according to Maldive lore for this reason. The word naashi (coconut shell) is also the word used for skull in Dhivehi language.
The coconut tree occupies a central place in the present-day Maldive national emblem.
The tuna fish is said to have been brought to the Maldivian waters by a mythical seafarer (maalimi) called Bodu Niyami Kalēfanu who went close to the Dagas (the mythical tree at the end of the world) to bring this valuable fish.
Legend of the first settlers
One of the earliest people who settled in the Maldives were from the Malabar Coast of India and northwestern shores of Sri Lanka, and are of Tamils and Malayalis ancestry, which is clear through strong Tamil–Malayalam substratum in language and culture. The Giraavaru people are considered as one of the earliest settlers.They were technologically advanced people, building sailing boats called dhonis.
These people used words such as varam for the islands in which they lived. Examples given in the old manuscript are: Noḷivaram, Kuruhinnavaram, and Girāvaram. Many of the old terms used by Maldivian fishermen come from the Dravidian languages, leading one to the assumption that these terms were brought by people from southern coastal India in ancient times. Historical records show that in the southern and central atolls of the Maldives, occupations such as farming and weaving were important in the early days.
A short time after the arrival of the Indo-Aryans and the introduction of the Hindu religion, a prince of India is said to have arrived in the Maldives. This is the period calculated earlier from oral tradition, and the story also corresponds to that from the Mahavamsa chronicle of Sri Lanka, about the king's son who was exiled from his country and arrived in Lanka, one of his ships losing its way and arriving in the Maldives. In the Maldivian legend, the prince who arrived in the Maldives, was the son of Brahmaditiya, king of Kalinga (Brahmadatta, King of Kalinga at the time of Buddha's death c. 500 – 350 BC), a kingdom on the south-east of India (modern Orissa). King Brahmaditiya was displeased with his son and sent him to Dheeva Maari (Maldives). The name of this prince was Sri Soorudasaruna.
Sri Soorudasaruna established a kingdom of the Adeetha Vansha Dynasty (Solar Dynasty) in Dhiva Maari, a short period before the reign of Emperor Ashoka in India. This would place the establishment of the first kingdom in the Maldives circa the 4th century BC. The tradition then states that Emperor Ashoka established his kingdom in Pataliputra in India, and that his people went preaching the religion and teachings of Buddha to a place called Bairat, to the west of Pataliputra. A group of people came to the Maldives from Bairat in order to teach the religion of Buddha. These people are said to have arrived in these islands during Ashoka's reign, probably when he sent Buddhist missionaries to all the neighbouring countries, in the 3rd century BC. At the time the Buddhist missionaries arrived in the Maldives, the country was called Dheeva Mahl.
Around the 2nd century AD there was an influx of Arab traders who travelled and stopped by at the Maldives en route to the Far East – their first record of the Maldives islands, which they called Mahal Dibiyat, is from the Arab travellers. Maldives provided enormous quantities of cowry shells, an international currency of the early ages. The cowry is now the symbol of the Maldives Monetary Authority. Mahal Dibiyat is the name given to the islands by medieval Arab travellers.
Abu al-Barakat Yusuf al-Barbari, a North African Arab, is credited with converting the Maldivians to Islam in 1153.
Legend of the first ruling dynasty
The myth of the origin of the ruling dynasty is the story of a prince named Koimala. In the Muslim traditions recorded in the Lōamāafāanu and Rādavaḷi chronicles all the pre-Muslim royalty are represented by a king, whose successor was converted to Islam. The name Koimala Kalo is also suggestive: koi or koyi in Maldivian language means son, lad or prince (derived from Malayalam koya, son, prince, master, cf. the Dravidian root kō, king). The component malā may or may not be derived from māla as in Māla-dīv, but, if so, the name would mean 'prince of the Maldives'. The term kalō is a common word of man, used as a term of endearment. The title of former Maldivian kings was kattiri bovana mahaa radun, 'Kattiri' (ކައްތިރި) meaning Kshatriya in Maldivian language.
One oral tradition says that the Giraavaru people are the indigenous people of the Maldives who were in the islands before Koimala arrived. They are of Tamil origin, and the earliest island community of the Maldives; their presence predates Buddhism and the arrival of Indo-Aryans in the archipelago. This may be the reason that the Dhivehi kinship system is partly of Dravidian origin, and bears evidence of some matriliny, like the Nayar and other matrilineal groups of Kerala. Some of the kinship terms are clearly derived from Malayalam.
Five versions of the myth are given here and their significance in terms of culture history explained.
1. The following version was recorded by Bell in 1922:
Once upon a time, when the Maldives were still sparsely inhabited, a prince of royal birth named Koimala, who had married the daughter of the king of Ceylon, made a voyage with her in two vessels from Srendib [Sri Lanka] Island. Reaching the Maldives they were becalmed and rested a while at Rasgetheemu island in North Maalhosmadulu Atoll.
The Maldive Islanders, learning that the two chief visitors were of Ceylon Royal descent invited them to remain; and ultimately proclaimed Koimala their king at Rasgetheemu, the original 'King's Island'.
Subsequently, Koimala and his spouse migrated thence to Male' and settled there with the consent of the aborigines of Giraavaru Island, then the most important community of Male' Atoll.
The two ships were dispatched to Lanka, and brought over other people of 'the Lion Race' (Sinhalese).
To Koimala and his queen was born a male child who was called Kalaminja. He reigned as a Buddhist for twelve years, and was then converted to Islam, ruling for thirteen years more before finally departing for Mecca.
This ruler's daughter married the chief minister and reigned as a nominal Sultana. She gave birth to a son also called Kalaminja, who, in turn, married a lady of the country.
From them the subsequent rulers of the Maldives were descended.
2. According to this version, which Maloney heard in Male', Koimala's parents came from India, not Sri Lanka: The Indian king was angry with his son, and sent him off with his wife in two boats; they had 700 soldiers. They came to Rasgetheemu in Raa Atoll, and when he became king there, people called that island Rasgetheemu "King's Landing". Then the king and queen came to Male', and Koimala was born from that Indian couple.
3. The following variant Maloney heard in Noon Atoll: "... When Koimala and his wife came, there were already people here. Because she was a princess of royal lineage, people asked her husband to rule. Koimala sent ships to Sri Lanka and brought back more people. It is said that a beautiful woman named Malakamana from the Maldives was one of the early people who settled Sri Lanka."
4. A myth Maloney heard in Manadhoo, Noon Atoll, is, in condensed form, as follows:
One day, while a hunter king of Sri Lanka was hunting, he caught a man-beast in his net. The man-beast couldn't walk, so the king taught him to do it. The man-beast then married the king's daughter, but he made political trouble in Sri Lanka, so was forced to leave. He and the princess arrived in Rasgetheemu and they lived there for some time, where the locals there asked them to rule them.
5. Another version Maloney heard in Hulhumeedhoo, Addu Atoll, in the far south of the country, is as follows:
There was a king of India who was a hunter. Once, while out hunting with a net, he saw a creature which is like a human, but which walked on all fours, and which disturbed the people. This creature would also take hunters' nets and steal their prey, so the king couldn't get any catch. The king considered how he might capture this creature. He made big weights for his net, which no ordinary human could lift, and which would prevent the creature from taking the hunting net. One day, the king, with the help of many men, put the net over the creature, which could not get out because of the large stone weights. The king took the creature to the palace and looked after him well, and because he knew no language, the king taught him language, which took a long time. The creature started helping the king by showing him treasures in the forest, and the king came to respect him.
The king had a daughter who fell in love with this creature (in an alternate version, the king forced his daughter to marry the creature). The king, being angry, put the couple on a ship and sent them off into exile. Their ship came to Laam (Hadummati) Atoll (towards the south), where the exiled pair saw a crow which cried. They thought the crow was not a good omen, and it was therefore undesirable to land there, so they went on to Male'. They settled in what is now Sultan Park (site of the former palace) and started a kingdom.
After fifteen years, a jinni began to come from the ocean every once a month and disturbed the people... (from here follows the story of the saint who came and dispelled the jinni and caused all the people to become converted to Islam from Buddhism and Hinduism).
Gujaratis
Maloney says Gujarat, with its indented coastline and its proximity to the old navigation routes of the Mesopotamian and Indus civilisations, has apparently maintained a tradition of navigation over the past 4000 years. Certainly the earliest Buddhist literature indicates active seafaring from its ports. It was from Gujarat that North Indian civilisation impinged upon the Maldives and Sri Lanka. From Gujarat, North Indian civilisation also expanded to Java and other parts of South-east Asia. The export of this civilisation to all coasts of South Asia and South-east Asia began about 500 B.C., but during the Mauryan period and the diffusion of Buddhism, sea traffic in the Bay of Bengal supplemented and, to some extent, surpassed that originating along the coasts of Western India.
Three Jataka tales cited above seem to refer to the Maldives, particularly the comment that exiles from Bharukaccha went to a thousand islands [Laccadive and Maldive islands] where they found standing room, and that these were near an island named for coconuts [Kerala]. This suggests that not only did seafarers emanating from Bharukaccha and Suppara visit the Maldives, but Gujaratis actually settled there in pre-Buddhist times. The other Jataka tales suggest that ships from Gujarat going to South-east Asia stopped in the Maldives, and that merchants in search of treasures sailed in several seas called – maala (or maara).
The Maldives might well have been settled parallel with the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers in Sri Lanka, as suggested in the above interpretations of the Sri Lanka myths and the Koimala story.
Mariners from the north-western coasts of the peninsula, from the time they commenced sailing to southern India, must have on occasion been blown over to the Maldives—unmanned canoes and rafts from Kerala even now get wafted there from time to time – and the dangers of shipwreck vividly described in several of the Jātakas might have arisen from contact with some of the thousands of reefs in the Maldives, which sailors have long dreaded. It may be, therefore, that shipwrecked Gujaratis, as well as exiles, were early settlers on the islands of the Laccadive-Maldives archipelago.
Geographic distribution
Maldives
All Maldivians are native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising what is now the Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union territory of Lakshadweep, India. The secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government gradually led to the emergence of a Maldivian population of Indian citizenship who came to be known as Mahls.
Being the heartland of Maldivian people, more than 97% of all Maldivians are from the Maldives. For all the Maldivian communities across the world (including the people of Minicoy) their origin lies in the Maldives. The Maldivian community of the Maldives consist of the two major groups from the three subgroups of Maldivians: The main group of Maldivians, the southern group of Maldivians (also known as Suvadivians) and the Mahls (ethnic Maldivians from Indian island of Minicoy).
Southern group of Maldivians
As a result of some political activities which occurred in the South during the early 1960s, the term Suvadivian has been adopted by some authors to refer to the southern group of Maldivians. From 1959 to 1963 there was a short-lived breakaway government named United Suvadive Republic which was formed by the Southerners, from which the name originated though there are no such native names. The names Suvadive and Suvadivian suggest that the origin of the names lye in the ancient name for the three southernmost atolls of Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu which was Suvadiva.
The Suvadivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds. The reason behind this suggested by researchers and proven from historical records is that there were less interference from the outside world to this group. Unlike the other group of Maldivians, this group was not affected by the Portuguese rule in the Maldives as it does not exceed the Suvadiva channel. Also there were no interference from traders and travellers as much as in the case of the other.
Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas and Addu bas), which are much different from the rest and as suggested by researchers, having a closer affinity to what may have been the original. Thus, the native features of the original Maldivian people are preserved in this group greater than any other group of Maldivians.
Main group of Maldivians
Unlike the southern minority, this group of Maldivians were subject to foreign intercourse. There were numerous occasions of reported interference from outsiders such as traders, travellers, etc... Also, the Portuguese rule and many other factors pushed this group into a state that imported materials got mixed into their linguistics as well as ethnic background to a large extent.
India
The secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government gradually led to the emergence of a Maldivian population holding Indian citizenship. This group of Maldivians consist of the people of Minicoy and migrant communities from Minicoy across India and elsewhere. Except for the people from Minicoy, there is no community of ethnic Maldivians with Indian citizenship. This group of Maldivians are officially referred as Mahls. The people locally identify themselves as Malikun. The Mahls make up the third subgroup of Maldivians.
People of Minicoy (Malikun) – Mahls
Mahls are the third subgroup of Maldivians centred in the island of Minicoy making up the only community of ethnic Maldivians in India. This group has its own dialect (called Maliku bas or Mahl) which retains some features of archaic Maldivian language, and shows Malayalam influences as well. Still, the dialect is mutually intelligible with the standard dialect of Maldivian and is more related to the slighter variants of northern Maldives.
In case of linguistics and ethnic grounds, this group of Maldivians are identical to the main group of Maldivians in the Maldives. However, the secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and gradually becoming part of India, thus becoming the only group of ethnic Maldivians with a non-Maldivian citizenship made anthropologists to label the Mahls among the subgroups. The isolation of this group from the rest of the Maldivians and the acculturation process which the Mahls are undergoing as a result of this as well as the change in nationality is one of the reasons for separation of this group from the main group of Maldivians. The origin of this group like any other group of Maldivians lie in the Maldives. The story of the Tivarun, the linguistics of the people in Minicoy and many other factors prove this side of the story.
Mahls are the only community of ethnic Maldivians (excluding migrant communities) outside the Republic of Maldives. They make up about 3% of the total population of all Maldivians.
Most Mahls live in their native land of Maliku (Minicoy). Mahls are 15.67% of the total population of Lakshadweep emerging as a separate ethnic group among the rest of the population. All Mahl communities in India emerged from Minicoy.
There are Mahl communities (migrant communities from Minicoy) in other parts of India too. A number of Mahls have settled in the districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) in the southern state of Kerala. The ancestors of present Mahl communities in Kerala migrated from Minicoy and settled there in the 17th century, when the islands of Lakshadweep came under the rule of Ali Rajahs/Arakkal Bheevi of Kannur.
Since 1957, this group of Maldivians in Minicoy are totally off-limits for their Maldivian counterparts in the Maldives. The direct transport between Minicoy and the Maldives was forbidden by the Indian government. Thus, this Indian group of Maldivians are steadily undergoing a process of acculturation owing to lack of contact with the remaining Maldivian people and pressure to use other languages such as Malayalam, English and Hindi. This proves to have a big influence upon the culture, linguistics and other day-to-day affairs of this group of Maldivians.
Emigrant communities
A significant number of Maldivian emigrant communities can be found in several countries. The emigrant communities could only be located from the Maldivian side as it is only the Maldivians who are all of the same ethnicity unlike India where the presence of thousands of cultures and ethnicities make the records more stringent on this matter. Since ethnic Maldivians of Minicoy are only no more than 0.0015% of the total population of India compared to 100% for their counterparts in the Maldives, it is only from the Maldivian embassies across the world that this information could be gathered.
Sri Lanka
There are approximately 20,000 people of Maldivian ethnicity living in Sri Lanka, as of 2013.
Genetics and Research Studies
In 1899, Professor John Stanley Gardiner visited Maldives, during which time; he collected anthropometrical data of a number of Maldivians from many islands. Analysis of this data by Dr. Wynfrid Duckworth, suggested that there were three major sources of immigration into the country. These are:
The peninsula of Hindustan with Ceylon,
The coast of Arabia and possibly of Africa,
The western shores of the Malay Peninsula, and the islands of the Malaya Archipelago.
(Duckworth 1912: 8–30).
In 1997, a Maldivian NGO, Society for Health Education, conducted a study on the mutations of thalassaemia found in the Maldives. This study showed one mutation that probably originated in the Middle East, another mutation which could have been derived from Portuguese or Algerians, and another which probably originated from South Asia and Malays. The observations are consistent with the historical records of Maldives, showing that early travellers from India, Indonesia, North Africa, the Red Sea and Persian Gulf areas, settled in the Maldives. (Firdous et al. 1998:148,149). Thalassaemia is the commonest genetically transmitted blood disease found in Maldives, and the results of this study suggest that many of the people now living in the Maldives had ancestors who came from the above-mentioned countries.
Anthropological studies, as well as ethnographic and linguistic researches, suggest that in terms of ancestry Maldivians share similar genes principally with the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka as well as western Indian populations, such as Marathis, Konkanis and Gujaratis with traces of Arab, Malay, southern Indian and North African genes in the population.
In 2013, genetic study about the Maldivian population by department of Human Genetics, Liden University, which was published online on the American Journal of Physical Anthropology has revealed very interesting facts about the genetic origin of Maldivian people.
The research studied autosomal DNA-, mitochondrial DNA-, and Y-chromosomal DNA markers in a representative sample of 141 unrelated Maldivians, with 119 from six major settlements. The researchers found a total of 63 different mtDNA haplotypes that could be allocated to 29 mtDNAs, mostly within the M, R and U clades. They also found 66 different Y-STR haplotypes in 10 Y chromosome haplogroups, predominantly R1a1, R2, H, L and J2. The study concluded that their new genetic data agree with the commonly reported Maldivian ancestry in South Asia, but furthermore suggest multiple, independent immigration events and asymmetrical migration of females and males across the archipelago.
The genetic study confirmed that the most likely origin of the Maldivian population is in South Asia with possible gene flow from the Middle East. Also it has pointed out that the Dhivehi language of the Maldives being the southernmost Indo-Aryan language, and sharing of specific haplogroups with Indo-Aryan populations mostly from India and from Sri Lanka, could point to a common origin of these populations.
Culture
Language and literature
Maldivians have strong feelings towards the Maldivian language. It has historically been, and to large extent still is, central to the Maldivian identity. Unlike the other languages of South India, it is an Indo-European language, while other South Indian languages are Dravidian languages. However the language shows some influences of neighbouring Dravidian languages on it, and have a number of loanwords from Dravidian vocabulary.
Religion
The Maldivians are entirely Muslims, adhering to the Sunni school of thought. In the Maldives which is the heartland of Maldivians and home for more than 97% of the Maldivian people, the national religion is Islam. Islam is the country's state religion as well as the backbone of the society with daily life in the country being regulated according to the tenets of Islam and government regulations too being based on the regulations of Islamic law (Shari'a). The law of the country prohibits the practice of any other religion by the country's citizens. In general all Maldivians from the island of Minicoy too are Sunni Muslims.
Visual art and architecture
Most traditional Maldivian art is influenced by Perso-Arabic tradition in some form and usually centres on Islam, since all the Maldivians are Muslims. The skill of visual art and architecture among the Maldivians is centered in the Maldives since the people of Minicoy are mainly sailors.
Various fine art practices exist in the Maldives at present. Primary among them is drawing and painting. Sculpture and crafts that overlap with art making also exist in the country. However, due to various limitations, they have not flourished as art forms. Painting and drawing also exist in similar circumstances. Lack of avenues in which to exhibit, and lack of arts education and training, combined with a growing understanding that these arts are best served in the tourist souvenir trade, has hampered a healthy development of these arts.
However, with the establishment of private galleries and with various exhibitions organized by the government and the artists themselves, in the last 15 years, the awareness that painting can be an expressive art form apart from also being a lucrative commercial activity has provided encouragement for several young Maldivians to pursue painting, and to an extent sculpture and other public and commercial art forms. Renewed interest in these arts have also led to various individuals to pursue on their own whatever education they can obtain, whether through distance learning courses from foreign universities, or via books and magazines. In addition, privately funded students have also been obtaining arts education and training at undergraduate and graduate levels in international universities.
More indirectly, artists also get the opportunity to meet foreign artists through the tourism trade when foreign artists visit the country as tourists. This provides the much needed contact with artists that is so necessary to the development of any art form.
Until recently, fine arts in the Maldives have been usually defined as the various crafts and skills of craft making. These include the use of locally found materials to produce decorative and functional objects such as mats, hand held or displayed objects, etc. The present situation of the arts has come about because of a lack of critical and theoretical interpretation and a lack of dialogue and discourse in an organized, sustained or documented form.
Performing arts
The traditional Maldivian performing arts have Indian and even African roots.
Martial arts
Martial arts among Maldivians are known as hevikamuge kulhivaruthak, while gulhamathi hifun is traditional wrestling among Maldivians.
Festivals
Most of the Maldivian festivals are related to Islam, however there are some festivals which belongs to old Maldivian traditions, like kite flying festival. Naming a newborn child, Mauloodhu (a prayer accompanied with festive meal), Eid festival and circumcision of male child are few events that take place where the taste of rich cultural 'cocktail' can be experienced.
A traditional meal called Keyn is prepared for the above Mauloodhus consisting of a number of courses. A single Keyn would serve 10 – 12 people and includes rice, curries, salads, grilled fish, coconut cream, coconut syrup, bananas, puddings and other delights.
Keyn is set out in a very large wooden dish called a Malaafaiy. The outside of this dish is placed within the dish and small individual plates are filled with curries, salads, and other items and set around the rice. This would be covered with the lid and wrapped in a white cloth and tied at the top. At the meal times this would be carried into the Mauloodh Haruge (dining hall specially made for this event) and placed on straw mats for service. Individual plates and other food items in individual dishes are placed as well. Beverages are individually set in glasses. Water is served in a ceramic jug. Food is consumed using the fingers of the right hand. At the end of the meal hand is washed using a copper jug into a copper basin. 10 December is marked as Kandu Rōdi duvas and 14 April as Gamu Rōdi duvas on which date Maldivian language day is marked from 2011 onwards.
Dress
Traditionally Maldivian men wear a Mundu with a shirt, it is very similar to that of Malayali people. Maldivian women wear a red-top called a Libaas and a long black skirt.
Cuisine
Rice, the major staple food in most Maldivian households, is usually cooked and served with Garudiya (Tuna Fish soup). Here are some of the speciality cuisines.
Bocholhi
Made of rice flour, coconut – semi-firm (grated) and coconut palm syrup by mixing all the ingredients until freed from lump and cooked over a moderate heat until the mixture is thickened.
Godhan Furhu Boa Folhi
Made of flour, coconut – semi-hard (blended to a smooth paste), eggs, coconut cream, jasmine water, coconut palm syrup, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder and oil by mixing all the ingredients apart from the oil together. Cooked over a moderate heat and once the top of the pancake dries up, turned over and cooked.
Han’dulu Aurus
Made of rice (soaked overnight), washed and blended to a smooth paste), coconut palm syrup, Jasmine water and jasmine flowers by placing all the ingredients apart from the flowers in a thick-bottomed pan and cooked over a moderate heat by stirring constantly to avoid the mixture getting stuck to the bottom. Wrapped entirely with banana leaf and placed jasmine flowers over the sweets. This sweet will keep for two to three months without spoiling.
'
Han’dulu Furhu Kubus
Made of Patna Rice (soaked overnight, washed and blended to a smooth paste), coconut – semi-firm (grated), coconut palm syrup, caster sugar, banana leaf by cooking over a moderate heat the grated coconut, palm sugar and caster sugar until the mixture has thickened. Removed from heat and allowed cooling and added in the blended rice and kneaded thoroughly and combined all the ingredients well. Divided the mixture into eight portions and placed each portion on a banana leaf and wrapped entirely to seal and wrapped a second banana leaf around it and secured well.
Dug a suitable hole in the ground in which all the wrapped dough pieces could be placed neatly. Placed coconut fibres and coconut shells and burned them in the dug hole and removed the charcoals.
Placed banana leaves within the hole and placed the wrapped dough in the heated hole and placed neatly one against another.
Covered the dough parcels placed in the hole with another large piece of banana leaf and covered the leaf with two-inch white sand. Placed the charcoals and coconut fibres and coconut shells over it and burned the coconut fibres and shells for half an hour.
Left the cooked kubus parcels overnight in the hole. In the morning scraped off the burnt ashes and charcoals aside and the sand covering the banana leaf and slowly lifted the wrapped kubus parcels.
Hukkaru
Made of coconut palm syrup by boiling the syrup over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it starts to thicken. Removed from heat and whisked until frothy and cooled.
Huni Folhi
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut – semi-hard (grated), coconut palm syrup by cooking all the ingredients over a moderate heat in a thick-bottomed pan stirring continuously.
When the mixture starts to come loose from the side of the pan removed from heat and taken a tablespoonful of the cooked mixture, spread on a cork wood leaf. Smoked and dried the leaves spread with the sweet over the fireplace.
Karukuri Banbukeyo
Made of fried bread fruit (crushed coarsely), coconut palm syrup, jasmine water by bringing the syrup and the jasmine water to boil and cooked it over a moderate heat until it comes to ribbon stage. Added in the crushed breadfruit into the sugar and coated well. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and kept in an airtight container.
Karukuri Ala
Made of fried taro (crushed coarsely), coconut palm syrup and jasmine water by boiling the syrup and the jasmine water and cooked it over a moderate heat until it comes to ribbon stage. Added in the crushed taro in to the sugar and coated well. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and kept in an airtight container.
Kulhi Bis Fathafolhi
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut (grated), Rihaakuru, Rihaakuru Bondi (blended), eggs, onion (sliced thinly), curry leaves (chopped), cherry pepper, juice of two limes, ginger, salt to season and oil by crushing the onion, curry leaves, cherry pepper, ginger with salt. Added and mixed the rice flour and coconut to make sandy texture. Formed a bay in the center of the rice mixture and add in the eggs and Rihaakuru and Rihaakuru Bondi. Mixed/kneaded the dough and divided the dough into 15 gram balls. Spread each ball to about ¼ inch thickness. Cut using a round cutter of 3 – inch diameter and pre-heated oil.
Meeraa
Made of coconut sap (collected at noon) by boiling the sap over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it comes to ribbon stage. Removed from heat, greased a large tray and taken a spoonful of the cooked thickened syrup and placed it over the greased sheet in strings.
Thela Kubus
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut palm syrup, eggs and coconut oil by whisking the egg and the syrup and added in the rice flour and beaten further. Poured a table spoonful of the mixture into the oil and deep-fried until golden.
Thelli Keyo
Made of plantain (peeled and cut length-wise) and oil by frying the bananas until crisped. Drained on absorbent kitchen paper and kept airtight container.
Veli Hakuru
Made of coconut palm syrup by boiling the syrup over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it starts to crystallise. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and put into jars and seal well.
Other Cuisines Regularly Cooked
Falhoa Aurus
Naaroh Faludha
Fuppi Baiy
Gerhi Banbukeyo
Gerhi Kattala
Kaliyaa Kuri Kattala
Varukuri Baiy
Communities
Maldivian names
A generation ago, most Maldivian people were not commonly known by their birth names. Instead they were called by an alternative name such as Dohuttu, Lahuttu, Tutteedi, Kudamaniku, or Don Goma. The rationale behind this practice was that if the evil spirits did not know one's real name, one would be free from their spells. However ancient Maldivian naming system is similar to that of Gujaratis and Marathas. Even now some people follow that system. For example, the first name of historian Mohamed Ibrahim Lutfy is "Mohamed;" "Ibrahim" is his father's name, and "Lutfy" is the family name.
Frequent Maldivian family names include Bee, Beefan, Boo, Didi, Fan, Fulhu, Kader, Kalaminja, Kalinga, Kalo, Kavah, Kavya, Koi, Koya, Manik, Manika, Manike, Manikfan, Naha, Raha, Rana, Tarkan, Thakhan, Thakur, Thakurfan, Veer.
See also
Maldivian folklore
Minicoy
Giraavaru people
References
Further reading
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.
.
.
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External links
Maldives Ethnography, by Xavier Romero-Frias
A Guide to Mahl Language, Minicoy
Clarence Maloney, his vision, his work and the ancient underlying cultural influences in the Maldives
01
Ethnic groups in the Indian Ocean
Indo-Aryan peoples
Ethnic groups in India
Ethnic groups in Sri Lanka
| true |
[
"ISO 3166-2:MH is the entry for the Marshall Islands in ISO 3166-2, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which defines codes for the names of the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1.\n\nCurrently for the Marshall Islands, ISO 3166-2 codes are defined for two levels of subdivisions:\n 2 chains (of islands) (i.e., the Ralik Chain and the Ratak Chain)\n 24 municipalities\n\nThe municipalities are inhabited atolls or islands. The ten uninhabited atolls and islands of the country are not listed:\n In Ralik Chain: Ailinginae Atoll, Bikini Atoll, Rongerik Atoll, and Ujelang Atoll (previously inhabited and had its code deleted in Newsletter II-1)\n In Ratak Chain: Bikar Atoll, Bokak Atoll, Erikub Atoll, Jemo Island, Nadikdik Atoll, and Toke Atoll\n\nEach code consists of two parts, separated by a hyphen. The first part is , the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of the Marshall Islands. The second part is either of the following:\n one letter: chains (of islands)\n three letters: municipalities\n\nCurrent codes\nSubdivision names are listed as in the ISO 3166-2 standard published by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA).\n\nClick on the button in the header to sort each column.\n\nChains (of islands)\n\nMunicipalities\n\nChanges\nThe following changes to the entry have been announced in newsletters by the ISO 3166/MA since the first publication of ISO 3166-2 in 1998:\n\nSee also\n Subdivisions of the Marshall Islands\n\nExternal links\n ISO Online Browsing Platform: MH\n Municipalities of the Marshall Islands, Statoids.com\n\n2:MH\nISO 3166-2\nMarshall Islands-related lists",
"Villingili as a place name may refer to:\n Villingili (Addu Atoll), a resort island in the Maldives \n Villingili (Alif Dhaal Atoll), an uninhabited island in the Maldives\n Villingili (Gaafu Alif Atoll), an inhabited island in the Maldives\n Villingili (Malé), an inhabited island in the Maldives\n Villingili (Seenu Atoll), a resort island in the Maldives\nVillingili (India), a village in the Lakshadweep group of islands, India"
] |
[
"Maldivians",
"Southern group of Maldivians",
"What is the relation between Maldivians and Southern group of Maldivians?",
"According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds.",
"Do they have other part of Maldivians that they talk about?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language",
"Which people are inhabited in each atoll?",
"Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu"
] |
C_0db16dc336b04e2ab7dbb1b6833006a9_0
|
What relation do they have together?
| 5 |
What relation do the Maldivians have together?
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Maldivians
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As a result of some political activities which occurred in the South during the early 1960s, the term Suvadivian has been adopted by some authors to refer to the southern group of Maldivians. From 1959 to 1963 there was a short-lived breakaway government named United Suvadive Republic which was formed by the Southerners, from which the name originated though there are no such native names. The names Suvadive and Suvadivian suggest that the origin of the names lye in the ancient name for the three southernmost atolls of Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu which was Suvadiva. The Suvadivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds. The reason behind this suggested by researchers and proven from historical records is that there were less interference from the outside world to this group. Unlike the other group of Maldivians, this group was not affected by the Portuguese rule in the Maldives as it does not exceed the Suvadiva channel. Also there were no interference from traders and travellers as much as in the case of the other. Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas and Addu bas), which are much different from the rest and as suggested by researchers, having a closer affinity to what may have been the original. Thus, the native features of the original Maldivian people are preserved in this group greater than any other group of Maldivians. CANNOTANSWER
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number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians.
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Maldivians (; ދިވެހިން, dhivehin) are a nation and Indo-Aryan ethnic group native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising what is now the Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union Territory of Lakshadweep, India. All Maldivians share the same culture and speak the Maldivian language which is a member of the southern group of Indo-Aryan languages. For ethnographic and linguistic purposes as well as geo-political reasons, anthropologists divide the Maldivian people into 3 subgroups.
Subgroups
The main group of Maldivians, numbering more than 250,000. This is the group inhabiting the numerous atolls stretching from Ihavandhippolhu (Haa Alif) to Haddhunmathi (Laamu) in Maldives. They constitute over 70% of the total population of all Maldivians. In a larger scale, the third group also comes under this group. From this group comes the standard dialect of Maldivian language which is spoken in the Maldives capital Male' along with the central atolls. Slightly differing variants which are very closely related to the former are spoken in rest of the islands from the far north of Maldives down to Laamu Atoll.
The southern group of Maldivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) in Maldives. This group numbers approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of all Maldivians. The earliest known settlements have been found in this region. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as ethnicity. Each of the 3 atolls of this region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas, Addu bas), which are significantly different from the rest and as researchers suggest having a closer affinity to what may have been the original.
The people of Minicoy (Malikun) – Mahls, numbering about 10,000. The island of Minicoy lies in the northern end of the atoll chain inhabited by Maldivians and is the northernmost group of the Maldivian people. They are only about 3% of the total amount of Maldivians. Although the people of Minicoy are identical to the main group of Maldivians from the first group in terms of ethnicity and linguistics and in a larger scale comes under that group, the day to day politics of Minicoy and after on the secession of the island from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government, thus acquiring a non-Maldivian citizenship has made this group to be labelled as one among the subgroups of Maldivians. Due to reasons such as politics, having to live in great isolation from the remaining Maldivian people, the Minicoians are steadily undergoing a process of acculturation. This group has its own dialect (called Maliku bas or Mahl) which retains some features of an older Maldivian, and shows Malayalam influences as well. Still, the dialect is mutually intelligible with the standard Maldivian dialect and is more related to the slighter variants of northern Maldives from the first group.
Myths and legends
There is no historical evidence about the origin of Maldivians; there is also no indication that there was any negrito or other aboriginal population, such as the Andamanese. No archaeology has been conducted to investigate the prehistory of the islands. There is, however, a Tamil–Malayalam substratum, in addition to other later cultural influences in the islands.
Bengali, Odia and Sinhalese people have had trading connections to Dhivehi people in the past.
Conjectures have been made by scholars who argue that the ancestors of Maldivian people arrived to the Maldives from North West and West India, from Kalibangan between 2500 and 1700 BC and that they formed a distinct ethnic group around the 6th century BC.
Myths of origin
According to Maldivian folklore the main myths of origin are reflecting the dependence of the Maldivians on the coconut tree and the tuna fish.
A legend says that the first inhabitants of the Maldives died in great numbers, but a great sorcerer or fandita man made coconut trees grow out of the skulls of the buried corpses of the first settlers. Therefore, the coconut tree is said to have an anthropomorphic origin according to Maldive lore for this reason. The word naashi (coconut shell) is also the word used for skull in Dhivehi language.
The coconut tree occupies a central place in the present-day Maldive national emblem.
The tuna fish is said to have been brought to the Maldivian waters by a mythical seafarer (maalimi) called Bodu Niyami Kalēfanu who went close to the Dagas (the mythical tree at the end of the world) to bring this valuable fish.
Legend of the first settlers
One of the earliest people who settled in the Maldives were from the Malabar Coast of India and northwestern shores of Sri Lanka, and are of Tamils and Malayalis ancestry, which is clear through strong Tamil–Malayalam substratum in language and culture. The Giraavaru people are considered as one of the earliest settlers.They were technologically advanced people, building sailing boats called dhonis.
These people used words such as varam for the islands in which they lived. Examples given in the old manuscript are: Noḷivaram, Kuruhinnavaram, and Girāvaram. Many of the old terms used by Maldivian fishermen come from the Dravidian languages, leading one to the assumption that these terms were brought by people from southern coastal India in ancient times. Historical records show that in the southern and central atolls of the Maldives, occupations such as farming and weaving were important in the early days.
A short time after the arrival of the Indo-Aryans and the introduction of the Hindu religion, a prince of India is said to have arrived in the Maldives. This is the period calculated earlier from oral tradition, and the story also corresponds to that from the Mahavamsa chronicle of Sri Lanka, about the king's son who was exiled from his country and arrived in Lanka, one of his ships losing its way and arriving in the Maldives. In the Maldivian legend, the prince who arrived in the Maldives, was the son of Brahmaditiya, king of Kalinga (Brahmadatta, King of Kalinga at the time of Buddha's death c. 500 – 350 BC), a kingdom on the south-east of India (modern Orissa). King Brahmaditiya was displeased with his son and sent him to Dheeva Maari (Maldives). The name of this prince was Sri Soorudasaruna.
Sri Soorudasaruna established a kingdom of the Adeetha Vansha Dynasty (Solar Dynasty) in Dhiva Maari, a short period before the reign of Emperor Ashoka in India. This would place the establishment of the first kingdom in the Maldives circa the 4th century BC. The tradition then states that Emperor Ashoka established his kingdom in Pataliputra in India, and that his people went preaching the religion and teachings of Buddha to a place called Bairat, to the west of Pataliputra. A group of people came to the Maldives from Bairat in order to teach the religion of Buddha. These people are said to have arrived in these islands during Ashoka's reign, probably when he sent Buddhist missionaries to all the neighbouring countries, in the 3rd century BC. At the time the Buddhist missionaries arrived in the Maldives, the country was called Dheeva Mahl.
Around the 2nd century AD there was an influx of Arab traders who travelled and stopped by at the Maldives en route to the Far East – their first record of the Maldives islands, which they called Mahal Dibiyat, is from the Arab travellers. Maldives provided enormous quantities of cowry shells, an international currency of the early ages. The cowry is now the symbol of the Maldives Monetary Authority. Mahal Dibiyat is the name given to the islands by medieval Arab travellers.
Abu al-Barakat Yusuf al-Barbari, a North African Arab, is credited with converting the Maldivians to Islam in 1153.
Legend of the first ruling dynasty
The myth of the origin of the ruling dynasty is the story of a prince named Koimala. In the Muslim traditions recorded in the Lōamāafāanu and Rādavaḷi chronicles all the pre-Muslim royalty are represented by a king, whose successor was converted to Islam. The name Koimala Kalo is also suggestive: koi or koyi in Maldivian language means son, lad or prince (derived from Malayalam koya, son, prince, master, cf. the Dravidian root kō, king). The component malā may or may not be derived from māla as in Māla-dīv, but, if so, the name would mean 'prince of the Maldives'. The term kalō is a common word of man, used as a term of endearment. The title of former Maldivian kings was kattiri bovana mahaa radun, 'Kattiri' (ކައްތިރި) meaning Kshatriya in Maldivian language.
One oral tradition says that the Giraavaru people are the indigenous people of the Maldives who were in the islands before Koimala arrived. They are of Tamil origin, and the earliest island community of the Maldives; their presence predates Buddhism and the arrival of Indo-Aryans in the archipelago. This may be the reason that the Dhivehi kinship system is partly of Dravidian origin, and bears evidence of some matriliny, like the Nayar and other matrilineal groups of Kerala. Some of the kinship terms are clearly derived from Malayalam.
Five versions of the myth are given here and their significance in terms of culture history explained.
1. The following version was recorded by Bell in 1922:
Once upon a time, when the Maldives were still sparsely inhabited, a prince of royal birth named Koimala, who had married the daughter of the king of Ceylon, made a voyage with her in two vessels from Srendib [Sri Lanka] Island. Reaching the Maldives they were becalmed and rested a while at Rasgetheemu island in North Maalhosmadulu Atoll.
The Maldive Islanders, learning that the two chief visitors were of Ceylon Royal descent invited them to remain; and ultimately proclaimed Koimala their king at Rasgetheemu, the original 'King's Island'.
Subsequently, Koimala and his spouse migrated thence to Male' and settled there with the consent of the aborigines of Giraavaru Island, then the most important community of Male' Atoll.
The two ships were dispatched to Lanka, and brought over other people of 'the Lion Race' (Sinhalese).
To Koimala and his queen was born a male child who was called Kalaminja. He reigned as a Buddhist for twelve years, and was then converted to Islam, ruling for thirteen years more before finally departing for Mecca.
This ruler's daughter married the chief minister and reigned as a nominal Sultana. She gave birth to a son also called Kalaminja, who, in turn, married a lady of the country.
From them the subsequent rulers of the Maldives were descended.
2. According to this version, which Maloney heard in Male', Koimala's parents came from India, not Sri Lanka: The Indian king was angry with his son, and sent him off with his wife in two boats; they had 700 soldiers. They came to Rasgetheemu in Raa Atoll, and when he became king there, people called that island Rasgetheemu "King's Landing". Then the king and queen came to Male', and Koimala was born from that Indian couple.
3. The following variant Maloney heard in Noon Atoll: "... When Koimala and his wife came, there were already people here. Because she was a princess of royal lineage, people asked her husband to rule. Koimala sent ships to Sri Lanka and brought back more people. It is said that a beautiful woman named Malakamana from the Maldives was one of the early people who settled Sri Lanka."
4. A myth Maloney heard in Manadhoo, Noon Atoll, is, in condensed form, as follows:
One day, while a hunter king of Sri Lanka was hunting, he caught a man-beast in his net. The man-beast couldn't walk, so the king taught him to do it. The man-beast then married the king's daughter, but he made political trouble in Sri Lanka, so was forced to leave. He and the princess arrived in Rasgetheemu and they lived there for some time, where the locals there asked them to rule them.
5. Another version Maloney heard in Hulhumeedhoo, Addu Atoll, in the far south of the country, is as follows:
There was a king of India who was a hunter. Once, while out hunting with a net, he saw a creature which is like a human, but which walked on all fours, and which disturbed the people. This creature would also take hunters' nets and steal their prey, so the king couldn't get any catch. The king considered how he might capture this creature. He made big weights for his net, which no ordinary human could lift, and which would prevent the creature from taking the hunting net. One day, the king, with the help of many men, put the net over the creature, which could not get out because of the large stone weights. The king took the creature to the palace and looked after him well, and because he knew no language, the king taught him language, which took a long time. The creature started helping the king by showing him treasures in the forest, and the king came to respect him.
The king had a daughter who fell in love with this creature (in an alternate version, the king forced his daughter to marry the creature). The king, being angry, put the couple on a ship and sent them off into exile. Their ship came to Laam (Hadummati) Atoll (towards the south), where the exiled pair saw a crow which cried. They thought the crow was not a good omen, and it was therefore undesirable to land there, so they went on to Male'. They settled in what is now Sultan Park (site of the former palace) and started a kingdom.
After fifteen years, a jinni began to come from the ocean every once a month and disturbed the people... (from here follows the story of the saint who came and dispelled the jinni and caused all the people to become converted to Islam from Buddhism and Hinduism).
Gujaratis
Maloney says Gujarat, with its indented coastline and its proximity to the old navigation routes of the Mesopotamian and Indus civilisations, has apparently maintained a tradition of navigation over the past 4000 years. Certainly the earliest Buddhist literature indicates active seafaring from its ports. It was from Gujarat that North Indian civilisation impinged upon the Maldives and Sri Lanka. From Gujarat, North Indian civilisation also expanded to Java and other parts of South-east Asia. The export of this civilisation to all coasts of South Asia and South-east Asia began about 500 B.C., but during the Mauryan period and the diffusion of Buddhism, sea traffic in the Bay of Bengal supplemented and, to some extent, surpassed that originating along the coasts of Western India.
Three Jataka tales cited above seem to refer to the Maldives, particularly the comment that exiles from Bharukaccha went to a thousand islands [Laccadive and Maldive islands] where they found standing room, and that these were near an island named for coconuts [Kerala]. This suggests that not only did seafarers emanating from Bharukaccha and Suppara visit the Maldives, but Gujaratis actually settled there in pre-Buddhist times. The other Jataka tales suggest that ships from Gujarat going to South-east Asia stopped in the Maldives, and that merchants in search of treasures sailed in several seas called – maala (or maara).
The Maldives might well have been settled parallel with the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers in Sri Lanka, as suggested in the above interpretations of the Sri Lanka myths and the Koimala story.
Mariners from the north-western coasts of the peninsula, from the time they commenced sailing to southern India, must have on occasion been blown over to the Maldives—unmanned canoes and rafts from Kerala even now get wafted there from time to time – and the dangers of shipwreck vividly described in several of the Jātakas might have arisen from contact with some of the thousands of reefs in the Maldives, which sailors have long dreaded. It may be, therefore, that shipwrecked Gujaratis, as well as exiles, were early settlers on the islands of the Laccadive-Maldives archipelago.
Geographic distribution
Maldives
All Maldivians are native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands comprising what is now the Republic of Maldives and the island of Minicoy in Union territory of Lakshadweep, India. The secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government gradually led to the emergence of a Maldivian population of Indian citizenship who came to be known as Mahls.
Being the heartland of Maldivian people, more than 97% of all Maldivians are from the Maldives. For all the Maldivian communities across the world (including the people of Minicoy) their origin lies in the Maldives. The Maldivian community of the Maldives consist of the two major groups from the three subgroups of Maldivians: The main group of Maldivians, the southern group of Maldivians (also known as Suvadivians) and the Mahls (ethnic Maldivians from Indian island of Minicoy).
Southern group of Maldivians
As a result of some political activities which occurred in the South during the early 1960s, the term Suvadivian has been adopted by some authors to refer to the southern group of Maldivians. From 1959 to 1963 there was a short-lived breakaway government named United Suvadive Republic which was formed by the Southerners, from which the name originated though there are no such native names. The names Suvadive and Suvadivian suggest that the origin of the names lye in the ancient name for the three southernmost atolls of Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu which was Suvadiva.
The Suvadivians, living in the three southernmost atolls of the equatorial zone (Huvadhu, Fuvahmulah and Addu atolls) number approximately 60,000 and constitute about 20% of the total population of Maldivians. According to researchers, this group of Maldivians have the closest proximity to the original Maldivian people in terms of linguistics as well as on ethnic grounds. The reason behind this suggested by researchers and proven from historical records is that there were less interference from the outside world to this group. Unlike the other group of Maldivians, this group was not affected by the Portuguese rule in the Maldives as it does not exceed the Suvadiva channel. Also there were no interference from traders and travellers as much as in the case of the other.
Each of the 3 atolls of the Suvadiva region speak their own distinctive forms of the Maldivian language (Huvadhu bas, Mulaku bas and Addu bas), which are much different from the rest and as suggested by researchers, having a closer affinity to what may have been the original. Thus, the native features of the original Maldivian people are preserved in this group greater than any other group of Maldivians.
Main group of Maldivians
Unlike the southern minority, this group of Maldivians were subject to foreign intercourse. There were numerous occasions of reported interference from outsiders such as traders, travellers, etc... Also, the Portuguese rule and many other factors pushed this group into a state that imported materials got mixed into their linguistics as well as ethnic background to a large extent.
India
The secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and affiliating with the Indian government gradually led to the emergence of a Maldivian population holding Indian citizenship. This group of Maldivians consist of the people of Minicoy and migrant communities from Minicoy across India and elsewhere. Except for the people from Minicoy, there is no community of ethnic Maldivians with Indian citizenship. This group of Maldivians are officially referred as Mahls. The people locally identify themselves as Malikun. The Mahls make up the third subgroup of Maldivians.
People of Minicoy (Malikun) – Mahls
Mahls are the third subgroup of Maldivians centred in the island of Minicoy making up the only community of ethnic Maldivians in India. This group has its own dialect (called Maliku bas or Mahl) which retains some features of archaic Maldivian language, and shows Malayalam influences as well. Still, the dialect is mutually intelligible with the standard dialect of Maldivian and is more related to the slighter variants of northern Maldives.
In case of linguistics and ethnic grounds, this group of Maldivians are identical to the main group of Maldivians in the Maldives. However, the secession of Minicoy from Maldivian rule and gradually becoming part of India, thus becoming the only group of ethnic Maldivians with a non-Maldivian citizenship made anthropologists to label the Mahls among the subgroups. The isolation of this group from the rest of the Maldivians and the acculturation process which the Mahls are undergoing as a result of this as well as the change in nationality is one of the reasons for separation of this group from the main group of Maldivians. The origin of this group like any other group of Maldivians lie in the Maldives. The story of the Tivarun, the linguistics of the people in Minicoy and many other factors prove this side of the story.
Mahls are the only community of ethnic Maldivians (excluding migrant communities) outside the Republic of Maldives. They make up about 3% of the total population of all Maldivians.
Most Mahls live in their native land of Maliku (Minicoy). Mahls are 15.67% of the total population of Lakshadweep emerging as a separate ethnic group among the rest of the population. All Mahl communities in India emerged from Minicoy.
There are Mahl communities (migrant communities from Minicoy) in other parts of India too. A number of Mahls have settled in the districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) in the southern state of Kerala. The ancestors of present Mahl communities in Kerala migrated from Minicoy and settled there in the 17th century, when the islands of Lakshadweep came under the rule of Ali Rajahs/Arakkal Bheevi of Kannur.
Since 1957, this group of Maldivians in Minicoy are totally off-limits for their Maldivian counterparts in the Maldives. The direct transport between Minicoy and the Maldives was forbidden by the Indian government. Thus, this Indian group of Maldivians are steadily undergoing a process of acculturation owing to lack of contact with the remaining Maldivian people and pressure to use other languages such as Malayalam, English and Hindi. This proves to have a big influence upon the culture, linguistics and other day-to-day affairs of this group of Maldivians.
Emigrant communities
A significant number of Maldivian emigrant communities can be found in several countries. The emigrant communities could only be located from the Maldivian side as it is only the Maldivians who are all of the same ethnicity unlike India where the presence of thousands of cultures and ethnicities make the records more stringent on this matter. Since ethnic Maldivians of Minicoy are only no more than 0.0015% of the total population of India compared to 100% for their counterparts in the Maldives, it is only from the Maldivian embassies across the world that this information could be gathered.
Sri Lanka
There are approximately 20,000 people of Maldivian ethnicity living in Sri Lanka, as of 2013.
Genetics and Research Studies
In 1899, Professor John Stanley Gardiner visited Maldives, during which time; he collected anthropometrical data of a number of Maldivians from many islands. Analysis of this data by Dr. Wynfrid Duckworth, suggested that there were three major sources of immigration into the country. These are:
The peninsula of Hindustan with Ceylon,
The coast of Arabia and possibly of Africa,
The western shores of the Malay Peninsula, and the islands of the Malaya Archipelago.
(Duckworth 1912: 8–30).
In 1997, a Maldivian NGO, Society for Health Education, conducted a study on the mutations of thalassaemia found in the Maldives. This study showed one mutation that probably originated in the Middle East, another mutation which could have been derived from Portuguese or Algerians, and another which probably originated from South Asia and Malays. The observations are consistent with the historical records of Maldives, showing that early travellers from India, Indonesia, North Africa, the Red Sea and Persian Gulf areas, settled in the Maldives. (Firdous et al. 1998:148,149). Thalassaemia is the commonest genetically transmitted blood disease found in Maldives, and the results of this study suggest that many of the people now living in the Maldives had ancestors who came from the above-mentioned countries.
Anthropological studies, as well as ethnographic and linguistic researches, suggest that in terms of ancestry Maldivians share similar genes principally with the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka as well as western Indian populations, such as Marathis, Konkanis and Gujaratis with traces of Arab, Malay, southern Indian and North African genes in the population.
In 2013, genetic study about the Maldivian population by department of Human Genetics, Liden University, which was published online on the American Journal of Physical Anthropology has revealed very interesting facts about the genetic origin of Maldivian people.
The research studied autosomal DNA-, mitochondrial DNA-, and Y-chromosomal DNA markers in a representative sample of 141 unrelated Maldivians, with 119 from six major settlements. The researchers found a total of 63 different mtDNA haplotypes that could be allocated to 29 mtDNAs, mostly within the M, R and U clades. They also found 66 different Y-STR haplotypes in 10 Y chromosome haplogroups, predominantly R1a1, R2, H, L and J2. The study concluded that their new genetic data agree with the commonly reported Maldivian ancestry in South Asia, but furthermore suggest multiple, independent immigration events and asymmetrical migration of females and males across the archipelago.
The genetic study confirmed that the most likely origin of the Maldivian population is in South Asia with possible gene flow from the Middle East. Also it has pointed out that the Dhivehi language of the Maldives being the southernmost Indo-Aryan language, and sharing of specific haplogroups with Indo-Aryan populations mostly from India and from Sri Lanka, could point to a common origin of these populations.
Culture
Language and literature
Maldivians have strong feelings towards the Maldivian language. It has historically been, and to large extent still is, central to the Maldivian identity. Unlike the other languages of South India, it is an Indo-European language, while other South Indian languages are Dravidian languages. However the language shows some influences of neighbouring Dravidian languages on it, and have a number of loanwords from Dravidian vocabulary.
Religion
The Maldivians are entirely Muslims, adhering to the Sunni school of thought. In the Maldives which is the heartland of Maldivians and home for more than 97% of the Maldivian people, the national religion is Islam. Islam is the country's state religion as well as the backbone of the society with daily life in the country being regulated according to the tenets of Islam and government regulations too being based on the regulations of Islamic law (Shari'a). The law of the country prohibits the practice of any other religion by the country's citizens. In general all Maldivians from the island of Minicoy too are Sunni Muslims.
Visual art and architecture
Most traditional Maldivian art is influenced by Perso-Arabic tradition in some form and usually centres on Islam, since all the Maldivians are Muslims. The skill of visual art and architecture among the Maldivians is centered in the Maldives since the people of Minicoy are mainly sailors.
Various fine art practices exist in the Maldives at present. Primary among them is drawing and painting. Sculpture and crafts that overlap with art making also exist in the country. However, due to various limitations, they have not flourished as art forms. Painting and drawing also exist in similar circumstances. Lack of avenues in which to exhibit, and lack of arts education and training, combined with a growing understanding that these arts are best served in the tourist souvenir trade, has hampered a healthy development of these arts.
However, with the establishment of private galleries and with various exhibitions organized by the government and the artists themselves, in the last 15 years, the awareness that painting can be an expressive art form apart from also being a lucrative commercial activity has provided encouragement for several young Maldivians to pursue painting, and to an extent sculpture and other public and commercial art forms. Renewed interest in these arts have also led to various individuals to pursue on their own whatever education they can obtain, whether through distance learning courses from foreign universities, or via books and magazines. In addition, privately funded students have also been obtaining arts education and training at undergraduate and graduate levels in international universities.
More indirectly, artists also get the opportunity to meet foreign artists through the tourism trade when foreign artists visit the country as tourists. This provides the much needed contact with artists that is so necessary to the development of any art form.
Until recently, fine arts in the Maldives have been usually defined as the various crafts and skills of craft making. These include the use of locally found materials to produce decorative and functional objects such as mats, hand held or displayed objects, etc. The present situation of the arts has come about because of a lack of critical and theoretical interpretation and a lack of dialogue and discourse in an organized, sustained or documented form.
Performing arts
The traditional Maldivian performing arts have Indian and even African roots.
Martial arts
Martial arts among Maldivians are known as hevikamuge kulhivaruthak, while gulhamathi hifun is traditional wrestling among Maldivians.
Festivals
Most of the Maldivian festivals are related to Islam, however there are some festivals which belongs to old Maldivian traditions, like kite flying festival. Naming a newborn child, Mauloodhu (a prayer accompanied with festive meal), Eid festival and circumcision of male child are few events that take place where the taste of rich cultural 'cocktail' can be experienced.
A traditional meal called Keyn is prepared for the above Mauloodhus consisting of a number of courses. A single Keyn would serve 10 – 12 people and includes rice, curries, salads, grilled fish, coconut cream, coconut syrup, bananas, puddings and other delights.
Keyn is set out in a very large wooden dish called a Malaafaiy. The outside of this dish is placed within the dish and small individual plates are filled with curries, salads, and other items and set around the rice. This would be covered with the lid and wrapped in a white cloth and tied at the top. At the meal times this would be carried into the Mauloodh Haruge (dining hall specially made for this event) and placed on straw mats for service. Individual plates and other food items in individual dishes are placed as well. Beverages are individually set in glasses. Water is served in a ceramic jug. Food is consumed using the fingers of the right hand. At the end of the meal hand is washed using a copper jug into a copper basin. 10 December is marked as Kandu Rōdi duvas and 14 April as Gamu Rōdi duvas on which date Maldivian language day is marked from 2011 onwards.
Dress
Traditionally Maldivian men wear a Mundu with a shirt, it is very similar to that of Malayali people. Maldivian women wear a red-top called a Libaas and a long black skirt.
Cuisine
Rice, the major staple food in most Maldivian households, is usually cooked and served with Garudiya (Tuna Fish soup). Here are some of the speciality cuisines.
Bocholhi
Made of rice flour, coconut – semi-firm (grated) and coconut palm syrup by mixing all the ingredients until freed from lump and cooked over a moderate heat until the mixture is thickened.
Godhan Furhu Boa Folhi
Made of flour, coconut – semi-hard (blended to a smooth paste), eggs, coconut cream, jasmine water, coconut palm syrup, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder and oil by mixing all the ingredients apart from the oil together. Cooked over a moderate heat and once the top of the pancake dries up, turned over and cooked.
Han’dulu Aurus
Made of rice (soaked overnight), washed and blended to a smooth paste), coconut palm syrup, Jasmine water and jasmine flowers by placing all the ingredients apart from the flowers in a thick-bottomed pan and cooked over a moderate heat by stirring constantly to avoid the mixture getting stuck to the bottom. Wrapped entirely with banana leaf and placed jasmine flowers over the sweets. This sweet will keep for two to three months without spoiling.
'
Han’dulu Furhu Kubus
Made of Patna Rice (soaked overnight, washed and blended to a smooth paste), coconut – semi-firm (grated), coconut palm syrup, caster sugar, banana leaf by cooking over a moderate heat the grated coconut, palm sugar and caster sugar until the mixture has thickened. Removed from heat and allowed cooling and added in the blended rice and kneaded thoroughly and combined all the ingredients well. Divided the mixture into eight portions and placed each portion on a banana leaf and wrapped entirely to seal and wrapped a second banana leaf around it and secured well.
Dug a suitable hole in the ground in which all the wrapped dough pieces could be placed neatly. Placed coconut fibres and coconut shells and burned them in the dug hole and removed the charcoals.
Placed banana leaves within the hole and placed the wrapped dough in the heated hole and placed neatly one against another.
Covered the dough parcels placed in the hole with another large piece of banana leaf and covered the leaf with two-inch white sand. Placed the charcoals and coconut fibres and coconut shells over it and burned the coconut fibres and shells for half an hour.
Left the cooked kubus parcels overnight in the hole. In the morning scraped off the burnt ashes and charcoals aside and the sand covering the banana leaf and slowly lifted the wrapped kubus parcels.
Hukkaru
Made of coconut palm syrup by boiling the syrup over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it starts to thicken. Removed from heat and whisked until frothy and cooled.
Huni Folhi
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut – semi-hard (grated), coconut palm syrup by cooking all the ingredients over a moderate heat in a thick-bottomed pan stirring continuously.
When the mixture starts to come loose from the side of the pan removed from heat and taken a tablespoonful of the cooked mixture, spread on a cork wood leaf. Smoked and dried the leaves spread with the sweet over the fireplace.
Karukuri Banbukeyo
Made of fried bread fruit (crushed coarsely), coconut palm syrup, jasmine water by bringing the syrup and the jasmine water to boil and cooked it over a moderate heat until it comes to ribbon stage. Added in the crushed breadfruit into the sugar and coated well. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and kept in an airtight container.
Karukuri Ala
Made of fried taro (crushed coarsely), coconut palm syrup and jasmine water by boiling the syrup and the jasmine water and cooked it over a moderate heat until it comes to ribbon stage. Added in the crushed taro in to the sugar and coated well. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and kept in an airtight container.
Kulhi Bis Fathafolhi
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut (grated), Rihaakuru, Rihaakuru Bondi (blended), eggs, onion (sliced thinly), curry leaves (chopped), cherry pepper, juice of two limes, ginger, salt to season and oil by crushing the onion, curry leaves, cherry pepper, ginger with salt. Added and mixed the rice flour and coconut to make sandy texture. Formed a bay in the center of the rice mixture and add in the eggs and Rihaakuru and Rihaakuru Bondi. Mixed/kneaded the dough and divided the dough into 15 gram balls. Spread each ball to about ¼ inch thickness. Cut using a round cutter of 3 – inch diameter and pre-heated oil.
Meeraa
Made of coconut sap (collected at noon) by boiling the sap over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it comes to ribbon stage. Removed from heat, greased a large tray and taken a spoonful of the cooked thickened syrup and placed it over the greased sheet in strings.
Thela Kubus
Made of Patna Rice flour, coconut palm syrup, eggs and coconut oil by whisking the egg and the syrup and added in the rice flour and beaten further. Poured a table spoonful of the mixture into the oil and deep-fried until golden.
Thelli Keyo
Made of plantain (peeled and cut length-wise) and oil by frying the bananas until crisped. Drained on absorbent kitchen paper and kept airtight container.
Veli Hakuru
Made of coconut palm syrup by boiling the syrup over a moderate heat and cooked by stirring continuously until it starts to crystallise. Removed from heat, allowed cooling and put into jars and seal well.
Other Cuisines Regularly Cooked
Falhoa Aurus
Naaroh Faludha
Fuppi Baiy
Gerhi Banbukeyo
Gerhi Kattala
Kaliyaa Kuri Kattala
Varukuri Baiy
Communities
Maldivian names
A generation ago, most Maldivian people were not commonly known by their birth names. Instead they were called by an alternative name such as Dohuttu, Lahuttu, Tutteedi, Kudamaniku, or Don Goma. The rationale behind this practice was that if the evil spirits did not know one's real name, one would be free from their spells. However ancient Maldivian naming system is similar to that of Gujaratis and Marathas. Even now some people follow that system. For example, the first name of historian Mohamed Ibrahim Lutfy is "Mohamed;" "Ibrahim" is his father's name, and "Lutfy" is the family name.
Frequent Maldivian family names include Bee, Beefan, Boo, Didi, Fan, Fulhu, Kader, Kalaminja, Kalinga, Kalo, Kavah, Kavya, Koi, Koya, Manik, Manika, Manike, Manikfan, Naha, Raha, Rana, Tarkan, Thakhan, Thakur, Thakurfan, Veer.
See also
Maldivian folklore
Minicoy
Giraavaru people
References
Further reading
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
External links
Maldives Ethnography, by Xavier Romero-Frias
A Guide to Mahl Language, Minicoy
Clarence Maloney, his vision, his work and the ancient underlying cultural influences in the Maldives
01
Ethnic groups in the Indian Ocean
Indo-Aryan peoples
Ethnic groups in India
Ethnic groups in Sri Lanka
| true |
[
"In logic and mathematics, relation construction and relational constructibility have to do with the ways that one relation is determined by an indexed family or a sequence of other relations, called the relation dataset. The relation in the focus of consideration is called the faciendum. The relation dataset typically consists of a specified relation over sets of relations, called the constructor, the factor, or the method of construction, plus a specified set of other relations, called the faciens, the ingredients, or the makings.\n\nRelation composition and relation reduction are special cases of relation constructions.\n\nSee also\n Projection\n Relation\n Relation composition\n Relation reduction\n\nMathematical relations",
"Bradley's Regress is a philosophical problem concerning the nature of relations. It is named after F. H. Bradley who discussed the problem in his 1893 book Appearance and Reality. It bears a close kinship to the issue of the unity of the proposition.\n\nDescription\n\nBradley raises the problem while discussing the bundle theory of objects, according to which an object is merely a \"bundle\" of properties. This theory raises the question of how the various properties that together comprise an object are related when they in fact comprise an object. More generally, the question that arises is what has to be the case for any two things to be related. Bradley's Regress appears to show that the notion of two things being related generates an infinite regress.\n\nSuppose, for example, that a respects b. This state of affairs seems to involve three things: a, b, and the relation of respecting. For the state of affairs of a respecting b to obtain, it doesn't, however, suffice that these three things (a, b, and the relation of respecting) exist. They must also be related in some way. What is required, we might say, is that a and b \"stand in\" the relation of respecting. But now we seem to have another state of affairs: the state of affairs of a and b standing in the relation of respecting. This state of affairs in turn seems to involve four things: a, b, the relation of respecting, and the relation of standing in. Again, however, for it to be the case that a and b stand in the relation of respecting, it doesn't suffice that these four items exist. They must also be related in some way. What is required, we might now say, is that a, b, and the relation of respecting stand in the relation of standing in. And so on, ad infinitum.\n\nResponses \n\nIn Appearance and Reality, Bradley seems to conclude that the regress should lead us to abandon the idea that relations are \"independently real\". One way to take this suggestion is as recommending that in the case of a respecting b, we are dealing with a state of affairs that has only two constituents: a and b. It does not, in addition, involve a third item, \"the relation of respecting\", to which a and b must then bear some further relation (\"standing in\").\n\nA different option is to accept that the regress is real, but to deny that it is a vicious regress.\n\nA third option, taken by P.F. Strawson and Gustav Bergmann, is to deny the proposition that instantiation is a relation. Gottlob Frege went even further by rejecting instantiation altogether. William F. Vallicella criticized both options; according to Vallicella, both options fail because they cannot explain why objects and properties are connected.\n\nMichael Della Rocca uses a version of Bradley's regress to argue in favor of strict monism, which denies that relations or distinctions are intelligible. On his view, \"if we are to retain the notion of substance or being at all, then, instead of individuated, differentiated substances or beings, we should accept only undifferentiated substance or being that stands in no relations of distinction, either internal or external. There is simply substance or being. Similarly, there is simply action, there is simply knowledge, there is simply meaning. And, of course, there is no distinction between being, action, knowledge, and meaning.\"\n\nSee also \n Unity of the proposition\n Third man argument\n Fact\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy supplement on Bradley's Regress\nThe 1893 edition of Bradley's Appearance and Reality on Google Books\n\nPhilosophical problems\nConcepts in metaphysics"
] |
[
"As I Lay Dying (band)",
"Formation and first releases (2000-2004)"
] |
C_b80aaf83bab441d7a0195048d6a09917_1
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Where did the band's fifth record stream?
| 1 |
Where did As I Lay Dying's fifth record stream?
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As I Lay Dying (band)
|
After leaving the band Society's Finest, in which he played guitar, vocalist Tim Lambesis formed As I Lay Dying in 2000. Starting out as a duet with drummer Jordan Mancino, they first met as a band in February 2001. They both were in the hardcore punk band Point of Recognition. The band's name came from the novel of the same name by William Faulkner that was published in 1930; although the band's lyrics and music are not directly inspired by the novel. Shortly after the band's formation, Pluto Records offered As I Lay Dying a recording contract and, after accepting the offer, the band entered the studio one month later to record their first album Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, released in June 2001. The band then recorded five songs for a split album, again through Pluto Records, with San Diego post-hardcore band American Tragedy. As I Lay Dying realized it needed to expand to a five-piece band to include another guitarist and a bass guitarist. Mancino commented "we started going on tour and we needed obviously more people than that." As Lambesis and Mancino were the only permanent members, the band recruited friends to perform with them and subsequently underwent several lineup changes: bass guitarist Noah Chase departed in 2001, while Brandon Hays, and his subsequent replacement Aaron Kennedy, departed in 2003. During early 2003, when As I Lay Dying's Pluto Records contract expired, the band pursued deals with other record labels. After extensive touring and an increase in popularity, As I Lay Dying was offered a record deal with Metal Blade Records in March 2003. In July 2003, the band's second studio album Frail Words Collapse was released. Produced by Lambesis, the album peaked at No. 30 on Billboard's Independent Albums chart and No. 41 on the Top Heatseekers chart. William York of Allmusic thought the band "doesn't really add anything new to the mix from a musical standpoint" with the release, while also praising it for being "solid enough and well executed" with "adequate" production. Sherwin Frias of Jesus Freak Hideout had similar sentiments and commented "As I Lay Dying didn't exactly break many boundaries in making this record", but praised that each song is "executed so well (and with such precision) that nary a song misses its target." Touring then occurred to promote the album, with support from bands Himsa, Shadows Fall, The Black Dahlia Murder, Killswitch Engage, In Flames, Sworn Enemy, and Hatebreed. Music videos for the songs "94 Hours" and "Forever" received rotation on networks such as Fuse and MTV2's Headbanger's Ball. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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As I Lay Dying is an American metalcore band from San Diego, California. Founded in 2000 by vocalist Tim Lambesis, the band's first full lineup (including Lambesis' Point of Recognition bandmate Jordan Mancino) was completed in 2001. The band has released seven albums, one split album, and two compilation albums.
As I Lay Dying's fourth studio album An Ocean Between Us peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, and No. 1 on the Top Rock chart. The band has performed at events such as Wacken Open Air, With Full Force, Soundwave Festival, Warped Tour, Bloodstock Open Air and Taste of Chaos. In 2007, As I Lay Dying won the "Ultimate Metal God" award from MTV2 at the first annual "All That Rocks" special; was named "Artist of the Year" at the San Diego Music Awards in 2005, 2007 and 2008; and was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for the song "Nothing Left." Their fifth studio album The Powerless Rise was written over a three-year period, and was released in May 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. Their last studio album before their hiatus, Awakened, was released on September 25, 2012.
The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2014 when Lambesis was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison for soliciting the murder of his estranged wife. The remaining members formed Wovenwar with vocalist Shane Blay.
In 2018, Lambesis reunited with Hipa, Sgrosso, Mancino and Gilbert. On June 8, 2018, the band released the song "My Own Grave", their first recording in six years. They released their seventh studio album, Shaped by Fire, on September 20, 2019.
History
Formation and first releases (2000–2004)
After leaving the band Society's Finest, in which he played guitar, vocalist Tim Lambesis formed As I Lay Dying in 2000. Starting out as a duet with drummer Jordan Mancino, they first met as a band in February 2001. They both were in the hardcore punk band Point of Recognition. The band's name came from the novel of the same name by William Faulkner that was published in 1930; although the band's lyrics and music are not directly inspired by the novel.
Shortly after the band's formation, Pluto Records offered As I Lay Dying a recording contract and, after accepting the offer, the band entered the studio one month later to record their first album Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, released in June 2001. The band then recorded five songs for a split album, again through Pluto Records, with San Diego post-hardcore band American Tragedy.
As I Lay Dying realized it needed to expand to a five-piece band to include another guitarist and a bass guitarist. Mancino commented "we started going on tour and we needed obviously more people than that." As Lambesis and Mancino were the only permanent members, the band recruited friends to perform with them and subsequently underwent several lineup changes: bass guitarist Noah Chase departed in 2001, while Brandon Hays, and his subsequent replacement Aaron Kennedy, departed in 2003. During early 2003, when As I Lay Dying's Pluto Records contract expired, the band pursued deals with other record labels. After extensive touring and an increase in popularity, As I Lay Dying was offered a record deal with Metal Blade Records in March 2003.
In July 2003, the band's second studio album Frail Words Collapse was released. Produced by Lambesis, the album peaked at No. 30 on Billboards Independent Albums chart and No. 41 on the Top Heatseekers chart. William York of Allmusic thought the band "doesn't really add anything new to the mix from a musical standpoint" with the release, while also praising it for being "solid enough and well executed" with "adequate" production. Sherwin Frias of Jesus Freak Hideout had similar sentiments and commented "As I Lay Dying didn't exactly break many boundaries in making this record", but praised that each song is "executed so well (and with such precision) that nary a song misses its target." Touring then occurred to promote the album, with support from bands Himsa, Shadows Fall, The Black Dahlia Murder, Killswitch Engage, In Flames, Sworn Enemy, and Hatebreed. Music videos for the songs "94 Hours" and "Forever" received rotation on networks such as Fuse and MTV2's Headbangers Ball.
Success (2005–2009)
As I Lay Dying entered Big Fish recording studio in Encinitas, California, US in January 2005 to record their third studio album. Shadows Are Security was released in June of the same year and debuted at No. 1 on the Independent Albums chart. It was also the band's first release to enter the Billboard 200—at No. 35—and sold about 275,000 copies. Wade Kergan of AllMusic called it "one of the strongest releases of 2005," and commented that new guitarists Phil Sgrosso and Nick Hipa make the band "stronger." Rod Smith of Decibel Magazine commented: "Tim Lambesis's finely honed roar in bittersweet instrumental matrices augmented by occasional clean vocals by bass guitarist Clint Norris. Guitarists Phil Sgrosso and Nick Hipa whip up a melodic cyclone on 'The Darkest Nights'." By this time, guitarist Evan White had quit the band for personal reasons after his mother died. All the singing was done by Dave Arthur of Kings to You, because it sounded more powerful in the studio in comparison to Clint Norris's singing.
As I Lay Dying began touring to promote the new record by making appearances at Hell on Earth, Winter Headline Tour, and Ozzfest, as well as a tour with Slipknot and Unearth. The band was on the second stage alongside Rob Zombie, Killswitch Engage, Mastodon, The Haunted, and It Dies Today. The band raised its profile in 2006 through its support slot on the Taste of Chaos tour in the US, alongside bands such as Deftones, Thrice, Dredg, Funeral for a Friend, and Story of the Year. In May 2006, Beneath the Encasing of Ashes and the songs from the split album were re-released through Metal Blade Records as A Long March: The First Recordings. The album contained the original and re-recorded versions of the songs from the split album—the band preferred to re-release the material, as they didn't want their fans paying large sums of money to listen to early releases. The re-release peaked at No. 3 on the Independent Albums chart and No. 129 on the Billboard 200 chart. In mid-2006, As I Lay Dying was the headline act at the Sounds of the Underground Festival.
Norris left the band on good terms in November 2006 with a desire to focus on his marriage. The band auditioned ten bass guitarists, but none proved successful. Lambesis received demo tapes from a band called This Endearing, of which bass guitarists Josh Gilbert was a member; however, Lambesis chose to "sit on it" and waited for the band to record more material. This Endearing subsequently disbanded and Gilbert was recruited as As I Lay Dying's new bass guitarist.
In 2007 As I Lay Dying started recording a new album titled An Ocean Between Us, which was released on August 21, 2007. Debuting at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Rock chart, with first-week sales of 39,000 units, the album was the highest charting release for the band.
Co-produced by Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz and As I Lay Dying, and mixed by Colin Richardson, the album received generally positive reviews. Christa L. Titus of Billboard commented: "Whatever the differences between As I Lay Dying's personal desires and what its fans demand, this album surely acts as a bridge," praising the song "Comfort Betrays" for its guitar solo. Scott Alisoglu of Blabbermouth.net described the album as "a well-rounded and often thrashy metalcore album, as the band has struck an effective balance between aggression and accessible melodies." Thom Jurek of Allmusic praised the band for expanding its musical range by including melodic singing and choruses, as they had previously done on "Confined" from Shadows Are Security. It was the first time that bass guitarist Gilbert recorded a studio album with the band.
To promote the album, As I Lay Dying performed at the Warped Tour 2007 in August, and toured through Europe in September with Darkest Hour, Himsa, and Maroon. The band was awarded the title "Ultimate Metal God" by MTV2's "All That Rocks" special, and was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Metal Performance" for the song "Nothing Left". The other Grammy Award nominees included winner Slayer, King Diamond, Machine Head, and Shadows Fall. The band played a portion of the 2008 Warped Tour, as well as the Taste of Chaos UK 2008 Tour with headliners Atreyu.
On April 9, 2009, the DVD This Is Who We Are was released in Europe, and was released in the US on April 14, 2009. The DVD was certified Gold in the US almost a month after its release.
The Powerless Rise and Decas (2010–2011)
After recording through 2009, the band's fifth record The Powerless Rise was streamed on the MySpace Music website on May 7, 2010 up until May 10, 2010. The album was officially released on May 11, 2010 and received generally positive critical acclaim, with one critic saying: "Fans of metalcore in general, and As I Lay Dying in particular, will be more than satisfied with The Powerless Rise, as the band's gradual progression and consistency makes this their best album."
In 2010 the band toured in support of The Powerless Rise, headlining the majority of their shows. In the first half of the year, the band embarked on a US tour with Demon Hunter, blessthefall, and War of Ages. This was followed by a mid-2010 headlining tour titled "The Cool Tour" across the US, and a headlining tour across US/Canada that also featured All That Remains, Unearth, and Carnifex. The band's final headline tour of the year was in Europe, with Heaven Shall Burn, Suicide Silence, and Sylosis.
In February 2011, the band headlined a US tour with support from Winds of Plague and After the Burial. The band then toured in late April/early May with Trivium, in support of Disturbed, on the "Music as a Weapon" tour in Australia and New Zealand. Then at the end of May and beginning of June, the band headlined a few performances with Heaven Shall Burn.
On November 8, 2011, As I Lay Dying released a compilation, Decas, in honor of the band's ten-year anniversary. The album featured three new, original songs; four cover versions of songs by bands such as Slayer, Judas Priest and Descendents; a re-recorded medley that uses parts of several songs taken from Beneath the Encasing of Ashes; and four remixes, consisting of one song from each of their albums since Frail Words Collapse. The album's first track "Paralyzed" was released as a lyric video on September 13, 2011, and as a free download on iTunes on November 7, the day before the album's release. The band embarked on the "A Decade of Destruction" tour, coinciding with the release of the album, from November to December 2011.
Awakened, Tim Lambesis' trial and hiatus (2012–2016)
On January 25, 2012, an announcement revealed that the band would be playing the Mayhem Festival of 2012 with Slipknot, Slayer, Motörhead, Anthrax, The Devil Wears Prada, Asking Alexandria, Whitechapel, Upon A Burning Body, I, the Breather, Betraying the Martyrs, and Dirtfedd. The band announced in April 2012 that Bill Stevenson, who had previously worked with NOFX and Rise Against, would be the producer for their sixth album.
On June 22, 2012, the band announced that their sixth album would be titled Awakened and the first single "Cauterize" was released on June 25, 2012. On September 12, 2012, As I Lay Dying released their second single "A Greater Foundation" with a corresponding music video. The album was released on September 25, 2012 and "Cauterize" was available on the band's website as a free download for a 24-hour period. As I Lay Dying won the "Metal Band of the Year" award from Loudwire in 2012, beating other well-known bands, including Anthrax and Lamb of God. Subsequently, prior to his criminal charges, Lambesis started a new band entitled Pyrithion with guitarist Ryan Glisan, formerly of Allegaeon. They released one EP as a band.
On May 7, 2013, Lambesis was arrested in Oceanside, California, US after hiring an undercover detective to kill his estranged wife. The report was made by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, leaving the future of the band uncertain. On the following day, the band released a statement in which they said: "The legal process is taking its course and we have no more information than you do. There are many unanswered questions, and the situation will become clearer in the coming days and weeks. We'll keep you informed as best we can." They also stated that their thoughts were "with Tim, his family, and with everyone else affected by this terrible situation." Eight days later, the band cancelled their mid-2013 tour with Killswitch Engage, stating that "we feel that it is best for the band to be off the road while the current situation gets sorted". During the month of his initial arrest, Lambesis pleaded "not guilty" and his lawyer stated: "His thought processes were devastatingly affected by his steroid use." On February 25, 2014 Lambesis changed his plea from "not guilty" to "guilty" and consequently faced a potential sentence of nine years in prison.
Rather than continue on without Lambesis, Mancino, along with former members Phil Sgrosso, Nick Hipa, and Josh Gilbert, decided to focus on a different style of music under a different band name, Wovenwar, with Shane Blay as the vocalist, This project took shape long before Lambesis' plea. although Mancino still remained a member of As I Lay Dying. During this period of time, Lambesis was also working on music and found time to release the third Austrian Death Machine album, titled Triple Brutal.
On May 16, 2014, Lambesis was sentenced to six years in prison, with 48 days credit for time served.
Lambesis' release, reunion and new music (2016–2018)
Lambesis was released from prison on probation in December 2016. After his release he began reaching out to the other members of the band looking to apologize in person starting with Mancino and Gilbert. After months of silence Gilbert and Mancino eventually met with Lambesis and began speaking with him regularly after noting positive changes in his character. Lambesis attempted to reconnect with Sgrosso and Hipa following his meetings with Gilbert and Mancino—who as a result of Lambesis' actions and the strain it put on their relationships—had stopped speaking to each other following the recording of the second Wovenwar album. Sgrosso explained in a reunion-related discussion video posted by the band on June 16, 2018 that he initially replied to all of Lambesis' emails with explicit expressions of having no desire to speak with him. Sgrosso explained that his disdain with Lambesis started well before his arrest and took relief in not having to be in a band with him anymore upon Lambesis' arrest. His relationship with Hipa deteriorated due to what both described as not being able to deal with the weight of the aftermath properly. Hipa explained that while he initially felt empathy towards Lambesis after his tearful courtroom apology—it was short lived following Lambesis' interview with Alternative Press which Hipa claimed read like "one long excuse". After Lambesis made his public apology, Sgrosso finally agreed to meet with Lambesis and claimed Lambesis evolved into a different person than he was for the years leading up to his arrest which inspired him to reach out to Hipa to rekindle their friendship. Hipa was the last to speak with Lambesis due to what Hipa described as not being able to escape the shadow of Lambesis' arrest and the mental and physical effects it took on him. After reconnecting with Sgrosso and reading Lambesis' apology—he agreed to meet with Lambesis as a means to "let go of his hatred" and claimed that Lambesis owned up and took responsibility for every one of his actions he was called on.
Over the course of the tail end of Lambesis' incarceration and release, the band's public opinion towards Lambesis softened. Mancino did an interview primarily discussing Wovenwar, but also spoke about As I Lay Dying on MetalSucks' podcast. He stated that, contrary to popular beliefs, that Hipa, Sgrosso and Gilbert are still technically a part of As I Lay Dying due to their record contract and in another interview stated that he has "no ill will" towards Lambesis and wished him well. Hipa, when on an episode of Jamey Jasta's podcast when asked about a reunion commented "what it comes down to is what makes sense with what we have going on in our lives. And we've got a lot of important things going on that don't relate to that and we've made commitments to, and that's what we are honoring at this moment. Honestly it's just not something we try and consume our thoughts with. Because it's like we have families, businesses, professions, and a band—and all these things we're super invested into. It's like all of our attention is there with that at the moment."
On September 2, 2017, Metal Injection reported that Lambesis was working on new music and planned to release it under the As I Lay Dying name and that none of the pre-hiatus lineup aside from Lambesis would be returning. This would later be proven false, as on June 8, 2018, the band released the music video for "My Own Grave", confirming through the video that the lineup of Lambesis, Hipa, Sgrosso, Gilbert and Mancino had reunited. They performed their first show—which sold out in four minutes—in five years at the SOMA Sidestage in their hometown of San Diego. The band has stated the single was their first and only song written since their formal reunion in February 2018 and had no concrete plans past releasing the single and playing the SOMA show.
The news of their reunion drew particularly divisive reactions from fans and media outlets. While fan and critical reception of the band's reunion and comeback single were met largely with praise, others were openly skeptical on supporting Tim Lambesis following his prison sentence. Most notably was MetalSucks, who published an editorial that they will no longer be writing about the band with multiple outlets voicing their support for MetalSucks' decision. On June 16, 2018—the date of their comeback show at the SOMA—the band published a video on their official YouTube account addressing the questions and criticisms fans and critics of the band had and explaining the terms in detail of the reunion.
In July 2018, the band announced their first European headlining tour for December 2018. A day later, they announced their North American tour for November 2018. A vast majority of the shows sold out immediately. While tickets sold out quickly, some venues and festivals received a public backlash for booking the band because of Lambesis' crimes and decided to cancel the band's performances. Spain's Resurrection Fest announced it would be dropping As I Lay Dying from its bill in October 2018, and months later in January 2019, the Memphis, Tennessee venue Growlers cancelled their previously scheduled show in April 2019. Growlers released a statement that acknowledged Lambesis' public message from 2018, but stated: "After hearing the combined voice of disheartened friends, local bands, and patrons, locally owned concert venue and bar, Growlers, has cancelled their scheduled show with As I Lay Dying, previously set for April 5th, and will replace it with a local show to benefit victims of domestic violence [...] Not everyone was ready to give Lambesis a second chance, and Growlers has created controversy in Memphis for booking his band."
Touring, Shaped by Fire, and Nick Hipa's departure (2019–present)
They embarked on a tour in March 2019 with Phinehas, Currents and Frost Koffin as support. On April 12, 2019, the band released a music video for "Redefined", including a guest appearance by August Burns Red frontman Jake Luhrs. On April 14, the band announced the "Shaped by Fire" tour of Europe with support from Chelsea Grin, Unearth and Fit for a King running from September 2019 and concluding in October. On July 15, the band announced the North American dates of the "Shaped by Fire" Tour with direct support from After the Burial and Emmure to begin on November 15 at the House of Blues in Las Vegas and conclude on December 14 with a hometown show at the Soma San Diego. Details of their forthcoming album, Shaped by Fire, were leaked through Nuclear Blast's European website with a projected release date of September 20, 2019. On August 9, the band officially announced their first album in seven years, Shaped by Fire, would be released through Nuclear Blast Records, along with releasing the album's title track. On September 13, the band released "Blinded" as the album's fourth single along with an accompanying music video.
In March 2020, as a way of supporting their crew during the COVID-19 pandemic, they released an additional song, "Destruction or Strength", a B-side from Shaped by Fire album sessions. In May 2020, another music video for the song "Torn Between" was released.
On August 15, it was reported that Nick Hipa might have left the band, as he no longer performed with them and disassociated his personal social media accounts with the band. Hipa officially confirmed his departure one year later on August 31, 2021, noting that behaviors resulting from being in the band led to his decision to leave it: "There is tremendous good that can be accomplished through singular focus on the power of music. However to my memory and recent experience, it comes at the cost of tolerating behavior which at times mistreats, disrespects, and hurts other people." He further elaborated that the power and reasoning behind As I Lay Dying's reunion had faded in favor of superficial pursuits, which he did not wish to be a part of.
On September 24, 2021, the band unveiled a new single, "Roots Below".
Musical style and influences
As I Lay Dying is considered a prominent metalcore band. The band also has been referred to as Christian metal, death metal, and thrash metal. As I Lay Dying's music uses lots of elements of melodic death metal. In a review of Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, Bradley Torreano of AllMusic described the band's sound as a blend of heavy metal, hardcore, and grindcore. Heavy metal writer Garry Sharpe-Young described the band as a "Christian Hardcore act employing the Grind edged vocals of singer Tim Lambesis and a distinct hint of Scandinavian guitar chug." As I Lay Dying's influences include In Flames, Living Sacrifice, Iron Maiden, Slayer, At the Gates, Pantera, Megadeth, Fear Factory, Cannibal Corpse, Thin Lizzy, Shai Hulud, Dark Tranquillity, Metallica, Judas Priest, and Earth Crisis.
Christianity
Although As I Lay Dying has stated on numerous occasions that all of the members of the group are practicing Christians, the band is usually described by media as being in the metalcore genre, not Christian metal. The band's lyrics do not focus on Christian themes the way many praise music bands do, nor do they treat their music as a direct extension of their private Christian worship or proselytizing efforts. For example, not once do the names God or Jesus appear in any As I Lay Dying song, nor do any of their songs explicitly invoke Christian doctrine or quote the Bible. Most songs tend to address broader spiritual concepts like existential angst or the struggle between reason and spirituality.
Lyricist and lead singer Tim Lambesis has given mixed commentary on the subject: asked in 2008 if the members were "a Christian band" or "Christians in a band", Lambesis stated on the band's FAQ, "I'm not sure what the difference is between five Christians playing in a band and a Christian band, if you truly believe something, then it should affect every area of your life. All five of us are Christians. I believe that change should start with me first, and as a result, our lyrics do not come across very 'preachy.' Many of our songs are about life, struggles, mistakes, relationships and other issues that don't fit entirely in the spiritual category. However, all of these topics are written about through my perspective as a Christian." Furthermore, during an August 2010 radio interview on the Christian metal radio show The Full Armor of God Broadcast, Lambesis stated "I can only really write about what I'm passionate about in life, so naturally my faith, my belief in the teachings of Jesus and His resurrection come across in our lyrics."
However, in later years, Lambesis showed an increasing philosophical skepticism towards Christianity and religion in general. Court documents stated Lambesis emailed his wife Meggan in August 2012, while on tour with As I Lay Dying, asking for a divorce and stating he "no longer believed in God". In explaining some of the lyrics from Awakened, Lambesis stated on his personal Tumblr account that his studies of theology had led him to the conclusion that "tradition and truth are often at odds with each other", and while he "didn't hate all religious belief", he was finding it "very difficult for [him] to outline exactly who it is that's worth siding with." He also quoted the book Pagan Christianity by George Barna and Frank Viola, claiming that both "Protestant and Catholic denominations have poisonous roots". While on house arrest in July 2013, after being charged with soliciting his wife's murder, Lambesis published a blog post in which he obliquely confirmed his previous loss of faith in Christianity. In 2014, Lambesis said that although they were marketed as a Christian band, the members privately considered themselves atheists. Following this statement, guitarist Nick Hipa responded by calling these claims slanderous and defamatory. However, since his arrest it has been reported that Lambesis, in an April 2014 statement by the band, "[...] has spent much of the last year reevaluating what originally convinced him to abandon belief in God. After much brokenness and repentance he sees things differently, considers himself a follower of Jesus, someone submitted to the will of God, or whatever you want to call it. That's for him to talk about when he's comfortable and only time will tell if he is sincere."
Members
Current
Tim Lambesis – unclean vocals, occasional clean vocals (2000–2014, 2017–present)
Jordan Mancino – drums (2000–2014, 2018–present)
Phil Sgrosso – guitars, backing vocals (2003–2014, 2018–present)
Josh Gilbert – bass, clean vocals (2006–2014, 2018–present)
Former
Nick Hipa – guitars, backing vocals (2003–2014, 2018–2020)
Clint Norris – bass, clean vocals (2003–2006)
Evan White – guitars (2001–2003), bass (2002–2003)
Jeremy Rojas – guitars (2001)
Jon Jameson – bass (2001)
Noah Chase – bass (2001, 2002, 2003)
Tommy Garcia – guitars, bass, backing vocals (2002–2003; session member 2003–2010)
Jason Krebs – guitars (2002–2003)
Brandon Hays – bass, guitars (2002–2003)
Aaron Kennedy – bass (2003)
Touring musicians
Chad Ackerman – guitars (2001–2002), backing vocals (session, 2007)
Caylen Denuccio – bass (2002–2003)
Chris Lindstrom – guitars (2001, 2003)
Mark Macdonald – guitars (2003–2004)
Ruben Gutierrez – guitars (2001)
David Arthur – clean vocals (2005)
Justin Foley – drums (2009)
Joey Bradford – backing vocals (2012)
Duane Reed – backing vocals (2007)
Timeline
Discography
Beneath the Encasing of Ashes (2001)
Frail Words Collapse (2003)
Shadows Are Security (2005)
An Ocean Between Us (2007)
The Powerless Rise (2010)
Awakened (2012)
Shaped by Fire (2019)
Awards and nominations
San Diego Music Awards
Artist of the Year (2005)
Artist of the Year (2007)
Artist of the Year (2008)
Best Hard Rock (2011)
Grammy Awards
Nominated for 2008 Best Metal Performance for the song "Nothing Left"
MTV2 Music Awards
Ultimate Metal God (2007)
Hollywood Film Fest awards
Best Music Video for "The Sound of Truth" music video
Loudwire Music Awards
Metal Band of the Year (2012)
References
External links
American metalcore musical groups
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Musical groups from San Diego
Musical quintets
2000 establishments in California
Musical groups established in 2000
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Metal Blade Records artists
Articles which contain graphical timelines
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"One Records is a Scottish record label.\n\nCurrent artists \n El Presidente a Scottish glam-rock band fronted by Dante Gizzi. \n We Are The Physics a Scottish indie band. \n Xcerts a Scottish pop/rock band.\n\nPast artists \n Matchsticks a pop/electro band from Glasgow. \n Fickle Public a Glasgow indie band. \n Drive-by Argument\n Ludovico\n\nSee also\n List of record labels\n\nExternal links \n One Records | Listen and Stream Free Music, Albums, New Releases, Photos, Videos\n ELPresidenteMusic – *ELPresidenteMusic* *MusicProduction Cologne*\n THE XCERTS | Listen and Stream Free Music, Albums, New Releases, Photos, Videos\n Matchsticks R.I.P. | Listen and Stream Free Music, Albums, New Releases, Photos, Videos\n driveĎy argument\n\nScottish record labels\nIndie rock record labels\nAlternative rock record labels",
"Ordeal is the fifth album by the Finnish funeral doom band Skepticism.\n\nHistory\nThe album was released through Svart Records in May 2015. It was recorded live in front of an actual audience on January 24, 2015 in Turku, Finland. The band performed six new songs and two older ones (\"Pouring\" and \"The March and the Stream\").\n\nTrack listing\n \"You\" – 9:21\n \"Momentary\" – 7:42 \n \"The Departure\" – 9:53\n \"March Incomplete\" – 12:00\n \"The Road\" – 6:58\n \"Closing Music\" – 10:20\n \"Pouring\" – 9:03\n \"The March and the Stream\" – 12:27\n\nPersonnel\nSecond guitarist was introduced in the concert. It was the first change in the band's Personnel since 1995.\n\nMatti Tilaeus - vocals\nJani Kekarainen - guitars\nTimo Sitomaniemi - guitars\nEero Pöyry - keyboards\nLasse Pelkonen - drums\n\nReferences\n\n2015 albums\nSkepticism (band) albums"
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"As I Lay Dying (band)",
"Formation and first releases (2000-2004)",
"Where did the band's fifth record stream?",
"I don't know."
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What was the name of one of their songs?
| 2 |
What was the name of one of As I Lay Dying's songs?
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As I Lay Dying (band)
|
After leaving the band Society's Finest, in which he played guitar, vocalist Tim Lambesis formed As I Lay Dying in 2000. Starting out as a duet with drummer Jordan Mancino, they first met as a band in February 2001. They both were in the hardcore punk band Point of Recognition. The band's name came from the novel of the same name by William Faulkner that was published in 1930; although the band's lyrics and music are not directly inspired by the novel. Shortly after the band's formation, Pluto Records offered As I Lay Dying a recording contract and, after accepting the offer, the band entered the studio one month later to record their first album Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, released in June 2001. The band then recorded five songs for a split album, again through Pluto Records, with San Diego post-hardcore band American Tragedy. As I Lay Dying realized it needed to expand to a five-piece band to include another guitarist and a bass guitarist. Mancino commented "we started going on tour and we needed obviously more people than that." As Lambesis and Mancino were the only permanent members, the band recruited friends to perform with them and subsequently underwent several lineup changes: bass guitarist Noah Chase departed in 2001, while Brandon Hays, and his subsequent replacement Aaron Kennedy, departed in 2003. During early 2003, when As I Lay Dying's Pluto Records contract expired, the band pursued deals with other record labels. After extensive touring and an increase in popularity, As I Lay Dying was offered a record deal with Metal Blade Records in March 2003. In July 2003, the band's second studio album Frail Words Collapse was released. Produced by Lambesis, the album peaked at No. 30 on Billboard's Independent Albums chart and No. 41 on the Top Heatseekers chart. William York of Allmusic thought the band "doesn't really add anything new to the mix from a musical standpoint" with the release, while also praising it for being "solid enough and well executed" with "adequate" production. Sherwin Frias of Jesus Freak Hideout had similar sentiments and commented "As I Lay Dying didn't exactly break many boundaries in making this record", but praised that each song is "executed so well (and with such precision) that nary a song misses its target." Touring then occurred to promote the album, with support from bands Himsa, Shadows Fall, The Black Dahlia Murder, Killswitch Engage, In Flames, Sworn Enemy, and Hatebreed. Music videos for the songs "94 Hours" and "Forever" received rotation on networks such as Fuse and MTV2's Headbanger's Ball. CANNOTANSWER
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"94 Hours" and "Forever"
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As I Lay Dying is an American metalcore band from San Diego, California. Founded in 2000 by vocalist Tim Lambesis, the band's first full lineup (including Lambesis' Point of Recognition bandmate Jordan Mancino) was completed in 2001. The band has released seven albums, one split album, and two compilation albums.
As I Lay Dying's fourth studio album An Ocean Between Us peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, and No. 1 on the Top Rock chart. The band has performed at events such as Wacken Open Air, With Full Force, Soundwave Festival, Warped Tour, Bloodstock Open Air and Taste of Chaos. In 2007, As I Lay Dying won the "Ultimate Metal God" award from MTV2 at the first annual "All That Rocks" special; was named "Artist of the Year" at the San Diego Music Awards in 2005, 2007 and 2008; and was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for the song "Nothing Left." Their fifth studio album The Powerless Rise was written over a three-year period, and was released in May 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. Their last studio album before their hiatus, Awakened, was released on September 25, 2012.
The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2014 when Lambesis was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison for soliciting the murder of his estranged wife. The remaining members formed Wovenwar with vocalist Shane Blay.
In 2018, Lambesis reunited with Hipa, Sgrosso, Mancino and Gilbert. On June 8, 2018, the band released the song "My Own Grave", their first recording in six years. They released their seventh studio album, Shaped by Fire, on September 20, 2019.
History
Formation and first releases (2000–2004)
After leaving the band Society's Finest, in which he played guitar, vocalist Tim Lambesis formed As I Lay Dying in 2000. Starting out as a duet with drummer Jordan Mancino, they first met as a band in February 2001. They both were in the hardcore punk band Point of Recognition. The band's name came from the novel of the same name by William Faulkner that was published in 1930; although the band's lyrics and music are not directly inspired by the novel.
Shortly after the band's formation, Pluto Records offered As I Lay Dying a recording contract and, after accepting the offer, the band entered the studio one month later to record their first album Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, released in June 2001. The band then recorded five songs for a split album, again through Pluto Records, with San Diego post-hardcore band American Tragedy.
As I Lay Dying realized it needed to expand to a five-piece band to include another guitarist and a bass guitarist. Mancino commented "we started going on tour and we needed obviously more people than that." As Lambesis and Mancino were the only permanent members, the band recruited friends to perform with them and subsequently underwent several lineup changes: bass guitarist Noah Chase departed in 2001, while Brandon Hays, and his subsequent replacement Aaron Kennedy, departed in 2003. During early 2003, when As I Lay Dying's Pluto Records contract expired, the band pursued deals with other record labels. After extensive touring and an increase in popularity, As I Lay Dying was offered a record deal with Metal Blade Records in March 2003.
In July 2003, the band's second studio album Frail Words Collapse was released. Produced by Lambesis, the album peaked at No. 30 on Billboards Independent Albums chart and No. 41 on the Top Heatseekers chart. William York of Allmusic thought the band "doesn't really add anything new to the mix from a musical standpoint" with the release, while also praising it for being "solid enough and well executed" with "adequate" production. Sherwin Frias of Jesus Freak Hideout had similar sentiments and commented "As I Lay Dying didn't exactly break many boundaries in making this record", but praised that each song is "executed so well (and with such precision) that nary a song misses its target." Touring then occurred to promote the album, with support from bands Himsa, Shadows Fall, The Black Dahlia Murder, Killswitch Engage, In Flames, Sworn Enemy, and Hatebreed. Music videos for the songs "94 Hours" and "Forever" received rotation on networks such as Fuse and MTV2's Headbangers Ball.
Success (2005–2009)
As I Lay Dying entered Big Fish recording studio in Encinitas, California, US in January 2005 to record their third studio album. Shadows Are Security was released in June of the same year and debuted at No. 1 on the Independent Albums chart. It was also the band's first release to enter the Billboard 200—at No. 35—and sold about 275,000 copies. Wade Kergan of AllMusic called it "one of the strongest releases of 2005," and commented that new guitarists Phil Sgrosso and Nick Hipa make the band "stronger." Rod Smith of Decibel Magazine commented: "Tim Lambesis's finely honed roar in bittersweet instrumental matrices augmented by occasional clean vocals by bass guitarist Clint Norris. Guitarists Phil Sgrosso and Nick Hipa whip up a melodic cyclone on 'The Darkest Nights'." By this time, guitarist Evan White had quit the band for personal reasons after his mother died. All the singing was done by Dave Arthur of Kings to You, because it sounded more powerful in the studio in comparison to Clint Norris's singing.
As I Lay Dying began touring to promote the new record by making appearances at Hell on Earth, Winter Headline Tour, and Ozzfest, as well as a tour with Slipknot and Unearth. The band was on the second stage alongside Rob Zombie, Killswitch Engage, Mastodon, The Haunted, and It Dies Today. The band raised its profile in 2006 through its support slot on the Taste of Chaos tour in the US, alongside bands such as Deftones, Thrice, Dredg, Funeral for a Friend, and Story of the Year. In May 2006, Beneath the Encasing of Ashes and the songs from the split album were re-released through Metal Blade Records as A Long March: The First Recordings. The album contained the original and re-recorded versions of the songs from the split album—the band preferred to re-release the material, as they didn't want their fans paying large sums of money to listen to early releases. The re-release peaked at No. 3 on the Independent Albums chart and No. 129 on the Billboard 200 chart. In mid-2006, As I Lay Dying was the headline act at the Sounds of the Underground Festival.
Norris left the band on good terms in November 2006 with a desire to focus on his marriage. The band auditioned ten bass guitarists, but none proved successful. Lambesis received demo tapes from a band called This Endearing, of which bass guitarists Josh Gilbert was a member; however, Lambesis chose to "sit on it" and waited for the band to record more material. This Endearing subsequently disbanded and Gilbert was recruited as As I Lay Dying's new bass guitarist.
In 2007 As I Lay Dying started recording a new album titled An Ocean Between Us, which was released on August 21, 2007. Debuting at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Rock chart, with first-week sales of 39,000 units, the album was the highest charting release for the band.
Co-produced by Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz and As I Lay Dying, and mixed by Colin Richardson, the album received generally positive reviews. Christa L. Titus of Billboard commented: "Whatever the differences between As I Lay Dying's personal desires and what its fans demand, this album surely acts as a bridge," praising the song "Comfort Betrays" for its guitar solo. Scott Alisoglu of Blabbermouth.net described the album as "a well-rounded and often thrashy metalcore album, as the band has struck an effective balance between aggression and accessible melodies." Thom Jurek of Allmusic praised the band for expanding its musical range by including melodic singing and choruses, as they had previously done on "Confined" from Shadows Are Security. It was the first time that bass guitarist Gilbert recorded a studio album with the band.
To promote the album, As I Lay Dying performed at the Warped Tour 2007 in August, and toured through Europe in September with Darkest Hour, Himsa, and Maroon. The band was awarded the title "Ultimate Metal God" by MTV2's "All That Rocks" special, and was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Metal Performance" for the song "Nothing Left". The other Grammy Award nominees included winner Slayer, King Diamond, Machine Head, and Shadows Fall. The band played a portion of the 2008 Warped Tour, as well as the Taste of Chaos UK 2008 Tour with headliners Atreyu.
On April 9, 2009, the DVD This Is Who We Are was released in Europe, and was released in the US on April 14, 2009. The DVD was certified Gold in the US almost a month after its release.
The Powerless Rise and Decas (2010–2011)
After recording through 2009, the band's fifth record The Powerless Rise was streamed on the MySpace Music website on May 7, 2010 up until May 10, 2010. The album was officially released on May 11, 2010 and received generally positive critical acclaim, with one critic saying: "Fans of metalcore in general, and As I Lay Dying in particular, will be more than satisfied with The Powerless Rise, as the band's gradual progression and consistency makes this their best album."
In 2010 the band toured in support of The Powerless Rise, headlining the majority of their shows. In the first half of the year, the band embarked on a US tour with Demon Hunter, blessthefall, and War of Ages. This was followed by a mid-2010 headlining tour titled "The Cool Tour" across the US, and a headlining tour across US/Canada that also featured All That Remains, Unearth, and Carnifex. The band's final headline tour of the year was in Europe, with Heaven Shall Burn, Suicide Silence, and Sylosis.
In February 2011, the band headlined a US tour with support from Winds of Plague and After the Burial. The band then toured in late April/early May with Trivium, in support of Disturbed, on the "Music as a Weapon" tour in Australia and New Zealand. Then at the end of May and beginning of June, the band headlined a few performances with Heaven Shall Burn.
On November 8, 2011, As I Lay Dying released a compilation, Decas, in honor of the band's ten-year anniversary. The album featured three new, original songs; four cover versions of songs by bands such as Slayer, Judas Priest and Descendents; a re-recorded medley that uses parts of several songs taken from Beneath the Encasing of Ashes; and four remixes, consisting of one song from each of their albums since Frail Words Collapse. The album's first track "Paralyzed" was released as a lyric video on September 13, 2011, and as a free download on iTunes on November 7, the day before the album's release. The band embarked on the "A Decade of Destruction" tour, coinciding with the release of the album, from November to December 2011.
Awakened, Tim Lambesis' trial and hiatus (2012–2016)
On January 25, 2012, an announcement revealed that the band would be playing the Mayhem Festival of 2012 with Slipknot, Slayer, Motörhead, Anthrax, The Devil Wears Prada, Asking Alexandria, Whitechapel, Upon A Burning Body, I, the Breather, Betraying the Martyrs, and Dirtfedd. The band announced in April 2012 that Bill Stevenson, who had previously worked with NOFX and Rise Against, would be the producer for their sixth album.
On June 22, 2012, the band announced that their sixth album would be titled Awakened and the first single "Cauterize" was released on June 25, 2012. On September 12, 2012, As I Lay Dying released their second single "A Greater Foundation" with a corresponding music video. The album was released on September 25, 2012 and "Cauterize" was available on the band's website as a free download for a 24-hour period. As I Lay Dying won the "Metal Band of the Year" award from Loudwire in 2012, beating other well-known bands, including Anthrax and Lamb of God. Subsequently, prior to his criminal charges, Lambesis started a new band entitled Pyrithion with guitarist Ryan Glisan, formerly of Allegaeon. They released one EP as a band.
On May 7, 2013, Lambesis was arrested in Oceanside, California, US after hiring an undercover detective to kill his estranged wife. The report was made by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, leaving the future of the band uncertain. On the following day, the band released a statement in which they said: "The legal process is taking its course and we have no more information than you do. There are many unanswered questions, and the situation will become clearer in the coming days and weeks. We'll keep you informed as best we can." They also stated that their thoughts were "with Tim, his family, and with everyone else affected by this terrible situation." Eight days later, the band cancelled their mid-2013 tour with Killswitch Engage, stating that "we feel that it is best for the band to be off the road while the current situation gets sorted". During the month of his initial arrest, Lambesis pleaded "not guilty" and his lawyer stated: "His thought processes were devastatingly affected by his steroid use." On February 25, 2014 Lambesis changed his plea from "not guilty" to "guilty" and consequently faced a potential sentence of nine years in prison.
Rather than continue on without Lambesis, Mancino, along with former members Phil Sgrosso, Nick Hipa, and Josh Gilbert, decided to focus on a different style of music under a different band name, Wovenwar, with Shane Blay as the vocalist, This project took shape long before Lambesis' plea. although Mancino still remained a member of As I Lay Dying. During this period of time, Lambesis was also working on music and found time to release the third Austrian Death Machine album, titled Triple Brutal.
On May 16, 2014, Lambesis was sentenced to six years in prison, with 48 days credit for time served.
Lambesis' release, reunion and new music (2016–2018)
Lambesis was released from prison on probation in December 2016. After his release he began reaching out to the other members of the band looking to apologize in person starting with Mancino and Gilbert. After months of silence Gilbert and Mancino eventually met with Lambesis and began speaking with him regularly after noting positive changes in his character. Lambesis attempted to reconnect with Sgrosso and Hipa following his meetings with Gilbert and Mancino—who as a result of Lambesis' actions and the strain it put on their relationships—had stopped speaking to each other following the recording of the second Wovenwar album. Sgrosso explained in a reunion-related discussion video posted by the band on June 16, 2018 that he initially replied to all of Lambesis' emails with explicit expressions of having no desire to speak with him. Sgrosso explained that his disdain with Lambesis started well before his arrest and took relief in not having to be in a band with him anymore upon Lambesis' arrest. His relationship with Hipa deteriorated due to what both described as not being able to deal with the weight of the aftermath properly. Hipa explained that while he initially felt empathy towards Lambesis after his tearful courtroom apology—it was short lived following Lambesis' interview with Alternative Press which Hipa claimed read like "one long excuse". After Lambesis made his public apology, Sgrosso finally agreed to meet with Lambesis and claimed Lambesis evolved into a different person than he was for the years leading up to his arrest which inspired him to reach out to Hipa to rekindle their friendship. Hipa was the last to speak with Lambesis due to what Hipa described as not being able to escape the shadow of Lambesis' arrest and the mental and physical effects it took on him. After reconnecting with Sgrosso and reading Lambesis' apology—he agreed to meet with Lambesis as a means to "let go of his hatred" and claimed that Lambesis owned up and took responsibility for every one of his actions he was called on.
Over the course of the tail end of Lambesis' incarceration and release, the band's public opinion towards Lambesis softened. Mancino did an interview primarily discussing Wovenwar, but also spoke about As I Lay Dying on MetalSucks' podcast. He stated that, contrary to popular beliefs, that Hipa, Sgrosso and Gilbert are still technically a part of As I Lay Dying due to their record contract and in another interview stated that he has "no ill will" towards Lambesis and wished him well. Hipa, when on an episode of Jamey Jasta's podcast when asked about a reunion commented "what it comes down to is what makes sense with what we have going on in our lives. And we've got a lot of important things going on that don't relate to that and we've made commitments to, and that's what we are honoring at this moment. Honestly it's just not something we try and consume our thoughts with. Because it's like we have families, businesses, professions, and a band—and all these things we're super invested into. It's like all of our attention is there with that at the moment."
On September 2, 2017, Metal Injection reported that Lambesis was working on new music and planned to release it under the As I Lay Dying name and that none of the pre-hiatus lineup aside from Lambesis would be returning. This would later be proven false, as on June 8, 2018, the band released the music video for "My Own Grave", confirming through the video that the lineup of Lambesis, Hipa, Sgrosso, Gilbert and Mancino had reunited. They performed their first show—which sold out in four minutes—in five years at the SOMA Sidestage in their hometown of San Diego. The band has stated the single was their first and only song written since their formal reunion in February 2018 and had no concrete plans past releasing the single and playing the SOMA show.
The news of their reunion drew particularly divisive reactions from fans and media outlets. While fan and critical reception of the band's reunion and comeback single were met largely with praise, others were openly skeptical on supporting Tim Lambesis following his prison sentence. Most notably was MetalSucks, who published an editorial that they will no longer be writing about the band with multiple outlets voicing their support for MetalSucks' decision. On June 16, 2018—the date of their comeback show at the SOMA—the band published a video on their official YouTube account addressing the questions and criticisms fans and critics of the band had and explaining the terms in detail of the reunion.
In July 2018, the band announced their first European headlining tour for December 2018. A day later, they announced their North American tour for November 2018. A vast majority of the shows sold out immediately. While tickets sold out quickly, some venues and festivals received a public backlash for booking the band because of Lambesis' crimes and decided to cancel the band's performances. Spain's Resurrection Fest announced it would be dropping As I Lay Dying from its bill in October 2018, and months later in January 2019, the Memphis, Tennessee venue Growlers cancelled their previously scheduled show in April 2019. Growlers released a statement that acknowledged Lambesis' public message from 2018, but stated: "After hearing the combined voice of disheartened friends, local bands, and patrons, locally owned concert venue and bar, Growlers, has cancelled their scheduled show with As I Lay Dying, previously set for April 5th, and will replace it with a local show to benefit victims of domestic violence [...] Not everyone was ready to give Lambesis a second chance, and Growlers has created controversy in Memphis for booking his band."
Touring, Shaped by Fire, and Nick Hipa's departure (2019–present)
They embarked on a tour in March 2019 with Phinehas, Currents and Frost Koffin as support. On April 12, 2019, the band released a music video for "Redefined", including a guest appearance by August Burns Red frontman Jake Luhrs. On April 14, the band announced the "Shaped by Fire" tour of Europe with support from Chelsea Grin, Unearth and Fit for a King running from September 2019 and concluding in October. On July 15, the band announced the North American dates of the "Shaped by Fire" Tour with direct support from After the Burial and Emmure to begin on November 15 at the House of Blues in Las Vegas and conclude on December 14 with a hometown show at the Soma San Diego. Details of their forthcoming album, Shaped by Fire, were leaked through Nuclear Blast's European website with a projected release date of September 20, 2019. On August 9, the band officially announced their first album in seven years, Shaped by Fire, would be released through Nuclear Blast Records, along with releasing the album's title track. On September 13, the band released "Blinded" as the album's fourth single along with an accompanying music video.
In March 2020, as a way of supporting their crew during the COVID-19 pandemic, they released an additional song, "Destruction or Strength", a B-side from Shaped by Fire album sessions. In May 2020, another music video for the song "Torn Between" was released.
On August 15, it was reported that Nick Hipa might have left the band, as he no longer performed with them and disassociated his personal social media accounts with the band. Hipa officially confirmed his departure one year later on August 31, 2021, noting that behaviors resulting from being in the band led to his decision to leave it: "There is tremendous good that can be accomplished through singular focus on the power of music. However to my memory and recent experience, it comes at the cost of tolerating behavior which at times mistreats, disrespects, and hurts other people." He further elaborated that the power and reasoning behind As I Lay Dying's reunion had faded in favor of superficial pursuits, which he did not wish to be a part of.
On September 24, 2021, the band unveiled a new single, "Roots Below".
Musical style and influences
As I Lay Dying is considered a prominent metalcore band. The band also has been referred to as Christian metal, death metal, and thrash metal. As I Lay Dying's music uses lots of elements of melodic death metal. In a review of Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, Bradley Torreano of AllMusic described the band's sound as a blend of heavy metal, hardcore, and grindcore. Heavy metal writer Garry Sharpe-Young described the band as a "Christian Hardcore act employing the Grind edged vocals of singer Tim Lambesis and a distinct hint of Scandinavian guitar chug." As I Lay Dying's influences include In Flames, Living Sacrifice, Iron Maiden, Slayer, At the Gates, Pantera, Megadeth, Fear Factory, Cannibal Corpse, Thin Lizzy, Shai Hulud, Dark Tranquillity, Metallica, Judas Priest, and Earth Crisis.
Christianity
Although As I Lay Dying has stated on numerous occasions that all of the members of the group are practicing Christians, the band is usually described by media as being in the metalcore genre, not Christian metal. The band's lyrics do not focus on Christian themes the way many praise music bands do, nor do they treat their music as a direct extension of their private Christian worship or proselytizing efforts. For example, not once do the names God or Jesus appear in any As I Lay Dying song, nor do any of their songs explicitly invoke Christian doctrine or quote the Bible. Most songs tend to address broader spiritual concepts like existential angst or the struggle between reason and spirituality.
Lyricist and lead singer Tim Lambesis has given mixed commentary on the subject: asked in 2008 if the members were "a Christian band" or "Christians in a band", Lambesis stated on the band's FAQ, "I'm not sure what the difference is between five Christians playing in a band and a Christian band, if you truly believe something, then it should affect every area of your life. All five of us are Christians. I believe that change should start with me first, and as a result, our lyrics do not come across very 'preachy.' Many of our songs are about life, struggles, mistakes, relationships and other issues that don't fit entirely in the spiritual category. However, all of these topics are written about through my perspective as a Christian." Furthermore, during an August 2010 radio interview on the Christian metal radio show The Full Armor of God Broadcast, Lambesis stated "I can only really write about what I'm passionate about in life, so naturally my faith, my belief in the teachings of Jesus and His resurrection come across in our lyrics."
However, in later years, Lambesis showed an increasing philosophical skepticism towards Christianity and religion in general. Court documents stated Lambesis emailed his wife Meggan in August 2012, while on tour with As I Lay Dying, asking for a divorce and stating he "no longer believed in God". In explaining some of the lyrics from Awakened, Lambesis stated on his personal Tumblr account that his studies of theology had led him to the conclusion that "tradition and truth are often at odds with each other", and while he "didn't hate all religious belief", he was finding it "very difficult for [him] to outline exactly who it is that's worth siding with." He also quoted the book Pagan Christianity by George Barna and Frank Viola, claiming that both "Protestant and Catholic denominations have poisonous roots". While on house arrest in July 2013, after being charged with soliciting his wife's murder, Lambesis published a blog post in which he obliquely confirmed his previous loss of faith in Christianity. In 2014, Lambesis said that although they were marketed as a Christian band, the members privately considered themselves atheists. Following this statement, guitarist Nick Hipa responded by calling these claims slanderous and defamatory. However, since his arrest it has been reported that Lambesis, in an April 2014 statement by the band, "[...] has spent much of the last year reevaluating what originally convinced him to abandon belief in God. After much brokenness and repentance he sees things differently, considers himself a follower of Jesus, someone submitted to the will of God, or whatever you want to call it. That's for him to talk about when he's comfortable and only time will tell if he is sincere."
Members
Current
Tim Lambesis – unclean vocals, occasional clean vocals (2000–2014, 2017–present)
Jordan Mancino – drums (2000–2014, 2018–present)
Phil Sgrosso – guitars, backing vocals (2003–2014, 2018–present)
Josh Gilbert – bass, clean vocals (2006–2014, 2018–present)
Former
Nick Hipa – guitars, backing vocals (2003–2014, 2018–2020)
Clint Norris – bass, clean vocals (2003–2006)
Evan White – guitars (2001–2003), bass (2002–2003)
Jeremy Rojas – guitars (2001)
Jon Jameson – bass (2001)
Noah Chase – bass (2001, 2002, 2003)
Tommy Garcia – guitars, bass, backing vocals (2002–2003; session member 2003–2010)
Jason Krebs – guitars (2002–2003)
Brandon Hays – bass, guitars (2002–2003)
Aaron Kennedy – bass (2003)
Touring musicians
Chad Ackerman – guitars (2001–2002), backing vocals (session, 2007)
Caylen Denuccio – bass (2002–2003)
Chris Lindstrom – guitars (2001, 2003)
Mark Macdonald – guitars (2003–2004)
Ruben Gutierrez – guitars (2001)
David Arthur – clean vocals (2005)
Justin Foley – drums (2009)
Joey Bradford – backing vocals (2012)
Duane Reed – backing vocals (2007)
Timeline
Discography
Beneath the Encasing of Ashes (2001)
Frail Words Collapse (2003)
Shadows Are Security (2005)
An Ocean Between Us (2007)
The Powerless Rise (2010)
Awakened (2012)
Shaped by Fire (2019)
Awards and nominations
San Diego Music Awards
Artist of the Year (2005)
Artist of the Year (2007)
Artist of the Year (2008)
Best Hard Rock (2011)
Grammy Awards
Nominated for 2008 Best Metal Performance for the song "Nothing Left"
MTV2 Music Awards
Ultimate Metal God (2007)
Hollywood Film Fest awards
Best Music Video for "The Sound of Truth" music video
Loudwire Music Awards
Metal Band of the Year (2012)
References
External links
American metalcore musical groups
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Musical groups from San Diego
Musical quintets
2000 establishments in California
Musical groups established in 2000
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Metal Blade Records artists
Articles which contain graphical timelines
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[
"\"What You've Done to Me\" is the winner's single by season four winner of The X Factor Australia, Samantha Jade. It was released digitally on 20 November 2012, as the lead single from her self-titled debut album. \"What You've Done to Me\" was written by David Musumeci, Anthony Egizii, Tania Doko and Jörgen Elofsson, and produced by Musumeci and Egizii under their stage name DNA Songs. It debuted at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified four times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), denoting sales of 280,000 copies. \"What You've Done to Me\" also reached number 40 on the South Korea Gaon International Digital Chart.\n\nBackground and release\n\"What You've Done to Me\" was written by David Musumeci, Anthony Egizii, Tania Doko and Jörgen Elofsson. It was produced by Musumeci and Egizii under their stage name DNA Songs. After winning The X Factor, \"What You've Done to Me\" was released for digital download on 20 November 2012, as Jade's winner's single. The song was released physically on 26 November 2012.\n\nReception\nA writer for Take 40 Australia described \"What You've Done to Me\" as, \"a sassy power ballad worthy of Kelly Clarkson.\" After three days of release, the song debuted at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart dated 25 November 2012. It became the 100th song to debut atop the chart and the 28th number-one single by an Australian reality-singing-show contestant. \"What You've Done to Me\" was certified triple platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for sales of 210,000 copies.\n\nFor the week spanning from 16 December 2012 to 22 December 2012, \"What You've Done to Me\" debuted and peaked at number 28 on the South Korea Gaon International Download Chart. This position on the download chart corresponded to the song's debut on the South Korea Gaon International Digital Chart at number 40. \"What You've Done to Me\" was nominated for Song of the Year at the 27th ARIA Music Awards.\n\nLive performances\nJade performed \"What You've Done to Me\" live for the first time during The X Factor grand final performance show on 19 November 2012. After her performance, Jade's mentor Guy Sebastian called the song a \"radio smash\". Jade performed the song again during the grand final decider show the following day, after she was announced as the winner.\n\nUsage in media\nThe song featured in the third episode of Ja'mie: Private School Girl\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts and certification\n\nWeekly charts\n\nCertification\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nSee also\nList of number-one singles of 2012 (Australia)\n\nReferences\n\n2012 songs\n2012 singles\nSamantha Jade songs\nSongs written by Jörgen Elofsson\nSongs written by David Musumeci\nSongs written by Anthony Egizii\nSong recordings produced by DNA Songs\nSony Music Australia singles\nNumber-one singles in Australia",
"\"What a Beautiful Name\" is a song by Australian praise and worship group Hillsong Worship. The song, written and led by Brooke Ligertwood and co-written with Ben Fielding, refers to the promise of salvation through Jesus Christ as represented by His Holy Name. The \"genre-smashing single\" contributed to Hillsong being named Billboards Top Christian Artist of 2017. \"What a Beautiful Name\" won two Dove Awards for Song of the Year and Worship Song of the Year in 2017. It won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song. \"What a Beautiful Name\" was released on 6 January 2017, as the lead single from their 25th live album, Let There Be Light (2016).\n\nBackground\n\"What a Beautiful Name\" was composed in December 2015 in Sydney, Australia, for the upcoming Hillsong Conference, the annual church gathering. The scriptural foundation of the song can be found in , and .\n\nComposition\nAccording to sheet music published at Sheetmusicdirect.com by Hillsong Publishing, \"What a Beautiful Name\" is a slow tempo of 68 beats per minute. Written in common time, the song is in the key of D major. Brooke Ligertwood's vocal range spans from A3 to B4 during the song.\n\nMusic video\nA video for the song was recorded at the Hillsong Conference in Sydney and was released on 30 September 2016. The YouTube video has more than 400 million views as of 16 April 2021.\n\nCriticism and Reception\nMusic critic Matt Collar praised Hillsong Worship for their \"passionate, faith-based sound\" and wrote that fans of the group \"will surely appreciate this emotive, uplifting Christian pop.\"\n\nHowever, theologian and pastor John Piper had criticised this song for heresy, saying\n\nAnother pastor, Sam Storms criticised the song along similar lines, but stopped short of labelling it \"heretical\".\n\nHillsong responded to the criticisms of the song with a blog by singer Ben Fielding to defend the scriptural inspiration behind it.\n\nJake Gosselin attributes the popularity of the song in the Christian community to a number of factors. He writes that \"What a Beautiful Name\" is \"singable.\" In practice this refers to the \"small vocal range\" of the song which is \"one note over an octave.\" This translates to a song that is easy to sing and which does not strain the voice with notes that are too high or too low. He also comments that the song is written in the key of D which is \"the optimal key for both men and women.\"\n\nChart performance\n\"What a Beautiful Name\" had its worldwide digital release on 6 January 2017, and topped Billboard's Hot Christian Songs chart on 25 February. The single has held the top position for 37 weeks making it the third-longest-leading No. 1 in the 14-year history of the Hot Christian chart. The song which claims the distinction as the longest-leading No. 1 is \"Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)\" and was released by another Hillsong unit, Hillsong United. \"Oceans\" led the Hot Christian chart for 61 weeks. The song has stayed on the chart for 77 weeks, making it the third longest running song on the chart.\n\n\"What a Beautiful Name\" is ranked as the No. 1 song of the year for 2017 on the Christian Digital Sales chart, No. 3 on Christian Streaming Songs, and is also the No. 3 song on Christian Airplay. The song spent nine weeks as No. 1 on Christian Airplay and was Hillsong Worship's first No. 1 on the chart. What a Beautiful Name also leads the CCLI, the international licensing service for 250,000 churches.\n\n\"What a Beautiful Name\" is a track from Hillsong Worship's 25th live album, Let There Be Light. The album was released on 14 October 2016, and debuted as No. 1 on the Top Christian Albums chart. For 2017, Let There be Light was ranked the No. 9 of the year.\n\nAwards and accolades\nHillsong Worship was named Billboard's Top Christian Artist of 2017, as well as Top Christian Duo/Group. \"What a Beautiful Name\" earned two Dove awards, Song of the Year and Worship Song of the Year. \"What a Beautiful Name\" won the award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song at the 60th Grammy Awards, the first for Hillsong Worship.\n\nLive performances\nThe song was recorded at a live performance at the annual Hillsong Conference in 2016. Hillsong performed the song at the 48th Annual Dove Awards held at Allen Arena in Nashville. The performance was well received and \"had audience members on their feet with their hands in the air.\"\n\nWhen asked about performing the song in an interview with Billboards Jim Asker, Ligertwood said about the audience: \nFinally, she said about performing the song:\n\nOther versions\nIn July 2017, the Voices of Lee, the \"elite\" a cappella singing group, posted a video of the song to their Facebook page. The cover was an instant hit and reached the so-called viral threshold of 5 million views in two days. As of October 2017, it had amassed 33 million views. The group represents Lee University in Tennessee; the video was filmed in the school's chapel.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nDecade-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nFurther reading\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \"What a Beautiful Name\" video \n \"The Story Behind What a Beautiful Name\" video\n Lyrics and chords\n\n2017 singles\n2016 songs\nSparrow Records singles\nSongs written by Brooke Fraser\nHillsong Worship songs"
] |
[
"As I Lay Dying (band)",
"Formation and first releases (2000-2004)",
"Where did the band's fifth record stream?",
"I don't know.",
"What was the name of one of their songs?",
"\"94 Hours\" and \"Forever\""
] |
C_b80aaf83bab441d7a0195048d6a09917_1
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When was their compilation released?
| 3 |
When was As I Lay Dying's compilation released?
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As I Lay Dying (band)
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After leaving the band Society's Finest, in which he played guitar, vocalist Tim Lambesis formed As I Lay Dying in 2000. Starting out as a duet with drummer Jordan Mancino, they first met as a band in February 2001. They both were in the hardcore punk band Point of Recognition. The band's name came from the novel of the same name by William Faulkner that was published in 1930; although the band's lyrics and music are not directly inspired by the novel. Shortly after the band's formation, Pluto Records offered As I Lay Dying a recording contract and, after accepting the offer, the band entered the studio one month later to record their first album Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, released in June 2001. The band then recorded five songs for a split album, again through Pluto Records, with San Diego post-hardcore band American Tragedy. As I Lay Dying realized it needed to expand to a five-piece band to include another guitarist and a bass guitarist. Mancino commented "we started going on tour and we needed obviously more people than that." As Lambesis and Mancino were the only permanent members, the band recruited friends to perform with them and subsequently underwent several lineup changes: bass guitarist Noah Chase departed in 2001, while Brandon Hays, and his subsequent replacement Aaron Kennedy, departed in 2003. During early 2003, when As I Lay Dying's Pluto Records contract expired, the band pursued deals with other record labels. After extensive touring and an increase in popularity, As I Lay Dying was offered a record deal with Metal Blade Records in March 2003. In July 2003, the band's second studio album Frail Words Collapse was released. Produced by Lambesis, the album peaked at No. 30 on Billboard's Independent Albums chart and No. 41 on the Top Heatseekers chart. William York of Allmusic thought the band "doesn't really add anything new to the mix from a musical standpoint" with the release, while also praising it for being "solid enough and well executed" with "adequate" production. Sherwin Frias of Jesus Freak Hideout had similar sentiments and commented "As I Lay Dying didn't exactly break many boundaries in making this record", but praised that each song is "executed so well (and with such precision) that nary a song misses its target." Touring then occurred to promote the album, with support from bands Himsa, Shadows Fall, The Black Dahlia Murder, Killswitch Engage, In Flames, Sworn Enemy, and Hatebreed. Music videos for the songs "94 Hours" and "Forever" received rotation on networks such as Fuse and MTV2's Headbanger's Ball. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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As I Lay Dying is an American metalcore band from San Diego, California. Founded in 2000 by vocalist Tim Lambesis, the band's first full lineup (including Lambesis' Point of Recognition bandmate Jordan Mancino) was completed in 2001. The band has released seven albums, one split album, and two compilation albums.
As I Lay Dying's fourth studio album An Ocean Between Us peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, and No. 1 on the Top Rock chart. The band has performed at events such as Wacken Open Air, With Full Force, Soundwave Festival, Warped Tour, Bloodstock Open Air and Taste of Chaos. In 2007, As I Lay Dying won the "Ultimate Metal God" award from MTV2 at the first annual "All That Rocks" special; was named "Artist of the Year" at the San Diego Music Awards in 2005, 2007 and 2008; and was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for the song "Nothing Left." Their fifth studio album The Powerless Rise was written over a three-year period, and was released in May 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. Their last studio album before their hiatus, Awakened, was released on September 25, 2012.
The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2014 when Lambesis was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison for soliciting the murder of his estranged wife. The remaining members formed Wovenwar with vocalist Shane Blay.
In 2018, Lambesis reunited with Hipa, Sgrosso, Mancino and Gilbert. On June 8, 2018, the band released the song "My Own Grave", their first recording in six years. They released their seventh studio album, Shaped by Fire, on September 20, 2019.
History
Formation and first releases (2000–2004)
After leaving the band Society's Finest, in which he played guitar, vocalist Tim Lambesis formed As I Lay Dying in 2000. Starting out as a duet with drummer Jordan Mancino, they first met as a band in February 2001. They both were in the hardcore punk band Point of Recognition. The band's name came from the novel of the same name by William Faulkner that was published in 1930; although the band's lyrics and music are not directly inspired by the novel.
Shortly after the band's formation, Pluto Records offered As I Lay Dying a recording contract and, after accepting the offer, the band entered the studio one month later to record their first album Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, released in June 2001. The band then recorded five songs for a split album, again through Pluto Records, with San Diego post-hardcore band American Tragedy.
As I Lay Dying realized it needed to expand to a five-piece band to include another guitarist and a bass guitarist. Mancino commented "we started going on tour and we needed obviously more people than that." As Lambesis and Mancino were the only permanent members, the band recruited friends to perform with them and subsequently underwent several lineup changes: bass guitarist Noah Chase departed in 2001, while Brandon Hays, and his subsequent replacement Aaron Kennedy, departed in 2003. During early 2003, when As I Lay Dying's Pluto Records contract expired, the band pursued deals with other record labels. After extensive touring and an increase in popularity, As I Lay Dying was offered a record deal with Metal Blade Records in March 2003.
In July 2003, the band's second studio album Frail Words Collapse was released. Produced by Lambesis, the album peaked at No. 30 on Billboards Independent Albums chart and No. 41 on the Top Heatseekers chart. William York of Allmusic thought the band "doesn't really add anything new to the mix from a musical standpoint" with the release, while also praising it for being "solid enough and well executed" with "adequate" production. Sherwin Frias of Jesus Freak Hideout had similar sentiments and commented "As I Lay Dying didn't exactly break many boundaries in making this record", but praised that each song is "executed so well (and with such precision) that nary a song misses its target." Touring then occurred to promote the album, with support from bands Himsa, Shadows Fall, The Black Dahlia Murder, Killswitch Engage, In Flames, Sworn Enemy, and Hatebreed. Music videos for the songs "94 Hours" and "Forever" received rotation on networks such as Fuse and MTV2's Headbangers Ball.
Success (2005–2009)
As I Lay Dying entered Big Fish recording studio in Encinitas, California, US in January 2005 to record their third studio album. Shadows Are Security was released in June of the same year and debuted at No. 1 on the Independent Albums chart. It was also the band's first release to enter the Billboard 200—at No. 35—and sold about 275,000 copies. Wade Kergan of AllMusic called it "one of the strongest releases of 2005," and commented that new guitarists Phil Sgrosso and Nick Hipa make the band "stronger." Rod Smith of Decibel Magazine commented: "Tim Lambesis's finely honed roar in bittersweet instrumental matrices augmented by occasional clean vocals by bass guitarist Clint Norris. Guitarists Phil Sgrosso and Nick Hipa whip up a melodic cyclone on 'The Darkest Nights'." By this time, guitarist Evan White had quit the band for personal reasons after his mother died. All the singing was done by Dave Arthur of Kings to You, because it sounded more powerful in the studio in comparison to Clint Norris's singing.
As I Lay Dying began touring to promote the new record by making appearances at Hell on Earth, Winter Headline Tour, and Ozzfest, as well as a tour with Slipknot and Unearth. The band was on the second stage alongside Rob Zombie, Killswitch Engage, Mastodon, The Haunted, and It Dies Today. The band raised its profile in 2006 through its support slot on the Taste of Chaos tour in the US, alongside bands such as Deftones, Thrice, Dredg, Funeral for a Friend, and Story of the Year. In May 2006, Beneath the Encasing of Ashes and the songs from the split album were re-released through Metal Blade Records as A Long March: The First Recordings. The album contained the original and re-recorded versions of the songs from the split album—the band preferred to re-release the material, as they didn't want their fans paying large sums of money to listen to early releases. The re-release peaked at No. 3 on the Independent Albums chart and No. 129 on the Billboard 200 chart. In mid-2006, As I Lay Dying was the headline act at the Sounds of the Underground Festival.
Norris left the band on good terms in November 2006 with a desire to focus on his marriage. The band auditioned ten bass guitarists, but none proved successful. Lambesis received demo tapes from a band called This Endearing, of which bass guitarists Josh Gilbert was a member; however, Lambesis chose to "sit on it" and waited for the band to record more material. This Endearing subsequently disbanded and Gilbert was recruited as As I Lay Dying's new bass guitarist.
In 2007 As I Lay Dying started recording a new album titled An Ocean Between Us, which was released on August 21, 2007. Debuting at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Rock chart, with first-week sales of 39,000 units, the album was the highest charting release for the band.
Co-produced by Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz and As I Lay Dying, and mixed by Colin Richardson, the album received generally positive reviews. Christa L. Titus of Billboard commented: "Whatever the differences between As I Lay Dying's personal desires and what its fans demand, this album surely acts as a bridge," praising the song "Comfort Betrays" for its guitar solo. Scott Alisoglu of Blabbermouth.net described the album as "a well-rounded and often thrashy metalcore album, as the band has struck an effective balance between aggression and accessible melodies." Thom Jurek of Allmusic praised the band for expanding its musical range by including melodic singing and choruses, as they had previously done on "Confined" from Shadows Are Security. It was the first time that bass guitarist Gilbert recorded a studio album with the band.
To promote the album, As I Lay Dying performed at the Warped Tour 2007 in August, and toured through Europe in September with Darkest Hour, Himsa, and Maroon. The band was awarded the title "Ultimate Metal God" by MTV2's "All That Rocks" special, and was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Metal Performance" for the song "Nothing Left". The other Grammy Award nominees included winner Slayer, King Diamond, Machine Head, and Shadows Fall. The band played a portion of the 2008 Warped Tour, as well as the Taste of Chaos UK 2008 Tour with headliners Atreyu.
On April 9, 2009, the DVD This Is Who We Are was released in Europe, and was released in the US on April 14, 2009. The DVD was certified Gold in the US almost a month after its release.
The Powerless Rise and Decas (2010–2011)
After recording through 2009, the band's fifth record The Powerless Rise was streamed on the MySpace Music website on May 7, 2010 up until May 10, 2010. The album was officially released on May 11, 2010 and received generally positive critical acclaim, with one critic saying: "Fans of metalcore in general, and As I Lay Dying in particular, will be more than satisfied with The Powerless Rise, as the band's gradual progression and consistency makes this their best album."
In 2010 the band toured in support of The Powerless Rise, headlining the majority of their shows. In the first half of the year, the band embarked on a US tour with Demon Hunter, blessthefall, and War of Ages. This was followed by a mid-2010 headlining tour titled "The Cool Tour" across the US, and a headlining tour across US/Canada that also featured All That Remains, Unearth, and Carnifex. The band's final headline tour of the year was in Europe, with Heaven Shall Burn, Suicide Silence, and Sylosis.
In February 2011, the band headlined a US tour with support from Winds of Plague and After the Burial. The band then toured in late April/early May with Trivium, in support of Disturbed, on the "Music as a Weapon" tour in Australia and New Zealand. Then at the end of May and beginning of June, the band headlined a few performances with Heaven Shall Burn.
On November 8, 2011, As I Lay Dying released a compilation, Decas, in honor of the band's ten-year anniversary. The album featured three new, original songs; four cover versions of songs by bands such as Slayer, Judas Priest and Descendents; a re-recorded medley that uses parts of several songs taken from Beneath the Encasing of Ashes; and four remixes, consisting of one song from each of their albums since Frail Words Collapse. The album's first track "Paralyzed" was released as a lyric video on September 13, 2011, and as a free download on iTunes on November 7, the day before the album's release. The band embarked on the "A Decade of Destruction" tour, coinciding with the release of the album, from November to December 2011.
Awakened, Tim Lambesis' trial and hiatus (2012–2016)
On January 25, 2012, an announcement revealed that the band would be playing the Mayhem Festival of 2012 with Slipknot, Slayer, Motörhead, Anthrax, The Devil Wears Prada, Asking Alexandria, Whitechapel, Upon A Burning Body, I, the Breather, Betraying the Martyrs, and Dirtfedd. The band announced in April 2012 that Bill Stevenson, who had previously worked with NOFX and Rise Against, would be the producer for their sixth album.
On June 22, 2012, the band announced that their sixth album would be titled Awakened and the first single "Cauterize" was released on June 25, 2012. On September 12, 2012, As I Lay Dying released their second single "A Greater Foundation" with a corresponding music video. The album was released on September 25, 2012 and "Cauterize" was available on the band's website as a free download for a 24-hour period. As I Lay Dying won the "Metal Band of the Year" award from Loudwire in 2012, beating other well-known bands, including Anthrax and Lamb of God. Subsequently, prior to his criminal charges, Lambesis started a new band entitled Pyrithion with guitarist Ryan Glisan, formerly of Allegaeon. They released one EP as a band.
On May 7, 2013, Lambesis was arrested in Oceanside, California, US after hiring an undercover detective to kill his estranged wife. The report was made by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, leaving the future of the band uncertain. On the following day, the band released a statement in which they said: "The legal process is taking its course and we have no more information than you do. There are many unanswered questions, and the situation will become clearer in the coming days and weeks. We'll keep you informed as best we can." They also stated that their thoughts were "with Tim, his family, and with everyone else affected by this terrible situation." Eight days later, the band cancelled their mid-2013 tour with Killswitch Engage, stating that "we feel that it is best for the band to be off the road while the current situation gets sorted". During the month of his initial arrest, Lambesis pleaded "not guilty" and his lawyer stated: "His thought processes were devastatingly affected by his steroid use." On February 25, 2014 Lambesis changed his plea from "not guilty" to "guilty" and consequently faced a potential sentence of nine years in prison.
Rather than continue on without Lambesis, Mancino, along with former members Phil Sgrosso, Nick Hipa, and Josh Gilbert, decided to focus on a different style of music under a different band name, Wovenwar, with Shane Blay as the vocalist, This project took shape long before Lambesis' plea. although Mancino still remained a member of As I Lay Dying. During this period of time, Lambesis was also working on music and found time to release the third Austrian Death Machine album, titled Triple Brutal.
On May 16, 2014, Lambesis was sentenced to six years in prison, with 48 days credit for time served.
Lambesis' release, reunion and new music (2016–2018)
Lambesis was released from prison on probation in December 2016. After his release he began reaching out to the other members of the band looking to apologize in person starting with Mancino and Gilbert. After months of silence Gilbert and Mancino eventually met with Lambesis and began speaking with him regularly after noting positive changes in his character. Lambesis attempted to reconnect with Sgrosso and Hipa following his meetings with Gilbert and Mancino—who as a result of Lambesis' actions and the strain it put on their relationships—had stopped speaking to each other following the recording of the second Wovenwar album. Sgrosso explained in a reunion-related discussion video posted by the band on June 16, 2018 that he initially replied to all of Lambesis' emails with explicit expressions of having no desire to speak with him. Sgrosso explained that his disdain with Lambesis started well before his arrest and took relief in not having to be in a band with him anymore upon Lambesis' arrest. His relationship with Hipa deteriorated due to what both described as not being able to deal with the weight of the aftermath properly. Hipa explained that while he initially felt empathy towards Lambesis after his tearful courtroom apology—it was short lived following Lambesis' interview with Alternative Press which Hipa claimed read like "one long excuse". After Lambesis made his public apology, Sgrosso finally agreed to meet with Lambesis and claimed Lambesis evolved into a different person than he was for the years leading up to his arrest which inspired him to reach out to Hipa to rekindle their friendship. Hipa was the last to speak with Lambesis due to what Hipa described as not being able to escape the shadow of Lambesis' arrest and the mental and physical effects it took on him. After reconnecting with Sgrosso and reading Lambesis' apology—he agreed to meet with Lambesis as a means to "let go of his hatred" and claimed that Lambesis owned up and took responsibility for every one of his actions he was called on.
Over the course of the tail end of Lambesis' incarceration and release, the band's public opinion towards Lambesis softened. Mancino did an interview primarily discussing Wovenwar, but also spoke about As I Lay Dying on MetalSucks' podcast. He stated that, contrary to popular beliefs, that Hipa, Sgrosso and Gilbert are still technically a part of As I Lay Dying due to their record contract and in another interview stated that he has "no ill will" towards Lambesis and wished him well. Hipa, when on an episode of Jamey Jasta's podcast when asked about a reunion commented "what it comes down to is what makes sense with what we have going on in our lives. And we've got a lot of important things going on that don't relate to that and we've made commitments to, and that's what we are honoring at this moment. Honestly it's just not something we try and consume our thoughts with. Because it's like we have families, businesses, professions, and a band—and all these things we're super invested into. It's like all of our attention is there with that at the moment."
On September 2, 2017, Metal Injection reported that Lambesis was working on new music and planned to release it under the As I Lay Dying name and that none of the pre-hiatus lineup aside from Lambesis would be returning. This would later be proven false, as on June 8, 2018, the band released the music video for "My Own Grave", confirming through the video that the lineup of Lambesis, Hipa, Sgrosso, Gilbert and Mancino had reunited. They performed their first show—which sold out in four minutes—in five years at the SOMA Sidestage in their hometown of San Diego. The band has stated the single was their first and only song written since their formal reunion in February 2018 and had no concrete plans past releasing the single and playing the SOMA show.
The news of their reunion drew particularly divisive reactions from fans and media outlets. While fan and critical reception of the band's reunion and comeback single were met largely with praise, others were openly skeptical on supporting Tim Lambesis following his prison sentence. Most notably was MetalSucks, who published an editorial that they will no longer be writing about the band with multiple outlets voicing their support for MetalSucks' decision. On June 16, 2018—the date of their comeback show at the SOMA—the band published a video on their official YouTube account addressing the questions and criticisms fans and critics of the band had and explaining the terms in detail of the reunion.
In July 2018, the band announced their first European headlining tour for December 2018. A day later, they announced their North American tour for November 2018. A vast majority of the shows sold out immediately. While tickets sold out quickly, some venues and festivals received a public backlash for booking the band because of Lambesis' crimes and decided to cancel the band's performances. Spain's Resurrection Fest announced it would be dropping As I Lay Dying from its bill in October 2018, and months later in January 2019, the Memphis, Tennessee venue Growlers cancelled their previously scheduled show in April 2019. Growlers released a statement that acknowledged Lambesis' public message from 2018, but stated: "After hearing the combined voice of disheartened friends, local bands, and patrons, locally owned concert venue and bar, Growlers, has cancelled their scheduled show with As I Lay Dying, previously set for April 5th, and will replace it with a local show to benefit victims of domestic violence [...] Not everyone was ready to give Lambesis a second chance, and Growlers has created controversy in Memphis for booking his band."
Touring, Shaped by Fire, and Nick Hipa's departure (2019–present)
They embarked on a tour in March 2019 with Phinehas, Currents and Frost Koffin as support. On April 12, 2019, the band released a music video for "Redefined", including a guest appearance by August Burns Red frontman Jake Luhrs. On April 14, the band announced the "Shaped by Fire" tour of Europe with support from Chelsea Grin, Unearth and Fit for a King running from September 2019 and concluding in October. On July 15, the band announced the North American dates of the "Shaped by Fire" Tour with direct support from After the Burial and Emmure to begin on November 15 at the House of Blues in Las Vegas and conclude on December 14 with a hometown show at the Soma San Diego. Details of their forthcoming album, Shaped by Fire, were leaked through Nuclear Blast's European website with a projected release date of September 20, 2019. On August 9, the band officially announced their first album in seven years, Shaped by Fire, would be released through Nuclear Blast Records, along with releasing the album's title track. On September 13, the band released "Blinded" as the album's fourth single along with an accompanying music video.
In March 2020, as a way of supporting their crew during the COVID-19 pandemic, they released an additional song, "Destruction or Strength", a B-side from Shaped by Fire album sessions. In May 2020, another music video for the song "Torn Between" was released.
On August 15, it was reported that Nick Hipa might have left the band, as he no longer performed with them and disassociated his personal social media accounts with the band. Hipa officially confirmed his departure one year later on August 31, 2021, noting that behaviors resulting from being in the band led to his decision to leave it: "There is tremendous good that can be accomplished through singular focus on the power of music. However to my memory and recent experience, it comes at the cost of tolerating behavior which at times mistreats, disrespects, and hurts other people." He further elaborated that the power and reasoning behind As I Lay Dying's reunion had faded in favor of superficial pursuits, which he did not wish to be a part of.
On September 24, 2021, the band unveiled a new single, "Roots Below".
Musical style and influences
As I Lay Dying is considered a prominent metalcore band. The band also has been referred to as Christian metal, death metal, and thrash metal. As I Lay Dying's music uses lots of elements of melodic death metal. In a review of Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, Bradley Torreano of AllMusic described the band's sound as a blend of heavy metal, hardcore, and grindcore. Heavy metal writer Garry Sharpe-Young described the band as a "Christian Hardcore act employing the Grind edged vocals of singer Tim Lambesis and a distinct hint of Scandinavian guitar chug." As I Lay Dying's influences include In Flames, Living Sacrifice, Iron Maiden, Slayer, At the Gates, Pantera, Megadeth, Fear Factory, Cannibal Corpse, Thin Lizzy, Shai Hulud, Dark Tranquillity, Metallica, Judas Priest, and Earth Crisis.
Christianity
Although As I Lay Dying has stated on numerous occasions that all of the members of the group are practicing Christians, the band is usually described by media as being in the metalcore genre, not Christian metal. The band's lyrics do not focus on Christian themes the way many praise music bands do, nor do they treat their music as a direct extension of their private Christian worship or proselytizing efforts. For example, not once do the names God or Jesus appear in any As I Lay Dying song, nor do any of their songs explicitly invoke Christian doctrine or quote the Bible. Most songs tend to address broader spiritual concepts like existential angst or the struggle between reason and spirituality.
Lyricist and lead singer Tim Lambesis has given mixed commentary on the subject: asked in 2008 if the members were "a Christian band" or "Christians in a band", Lambesis stated on the band's FAQ, "I'm not sure what the difference is between five Christians playing in a band and a Christian band, if you truly believe something, then it should affect every area of your life. All five of us are Christians. I believe that change should start with me first, and as a result, our lyrics do not come across very 'preachy.' Many of our songs are about life, struggles, mistakes, relationships and other issues that don't fit entirely in the spiritual category. However, all of these topics are written about through my perspective as a Christian." Furthermore, during an August 2010 radio interview on the Christian metal radio show The Full Armor of God Broadcast, Lambesis stated "I can only really write about what I'm passionate about in life, so naturally my faith, my belief in the teachings of Jesus and His resurrection come across in our lyrics."
However, in later years, Lambesis showed an increasing philosophical skepticism towards Christianity and religion in general. Court documents stated Lambesis emailed his wife Meggan in August 2012, while on tour with As I Lay Dying, asking for a divorce and stating he "no longer believed in God". In explaining some of the lyrics from Awakened, Lambesis stated on his personal Tumblr account that his studies of theology had led him to the conclusion that "tradition and truth are often at odds with each other", and while he "didn't hate all religious belief", he was finding it "very difficult for [him] to outline exactly who it is that's worth siding with." He also quoted the book Pagan Christianity by George Barna and Frank Viola, claiming that both "Protestant and Catholic denominations have poisonous roots". While on house arrest in July 2013, after being charged with soliciting his wife's murder, Lambesis published a blog post in which he obliquely confirmed his previous loss of faith in Christianity. In 2014, Lambesis said that although they were marketed as a Christian band, the members privately considered themselves atheists. Following this statement, guitarist Nick Hipa responded by calling these claims slanderous and defamatory. However, since his arrest it has been reported that Lambesis, in an April 2014 statement by the band, "[...] has spent much of the last year reevaluating what originally convinced him to abandon belief in God. After much brokenness and repentance he sees things differently, considers himself a follower of Jesus, someone submitted to the will of God, or whatever you want to call it. That's for him to talk about when he's comfortable and only time will tell if he is sincere."
Members
Current
Tim Lambesis – unclean vocals, occasional clean vocals (2000–2014, 2017–present)
Jordan Mancino – drums (2000–2014, 2018–present)
Phil Sgrosso – guitars, backing vocals (2003–2014, 2018–present)
Josh Gilbert – bass, clean vocals (2006–2014, 2018–present)
Former
Nick Hipa – guitars, backing vocals (2003–2014, 2018–2020)
Clint Norris – bass, clean vocals (2003–2006)
Evan White – guitars (2001–2003), bass (2002–2003)
Jeremy Rojas – guitars (2001)
Jon Jameson – bass (2001)
Noah Chase – bass (2001, 2002, 2003)
Tommy Garcia – guitars, bass, backing vocals (2002–2003; session member 2003–2010)
Jason Krebs – guitars (2002–2003)
Brandon Hays – bass, guitars (2002–2003)
Aaron Kennedy – bass (2003)
Touring musicians
Chad Ackerman – guitars (2001–2002), backing vocals (session, 2007)
Caylen Denuccio – bass (2002–2003)
Chris Lindstrom – guitars (2001, 2003)
Mark Macdonald – guitars (2003–2004)
Ruben Gutierrez – guitars (2001)
David Arthur – clean vocals (2005)
Justin Foley – drums (2009)
Joey Bradford – backing vocals (2012)
Duane Reed – backing vocals (2007)
Timeline
Discography
Beneath the Encasing of Ashes (2001)
Frail Words Collapse (2003)
Shadows Are Security (2005)
An Ocean Between Us (2007)
The Powerless Rise (2010)
Awakened (2012)
Shaped by Fire (2019)
Awards and nominations
San Diego Music Awards
Artist of the Year (2005)
Artist of the Year (2007)
Artist of the Year (2008)
Best Hard Rock (2011)
Grammy Awards
Nominated for 2008 Best Metal Performance for the song "Nothing Left"
MTV2 Music Awards
Ultimate Metal God (2007)
Hollywood Film Fest awards
Best Music Video for "The Sound of Truth" music video
Loudwire Music Awards
Metal Band of the Year (2012)
References
External links
American metalcore musical groups
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Musical groups from San Diego
Musical quintets
2000 establishments in California
Musical groups established in 2000
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Metal Blade Records artists
Articles which contain graphical timelines
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[
"The TV Album is a compilation CD of songs by \"Weird Al\" Yankovic that features songs about television and TV shows. Yankovic's former record label, Scotti Brothers, released a similar album called The Food Album that contained songs about food.\n\nProduction\n\nRelease\nThe album was released by Scotti Brothers Records and was only begrudgingly approved by Yankovic. At the time, Scotti Brothers had insisted on putting out a new album by Yankovic in order to meet monetary projections for the fiscal quarter, despite the fact that no new album was ready; Bad Hair Day would not be released until a year later. Scotti Brothers had previously released a similar compilation album in 1993 entitled The Food Album. However, when it came time to release The TV Album, Yankovic reported that \"the record company was a whole lot nicer when they asked the second time\", and that there was \"more groveling [and] less demanding\". Following the release of The Food Album and The TV Album—in addition to the various greatest hits records that had been released—Scotti Brothers used-up all of their compilation options in Yankovic's contract, which prevented the release of further compilations when Volcano Records acquired his contract in the late 1990s.\n\nIn Canada, it was released as The MuchMusic TV Album.\n\nTrack listing\nEvery track on this album has to do somewhat with TV. They include:\n\nReferences\n\n\"Weird Al\" Yankovic compilation albums\n1995 compilation albums\nScotti Brothers Records compilation albums\nRock 'n Roll Records compilation albums\nRock 'n Roll Records albums\nScotti Brothers Records albums",
"The Best of The Stylistics is a compilation album released by the American soul group The Stylistics.\n\nReleased in 1975, the album became a big success in the UK when it reached No.1. Hitting the pinnacle three times during the year, the album remained at No.1 for 9 weeks in total. Helped largely by TV advertising, it became the biggest album of the group's career and the UK's top seller of 1975. It also reached No.41 in the US - although their popularity was beginning to decline there. \n\nFollowing its success, several albums entered the charts including their latest, Thank You Baby, which reached No.5 at the same time the compilation was No.1.\n\nAnother version of the album (The Very Best of The Stylistics) with a similar cover but with an alternate track listing was released by H & L Records (Phonogram) in 1983. The album has since been released on CD as a compilation of this and Volume two.\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart positions\n\nCertifications\n\nThe Best of the Stylistics Volume II \n\nA follow-up compilation was released the following year, subtitled Volume 2. The 1976 album mirrored the earlier success by also reaching No.1 in the UK Charts. This album featured the group's first No.1 single \"Can't Give You Anything (But My Love)\", which had been released since the previous compilation.\n\nThis album was released on the newly founded H&L Records, which had been formed after the break-up of Avco Records, The Stylistics being their biggest act.\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe Best of The Stylistics at Discogs\nThe Best of The Stylistics Volume II at Discogs\n\nThe Stylistics albums\n1975 compilation albums\n1976 compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Hugo & Luigi\nalbums produced by Thom Bell"
] |
[
"As I Lay Dying (band)",
"Formation and first releases (2000-2004)",
"Where did the band's fifth record stream?",
"I don't know.",
"What was the name of one of their songs?",
"\"94 Hours\" and \"Forever\"",
"When was their compilation released?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_b80aaf83bab441d7a0195048d6a09917_1
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What happened in 2010?
| 4 |
What happened to As I Lay Dying in 2010?
|
As I Lay Dying (band)
|
After leaving the band Society's Finest, in which he played guitar, vocalist Tim Lambesis formed As I Lay Dying in 2000. Starting out as a duet with drummer Jordan Mancino, they first met as a band in February 2001. They both were in the hardcore punk band Point of Recognition. The band's name came from the novel of the same name by William Faulkner that was published in 1930; although the band's lyrics and music are not directly inspired by the novel. Shortly after the band's formation, Pluto Records offered As I Lay Dying a recording contract and, after accepting the offer, the band entered the studio one month later to record their first album Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, released in June 2001. The band then recorded five songs for a split album, again through Pluto Records, with San Diego post-hardcore band American Tragedy. As I Lay Dying realized it needed to expand to a five-piece band to include another guitarist and a bass guitarist. Mancino commented "we started going on tour and we needed obviously more people than that." As Lambesis and Mancino were the only permanent members, the band recruited friends to perform with them and subsequently underwent several lineup changes: bass guitarist Noah Chase departed in 2001, while Brandon Hays, and his subsequent replacement Aaron Kennedy, departed in 2003. During early 2003, when As I Lay Dying's Pluto Records contract expired, the band pursued deals with other record labels. After extensive touring and an increase in popularity, As I Lay Dying was offered a record deal with Metal Blade Records in March 2003. In July 2003, the band's second studio album Frail Words Collapse was released. Produced by Lambesis, the album peaked at No. 30 on Billboard's Independent Albums chart and No. 41 on the Top Heatseekers chart. William York of Allmusic thought the band "doesn't really add anything new to the mix from a musical standpoint" with the release, while also praising it for being "solid enough and well executed" with "adequate" production. Sherwin Frias of Jesus Freak Hideout had similar sentiments and commented "As I Lay Dying didn't exactly break many boundaries in making this record", but praised that each song is "executed so well (and with such precision) that nary a song misses its target." Touring then occurred to promote the album, with support from bands Himsa, Shadows Fall, The Black Dahlia Murder, Killswitch Engage, In Flames, Sworn Enemy, and Hatebreed. Music videos for the songs "94 Hours" and "Forever" received rotation on networks such as Fuse and MTV2's Headbanger's Ball. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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As I Lay Dying is an American metalcore band from San Diego, California. Founded in 2000 by vocalist Tim Lambesis, the band's first full lineup (including Lambesis' Point of Recognition bandmate Jordan Mancino) was completed in 2001. The band has released seven albums, one split album, and two compilation albums.
As I Lay Dying's fourth studio album An Ocean Between Us peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, and No. 1 on the Top Rock chart. The band has performed at events such as Wacken Open Air, With Full Force, Soundwave Festival, Warped Tour, Bloodstock Open Air and Taste of Chaos. In 2007, As I Lay Dying won the "Ultimate Metal God" award from MTV2 at the first annual "All That Rocks" special; was named "Artist of the Year" at the San Diego Music Awards in 2005, 2007 and 2008; and was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for the song "Nothing Left." Their fifth studio album The Powerless Rise was written over a three-year period, and was released in May 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. Their last studio album before their hiatus, Awakened, was released on September 25, 2012.
The band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2014 when Lambesis was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison for soliciting the murder of his estranged wife. The remaining members formed Wovenwar with vocalist Shane Blay.
In 2018, Lambesis reunited with Hipa, Sgrosso, Mancino and Gilbert. On June 8, 2018, the band released the song "My Own Grave", their first recording in six years. They released their seventh studio album, Shaped by Fire, on September 20, 2019.
History
Formation and first releases (2000–2004)
After leaving the band Society's Finest, in which he played guitar, vocalist Tim Lambesis formed As I Lay Dying in 2000. Starting out as a duet with drummer Jordan Mancino, they first met as a band in February 2001. They both were in the hardcore punk band Point of Recognition. The band's name came from the novel of the same name by William Faulkner that was published in 1930; although the band's lyrics and music are not directly inspired by the novel.
Shortly after the band's formation, Pluto Records offered As I Lay Dying a recording contract and, after accepting the offer, the band entered the studio one month later to record their first album Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, released in June 2001. The band then recorded five songs for a split album, again through Pluto Records, with San Diego post-hardcore band American Tragedy.
As I Lay Dying realized it needed to expand to a five-piece band to include another guitarist and a bass guitarist. Mancino commented "we started going on tour and we needed obviously more people than that." As Lambesis and Mancino were the only permanent members, the band recruited friends to perform with them and subsequently underwent several lineup changes: bass guitarist Noah Chase departed in 2001, while Brandon Hays, and his subsequent replacement Aaron Kennedy, departed in 2003. During early 2003, when As I Lay Dying's Pluto Records contract expired, the band pursued deals with other record labels. After extensive touring and an increase in popularity, As I Lay Dying was offered a record deal with Metal Blade Records in March 2003.
In July 2003, the band's second studio album Frail Words Collapse was released. Produced by Lambesis, the album peaked at No. 30 on Billboards Independent Albums chart and No. 41 on the Top Heatseekers chart. William York of Allmusic thought the band "doesn't really add anything new to the mix from a musical standpoint" with the release, while also praising it for being "solid enough and well executed" with "adequate" production. Sherwin Frias of Jesus Freak Hideout had similar sentiments and commented "As I Lay Dying didn't exactly break many boundaries in making this record", but praised that each song is "executed so well (and with such precision) that nary a song misses its target." Touring then occurred to promote the album, with support from bands Himsa, Shadows Fall, The Black Dahlia Murder, Killswitch Engage, In Flames, Sworn Enemy, and Hatebreed. Music videos for the songs "94 Hours" and "Forever" received rotation on networks such as Fuse and MTV2's Headbangers Ball.
Success (2005–2009)
As I Lay Dying entered Big Fish recording studio in Encinitas, California, US in January 2005 to record their third studio album. Shadows Are Security was released in June of the same year and debuted at No. 1 on the Independent Albums chart. It was also the band's first release to enter the Billboard 200—at No. 35—and sold about 275,000 copies. Wade Kergan of AllMusic called it "one of the strongest releases of 2005," and commented that new guitarists Phil Sgrosso and Nick Hipa make the band "stronger." Rod Smith of Decibel Magazine commented: "Tim Lambesis's finely honed roar in bittersweet instrumental matrices augmented by occasional clean vocals by bass guitarist Clint Norris. Guitarists Phil Sgrosso and Nick Hipa whip up a melodic cyclone on 'The Darkest Nights'." By this time, guitarist Evan White had quit the band for personal reasons after his mother died. All the singing was done by Dave Arthur of Kings to You, because it sounded more powerful in the studio in comparison to Clint Norris's singing.
As I Lay Dying began touring to promote the new record by making appearances at Hell on Earth, Winter Headline Tour, and Ozzfest, as well as a tour with Slipknot and Unearth. The band was on the second stage alongside Rob Zombie, Killswitch Engage, Mastodon, The Haunted, and It Dies Today. The band raised its profile in 2006 through its support slot on the Taste of Chaos tour in the US, alongside bands such as Deftones, Thrice, Dredg, Funeral for a Friend, and Story of the Year. In May 2006, Beneath the Encasing of Ashes and the songs from the split album were re-released through Metal Blade Records as A Long March: The First Recordings. The album contained the original and re-recorded versions of the songs from the split album—the band preferred to re-release the material, as they didn't want their fans paying large sums of money to listen to early releases. The re-release peaked at No. 3 on the Independent Albums chart and No. 129 on the Billboard 200 chart. In mid-2006, As I Lay Dying was the headline act at the Sounds of the Underground Festival.
Norris left the band on good terms in November 2006 with a desire to focus on his marriage. The band auditioned ten bass guitarists, but none proved successful. Lambesis received demo tapes from a band called This Endearing, of which bass guitarists Josh Gilbert was a member; however, Lambesis chose to "sit on it" and waited for the band to record more material. This Endearing subsequently disbanded and Gilbert was recruited as As I Lay Dying's new bass guitarist.
In 2007 As I Lay Dying started recording a new album titled An Ocean Between Us, which was released on August 21, 2007. Debuting at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Rock chart, with first-week sales of 39,000 units, the album was the highest charting release for the band.
Co-produced by Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz and As I Lay Dying, and mixed by Colin Richardson, the album received generally positive reviews. Christa L. Titus of Billboard commented: "Whatever the differences between As I Lay Dying's personal desires and what its fans demand, this album surely acts as a bridge," praising the song "Comfort Betrays" for its guitar solo. Scott Alisoglu of Blabbermouth.net described the album as "a well-rounded and often thrashy metalcore album, as the band has struck an effective balance between aggression and accessible melodies." Thom Jurek of Allmusic praised the band for expanding its musical range by including melodic singing and choruses, as they had previously done on "Confined" from Shadows Are Security. It was the first time that bass guitarist Gilbert recorded a studio album with the band.
To promote the album, As I Lay Dying performed at the Warped Tour 2007 in August, and toured through Europe in September with Darkest Hour, Himsa, and Maroon. The band was awarded the title "Ultimate Metal God" by MTV2's "All That Rocks" special, and was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Metal Performance" for the song "Nothing Left". The other Grammy Award nominees included winner Slayer, King Diamond, Machine Head, and Shadows Fall. The band played a portion of the 2008 Warped Tour, as well as the Taste of Chaos UK 2008 Tour with headliners Atreyu.
On April 9, 2009, the DVD This Is Who We Are was released in Europe, and was released in the US on April 14, 2009. The DVD was certified Gold in the US almost a month after its release.
The Powerless Rise and Decas (2010–2011)
After recording through 2009, the band's fifth record The Powerless Rise was streamed on the MySpace Music website on May 7, 2010 up until May 10, 2010. The album was officially released on May 11, 2010 and received generally positive critical acclaim, with one critic saying: "Fans of metalcore in general, and As I Lay Dying in particular, will be more than satisfied with The Powerless Rise, as the band's gradual progression and consistency makes this their best album."
In 2010 the band toured in support of The Powerless Rise, headlining the majority of their shows. In the first half of the year, the band embarked on a US tour with Demon Hunter, blessthefall, and War of Ages. This was followed by a mid-2010 headlining tour titled "The Cool Tour" across the US, and a headlining tour across US/Canada that also featured All That Remains, Unearth, and Carnifex. The band's final headline tour of the year was in Europe, with Heaven Shall Burn, Suicide Silence, and Sylosis.
In February 2011, the band headlined a US tour with support from Winds of Plague and After the Burial. The band then toured in late April/early May with Trivium, in support of Disturbed, on the "Music as a Weapon" tour in Australia and New Zealand. Then at the end of May and beginning of June, the band headlined a few performances with Heaven Shall Burn.
On November 8, 2011, As I Lay Dying released a compilation, Decas, in honor of the band's ten-year anniversary. The album featured three new, original songs; four cover versions of songs by bands such as Slayer, Judas Priest and Descendents; a re-recorded medley that uses parts of several songs taken from Beneath the Encasing of Ashes; and four remixes, consisting of one song from each of their albums since Frail Words Collapse. The album's first track "Paralyzed" was released as a lyric video on September 13, 2011, and as a free download on iTunes on November 7, the day before the album's release. The band embarked on the "A Decade of Destruction" tour, coinciding with the release of the album, from November to December 2011.
Awakened, Tim Lambesis' trial and hiatus (2012–2016)
On January 25, 2012, an announcement revealed that the band would be playing the Mayhem Festival of 2012 with Slipknot, Slayer, Motörhead, Anthrax, The Devil Wears Prada, Asking Alexandria, Whitechapel, Upon A Burning Body, I, the Breather, Betraying the Martyrs, and Dirtfedd. The band announced in April 2012 that Bill Stevenson, who had previously worked with NOFX and Rise Against, would be the producer for their sixth album.
On June 22, 2012, the band announced that their sixth album would be titled Awakened and the first single "Cauterize" was released on June 25, 2012. On September 12, 2012, As I Lay Dying released their second single "A Greater Foundation" with a corresponding music video. The album was released on September 25, 2012 and "Cauterize" was available on the band's website as a free download for a 24-hour period. As I Lay Dying won the "Metal Band of the Year" award from Loudwire in 2012, beating other well-known bands, including Anthrax and Lamb of God. Subsequently, prior to his criminal charges, Lambesis started a new band entitled Pyrithion with guitarist Ryan Glisan, formerly of Allegaeon. They released one EP as a band.
On May 7, 2013, Lambesis was arrested in Oceanside, California, US after hiring an undercover detective to kill his estranged wife. The report was made by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, leaving the future of the band uncertain. On the following day, the band released a statement in which they said: "The legal process is taking its course and we have no more information than you do. There are many unanswered questions, and the situation will become clearer in the coming days and weeks. We'll keep you informed as best we can." They also stated that their thoughts were "with Tim, his family, and with everyone else affected by this terrible situation." Eight days later, the band cancelled their mid-2013 tour with Killswitch Engage, stating that "we feel that it is best for the band to be off the road while the current situation gets sorted". During the month of his initial arrest, Lambesis pleaded "not guilty" and his lawyer stated: "His thought processes were devastatingly affected by his steroid use." On February 25, 2014 Lambesis changed his plea from "not guilty" to "guilty" and consequently faced a potential sentence of nine years in prison.
Rather than continue on without Lambesis, Mancino, along with former members Phil Sgrosso, Nick Hipa, and Josh Gilbert, decided to focus on a different style of music under a different band name, Wovenwar, with Shane Blay as the vocalist, This project took shape long before Lambesis' plea. although Mancino still remained a member of As I Lay Dying. During this period of time, Lambesis was also working on music and found time to release the third Austrian Death Machine album, titled Triple Brutal.
On May 16, 2014, Lambesis was sentenced to six years in prison, with 48 days credit for time served.
Lambesis' release, reunion and new music (2016–2018)
Lambesis was released from prison on probation in December 2016. After his release he began reaching out to the other members of the band looking to apologize in person starting with Mancino and Gilbert. After months of silence Gilbert and Mancino eventually met with Lambesis and began speaking with him regularly after noting positive changes in his character. Lambesis attempted to reconnect with Sgrosso and Hipa following his meetings with Gilbert and Mancino—who as a result of Lambesis' actions and the strain it put on their relationships—had stopped speaking to each other following the recording of the second Wovenwar album. Sgrosso explained in a reunion-related discussion video posted by the band on June 16, 2018 that he initially replied to all of Lambesis' emails with explicit expressions of having no desire to speak with him. Sgrosso explained that his disdain with Lambesis started well before his arrest and took relief in not having to be in a band with him anymore upon Lambesis' arrest. His relationship with Hipa deteriorated due to what both described as not being able to deal with the weight of the aftermath properly. Hipa explained that while he initially felt empathy towards Lambesis after his tearful courtroom apology—it was short lived following Lambesis' interview with Alternative Press which Hipa claimed read like "one long excuse". After Lambesis made his public apology, Sgrosso finally agreed to meet with Lambesis and claimed Lambesis evolved into a different person than he was for the years leading up to his arrest which inspired him to reach out to Hipa to rekindle their friendship. Hipa was the last to speak with Lambesis due to what Hipa described as not being able to escape the shadow of Lambesis' arrest and the mental and physical effects it took on him. After reconnecting with Sgrosso and reading Lambesis' apology—he agreed to meet with Lambesis as a means to "let go of his hatred" and claimed that Lambesis owned up and took responsibility for every one of his actions he was called on.
Over the course of the tail end of Lambesis' incarceration and release, the band's public opinion towards Lambesis softened. Mancino did an interview primarily discussing Wovenwar, but also spoke about As I Lay Dying on MetalSucks' podcast. He stated that, contrary to popular beliefs, that Hipa, Sgrosso and Gilbert are still technically a part of As I Lay Dying due to their record contract and in another interview stated that he has "no ill will" towards Lambesis and wished him well. Hipa, when on an episode of Jamey Jasta's podcast when asked about a reunion commented "what it comes down to is what makes sense with what we have going on in our lives. And we've got a lot of important things going on that don't relate to that and we've made commitments to, and that's what we are honoring at this moment. Honestly it's just not something we try and consume our thoughts with. Because it's like we have families, businesses, professions, and a band—and all these things we're super invested into. It's like all of our attention is there with that at the moment."
On September 2, 2017, Metal Injection reported that Lambesis was working on new music and planned to release it under the As I Lay Dying name and that none of the pre-hiatus lineup aside from Lambesis would be returning. This would later be proven false, as on June 8, 2018, the band released the music video for "My Own Grave", confirming through the video that the lineup of Lambesis, Hipa, Sgrosso, Gilbert and Mancino had reunited. They performed their first show—which sold out in four minutes—in five years at the SOMA Sidestage in their hometown of San Diego. The band has stated the single was their first and only song written since their formal reunion in February 2018 and had no concrete plans past releasing the single and playing the SOMA show.
The news of their reunion drew particularly divisive reactions from fans and media outlets. While fan and critical reception of the band's reunion and comeback single were met largely with praise, others were openly skeptical on supporting Tim Lambesis following his prison sentence. Most notably was MetalSucks, who published an editorial that they will no longer be writing about the band with multiple outlets voicing their support for MetalSucks' decision. On June 16, 2018—the date of their comeback show at the SOMA—the band published a video on their official YouTube account addressing the questions and criticisms fans and critics of the band had and explaining the terms in detail of the reunion.
In July 2018, the band announced their first European headlining tour for December 2018. A day later, they announced their North American tour for November 2018. A vast majority of the shows sold out immediately. While tickets sold out quickly, some venues and festivals received a public backlash for booking the band because of Lambesis' crimes and decided to cancel the band's performances. Spain's Resurrection Fest announced it would be dropping As I Lay Dying from its bill in October 2018, and months later in January 2019, the Memphis, Tennessee venue Growlers cancelled their previously scheduled show in April 2019. Growlers released a statement that acknowledged Lambesis' public message from 2018, but stated: "After hearing the combined voice of disheartened friends, local bands, and patrons, locally owned concert venue and bar, Growlers, has cancelled their scheduled show with As I Lay Dying, previously set for April 5th, and will replace it with a local show to benefit victims of domestic violence [...] Not everyone was ready to give Lambesis a second chance, and Growlers has created controversy in Memphis for booking his band."
Touring, Shaped by Fire, and Nick Hipa's departure (2019–present)
They embarked on a tour in March 2019 with Phinehas, Currents and Frost Koffin as support. On April 12, 2019, the band released a music video for "Redefined", including a guest appearance by August Burns Red frontman Jake Luhrs. On April 14, the band announced the "Shaped by Fire" tour of Europe with support from Chelsea Grin, Unearth and Fit for a King running from September 2019 and concluding in October. On July 15, the band announced the North American dates of the "Shaped by Fire" Tour with direct support from After the Burial and Emmure to begin on November 15 at the House of Blues in Las Vegas and conclude on December 14 with a hometown show at the Soma San Diego. Details of their forthcoming album, Shaped by Fire, were leaked through Nuclear Blast's European website with a projected release date of September 20, 2019. On August 9, the band officially announced their first album in seven years, Shaped by Fire, would be released through Nuclear Blast Records, along with releasing the album's title track. On September 13, the band released "Blinded" as the album's fourth single along with an accompanying music video.
In March 2020, as a way of supporting their crew during the COVID-19 pandemic, they released an additional song, "Destruction or Strength", a B-side from Shaped by Fire album sessions. In May 2020, another music video for the song "Torn Between" was released.
On August 15, it was reported that Nick Hipa might have left the band, as he no longer performed with them and disassociated his personal social media accounts with the band. Hipa officially confirmed his departure one year later on August 31, 2021, noting that behaviors resulting from being in the band led to his decision to leave it: "There is tremendous good that can be accomplished through singular focus on the power of music. However to my memory and recent experience, it comes at the cost of tolerating behavior which at times mistreats, disrespects, and hurts other people." He further elaborated that the power and reasoning behind As I Lay Dying's reunion had faded in favor of superficial pursuits, which he did not wish to be a part of.
On September 24, 2021, the band unveiled a new single, "Roots Below".
Musical style and influences
As I Lay Dying is considered a prominent metalcore band. The band also has been referred to as Christian metal, death metal, and thrash metal. As I Lay Dying's music uses lots of elements of melodic death metal. In a review of Beneath the Encasing of Ashes, Bradley Torreano of AllMusic described the band's sound as a blend of heavy metal, hardcore, and grindcore. Heavy metal writer Garry Sharpe-Young described the band as a "Christian Hardcore act employing the Grind edged vocals of singer Tim Lambesis and a distinct hint of Scandinavian guitar chug." As I Lay Dying's influences include In Flames, Living Sacrifice, Iron Maiden, Slayer, At the Gates, Pantera, Megadeth, Fear Factory, Cannibal Corpse, Thin Lizzy, Shai Hulud, Dark Tranquillity, Metallica, Judas Priest, and Earth Crisis.
Christianity
Although As I Lay Dying has stated on numerous occasions that all of the members of the group are practicing Christians, the band is usually described by media as being in the metalcore genre, not Christian metal. The band's lyrics do not focus on Christian themes the way many praise music bands do, nor do they treat their music as a direct extension of their private Christian worship or proselytizing efforts. For example, not once do the names God or Jesus appear in any As I Lay Dying song, nor do any of their songs explicitly invoke Christian doctrine or quote the Bible. Most songs tend to address broader spiritual concepts like existential angst or the struggle between reason and spirituality.
Lyricist and lead singer Tim Lambesis has given mixed commentary on the subject: asked in 2008 if the members were "a Christian band" or "Christians in a band", Lambesis stated on the band's FAQ, "I'm not sure what the difference is between five Christians playing in a band and a Christian band, if you truly believe something, then it should affect every area of your life. All five of us are Christians. I believe that change should start with me first, and as a result, our lyrics do not come across very 'preachy.' Many of our songs are about life, struggles, mistakes, relationships and other issues that don't fit entirely in the spiritual category. However, all of these topics are written about through my perspective as a Christian." Furthermore, during an August 2010 radio interview on the Christian metal radio show The Full Armor of God Broadcast, Lambesis stated "I can only really write about what I'm passionate about in life, so naturally my faith, my belief in the teachings of Jesus and His resurrection come across in our lyrics."
However, in later years, Lambesis showed an increasing philosophical skepticism towards Christianity and religion in general. Court documents stated Lambesis emailed his wife Meggan in August 2012, while on tour with As I Lay Dying, asking for a divorce and stating he "no longer believed in God". In explaining some of the lyrics from Awakened, Lambesis stated on his personal Tumblr account that his studies of theology had led him to the conclusion that "tradition and truth are often at odds with each other", and while he "didn't hate all religious belief", he was finding it "very difficult for [him] to outline exactly who it is that's worth siding with." He also quoted the book Pagan Christianity by George Barna and Frank Viola, claiming that both "Protestant and Catholic denominations have poisonous roots". While on house arrest in July 2013, after being charged with soliciting his wife's murder, Lambesis published a blog post in which he obliquely confirmed his previous loss of faith in Christianity. In 2014, Lambesis said that although they were marketed as a Christian band, the members privately considered themselves atheists. Following this statement, guitarist Nick Hipa responded by calling these claims slanderous and defamatory. However, since his arrest it has been reported that Lambesis, in an April 2014 statement by the band, "[...] has spent much of the last year reevaluating what originally convinced him to abandon belief in God. After much brokenness and repentance he sees things differently, considers himself a follower of Jesus, someone submitted to the will of God, or whatever you want to call it. That's for him to talk about when he's comfortable and only time will tell if he is sincere."
Members
Current
Tim Lambesis – unclean vocals, occasional clean vocals (2000–2014, 2017–present)
Jordan Mancino – drums (2000–2014, 2018–present)
Phil Sgrosso – guitars, backing vocals (2003–2014, 2018–present)
Josh Gilbert – bass, clean vocals (2006–2014, 2018–present)
Former
Nick Hipa – guitars, backing vocals (2003–2014, 2018–2020)
Clint Norris – bass, clean vocals (2003–2006)
Evan White – guitars (2001–2003), bass (2002–2003)
Jeremy Rojas – guitars (2001)
Jon Jameson – bass (2001)
Noah Chase – bass (2001, 2002, 2003)
Tommy Garcia – guitars, bass, backing vocals (2002–2003; session member 2003–2010)
Jason Krebs – guitars (2002–2003)
Brandon Hays – bass, guitars (2002–2003)
Aaron Kennedy – bass (2003)
Touring musicians
Chad Ackerman – guitars (2001–2002), backing vocals (session, 2007)
Caylen Denuccio – bass (2002–2003)
Chris Lindstrom – guitars (2001, 2003)
Mark Macdonald – guitars (2003–2004)
Ruben Gutierrez – guitars (2001)
David Arthur – clean vocals (2005)
Justin Foley – drums (2009)
Joey Bradford – backing vocals (2012)
Duane Reed – backing vocals (2007)
Timeline
Discography
Beneath the Encasing of Ashes (2001)
Frail Words Collapse (2003)
Shadows Are Security (2005)
An Ocean Between Us (2007)
The Powerless Rise (2010)
Awakened (2012)
Shaped by Fire (2019)
Awards and nominations
San Diego Music Awards
Artist of the Year (2005)
Artist of the Year (2007)
Artist of the Year (2008)
Best Hard Rock (2011)
Grammy Awards
Nominated for 2008 Best Metal Performance for the song "Nothing Left"
MTV2 Music Awards
Ultimate Metal God (2007)
Hollywood Film Fest awards
Best Music Video for "The Sound of Truth" music video
Loudwire Music Awards
Metal Band of the Year (2012)
References
External links
American metalcore musical groups
Heavy metal musical groups from California
Musical groups from San Diego
Musical quintets
2000 establishments in California
Musical groups established in 2000
Musical groups disestablished in 2014
Musical groups reestablished in 2017
Metal Blade Records artists
Articles which contain graphical timelines
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[
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"Peter Cook",
"Revival"
] |
C_7436d601652c427aad9311442103ea8a_0
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what was the revival of?
| 1 |
What was the revival of Peter Cook?
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Peter Cook
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In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong (1945-2016) in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life and he reduced his drinking, to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while his wife kept her own property only 100 yards away. Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life based on the Twelve Days of Christmas. Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3. Morris described them: It was a very different style of improvisation from what I'd been used to, working with people like Steve Coogan, Doon Mackichan and Rebecca Front, because those On the Hour and The Day Today things were about trying to establish a character within a situation, and Peter Cook was really doing 'knight's move' and 'double knight's move' thinking to construct jokes or ridiculous scenes flipping back on themselves, and it was amazing. I mean, I held out no great hopes that he wouldn't be a boozy old sack of lard with his hair falling out and scarcely able to get a sentence out, because he hadn't given much evidence that that wouldn't be the case. But, in fact, he stumbled in with a Safeways bag full of Kestrel lager and loads of fags and then proceeded to skip about mentally with the agility of a grasshopper. Really quite extraordinary. On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters - biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared, on 26 December, in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the next year his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last TV appearance on the show Pebble Mill at One in November 1994. CANNOTANSWER
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Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces.
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Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English satirist and comedic actor. He was a leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.
Born in Torquay, he was educated at the University of Cambridge. There he became involved with the Footlights Club, of which he later became president. After graduating he created the comedy stage revue Beyond the Fringe, beginning a long-running partnership with Dudley Moore. In 1961, Cook opened the comedy club The Establishment in Soho, Central London. In 1965, Cook and Moore began a television career, beginning with Not Only... But Also. Cook’s deadpan monologues contrasted with Moore’s buffoonery. They received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. Following the success of the show, the duo appeared together in the films The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967). Cook and Moore returned to television projects continuing to the late 1970s, including co-presenting Saturday Night Live in the United States. From 1978 until his death in 1995, Cook no longer collaborated with Moore, apart from a few cameo appearances but continued to be a regular performer in British television and film.
Referred to as "the father of modern satire" by The Guardian in 2005, Cook was ranked number one in the Comedians' Comedian, a poll of more than 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors in the English-speaking world.
Early life
Cook was born at his parents' house, "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. He was the only son, and eldest of the three children, of Alexander Edward "Alec" Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret (1908–1994), daughter of solicitor Charles Mayo. His father served as political officer and later district officer in Nigeria, then as financial secretary to the colony of Gibraltar, followed by a return to Nigeria as Permanent Secretary of the Eastern Region based at Enugu. Cook's grandfather, Edward Arthur Cook (1869–1914), had also been a colonial civil servant, traffic manager for the Federated Malay States Railway in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya; stress that he suffered, in the lead-up to an interview regarding promotion, led him to commit suicide. His wife, Minnie Jane (1869–1957; daughter of Thomas Wreford, of Thelbridge and Witheridge, Devon, and of Stratford-upon-Avon, of a prominent Devonshire family traced back to 1440), kept this fact secret; Peter Cook only discovered the truth when later researching his family.
Cook was educated at Radley College and then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read French and German. As a student, Cook initially intended to become a career diplomat like his father, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although largely apathetic politically, particularly in later life when he displayed a deep distrust of politicians of all hues, he joined the Cambridge University Liberal Club. At Pembroke, Cook performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs.
While still at university, Cook wrote for Kenneth Williams, providing several sketches for Williams' hit West End comedy revue Pieces of Eight and much of the follow-up, One Over the Eight, before finding prominence in his own right in a four-man group satirical stage show, Beyond the Fringe, alongside Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, and Dudley Moore.
Beyond the Fringe became a great success in London after being first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and included Cook impersonating the prime minister, Harold Macmillan. This was one of the first occasions satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre, and it shocked audiences. During one performance, Macmillan was in the theatre and Cook departed from his script and attacked him verbally.
Career
1960s
In 1961, Cook opened The Establishment, a club at 18 Greek Street in Soho in central London, presenting fellow comedians in a nightclub setting, including American Lenny Bruce. Cook said it was a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets ... which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War"; as a members-only venue, it was outside the censorship restrictions. The Establishment's regular cabaret performers were Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and John Fortune.
Cook befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club. Humphries said in his autobiography, My Life As Me, that he found Cook's lack of interest in art and literature off-putting. Dudley Moore's jazz trio played in the basement of the club during the early 1960s.
Cook also opened an Establishment club in New York in 1963 and Lenny Bruce performed there, as well.
In 1962, the BBC commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on the Establishment Club, but it was not immediately picked up and Cook went to New York City for a year to perform Beyond the Fringe on Broadway. When he returned, the pilot had been refashioned as That Was the Week That Was and had made a star of David Frost, something Cook resented.
The 1960s satire boom was coming to an end and Cook said: "England was about to sink giggling into the sea." He complained that Frost's success was based on copying Cook's own stage persona and Cook dubbed him "the bubonic plagiarist", and said that his only regret in life, according to Alan Bennett, had been saving Frost from drowning. This incident occurred in the summer of 1963, when the rivalry between the two men was at its height. Cook had realised that Frost's potential drowning would have looked deliberate if he had not been rescued.
Around this time, Cook provided financial backing for the satirical magazine Private Eye, supporting it through difficult periods, particularly in libel trials. Cook invested his own money and solicited investment from his friends. For a time, the magazine was produced from the premises of the Establishment Club. In 1963, Cook married Wendy Snowden; the couple had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy, but the marriage ended in 1970.
Cook's first regular television spot was on Granada Television's Braden Beat with Bernard Braden, where he featured his most enduring character: the static, dour and monotonal E. L. Wisty, whom Cook had conceived for Radley College's Marionette Society.
Cook's comedy partnership with Dudley Moore led to Not Only... But Also. This was originally intended by the BBC as a vehicle for Moore's music, but Moore invited Cook to write sketches and appear with him. Using few props, they created dry, absurd television that proved hugely popular and lasted for three series between 1965 and 1970. Cook played characters such as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and the two men created their Pete and Dud alter egos. Other sketches included "Superthunderstingcar", a parody of the Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows, and Cook's pastiche of 1960s trendy arts documentaries – satirised in a parodic segment on Greta Garbo.
When Cook learned a few years later that the videotapes of the series were to be wiped, a common practice at the time, he offered to buy the recordings from the BBC but was refused because of copyright issues. He suggested he could purchase new tapes so that the BBC would have no need to erase the originals, but this was also turned down. Of the original 22 programmes, only eight still survive complete. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only...But Also was shown on television and has been released on both VHS and DVD.
With The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967), Cook and Moore began to act in films together. Directed by Stanley Donen, the underlying story of Bedazzled is credited to Cook and Moore and its screenplay to Cook. A comic parody of Faust, it stars Cook as George Spigott (the Devil) who tempts Stanley Moon (Moore), a frustrated, short-order chef, with the promise of gaining his heart's desire – the unattainable beauty and waitress at his cafe, Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) – in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him. The film features cameo appearances by Barry Humphries as Envy and Raquel Welch as Lust. Moore composed the soundtrack music and co-wrote (with Cook) the songs performed in the film. His jazz trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivered in a deadpan monotone and included his familiar put-down, "you fill me with inertia".
In 1968, Cook and Moore briefly switched to ATV for four one-hour programmes titled Goodbye Again, based on the Pete and Dud characters. Cook's increasing alcoholism led him to become reliant on cue cards; the show was not a popular success, owing in part to a strike causing the suspension of the publication of the ITV listings magazine TV Times. John Cleese was also a cast member, who would become close lifelong friends with Cook and later collaborated on multiple projects together.
1970s
In 1970, Cook took over a project initiated by David Frost for a satirical film about an opinion pollster who rises to become President of Great Britain. Under Cook's guidance, the character became modelled on Frost. The film, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, was not a success, although the cast contained notable names (including Cleese and Graham Chapman, who were co-writers).
Cook became a favourite of the chat show circuit but his effort at hosting such a show for the BBC in 1971, Where Do I Sit?, was said by the critics to have been a disappointment. It was axed after only three episodes and was replaced by Michael Parkinson, the start of Parkinson's career as a chat show host. Parkinson later asked Cook what his ambitions were, Cook replied jocularly "[...] in fact, my ambition is to shut you up altogether you see!"
Cook and Moore fashioned sketches from Not Only....But Also and Goodbye Again with new material into the stage revue called Behind the Fridge. This show toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York City in 1973, re-titled as Good Evening. Cook frequently appeared on and off stage the worse for drink. Nonetheless, the show proved very popular and it won Tony and Grammy Awards. When it finished, Moore stayed in the United States to pursue his film acting ambitions in Hollywood. Cook returned to Britain and in 1973, married the actress and model Judy Huxtable.
Later, the more risqué humour of Pete and Dud went further on such LPs as "Derek and Clive". The first recording was initiated by Cook to alleviate boredom during the Broadway run of Good Evening and used material conceived years before for the two characters but considered too outrageous. One of these audio recordings was also filmed and therein tensions between the duo are seen to rise. Chris Blackwell circulated bootleg copies to friends in the music business. The popularity of the recording convinced Cook to release it commercially, although Moore was initially reluctant, fearing that his rising fame as a Hollywood star would be undermined. Two further Derek and Clive albums were released, the last accompanied by a film.
Cook and Moore hosted Saturday Night Live on 24 January 1976 during the show's first season. They did a number of their classic stage routines, including "One Leg Too Few" and "Frog and Peach" among others, in addition to participating in some skits with the show's ensemble cast. In 1978, Cook appeared on the British music series Revolver as the manager of a ballroom where emerging punk and new wave acts played. For some groups, these were their first appearances on television. Cook's acerbic commentary was a distinctive aspect of the programme. In 1979, Cook recorded comedy-segments as B-sides to the Sparks 12-inch singles "Number One Song in Heaven" and "Tryouts for the Human Race". The main songwriter Ron Mael often began with a banal situation in his lyrics and then went at surreal tangents in the style of Cook and S. J. Perelman.
Amnesty International performances
Cook appeared at the first three fund-raising galas staged by Cleese and Martin Lewis on behalf of Amnesty International. The benefits were dubbed The Secret Policeman's Balls, though it wasn't until the third show in 1979 that the title was used. He performed on all three nights of the first show in April 1976, A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick), as an individual performer and as a member of the cast of Beyond the Fringe, which reunited for the first time since the 1960s. He also appeared in a Monty Python sketch, taking the place of Eric Idle. Cook was on the cast album of the show and in the film, Pleasure at Her Majesty's. He was in the second Amnesty gala in May 1977, An Evening Without Sir Bernard Miles. It was retitled The Mermaid Frolics for the cast album and TV special. Cook performed monologues and skits with Terry Jones.
In June 1979, Cook performed all four nights of The Secret Policeman's Ball, teaming with Cleese. Cook performed a couple of solo pieces and a sketch with Eleanor Bron. He also led the ensemble in the finale – the "End of the World" sketch from Beyond the Fringe.
In response to a barb in The Daily Telegraph that the show was recycled material, Cook wrote a satire of the summing-up by Justice Cantley in the trial of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, a summary now widely thought to show bias in favour of Thorpe. Cook performed it that same night (Friday 29 June – the third of the four nights) and the following night. The nine-minute opus, "Entirely a Matter for You", is considered by many fans and critics to be one of the finest works of Cook's career. Along with Cook, producer of the show Martin Lewis brought out an album on Virgin Records entitled Here Comes the Judge: Live, containing the live performance together with three studio tracks that further lampooned the Thorpe trial.
Although unable to take part in the 1981 gala, Cook supplied the narration over the animated opening title sequence of the 1982 film of the show. With Lewis, he wrote and voiced radio commercials to advertise the film in the UK. He also hosted a spoof film awards ceremony that was part of the world première of the film in London in March 1982.
Following Cook's 1987 stage reunion with Moore for the annual American benefit for the homeless, Comic Relief (not related to the UK Comic Relief benefits), Cook repeated the reunion for a British audience by performing with Moore at the 1989 Amnesty benefit The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.
Consequences album
Cook played multiple roles on the 1977 concept album Consequences, written and produced by former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. A mixture of spoken comedy and progressive rock with an environmental subtext, Consequences started as a single that Godley and Creme planned to make to demonstrate their invention, an electric guitar effect called the Gizmo, which they developed in 10cc. The project grew into a three-LP box set. The comedy sections were originally intended to be performed by a cast including Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov, but Godley and Creme eventually settled on Cook once they realised he could perform most parts himself.
The storyline centres on the impending divorce of ineffectual Englishman Walter Stapleton (Cook) and his French wife Lulu (Judy Huxtable). While meeting their lawyers – the bibulous Mr. Haig and overbearing Mr. Pepperman (both played by Cook) – the encroaching global catastrophe interrupts proceedings with bizarre and mysterious happenings, which seem to centre on Mr. Blint (Cook), a musician and composer living in the flat below Haig's office, to which it is connected by a large hole in the floor.
Although it has since developed a cult following due to Cook's presence, Consequences was released as punk was sweeping the UK and proved a resounding commercial failure, savaged by critics who found the music self-indulgent. The script and story have evident connections to Cook's own life – his then-wife Judy Huxtable plays Walter's wife. Cook's struggles with alcohol are mirrored in Haig's drinking, and there is a parallel between the fictional divorce of Walter and Lulu and Cook's own divorce from his first wife. The voice and accent Cook used for the character of Stapleton are similar to those of Cook's Beyond the Fringe colleague, Alan Bennett, and a book on Cook's comedy, How Very Interesting, speculates that the characters Cook plays in Consequences are caricatures of the four Beyond the Fringe cast members – the alcoholic Haig represents Cook, the tremulous Stapleton is Bennett, the parodically Jewish Pepperman is Miller, and the pianist Blint represents Moore.
1980s
Cook starred in the LWT special Peter Cook & Co. in 1980. The show included comedy sketches, including a Tales of the Unexpected parody "Tales of the Much As We Expected". This involved Cook as Roald Dahl, explaining his name had been Ronald before he dropped the "n". The cast included Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Beryl Reid, Paula Wilcox, and Terry Jones. Partly spurred by Moore's growing film star status, Cook moved to Hollywood in that year, and appeared as an uptight English butler to a wealthy American woman in a short-lived United States television sitcom, The Two of Us, also making cameo appearances in a couple of undistinguished films.
In 1983, Cook played the role of Richard III in the first episode of Blackadder, "The Foretelling", which parodies Laurence Olivier's portrayal. In 1984, he played the role of Nigel, the mathematics teacher, in Jeannot Szwarc's film Supergirl, working alongside the evil Selena played by Faye Dunaway. He then narrated the short film Diplomatix by Norwegian comedy trio Kirkvaag, Lystad, and Mjøen, which won the "Special Prize of the City of Montreux" at the Montreux Comedy Festival in 1985. In 1986, he partnered Joan Rivers on her UK talk show. He appeared as Mr Jolly in 1987 in The Comic Strip Presents...''' episode "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door", playing an assassin who covers the sound of his murders by playing Tom Jones records. That same year, Cook appeared in The Princess Bride as the "Impressive Clergyman" who officiates at the wedding ceremony between Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck, uttering the now-famous line "Mawage!" Also that year, he spent time working with humourist Martin Lewis on a political satire about the 1988 US presidential elections for HBO, but the script went unproduced. Lewis suggested that Cook team with Moore for the US Comic Relief telethon for the homeless. The duo reunited and performed their "One Leg Too Few" sketch. Cook again collaborated with Moore for the 1989 Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.
A 1984 commercial for John Harvey & Sons showed Cook at a poolside party drinking Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry. He then says to "throw away those silly little glasses" whereupon the other party guests toss their sunglasses in the swimming pool.
In 1988, Cook appeared as a contestant on the improvisation comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? He was declared the winner, his prize being to read the credits in the style of a New York cab driver – a character he had portrayed in Peter Cook & Co.Cook occasionally called in to Clive Bull's night-time phone-in radio show on LBC in London. Using the name "Sven from Swiss Cottage", he mused on love, loneliness, and herrings in a mock Norwegian accent. Jokes included Sven's attempts to find his estranged wife, in which he often claimed to be telephoning the show from all over the world, and his hatred of the Norwegian obsession with fish. While Bull was clearly aware that Sven was fictional, he did not learn of the caller's real identity until later.
Revival
In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life, and he reduced his drinking to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while she kept her own property just away.
Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life, based on the song "Twelve Days of Christmas". Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3 in 1994. Morris described them:
On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters – biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp, and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day, he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the following year, his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last television appearance on the show Pebble Mill at One in November 1994.
Personal life and death
Cook was married three times. He was first married to Wendy Snowden, whom he met at university, in 1963; they had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy; they divorced in 1971. Cook then married his second wife, model and actress Judy Huxtable, in 1973, the marriage formally ending in 1989 after they had been separated for some years. He married his third and final wife, Chiew Lin Chong, in 1989, to whom he remained married until his death. Cook became stepfather to Chong's daughter, Nina. Chong died at the age of 71 in November 2016.
Cook died in a coma on 9 January 1995 at age 57 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage, a complication probably resulting from years of heavy drinking. His body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, and his ashes were buried in an unmarked plot behind St John-at-Hampstead, not far from his home in Perrins Walk.
Dudley Moore attended Cook's memorial service at St John-at-Hampstead on 1 May 1995. He and Martin Lewis presented a two-night memorial for Cook at The Improv in Los Angeles, on 15 and 16 November 1995, to mark what would have been Cook's 58th birthday.
Cook was an avid spectator of most sports and was a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur football club.
Legacy
Cook is widely acknowledged as a strong influence on the many British comedians who followed him from the amateur dramatic clubs of British universities to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then to radio and television. On his death, some critics choose to see Cook's life as tragic, insofar as the brilliance of his youth had not been sustained in his later years. However, Cook always maintained he had no ambitions for sustained success. He assessed happiness by his friendships and his enjoyment of life. Eric Idle said Cook had not wasted his talent, but rather that the newspapers had tried to waste him.
Several friends honoured him with a dedication in the closing credits of Fierce Creatures (1997), a comedy film written by John Cleese about a zoo in peril of being closed. It starred Cleese alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin. The dedication displays photos and the lifespan dates of Cook and of naturalist and humourist Gerald Durrell.
In 1999, the minor planet 20468 Petercook, in the main asteroid belt, was named after Cook.
Channel 4 broadcast Not Only But Always, a television film dramatising the relationship between Cook and Moore, with Rhys Ifans portraying Cook. At the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a play, Pete and Dud: Come Again written by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, examined the relationship from Moore's view. The play was transferred to London's West End at The Venue in 2006 and toured the UK the following year. During the West End run, Tom Goodman-Hill starred as Cook, with Kevin Bishop as Moore.
A green plaque to honour Cook was unveiled by the Westminster City Council and the Heritage Foundation at the site of the Establishment Club, at 18 Greek Street, on 15 February 2009.
A blue plaque was unveiled by the Torbay Civic Society on 17 November 2014 at Cook's place of birth, "Shearbridge", Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, with his widow Lin and other members of the family in attendance. A further blue plaque was commissioned and erected at the home of Torquay United, Plainmoor, Torquay, in 2015.
FilmographyBachelor of Hearts (1958) – Pedestrian in Street (uncredited)Ten Thousand Talents (short film, 1960) – voiceWhat's Going on Here (TV film, 1963) The Wrong Box (1966) – Morris FinsburyAlice in Wonderland (TV film, 1966) – Mad HatterBedazzled (1967) – George Spiggott / The DevilA Dandy in Aspic (1968) – PrentissMonte Carlo or Bust! (released in the US as Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies) (1969) – Maj. Digby DawlishThe Bed Sitting Room (1969) – InspectorThe Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) – Michael RimmerBehind the Fridge (TV film, 1971) – Various CharactersAn Apple a Day (TV film, 1971) – Mr Elwood Sr.The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) – DominicSaturday Night at the Baths (1975) – Himself, in theatre audience (uncredited)Find the Lady (1976) – LewenhakEric Sykes Shows a Few of Our Favourite Things (TV film, 1977) – StagehandThe Hound of the Baskervilles (1978) – Sherlock HolmesDerek and Clive Get the Horn (1979) – ClivePeter Cook & Co. (TV Special, 1980) – Various CharactersYellowbeard (1983) – Lord Percy LambournSupergirl (1984) – NigelKenny Everett's Christmas Carol (TV movie, 1985) – Ghost of Christmas Yet To ComeThe Myth (1986) – HimselfThe Princess Bride (1987) – The Impressive ClergymanWhoops Apocalypse (1988) – Sir Mortimer ChrisWithout a Clue (1988) – Norman GreenhoughJake's Journey (TV movie, 1988) – KingGetting It Right (1989) – Mr AdrianGreat Balls of Fire! (1989) – First English ReporterThe Craig Ferguson Story (TV film, 1991) – Fergus Ferguson Roger Mellie (1991) - Roger Mellie (voice)One Foot in the Algarve (1993 episode of One Foot in the Grave) – Martin TroutBlack Beauty (1994) – Lord Wexmire (final film role)Peter Cook Talks Golf Balls (video, 1994) – played four characters: Alec Dunroonie / Dieter Liedbetter / Major Titherly Glibble / Bill Rossi
TV seriesChronicle (1964) – presenter (one episode)A Series of Bird's (1967) – (1 episode)Not Only... But Also (1965–70) – Various Characters (22 episodes)Not Only But Also. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Australia (miniseries, 1971) Thirty-Minute Theatre (1972) – Peter Trilby (1 episode)Revolver (1978) (8 episodes)The Two of Us (1981–1982) – Robert Brentwood (20 episodes)The Black Adder (1983) – Richard III (first episode, "The Foretelling")Diplomatix (TV Short, 1985) – Narrator (voice)The Comic Strip Presents... (1988) – Mr Jolly (one episode)The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only... But Also (1990) – Pete / Himself / other characters (one episode)A Life in Pieces (TV Short, 1990) – Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling (12 episodes)Roger Mellie: The Man on the Telly (1991) – Roger Mellie (voice) Gone to Seed (1992) – Wesley Willis (six episodes)Arena (1993) – himself (two episodes)
Amnesty International performancesPleasure at Her Majesty's (1976)The Mermaid Frolics (1977)The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979)The Secret Policeman's Private Parts (1981) - Intro narratorThe Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball (1989)The Best of Amnesty: Featuring the Stars of Monty Python (1999)
Discography
UK chart singles:
"The Ballad of Spotty Muldoon" (1965)
"Goodbye-ee" (1965) (both with Dudley Moore)
Albums:
Bridge on the River Wye (1962)
The Misty Mr. Wisty (1965) Decca LK 4722
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Cordially Invite You to Go to Hell! (1967)
Behind the Fridge (with Dudley Moore) (1972) Aus #35
Derek and Clive (Live) (with Dudley Moore) (1976)
Derek and Clive Come Again (with Dudley Moore) (1977)
Derek and Clive Ad Nauseam'' (with Dudley Moore) (1978)
References
Further reading
Richard Mills, (2010). Pop half-cocked: a history of "Revolver". In Inglis, Ian, (ed). Popular Music and Television in Britain. Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 149 - 160.
External links
The Establishment
Lengthy 1988 KCRW radio interview in 3 parts "Bob Claster's Funny Stuff" including many excerpts.
Mr Blint's Attic
Tribute to Peter Cook, with texts and commentary
Good Evening, a Peter Cook Fansite incl. Gallery
The BBC Guide to Comedy: Not Only...But Also
Missing-Episodes.com
One Leg Too Few, script for one of Cook and Moore's most famous and oft-performed sketches.
20th-century English male actors
1937 births
1995 deaths
Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge
Comedians from Devon
Deaths from gastrointestinal hemorrhage
English male comedians
English male film actors
English male television actors
English satirists
English television writers
Grammy Award winners
Male actors from Devon
People educated at Radley College
People from Torquay
Private Eye contributors
English male writers
English social commentators
Decca Records artists
British male television writers
20th-century English screenwriters
Special Tony Award recipients
| true |
[
"The Green-Lovelace House, located about north of the town of Sicily Island in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, is a historic house which was built in about 1830. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.\n\nIt has elements of Greek Revival style.\n\nIt was one of just three Greek Revival-styled plantation houses surviving in the parish in 1983, out of what was probably about 40 at the time of the American Civil War.\n\nSee also\nNational Register of Historic Places listings in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana\nBattleground Plantation, another Greek Revival plantation house in the parish, about two miles north\n\nReferences\n\nHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Louisiana\nGreek Revival architecture in Louisiana\nHouses completed in 1830\nCatahoula Parish, Louisiana",
"Old Wythe Historic District is a national historic district located at Hampton, Virginia. The district encompasses 2,076 contributing buildings, 1 contributing site, and 1 contributing structure in a primarily residential area of Hampton. The residences include notable examples of the Greek Revival, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and Mission Revival styles.\n\nIt was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. The neighborhood association uses the spelling \"Olde Wythe.\" This is followed on numerous local signs and historical makers.\n\nHistory \n\nThe Old Wythe Historic District is part of the larger Wythe neighborhood. It was named after George Wythe, a law professor and signer of the Declaration of Independence who was born within what is now the City of Hampton. The name was first applied to this portion of Elizabeth City County after the Civil War and is reflected on in the 1870 U.S. Census. All of Elizabeth City County later became part of the City of Hampton.\n\nThe district first developed in the 1880s, and is composed generally of six primary subdivisions with the last platted in the 1930s. The earliest building is the John Simpson House, built in 1849.\n\nSuburban development in the district was spurred by the growth of two nearby cities, Hampton and Newport News. The district experienced a boom in development during and after World War I, with over half of the residences being built in the 1930s and 40s.\n\nReferences\n\nHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia\nNational Register of Historic Places in Hampton, Virginia\nGreek Revival architecture in Virginia\nQueen Anne architecture in Virginia\nColonial Revival architecture in Virginia\nTudor Revival architecture in Virginia\nMission Revival architecture in Virginia\nHistoric districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia\nHouses in Hampton, Virginia"
] |
[
"Peter Cook",
"Revival",
"what was the revival of?",
"Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces."
] |
C_7436d601652c427aad9311442103ea8a_0
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was this successful?
| 2 |
Was Peter Cook's return to the BBC successful?
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Peter Cook
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In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong (1945-2016) in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life and he reduced his drinking, to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while his wife kept her own property only 100 yards away. Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life based on the Twelve Days of Christmas. Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3. Morris described them: It was a very different style of improvisation from what I'd been used to, working with people like Steve Coogan, Doon Mackichan and Rebecca Front, because those On the Hour and The Day Today things were about trying to establish a character within a situation, and Peter Cook was really doing 'knight's move' and 'double knight's move' thinking to construct jokes or ridiculous scenes flipping back on themselves, and it was amazing. I mean, I held out no great hopes that he wouldn't be a boozy old sack of lard with his hair falling out and scarcely able to get a sentence out, because he hadn't given much evidence that that wouldn't be the case. But, in fact, he stumbled in with a Safeways bag full of Kestrel lager and loads of fags and then proceeded to skip about mentally with the agility of a grasshopper. Really quite extraordinary. On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters - biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared, on 26 December, in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the next year his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last TV appearance on the show Pebble Mill at One in November 1994. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English satirist and comedic actor. He was a leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.
Born in Torquay, he was educated at the University of Cambridge. There he became involved with the Footlights Club, of which he later became president. After graduating he created the comedy stage revue Beyond the Fringe, beginning a long-running partnership with Dudley Moore. In 1961, Cook opened the comedy club The Establishment in Soho, Central London. In 1965, Cook and Moore began a television career, beginning with Not Only... But Also. Cook’s deadpan monologues contrasted with Moore’s buffoonery. They received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. Following the success of the show, the duo appeared together in the films The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967). Cook and Moore returned to television projects continuing to the late 1970s, including co-presenting Saturday Night Live in the United States. From 1978 until his death in 1995, Cook no longer collaborated with Moore, apart from a few cameo appearances but continued to be a regular performer in British television and film.
Referred to as "the father of modern satire" by The Guardian in 2005, Cook was ranked number one in the Comedians' Comedian, a poll of more than 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors in the English-speaking world.
Early life
Cook was born at his parents' house, "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. He was the only son, and eldest of the three children, of Alexander Edward "Alec" Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret (1908–1994), daughter of solicitor Charles Mayo. His father served as political officer and later district officer in Nigeria, then as financial secretary to the colony of Gibraltar, followed by a return to Nigeria as Permanent Secretary of the Eastern Region based at Enugu. Cook's grandfather, Edward Arthur Cook (1869–1914), had also been a colonial civil servant, traffic manager for the Federated Malay States Railway in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya; stress that he suffered, in the lead-up to an interview regarding promotion, led him to commit suicide. His wife, Minnie Jane (1869–1957; daughter of Thomas Wreford, of Thelbridge and Witheridge, Devon, and of Stratford-upon-Avon, of a prominent Devonshire family traced back to 1440), kept this fact secret; Peter Cook only discovered the truth when later researching his family.
Cook was educated at Radley College and then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read French and German. As a student, Cook initially intended to become a career diplomat like his father, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although largely apathetic politically, particularly in later life when he displayed a deep distrust of politicians of all hues, he joined the Cambridge University Liberal Club. At Pembroke, Cook performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs.
While still at university, Cook wrote for Kenneth Williams, providing several sketches for Williams' hit West End comedy revue Pieces of Eight and much of the follow-up, One Over the Eight, before finding prominence in his own right in a four-man group satirical stage show, Beyond the Fringe, alongside Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, and Dudley Moore.
Beyond the Fringe became a great success in London after being first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and included Cook impersonating the prime minister, Harold Macmillan. This was one of the first occasions satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre, and it shocked audiences. During one performance, Macmillan was in the theatre and Cook departed from his script and attacked him verbally.
Career
1960s
In 1961, Cook opened The Establishment, a club at 18 Greek Street in Soho in central London, presenting fellow comedians in a nightclub setting, including American Lenny Bruce. Cook said it was a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets ... which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War"; as a members-only venue, it was outside the censorship restrictions. The Establishment's regular cabaret performers were Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and John Fortune.
Cook befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club. Humphries said in his autobiography, My Life As Me, that he found Cook's lack of interest in art and literature off-putting. Dudley Moore's jazz trio played in the basement of the club during the early 1960s.
Cook also opened an Establishment club in New York in 1963 and Lenny Bruce performed there, as well.
In 1962, the BBC commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on the Establishment Club, but it was not immediately picked up and Cook went to New York City for a year to perform Beyond the Fringe on Broadway. When he returned, the pilot had been refashioned as That Was the Week That Was and had made a star of David Frost, something Cook resented.
The 1960s satire boom was coming to an end and Cook said: "England was about to sink giggling into the sea." He complained that Frost's success was based on copying Cook's own stage persona and Cook dubbed him "the bubonic plagiarist", and said that his only regret in life, according to Alan Bennett, had been saving Frost from drowning. This incident occurred in the summer of 1963, when the rivalry between the two men was at its height. Cook had realised that Frost's potential drowning would have looked deliberate if he had not been rescued.
Around this time, Cook provided financial backing for the satirical magazine Private Eye, supporting it through difficult periods, particularly in libel trials. Cook invested his own money and solicited investment from his friends. For a time, the magazine was produced from the premises of the Establishment Club. In 1963, Cook married Wendy Snowden; the couple had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy, but the marriage ended in 1970.
Cook's first regular television spot was on Granada Television's Braden Beat with Bernard Braden, where he featured his most enduring character: the static, dour and monotonal E. L. Wisty, whom Cook had conceived for Radley College's Marionette Society.
Cook's comedy partnership with Dudley Moore led to Not Only... But Also. This was originally intended by the BBC as a vehicle for Moore's music, but Moore invited Cook to write sketches and appear with him. Using few props, they created dry, absurd television that proved hugely popular and lasted for three series between 1965 and 1970. Cook played characters such as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and the two men created their Pete and Dud alter egos. Other sketches included "Superthunderstingcar", a parody of the Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows, and Cook's pastiche of 1960s trendy arts documentaries – satirised in a parodic segment on Greta Garbo.
When Cook learned a few years later that the videotapes of the series were to be wiped, a common practice at the time, he offered to buy the recordings from the BBC but was refused because of copyright issues. He suggested he could purchase new tapes so that the BBC would have no need to erase the originals, but this was also turned down. Of the original 22 programmes, only eight still survive complete. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only...But Also was shown on television and has been released on both VHS and DVD.
With The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967), Cook and Moore began to act in films together. Directed by Stanley Donen, the underlying story of Bedazzled is credited to Cook and Moore and its screenplay to Cook. A comic parody of Faust, it stars Cook as George Spigott (the Devil) who tempts Stanley Moon (Moore), a frustrated, short-order chef, with the promise of gaining his heart's desire – the unattainable beauty and waitress at his cafe, Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) – in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him. The film features cameo appearances by Barry Humphries as Envy and Raquel Welch as Lust. Moore composed the soundtrack music and co-wrote (with Cook) the songs performed in the film. His jazz trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivered in a deadpan monotone and included his familiar put-down, "you fill me with inertia".
In 1968, Cook and Moore briefly switched to ATV for four one-hour programmes titled Goodbye Again, based on the Pete and Dud characters. Cook's increasing alcoholism led him to become reliant on cue cards; the show was not a popular success, owing in part to a strike causing the suspension of the publication of the ITV listings magazine TV Times. John Cleese was also a cast member, who would become close lifelong friends with Cook and later collaborated on multiple projects together.
1970s
In 1970, Cook took over a project initiated by David Frost for a satirical film about an opinion pollster who rises to become President of Great Britain. Under Cook's guidance, the character became modelled on Frost. The film, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, was not a success, although the cast contained notable names (including Cleese and Graham Chapman, who were co-writers).
Cook became a favourite of the chat show circuit but his effort at hosting such a show for the BBC in 1971, Where Do I Sit?, was said by the critics to have been a disappointment. It was axed after only three episodes and was replaced by Michael Parkinson, the start of Parkinson's career as a chat show host. Parkinson later asked Cook what his ambitions were, Cook replied jocularly "[...] in fact, my ambition is to shut you up altogether you see!"
Cook and Moore fashioned sketches from Not Only....But Also and Goodbye Again with new material into the stage revue called Behind the Fridge. This show toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York City in 1973, re-titled as Good Evening. Cook frequently appeared on and off stage the worse for drink. Nonetheless, the show proved very popular and it won Tony and Grammy Awards. When it finished, Moore stayed in the United States to pursue his film acting ambitions in Hollywood. Cook returned to Britain and in 1973, married the actress and model Judy Huxtable.
Later, the more risqué humour of Pete and Dud went further on such LPs as "Derek and Clive". The first recording was initiated by Cook to alleviate boredom during the Broadway run of Good Evening and used material conceived years before for the two characters but considered too outrageous. One of these audio recordings was also filmed and therein tensions between the duo are seen to rise. Chris Blackwell circulated bootleg copies to friends in the music business. The popularity of the recording convinced Cook to release it commercially, although Moore was initially reluctant, fearing that his rising fame as a Hollywood star would be undermined. Two further Derek and Clive albums were released, the last accompanied by a film.
Cook and Moore hosted Saturday Night Live on 24 January 1976 during the show's first season. They did a number of their classic stage routines, including "One Leg Too Few" and "Frog and Peach" among others, in addition to participating in some skits with the show's ensemble cast. In 1978, Cook appeared on the British music series Revolver as the manager of a ballroom where emerging punk and new wave acts played. For some groups, these were their first appearances on television. Cook's acerbic commentary was a distinctive aspect of the programme. In 1979, Cook recorded comedy-segments as B-sides to the Sparks 12-inch singles "Number One Song in Heaven" and "Tryouts for the Human Race". The main songwriter Ron Mael often began with a banal situation in his lyrics and then went at surreal tangents in the style of Cook and S. J. Perelman.
Amnesty International performances
Cook appeared at the first three fund-raising galas staged by Cleese and Martin Lewis on behalf of Amnesty International. The benefits were dubbed The Secret Policeman's Balls, though it wasn't until the third show in 1979 that the title was used. He performed on all three nights of the first show in April 1976, A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick), as an individual performer and as a member of the cast of Beyond the Fringe, which reunited for the first time since the 1960s. He also appeared in a Monty Python sketch, taking the place of Eric Idle. Cook was on the cast album of the show and in the film, Pleasure at Her Majesty's. He was in the second Amnesty gala in May 1977, An Evening Without Sir Bernard Miles. It was retitled The Mermaid Frolics for the cast album and TV special. Cook performed monologues and skits with Terry Jones.
In June 1979, Cook performed all four nights of The Secret Policeman's Ball, teaming with Cleese. Cook performed a couple of solo pieces and a sketch with Eleanor Bron. He also led the ensemble in the finale – the "End of the World" sketch from Beyond the Fringe.
In response to a barb in The Daily Telegraph that the show was recycled material, Cook wrote a satire of the summing-up by Justice Cantley in the trial of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, a summary now widely thought to show bias in favour of Thorpe. Cook performed it that same night (Friday 29 June – the third of the four nights) and the following night. The nine-minute opus, "Entirely a Matter for You", is considered by many fans and critics to be one of the finest works of Cook's career. Along with Cook, producer of the show Martin Lewis brought out an album on Virgin Records entitled Here Comes the Judge: Live, containing the live performance together with three studio tracks that further lampooned the Thorpe trial.
Although unable to take part in the 1981 gala, Cook supplied the narration over the animated opening title sequence of the 1982 film of the show. With Lewis, he wrote and voiced radio commercials to advertise the film in the UK. He also hosted a spoof film awards ceremony that was part of the world première of the film in London in March 1982.
Following Cook's 1987 stage reunion with Moore for the annual American benefit for the homeless, Comic Relief (not related to the UK Comic Relief benefits), Cook repeated the reunion for a British audience by performing with Moore at the 1989 Amnesty benefit The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.
Consequences album
Cook played multiple roles on the 1977 concept album Consequences, written and produced by former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. A mixture of spoken comedy and progressive rock with an environmental subtext, Consequences started as a single that Godley and Creme planned to make to demonstrate their invention, an electric guitar effect called the Gizmo, which they developed in 10cc. The project grew into a three-LP box set. The comedy sections were originally intended to be performed by a cast including Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov, but Godley and Creme eventually settled on Cook once they realised he could perform most parts himself.
The storyline centres on the impending divorce of ineffectual Englishman Walter Stapleton (Cook) and his French wife Lulu (Judy Huxtable). While meeting their lawyers – the bibulous Mr. Haig and overbearing Mr. Pepperman (both played by Cook) – the encroaching global catastrophe interrupts proceedings with bizarre and mysterious happenings, which seem to centre on Mr. Blint (Cook), a musician and composer living in the flat below Haig's office, to which it is connected by a large hole in the floor.
Although it has since developed a cult following due to Cook's presence, Consequences was released as punk was sweeping the UK and proved a resounding commercial failure, savaged by critics who found the music self-indulgent. The script and story have evident connections to Cook's own life – his then-wife Judy Huxtable plays Walter's wife. Cook's struggles with alcohol are mirrored in Haig's drinking, and there is a parallel between the fictional divorce of Walter and Lulu and Cook's own divorce from his first wife. The voice and accent Cook used for the character of Stapleton are similar to those of Cook's Beyond the Fringe colleague, Alan Bennett, and a book on Cook's comedy, How Very Interesting, speculates that the characters Cook plays in Consequences are caricatures of the four Beyond the Fringe cast members – the alcoholic Haig represents Cook, the tremulous Stapleton is Bennett, the parodically Jewish Pepperman is Miller, and the pianist Blint represents Moore.
1980s
Cook starred in the LWT special Peter Cook & Co. in 1980. The show included comedy sketches, including a Tales of the Unexpected parody "Tales of the Much As We Expected". This involved Cook as Roald Dahl, explaining his name had been Ronald before he dropped the "n". The cast included Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Beryl Reid, Paula Wilcox, and Terry Jones. Partly spurred by Moore's growing film star status, Cook moved to Hollywood in that year, and appeared as an uptight English butler to a wealthy American woman in a short-lived United States television sitcom, The Two of Us, also making cameo appearances in a couple of undistinguished films.
In 1983, Cook played the role of Richard III in the first episode of Blackadder, "The Foretelling", which parodies Laurence Olivier's portrayal. In 1984, he played the role of Nigel, the mathematics teacher, in Jeannot Szwarc's film Supergirl, working alongside the evil Selena played by Faye Dunaway. He then narrated the short film Diplomatix by Norwegian comedy trio Kirkvaag, Lystad, and Mjøen, which won the "Special Prize of the City of Montreux" at the Montreux Comedy Festival in 1985. In 1986, he partnered Joan Rivers on her UK talk show. He appeared as Mr Jolly in 1987 in The Comic Strip Presents...''' episode "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door", playing an assassin who covers the sound of his murders by playing Tom Jones records. That same year, Cook appeared in The Princess Bride as the "Impressive Clergyman" who officiates at the wedding ceremony between Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck, uttering the now-famous line "Mawage!" Also that year, he spent time working with humourist Martin Lewis on a political satire about the 1988 US presidential elections for HBO, but the script went unproduced. Lewis suggested that Cook team with Moore for the US Comic Relief telethon for the homeless. The duo reunited and performed their "One Leg Too Few" sketch. Cook again collaborated with Moore for the 1989 Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.
A 1984 commercial for John Harvey & Sons showed Cook at a poolside party drinking Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry. He then says to "throw away those silly little glasses" whereupon the other party guests toss their sunglasses in the swimming pool.
In 1988, Cook appeared as a contestant on the improvisation comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? He was declared the winner, his prize being to read the credits in the style of a New York cab driver – a character he had portrayed in Peter Cook & Co.Cook occasionally called in to Clive Bull's night-time phone-in radio show on LBC in London. Using the name "Sven from Swiss Cottage", he mused on love, loneliness, and herrings in a mock Norwegian accent. Jokes included Sven's attempts to find his estranged wife, in which he often claimed to be telephoning the show from all over the world, and his hatred of the Norwegian obsession with fish. While Bull was clearly aware that Sven was fictional, he did not learn of the caller's real identity until later.
Revival
In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life, and he reduced his drinking to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while she kept her own property just away.
Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life, based on the song "Twelve Days of Christmas". Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3 in 1994. Morris described them:
On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters – biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp, and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day, he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the following year, his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last television appearance on the show Pebble Mill at One in November 1994.
Personal life and death
Cook was married three times. He was first married to Wendy Snowden, whom he met at university, in 1963; they had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy; they divorced in 1971. Cook then married his second wife, model and actress Judy Huxtable, in 1973, the marriage formally ending in 1989 after they had been separated for some years. He married his third and final wife, Chiew Lin Chong, in 1989, to whom he remained married until his death. Cook became stepfather to Chong's daughter, Nina. Chong died at the age of 71 in November 2016.
Cook died in a coma on 9 January 1995 at age 57 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage, a complication probably resulting from years of heavy drinking. His body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, and his ashes were buried in an unmarked plot behind St John-at-Hampstead, not far from his home in Perrins Walk.
Dudley Moore attended Cook's memorial service at St John-at-Hampstead on 1 May 1995. He and Martin Lewis presented a two-night memorial for Cook at The Improv in Los Angeles, on 15 and 16 November 1995, to mark what would have been Cook's 58th birthday.
Cook was an avid spectator of most sports and was a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur football club.
Legacy
Cook is widely acknowledged as a strong influence on the many British comedians who followed him from the amateur dramatic clubs of British universities to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then to radio and television. On his death, some critics choose to see Cook's life as tragic, insofar as the brilliance of his youth had not been sustained in his later years. However, Cook always maintained he had no ambitions for sustained success. He assessed happiness by his friendships and his enjoyment of life. Eric Idle said Cook had not wasted his talent, but rather that the newspapers had tried to waste him.
Several friends honoured him with a dedication in the closing credits of Fierce Creatures (1997), a comedy film written by John Cleese about a zoo in peril of being closed. It starred Cleese alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin. The dedication displays photos and the lifespan dates of Cook and of naturalist and humourist Gerald Durrell.
In 1999, the minor planet 20468 Petercook, in the main asteroid belt, was named after Cook.
Channel 4 broadcast Not Only But Always, a television film dramatising the relationship between Cook and Moore, with Rhys Ifans portraying Cook. At the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a play, Pete and Dud: Come Again written by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, examined the relationship from Moore's view. The play was transferred to London's West End at The Venue in 2006 and toured the UK the following year. During the West End run, Tom Goodman-Hill starred as Cook, with Kevin Bishop as Moore.
A green plaque to honour Cook was unveiled by the Westminster City Council and the Heritage Foundation at the site of the Establishment Club, at 18 Greek Street, on 15 February 2009.
A blue plaque was unveiled by the Torbay Civic Society on 17 November 2014 at Cook's place of birth, "Shearbridge", Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, with his widow Lin and other members of the family in attendance. A further blue plaque was commissioned and erected at the home of Torquay United, Plainmoor, Torquay, in 2015.
FilmographyBachelor of Hearts (1958) – Pedestrian in Street (uncredited)Ten Thousand Talents (short film, 1960) – voiceWhat's Going on Here (TV film, 1963) The Wrong Box (1966) – Morris FinsburyAlice in Wonderland (TV film, 1966) – Mad HatterBedazzled (1967) – George Spiggott / The DevilA Dandy in Aspic (1968) – PrentissMonte Carlo or Bust! (released in the US as Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies) (1969) – Maj. Digby DawlishThe Bed Sitting Room (1969) – InspectorThe Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) – Michael RimmerBehind the Fridge (TV film, 1971) – Various CharactersAn Apple a Day (TV film, 1971) – Mr Elwood Sr.The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) – DominicSaturday Night at the Baths (1975) – Himself, in theatre audience (uncredited)Find the Lady (1976) – LewenhakEric Sykes Shows a Few of Our Favourite Things (TV film, 1977) – StagehandThe Hound of the Baskervilles (1978) – Sherlock HolmesDerek and Clive Get the Horn (1979) – ClivePeter Cook & Co. (TV Special, 1980) – Various CharactersYellowbeard (1983) – Lord Percy LambournSupergirl (1984) – NigelKenny Everett's Christmas Carol (TV movie, 1985) – Ghost of Christmas Yet To ComeThe Myth (1986) – HimselfThe Princess Bride (1987) – The Impressive ClergymanWhoops Apocalypse (1988) – Sir Mortimer ChrisWithout a Clue (1988) – Norman GreenhoughJake's Journey (TV movie, 1988) – KingGetting It Right (1989) – Mr AdrianGreat Balls of Fire! (1989) – First English ReporterThe Craig Ferguson Story (TV film, 1991) – Fergus Ferguson Roger Mellie (1991) - Roger Mellie (voice)One Foot in the Algarve (1993 episode of One Foot in the Grave) – Martin TroutBlack Beauty (1994) – Lord Wexmire (final film role)Peter Cook Talks Golf Balls (video, 1994) – played four characters: Alec Dunroonie / Dieter Liedbetter / Major Titherly Glibble / Bill Rossi
TV seriesChronicle (1964) – presenter (one episode)A Series of Bird's (1967) – (1 episode)Not Only... But Also (1965–70) – Various Characters (22 episodes)Not Only But Also. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Australia (miniseries, 1971) Thirty-Minute Theatre (1972) – Peter Trilby (1 episode)Revolver (1978) (8 episodes)The Two of Us (1981–1982) – Robert Brentwood (20 episodes)The Black Adder (1983) – Richard III (first episode, "The Foretelling")Diplomatix (TV Short, 1985) – Narrator (voice)The Comic Strip Presents... (1988) – Mr Jolly (one episode)The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only... But Also (1990) – Pete / Himself / other characters (one episode)A Life in Pieces (TV Short, 1990) – Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling (12 episodes)Roger Mellie: The Man on the Telly (1991) – Roger Mellie (voice) Gone to Seed (1992) – Wesley Willis (six episodes)Arena (1993) – himself (two episodes)
Amnesty International performancesPleasure at Her Majesty's (1976)The Mermaid Frolics (1977)The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979)The Secret Policeman's Private Parts (1981) - Intro narratorThe Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball (1989)The Best of Amnesty: Featuring the Stars of Monty Python (1999)
Discography
UK chart singles:
"The Ballad of Spotty Muldoon" (1965)
"Goodbye-ee" (1965) (both with Dudley Moore)
Albums:
Bridge on the River Wye (1962)
The Misty Mr. Wisty (1965) Decca LK 4722
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Cordially Invite You to Go to Hell! (1967)
Behind the Fridge (with Dudley Moore) (1972) Aus #35
Derek and Clive (Live) (with Dudley Moore) (1976)
Derek and Clive Come Again (with Dudley Moore) (1977)
Derek and Clive Ad Nauseam'' (with Dudley Moore) (1978)
References
Further reading
Richard Mills, (2010). Pop half-cocked: a history of "Revolver". In Inglis, Ian, (ed). Popular Music and Television in Britain. Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 149 - 160.
External links
The Establishment
Lengthy 1988 KCRW radio interview in 3 parts "Bob Claster's Funny Stuff" including many excerpts.
Mr Blint's Attic
Tribute to Peter Cook, with texts and commentary
Good Evening, a Peter Cook Fansite incl. Gallery
The BBC Guide to Comedy: Not Only...But Also
Missing-Episodes.com
One Leg Too Few, script for one of Cook and Moore's most famous and oft-performed sketches.
20th-century English male actors
1937 births
1995 deaths
Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge
Comedians from Devon
Deaths from gastrointestinal hemorrhage
English male comedians
English male film actors
English male television actors
English satirists
English television writers
Grammy Award winners
Male actors from Devon
People educated at Radley College
People from Torquay
Private Eye contributors
English male writers
English social commentators
Decca Records artists
British male television writers
20th-century English screenwriters
Special Tony Award recipients
| false |
[
"\"Sin Despertar\" is a pop song performed by Chilean band Kudai. It was released as the first single of their debut album Vuelo. This single was also their first single as Kudai, after they gave up their old name band Ciao. This single was very successful in Chile and Argentina and later in the rest of Latin America, including Mexico.\n\nMusic video\nKudai's music video for their first single ever \"Sin Despertar\", was filmed in Santiago, Chile and the location used in this music videos was in O'Higgins Park, Movistar Arena Santiago, the video was premiered on 24 June 2004 on MTV, and this was very successful on Los 10+ Pedidos and Top 20.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nKudai Official Site\nEMI Music Mexico\n\n2004 singles\nKudai songs\n2005 singles\n2006 singles\n2004 songs",
"Rough and Ready Volume 2 is a studio album released by Shabba Ranks. This album was not as successful as Volume 1 and it was going to be difficult to create an album as successful as its predecessor, X-tra Naked, which won a Grammy. Volume 2 was criticised for lacking variety.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n1993 albums\nShabba Ranks albums\nEpic Records albums"
] |
[
"Peter Cook",
"Revival",
"what was the revival of?",
"Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces.",
"was this successful?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_7436d601652c427aad9311442103ea8a_0
|
what else was interesting about the revival?
| 3 |
Besides Peter Cook returning to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, what else was interesting about the revival?
|
Peter Cook
|
In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong (1945-2016) in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life and he reduced his drinking, to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while his wife kept her own property only 100 yards away. Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life based on the Twelve Days of Christmas. Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3. Morris described them: It was a very different style of improvisation from what I'd been used to, working with people like Steve Coogan, Doon Mackichan and Rebecca Front, because those On the Hour and The Day Today things were about trying to establish a character within a situation, and Peter Cook was really doing 'knight's move' and 'double knight's move' thinking to construct jokes or ridiculous scenes flipping back on themselves, and it was amazing. I mean, I held out no great hopes that he wouldn't be a boozy old sack of lard with his hair falling out and scarcely able to get a sentence out, because he hadn't given much evidence that that wouldn't be the case. But, in fact, he stumbled in with a Safeways bag full of Kestrel lager and loads of fags and then proceeded to skip about mentally with the agility of a grasshopper. Really quite extraordinary. On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters - biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared, on 26 December, in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the next year his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last TV appearance on the show Pebble Mill at One in November 1994. CANNOTANSWER
|
On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters
|
Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English satirist and comedic actor. He was a leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.
Born in Torquay, he was educated at the University of Cambridge. There he became involved with the Footlights Club, of which he later became president. After graduating he created the comedy stage revue Beyond the Fringe, beginning a long-running partnership with Dudley Moore. In 1961, Cook opened the comedy club The Establishment in Soho, Central London. In 1965, Cook and Moore began a television career, beginning with Not Only... But Also. Cook’s deadpan monologues contrasted with Moore’s buffoonery. They received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. Following the success of the show, the duo appeared together in the films The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967). Cook and Moore returned to television projects continuing to the late 1970s, including co-presenting Saturday Night Live in the United States. From 1978 until his death in 1995, Cook no longer collaborated with Moore, apart from a few cameo appearances but continued to be a regular performer in British television and film.
Referred to as "the father of modern satire" by The Guardian in 2005, Cook was ranked number one in the Comedians' Comedian, a poll of more than 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors in the English-speaking world.
Early life
Cook was born at his parents' house, "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. He was the only son, and eldest of the three children, of Alexander Edward "Alec" Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret (1908–1994), daughter of solicitor Charles Mayo. His father served as political officer and later district officer in Nigeria, then as financial secretary to the colony of Gibraltar, followed by a return to Nigeria as Permanent Secretary of the Eastern Region based at Enugu. Cook's grandfather, Edward Arthur Cook (1869–1914), had also been a colonial civil servant, traffic manager for the Federated Malay States Railway in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya; stress that he suffered, in the lead-up to an interview regarding promotion, led him to commit suicide. His wife, Minnie Jane (1869–1957; daughter of Thomas Wreford, of Thelbridge and Witheridge, Devon, and of Stratford-upon-Avon, of a prominent Devonshire family traced back to 1440), kept this fact secret; Peter Cook only discovered the truth when later researching his family.
Cook was educated at Radley College and then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read French and German. As a student, Cook initially intended to become a career diplomat like his father, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although largely apathetic politically, particularly in later life when he displayed a deep distrust of politicians of all hues, he joined the Cambridge University Liberal Club. At Pembroke, Cook performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs.
While still at university, Cook wrote for Kenneth Williams, providing several sketches for Williams' hit West End comedy revue Pieces of Eight and much of the follow-up, One Over the Eight, before finding prominence in his own right in a four-man group satirical stage show, Beyond the Fringe, alongside Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, and Dudley Moore.
Beyond the Fringe became a great success in London after being first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and included Cook impersonating the prime minister, Harold Macmillan. This was one of the first occasions satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre, and it shocked audiences. During one performance, Macmillan was in the theatre and Cook departed from his script and attacked him verbally.
Career
1960s
In 1961, Cook opened The Establishment, a club at 18 Greek Street in Soho in central London, presenting fellow comedians in a nightclub setting, including American Lenny Bruce. Cook said it was a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets ... which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War"; as a members-only venue, it was outside the censorship restrictions. The Establishment's regular cabaret performers were Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and John Fortune.
Cook befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club. Humphries said in his autobiography, My Life As Me, that he found Cook's lack of interest in art and literature off-putting. Dudley Moore's jazz trio played in the basement of the club during the early 1960s.
Cook also opened an Establishment club in New York in 1963 and Lenny Bruce performed there, as well.
In 1962, the BBC commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on the Establishment Club, but it was not immediately picked up and Cook went to New York City for a year to perform Beyond the Fringe on Broadway. When he returned, the pilot had been refashioned as That Was the Week That Was and had made a star of David Frost, something Cook resented.
The 1960s satire boom was coming to an end and Cook said: "England was about to sink giggling into the sea." He complained that Frost's success was based on copying Cook's own stage persona and Cook dubbed him "the bubonic plagiarist", and said that his only regret in life, according to Alan Bennett, had been saving Frost from drowning. This incident occurred in the summer of 1963, when the rivalry between the two men was at its height. Cook had realised that Frost's potential drowning would have looked deliberate if he had not been rescued.
Around this time, Cook provided financial backing for the satirical magazine Private Eye, supporting it through difficult periods, particularly in libel trials. Cook invested his own money and solicited investment from his friends. For a time, the magazine was produced from the premises of the Establishment Club. In 1963, Cook married Wendy Snowden; the couple had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy, but the marriage ended in 1970.
Cook's first regular television spot was on Granada Television's Braden Beat with Bernard Braden, where he featured his most enduring character: the static, dour and monotonal E. L. Wisty, whom Cook had conceived for Radley College's Marionette Society.
Cook's comedy partnership with Dudley Moore led to Not Only... But Also. This was originally intended by the BBC as a vehicle for Moore's music, but Moore invited Cook to write sketches and appear with him. Using few props, they created dry, absurd television that proved hugely popular and lasted for three series between 1965 and 1970. Cook played characters such as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and the two men created their Pete and Dud alter egos. Other sketches included "Superthunderstingcar", a parody of the Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows, and Cook's pastiche of 1960s trendy arts documentaries – satirised in a parodic segment on Greta Garbo.
When Cook learned a few years later that the videotapes of the series were to be wiped, a common practice at the time, he offered to buy the recordings from the BBC but was refused because of copyright issues. He suggested he could purchase new tapes so that the BBC would have no need to erase the originals, but this was also turned down. Of the original 22 programmes, only eight still survive complete. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only...But Also was shown on television and has been released on both VHS and DVD.
With The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967), Cook and Moore began to act in films together. Directed by Stanley Donen, the underlying story of Bedazzled is credited to Cook and Moore and its screenplay to Cook. A comic parody of Faust, it stars Cook as George Spigott (the Devil) who tempts Stanley Moon (Moore), a frustrated, short-order chef, with the promise of gaining his heart's desire – the unattainable beauty and waitress at his cafe, Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) – in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him. The film features cameo appearances by Barry Humphries as Envy and Raquel Welch as Lust. Moore composed the soundtrack music and co-wrote (with Cook) the songs performed in the film. His jazz trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivered in a deadpan monotone and included his familiar put-down, "you fill me with inertia".
In 1968, Cook and Moore briefly switched to ATV for four one-hour programmes titled Goodbye Again, based on the Pete and Dud characters. Cook's increasing alcoholism led him to become reliant on cue cards; the show was not a popular success, owing in part to a strike causing the suspension of the publication of the ITV listings magazine TV Times. John Cleese was also a cast member, who would become close lifelong friends with Cook and later collaborated on multiple projects together.
1970s
In 1970, Cook took over a project initiated by David Frost for a satirical film about an opinion pollster who rises to become President of Great Britain. Under Cook's guidance, the character became modelled on Frost. The film, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, was not a success, although the cast contained notable names (including Cleese and Graham Chapman, who were co-writers).
Cook became a favourite of the chat show circuit but his effort at hosting such a show for the BBC in 1971, Where Do I Sit?, was said by the critics to have been a disappointment. It was axed after only three episodes and was replaced by Michael Parkinson, the start of Parkinson's career as a chat show host. Parkinson later asked Cook what his ambitions were, Cook replied jocularly "[...] in fact, my ambition is to shut you up altogether you see!"
Cook and Moore fashioned sketches from Not Only....But Also and Goodbye Again with new material into the stage revue called Behind the Fridge. This show toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York City in 1973, re-titled as Good Evening. Cook frequently appeared on and off stage the worse for drink. Nonetheless, the show proved very popular and it won Tony and Grammy Awards. When it finished, Moore stayed in the United States to pursue his film acting ambitions in Hollywood. Cook returned to Britain and in 1973, married the actress and model Judy Huxtable.
Later, the more risqué humour of Pete and Dud went further on such LPs as "Derek and Clive". The first recording was initiated by Cook to alleviate boredom during the Broadway run of Good Evening and used material conceived years before for the two characters but considered too outrageous. One of these audio recordings was also filmed and therein tensions between the duo are seen to rise. Chris Blackwell circulated bootleg copies to friends in the music business. The popularity of the recording convinced Cook to release it commercially, although Moore was initially reluctant, fearing that his rising fame as a Hollywood star would be undermined. Two further Derek and Clive albums were released, the last accompanied by a film.
Cook and Moore hosted Saturday Night Live on 24 January 1976 during the show's first season. They did a number of their classic stage routines, including "One Leg Too Few" and "Frog and Peach" among others, in addition to participating in some skits with the show's ensemble cast. In 1978, Cook appeared on the British music series Revolver as the manager of a ballroom where emerging punk and new wave acts played. For some groups, these were their first appearances on television. Cook's acerbic commentary was a distinctive aspect of the programme. In 1979, Cook recorded comedy-segments as B-sides to the Sparks 12-inch singles "Number One Song in Heaven" and "Tryouts for the Human Race". The main songwriter Ron Mael often began with a banal situation in his lyrics and then went at surreal tangents in the style of Cook and S. J. Perelman.
Amnesty International performances
Cook appeared at the first three fund-raising galas staged by Cleese and Martin Lewis on behalf of Amnesty International. The benefits were dubbed The Secret Policeman's Balls, though it wasn't until the third show in 1979 that the title was used. He performed on all three nights of the first show in April 1976, A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick), as an individual performer and as a member of the cast of Beyond the Fringe, which reunited for the first time since the 1960s. He also appeared in a Monty Python sketch, taking the place of Eric Idle. Cook was on the cast album of the show and in the film, Pleasure at Her Majesty's. He was in the second Amnesty gala in May 1977, An Evening Without Sir Bernard Miles. It was retitled The Mermaid Frolics for the cast album and TV special. Cook performed monologues and skits with Terry Jones.
In June 1979, Cook performed all four nights of The Secret Policeman's Ball, teaming with Cleese. Cook performed a couple of solo pieces and a sketch with Eleanor Bron. He also led the ensemble in the finale – the "End of the World" sketch from Beyond the Fringe.
In response to a barb in The Daily Telegraph that the show was recycled material, Cook wrote a satire of the summing-up by Justice Cantley in the trial of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, a summary now widely thought to show bias in favour of Thorpe. Cook performed it that same night (Friday 29 June – the third of the four nights) and the following night. The nine-minute opus, "Entirely a Matter for You", is considered by many fans and critics to be one of the finest works of Cook's career. Along with Cook, producer of the show Martin Lewis brought out an album on Virgin Records entitled Here Comes the Judge: Live, containing the live performance together with three studio tracks that further lampooned the Thorpe trial.
Although unable to take part in the 1981 gala, Cook supplied the narration over the animated opening title sequence of the 1982 film of the show. With Lewis, he wrote and voiced radio commercials to advertise the film in the UK. He also hosted a spoof film awards ceremony that was part of the world première of the film in London in March 1982.
Following Cook's 1987 stage reunion with Moore for the annual American benefit for the homeless, Comic Relief (not related to the UK Comic Relief benefits), Cook repeated the reunion for a British audience by performing with Moore at the 1989 Amnesty benefit The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.
Consequences album
Cook played multiple roles on the 1977 concept album Consequences, written and produced by former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. A mixture of spoken comedy and progressive rock with an environmental subtext, Consequences started as a single that Godley and Creme planned to make to demonstrate their invention, an electric guitar effect called the Gizmo, which they developed in 10cc. The project grew into a three-LP box set. The comedy sections were originally intended to be performed by a cast including Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov, but Godley and Creme eventually settled on Cook once they realised he could perform most parts himself.
The storyline centres on the impending divorce of ineffectual Englishman Walter Stapleton (Cook) and his French wife Lulu (Judy Huxtable). While meeting their lawyers – the bibulous Mr. Haig and overbearing Mr. Pepperman (both played by Cook) – the encroaching global catastrophe interrupts proceedings with bizarre and mysterious happenings, which seem to centre on Mr. Blint (Cook), a musician and composer living in the flat below Haig's office, to which it is connected by a large hole in the floor.
Although it has since developed a cult following due to Cook's presence, Consequences was released as punk was sweeping the UK and proved a resounding commercial failure, savaged by critics who found the music self-indulgent. The script and story have evident connections to Cook's own life – his then-wife Judy Huxtable plays Walter's wife. Cook's struggles with alcohol are mirrored in Haig's drinking, and there is a parallel between the fictional divorce of Walter and Lulu and Cook's own divorce from his first wife. The voice and accent Cook used for the character of Stapleton are similar to those of Cook's Beyond the Fringe colleague, Alan Bennett, and a book on Cook's comedy, How Very Interesting, speculates that the characters Cook plays in Consequences are caricatures of the four Beyond the Fringe cast members – the alcoholic Haig represents Cook, the tremulous Stapleton is Bennett, the parodically Jewish Pepperman is Miller, and the pianist Blint represents Moore.
1980s
Cook starred in the LWT special Peter Cook & Co. in 1980. The show included comedy sketches, including a Tales of the Unexpected parody "Tales of the Much As We Expected". This involved Cook as Roald Dahl, explaining his name had been Ronald before he dropped the "n". The cast included Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Beryl Reid, Paula Wilcox, and Terry Jones. Partly spurred by Moore's growing film star status, Cook moved to Hollywood in that year, and appeared as an uptight English butler to a wealthy American woman in a short-lived United States television sitcom, The Two of Us, also making cameo appearances in a couple of undistinguished films.
In 1983, Cook played the role of Richard III in the first episode of Blackadder, "The Foretelling", which parodies Laurence Olivier's portrayal. In 1984, he played the role of Nigel, the mathematics teacher, in Jeannot Szwarc's film Supergirl, working alongside the evil Selena played by Faye Dunaway. He then narrated the short film Diplomatix by Norwegian comedy trio Kirkvaag, Lystad, and Mjøen, which won the "Special Prize of the City of Montreux" at the Montreux Comedy Festival in 1985. In 1986, he partnered Joan Rivers on her UK talk show. He appeared as Mr Jolly in 1987 in The Comic Strip Presents...''' episode "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door", playing an assassin who covers the sound of his murders by playing Tom Jones records. That same year, Cook appeared in The Princess Bride as the "Impressive Clergyman" who officiates at the wedding ceremony between Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck, uttering the now-famous line "Mawage!" Also that year, he spent time working with humourist Martin Lewis on a political satire about the 1988 US presidential elections for HBO, but the script went unproduced. Lewis suggested that Cook team with Moore for the US Comic Relief telethon for the homeless. The duo reunited and performed their "One Leg Too Few" sketch. Cook again collaborated with Moore for the 1989 Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.
A 1984 commercial for John Harvey & Sons showed Cook at a poolside party drinking Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry. He then says to "throw away those silly little glasses" whereupon the other party guests toss their sunglasses in the swimming pool.
In 1988, Cook appeared as a contestant on the improvisation comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? He was declared the winner, his prize being to read the credits in the style of a New York cab driver – a character he had portrayed in Peter Cook & Co.Cook occasionally called in to Clive Bull's night-time phone-in radio show on LBC in London. Using the name "Sven from Swiss Cottage", he mused on love, loneliness, and herrings in a mock Norwegian accent. Jokes included Sven's attempts to find his estranged wife, in which he often claimed to be telephoning the show from all over the world, and his hatred of the Norwegian obsession with fish. While Bull was clearly aware that Sven was fictional, he did not learn of the caller's real identity until later.
Revival
In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life, and he reduced his drinking to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while she kept her own property just away.
Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life, based on the song "Twelve Days of Christmas". Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3 in 1994. Morris described them:
On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters – biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp, and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day, he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the following year, his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last television appearance on the show Pebble Mill at One in November 1994.
Personal life and death
Cook was married three times. He was first married to Wendy Snowden, whom he met at university, in 1963; they had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy; they divorced in 1971. Cook then married his second wife, model and actress Judy Huxtable, in 1973, the marriage formally ending in 1989 after they had been separated for some years. He married his third and final wife, Chiew Lin Chong, in 1989, to whom he remained married until his death. Cook became stepfather to Chong's daughter, Nina. Chong died at the age of 71 in November 2016.
Cook died in a coma on 9 January 1995 at age 57 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage, a complication probably resulting from years of heavy drinking. His body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, and his ashes were buried in an unmarked plot behind St John-at-Hampstead, not far from his home in Perrins Walk.
Dudley Moore attended Cook's memorial service at St John-at-Hampstead on 1 May 1995. He and Martin Lewis presented a two-night memorial for Cook at The Improv in Los Angeles, on 15 and 16 November 1995, to mark what would have been Cook's 58th birthday.
Cook was an avid spectator of most sports and was a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur football club.
Legacy
Cook is widely acknowledged as a strong influence on the many British comedians who followed him from the amateur dramatic clubs of British universities to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then to radio and television. On his death, some critics choose to see Cook's life as tragic, insofar as the brilliance of his youth had not been sustained in his later years. However, Cook always maintained he had no ambitions for sustained success. He assessed happiness by his friendships and his enjoyment of life. Eric Idle said Cook had not wasted his talent, but rather that the newspapers had tried to waste him.
Several friends honoured him with a dedication in the closing credits of Fierce Creatures (1997), a comedy film written by John Cleese about a zoo in peril of being closed. It starred Cleese alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin. The dedication displays photos and the lifespan dates of Cook and of naturalist and humourist Gerald Durrell.
In 1999, the minor planet 20468 Petercook, in the main asteroid belt, was named after Cook.
Channel 4 broadcast Not Only But Always, a television film dramatising the relationship between Cook and Moore, with Rhys Ifans portraying Cook. At the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a play, Pete and Dud: Come Again written by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, examined the relationship from Moore's view. The play was transferred to London's West End at The Venue in 2006 and toured the UK the following year. During the West End run, Tom Goodman-Hill starred as Cook, with Kevin Bishop as Moore.
A green plaque to honour Cook was unveiled by the Westminster City Council and the Heritage Foundation at the site of the Establishment Club, at 18 Greek Street, on 15 February 2009.
A blue plaque was unveiled by the Torbay Civic Society on 17 November 2014 at Cook's place of birth, "Shearbridge", Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, with his widow Lin and other members of the family in attendance. A further blue plaque was commissioned and erected at the home of Torquay United, Plainmoor, Torquay, in 2015.
FilmographyBachelor of Hearts (1958) – Pedestrian in Street (uncredited)Ten Thousand Talents (short film, 1960) – voiceWhat's Going on Here (TV film, 1963) The Wrong Box (1966) – Morris FinsburyAlice in Wonderland (TV film, 1966) – Mad HatterBedazzled (1967) – George Spiggott / The DevilA Dandy in Aspic (1968) – PrentissMonte Carlo or Bust! (released in the US as Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies) (1969) – Maj. Digby DawlishThe Bed Sitting Room (1969) – InspectorThe Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) – Michael RimmerBehind the Fridge (TV film, 1971) – Various CharactersAn Apple a Day (TV film, 1971) – Mr Elwood Sr.The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) – DominicSaturday Night at the Baths (1975) – Himself, in theatre audience (uncredited)Find the Lady (1976) – LewenhakEric Sykes Shows a Few of Our Favourite Things (TV film, 1977) – StagehandThe Hound of the Baskervilles (1978) – Sherlock HolmesDerek and Clive Get the Horn (1979) – ClivePeter Cook & Co. (TV Special, 1980) – Various CharactersYellowbeard (1983) – Lord Percy LambournSupergirl (1984) – NigelKenny Everett's Christmas Carol (TV movie, 1985) – Ghost of Christmas Yet To ComeThe Myth (1986) – HimselfThe Princess Bride (1987) – The Impressive ClergymanWhoops Apocalypse (1988) – Sir Mortimer ChrisWithout a Clue (1988) – Norman GreenhoughJake's Journey (TV movie, 1988) – KingGetting It Right (1989) – Mr AdrianGreat Balls of Fire! (1989) – First English ReporterThe Craig Ferguson Story (TV film, 1991) – Fergus Ferguson Roger Mellie (1991) - Roger Mellie (voice)One Foot in the Algarve (1993 episode of One Foot in the Grave) – Martin TroutBlack Beauty (1994) – Lord Wexmire (final film role)Peter Cook Talks Golf Balls (video, 1994) – played four characters: Alec Dunroonie / Dieter Liedbetter / Major Titherly Glibble / Bill Rossi
TV seriesChronicle (1964) – presenter (one episode)A Series of Bird's (1967) – (1 episode)Not Only... But Also (1965–70) – Various Characters (22 episodes)Not Only But Also. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Australia (miniseries, 1971) Thirty-Minute Theatre (1972) – Peter Trilby (1 episode)Revolver (1978) (8 episodes)The Two of Us (1981–1982) – Robert Brentwood (20 episodes)The Black Adder (1983) – Richard III (first episode, "The Foretelling")Diplomatix (TV Short, 1985) – Narrator (voice)The Comic Strip Presents... (1988) – Mr Jolly (one episode)The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only... But Also (1990) – Pete / Himself / other characters (one episode)A Life in Pieces (TV Short, 1990) – Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling (12 episodes)Roger Mellie: The Man on the Telly (1991) – Roger Mellie (voice) Gone to Seed (1992) – Wesley Willis (six episodes)Arena (1993) – himself (two episodes)
Amnesty International performancesPleasure at Her Majesty's (1976)The Mermaid Frolics (1977)The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979)The Secret Policeman's Private Parts (1981) - Intro narratorThe Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball (1989)The Best of Amnesty: Featuring the Stars of Monty Python (1999)
Discography
UK chart singles:
"The Ballad of Spotty Muldoon" (1965)
"Goodbye-ee" (1965) (both with Dudley Moore)
Albums:
Bridge on the River Wye (1962)
The Misty Mr. Wisty (1965) Decca LK 4722
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Cordially Invite You to Go to Hell! (1967)
Behind the Fridge (with Dudley Moore) (1972) Aus #35
Derek and Clive (Live) (with Dudley Moore) (1976)
Derek and Clive Come Again (with Dudley Moore) (1977)
Derek and Clive Ad Nauseam'' (with Dudley Moore) (1978)
References
Further reading
Richard Mills, (2010). Pop half-cocked: a history of "Revolver". In Inglis, Ian, (ed). Popular Music and Television in Britain. Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 149 - 160.
External links
The Establishment
Lengthy 1988 KCRW radio interview in 3 parts "Bob Claster's Funny Stuff" including many excerpts.
Mr Blint's Attic
Tribute to Peter Cook, with texts and commentary
Good Evening, a Peter Cook Fansite incl. Gallery
The BBC Guide to Comedy: Not Only...But Also
Missing-Episodes.com
One Leg Too Few, script for one of Cook and Moore's most famous and oft-performed sketches.
20th-century English male actors
1937 births
1995 deaths
Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge
Comedians from Devon
Deaths from gastrointestinal hemorrhage
English male comedians
English male film actors
English male television actors
English satirists
English television writers
Grammy Award winners
Male actors from Devon
People educated at Radley College
People from Torquay
Private Eye contributors
English male writers
English social commentators
Decca Records artists
British male television writers
20th-century English screenwriters
Special Tony Award recipients
| true |
[
"The Ertel Funeral Home, at 42 N. Market St. in Cortez, Colorado, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.\n\nIt was designed by Denver architect Walter H. Simon, and \"is an interesting interpretation of the Mission style that incorporates Pueblo Revival elements.\" It was built in 1936.\n\nReferences\n\nNational Register of Historic Places in Montezuma County, Colorado\nMission Revival architecture in Colorado\nBuildings and structures completed in 1936\nPueblo Revival architecture in Colorado",
"\"What Else Is There?\" is the third single from the Norwegian duo Röyksopp's second album The Understanding. It features the vocals of Karin Dreijer from the Swedish electronica duo The Knife. The album was released in the UK with the help of Astralwerks.\n\nThe single was used in an O2 television advertisement in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia during 2008. It was also used in the 2006 film Cashback and the 2007 film, Meet Bill. Trentemøller's remix of \"What Else is There?\" was featured in an episode of the HBO show Entourage.\n\nThe song was covered by extreme metal band Enslaved as a bonus track for their album E.\n\nThe song was listed as the 375th best song of the 2000s by Pitchfork Media.\n\nOfficial versions\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Album Version) – 5:17\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Radio Edit) – 3:38\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Jacques Lu Cont Radio Mix) – 3:46\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Vocal Version) – 8:03\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Dub Version) – 7:51\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Mix) – 8:25\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Edit) – 4:50\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Remix) (Radio Edit) – 3:06\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Trentemøller Remix) – 7:42\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Vitalic Remix) – 5:14\n\nResponse\nThe single was officially released on 5 December 2005 in the UK. The single had a limited release on 21 November 2005 to promote the upcoming album. On the UK Singles Chart, it peaked at number 32, while on the UK Dance Chart, it reached number one.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was directed by Martin de Thurah. It features Norwegian model Marianne Schröder who is shown lip-syncing Dreijer's voice. Schröder is depicted as a floating woman traveling across stormy landscapes and within empty houses. Dreijer makes a cameo appearance as a woman wearing an Elizabethan ruff while dining alone at a festive table.\n\nMovie spots\n\nThe song is also featured in the movie Meet Bill as characters played by Jessica Alba and Aaron Eckhart smoke marijuana while listening to it. It is also part of the end credits music of the film Cashback.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nRöyksopp songs\nAstralwerks singles\nSongs written by Svein Berge\nSongs written by Torbjørn Brundtland\n2004 songs\nSongs written by Roger Greenaway\nSongs written by Olof Dreijer\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer"
] |
[
"Peter Cook",
"Revival",
"what was the revival of?",
"Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces.",
"was this successful?",
"I don't know.",
"what else was interesting about the revival?",
"On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters"
] |
C_7436d601652c427aad9311442103ea8a_0
|
what were the four characters?
| 4 |
What were the four characters on Clive Anderson Talks Back that Peter Cook played?
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Peter Cook
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In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong (1945-2016) in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life and he reduced his drinking, to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while his wife kept her own property only 100 yards away. Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life based on the Twelve Days of Christmas. Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3. Morris described them: It was a very different style of improvisation from what I'd been used to, working with people like Steve Coogan, Doon Mackichan and Rebecca Front, because those On the Hour and The Day Today things were about trying to establish a character within a situation, and Peter Cook was really doing 'knight's move' and 'double knight's move' thinking to construct jokes or ridiculous scenes flipping back on themselves, and it was amazing. I mean, I held out no great hopes that he wouldn't be a boozy old sack of lard with his hair falling out and scarcely able to get a sentence out, because he hadn't given much evidence that that wouldn't be the case. But, in fact, he stumbled in with a Safeways bag full of Kestrel lager and loads of fags and then proceeded to skip about mentally with the agility of a grasshopper. Really quite extraordinary. On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters - biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared, on 26 December, in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the next year his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last TV appearance on the show Pebble Mill at One in November 1994. CANNOTANSWER
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biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp and rock legend Eric Daley.
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Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English satirist and comedic actor. He was a leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.
Born in Torquay, he was educated at the University of Cambridge. There he became involved with the Footlights Club, of which he later became president. After graduating he created the comedy stage revue Beyond the Fringe, beginning a long-running partnership with Dudley Moore. In 1961, Cook opened the comedy club The Establishment in Soho, Central London. In 1965, Cook and Moore began a television career, beginning with Not Only... But Also. Cook’s deadpan monologues contrasted with Moore’s buffoonery. They received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. Following the success of the show, the duo appeared together in the films The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967). Cook and Moore returned to television projects continuing to the late 1970s, including co-presenting Saturday Night Live in the United States. From 1978 until his death in 1995, Cook no longer collaborated with Moore, apart from a few cameo appearances but continued to be a regular performer in British television and film.
Referred to as "the father of modern satire" by The Guardian in 2005, Cook was ranked number one in the Comedians' Comedian, a poll of more than 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors in the English-speaking world.
Early life
Cook was born at his parents' house, "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. He was the only son, and eldest of the three children, of Alexander Edward "Alec" Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret (1908–1994), daughter of solicitor Charles Mayo. His father served as political officer and later district officer in Nigeria, then as financial secretary to the colony of Gibraltar, followed by a return to Nigeria as Permanent Secretary of the Eastern Region based at Enugu. Cook's grandfather, Edward Arthur Cook (1869–1914), had also been a colonial civil servant, traffic manager for the Federated Malay States Railway in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya; stress that he suffered, in the lead-up to an interview regarding promotion, led him to commit suicide. His wife, Minnie Jane (1869–1957; daughter of Thomas Wreford, of Thelbridge and Witheridge, Devon, and of Stratford-upon-Avon, of a prominent Devonshire family traced back to 1440), kept this fact secret; Peter Cook only discovered the truth when later researching his family.
Cook was educated at Radley College and then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read French and German. As a student, Cook initially intended to become a career diplomat like his father, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although largely apathetic politically, particularly in later life when he displayed a deep distrust of politicians of all hues, he joined the Cambridge University Liberal Club. At Pembroke, Cook performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs.
While still at university, Cook wrote for Kenneth Williams, providing several sketches for Williams' hit West End comedy revue Pieces of Eight and much of the follow-up, One Over the Eight, before finding prominence in his own right in a four-man group satirical stage show, Beyond the Fringe, alongside Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, and Dudley Moore.
Beyond the Fringe became a great success in London after being first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and included Cook impersonating the prime minister, Harold Macmillan. This was one of the first occasions satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre, and it shocked audiences. During one performance, Macmillan was in the theatre and Cook departed from his script and attacked him verbally.
Career
1960s
In 1961, Cook opened The Establishment, a club at 18 Greek Street in Soho in central London, presenting fellow comedians in a nightclub setting, including American Lenny Bruce. Cook said it was a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets ... which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War"; as a members-only venue, it was outside the censorship restrictions. The Establishment's regular cabaret performers were Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and John Fortune.
Cook befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club. Humphries said in his autobiography, My Life As Me, that he found Cook's lack of interest in art and literature off-putting. Dudley Moore's jazz trio played in the basement of the club during the early 1960s.
Cook also opened an Establishment club in New York in 1963 and Lenny Bruce performed there, as well.
In 1962, the BBC commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on the Establishment Club, but it was not immediately picked up and Cook went to New York City for a year to perform Beyond the Fringe on Broadway. When he returned, the pilot had been refashioned as That Was the Week That Was and had made a star of David Frost, something Cook resented.
The 1960s satire boom was coming to an end and Cook said: "England was about to sink giggling into the sea." He complained that Frost's success was based on copying Cook's own stage persona and Cook dubbed him "the bubonic plagiarist", and said that his only regret in life, according to Alan Bennett, had been saving Frost from drowning. This incident occurred in the summer of 1963, when the rivalry between the two men was at its height. Cook had realised that Frost's potential drowning would have looked deliberate if he had not been rescued.
Around this time, Cook provided financial backing for the satirical magazine Private Eye, supporting it through difficult periods, particularly in libel trials. Cook invested his own money and solicited investment from his friends. For a time, the magazine was produced from the premises of the Establishment Club. In 1963, Cook married Wendy Snowden; the couple had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy, but the marriage ended in 1970.
Cook's first regular television spot was on Granada Television's Braden Beat with Bernard Braden, where he featured his most enduring character: the static, dour and monotonal E. L. Wisty, whom Cook had conceived for Radley College's Marionette Society.
Cook's comedy partnership with Dudley Moore led to Not Only... But Also. This was originally intended by the BBC as a vehicle for Moore's music, but Moore invited Cook to write sketches and appear with him. Using few props, they created dry, absurd television that proved hugely popular and lasted for three series between 1965 and 1970. Cook played characters such as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and the two men created their Pete and Dud alter egos. Other sketches included "Superthunderstingcar", a parody of the Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows, and Cook's pastiche of 1960s trendy arts documentaries – satirised in a parodic segment on Greta Garbo.
When Cook learned a few years later that the videotapes of the series were to be wiped, a common practice at the time, he offered to buy the recordings from the BBC but was refused because of copyright issues. He suggested he could purchase new tapes so that the BBC would have no need to erase the originals, but this was also turned down. Of the original 22 programmes, only eight still survive complete. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only...But Also was shown on television and has been released on both VHS and DVD.
With The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967), Cook and Moore began to act in films together. Directed by Stanley Donen, the underlying story of Bedazzled is credited to Cook and Moore and its screenplay to Cook. A comic parody of Faust, it stars Cook as George Spigott (the Devil) who tempts Stanley Moon (Moore), a frustrated, short-order chef, with the promise of gaining his heart's desire – the unattainable beauty and waitress at his cafe, Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) – in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him. The film features cameo appearances by Barry Humphries as Envy and Raquel Welch as Lust. Moore composed the soundtrack music and co-wrote (with Cook) the songs performed in the film. His jazz trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivered in a deadpan monotone and included his familiar put-down, "you fill me with inertia".
In 1968, Cook and Moore briefly switched to ATV for four one-hour programmes titled Goodbye Again, based on the Pete and Dud characters. Cook's increasing alcoholism led him to become reliant on cue cards; the show was not a popular success, owing in part to a strike causing the suspension of the publication of the ITV listings magazine TV Times. John Cleese was also a cast member, who would become close lifelong friends with Cook and later collaborated on multiple projects together.
1970s
In 1970, Cook took over a project initiated by David Frost for a satirical film about an opinion pollster who rises to become President of Great Britain. Under Cook's guidance, the character became modelled on Frost. The film, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, was not a success, although the cast contained notable names (including Cleese and Graham Chapman, who were co-writers).
Cook became a favourite of the chat show circuit but his effort at hosting such a show for the BBC in 1971, Where Do I Sit?, was said by the critics to have been a disappointment. It was axed after only three episodes and was replaced by Michael Parkinson, the start of Parkinson's career as a chat show host. Parkinson later asked Cook what his ambitions were, Cook replied jocularly "[...] in fact, my ambition is to shut you up altogether you see!"
Cook and Moore fashioned sketches from Not Only....But Also and Goodbye Again with new material into the stage revue called Behind the Fridge. This show toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York City in 1973, re-titled as Good Evening. Cook frequently appeared on and off stage the worse for drink. Nonetheless, the show proved very popular and it won Tony and Grammy Awards. When it finished, Moore stayed in the United States to pursue his film acting ambitions in Hollywood. Cook returned to Britain and in 1973, married the actress and model Judy Huxtable.
Later, the more risqué humour of Pete and Dud went further on such LPs as "Derek and Clive". The first recording was initiated by Cook to alleviate boredom during the Broadway run of Good Evening and used material conceived years before for the two characters but considered too outrageous. One of these audio recordings was also filmed and therein tensions between the duo are seen to rise. Chris Blackwell circulated bootleg copies to friends in the music business. The popularity of the recording convinced Cook to release it commercially, although Moore was initially reluctant, fearing that his rising fame as a Hollywood star would be undermined. Two further Derek and Clive albums were released, the last accompanied by a film.
Cook and Moore hosted Saturday Night Live on 24 January 1976 during the show's first season. They did a number of their classic stage routines, including "One Leg Too Few" and "Frog and Peach" among others, in addition to participating in some skits with the show's ensemble cast. In 1978, Cook appeared on the British music series Revolver as the manager of a ballroom where emerging punk and new wave acts played. For some groups, these were their first appearances on television. Cook's acerbic commentary was a distinctive aspect of the programme. In 1979, Cook recorded comedy-segments as B-sides to the Sparks 12-inch singles "Number One Song in Heaven" and "Tryouts for the Human Race". The main songwriter Ron Mael often began with a banal situation in his lyrics and then went at surreal tangents in the style of Cook and S. J. Perelman.
Amnesty International performances
Cook appeared at the first three fund-raising galas staged by Cleese and Martin Lewis on behalf of Amnesty International. The benefits were dubbed The Secret Policeman's Balls, though it wasn't until the third show in 1979 that the title was used. He performed on all three nights of the first show in April 1976, A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick), as an individual performer and as a member of the cast of Beyond the Fringe, which reunited for the first time since the 1960s. He also appeared in a Monty Python sketch, taking the place of Eric Idle. Cook was on the cast album of the show and in the film, Pleasure at Her Majesty's. He was in the second Amnesty gala in May 1977, An Evening Without Sir Bernard Miles. It was retitled The Mermaid Frolics for the cast album and TV special. Cook performed monologues and skits with Terry Jones.
In June 1979, Cook performed all four nights of The Secret Policeman's Ball, teaming with Cleese. Cook performed a couple of solo pieces and a sketch with Eleanor Bron. He also led the ensemble in the finale – the "End of the World" sketch from Beyond the Fringe.
In response to a barb in The Daily Telegraph that the show was recycled material, Cook wrote a satire of the summing-up by Justice Cantley in the trial of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, a summary now widely thought to show bias in favour of Thorpe. Cook performed it that same night (Friday 29 June – the third of the four nights) and the following night. The nine-minute opus, "Entirely a Matter for You", is considered by many fans and critics to be one of the finest works of Cook's career. Along with Cook, producer of the show Martin Lewis brought out an album on Virgin Records entitled Here Comes the Judge: Live, containing the live performance together with three studio tracks that further lampooned the Thorpe trial.
Although unable to take part in the 1981 gala, Cook supplied the narration over the animated opening title sequence of the 1982 film of the show. With Lewis, he wrote and voiced radio commercials to advertise the film in the UK. He also hosted a spoof film awards ceremony that was part of the world première of the film in London in March 1982.
Following Cook's 1987 stage reunion with Moore for the annual American benefit for the homeless, Comic Relief (not related to the UK Comic Relief benefits), Cook repeated the reunion for a British audience by performing with Moore at the 1989 Amnesty benefit The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.
Consequences album
Cook played multiple roles on the 1977 concept album Consequences, written and produced by former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. A mixture of spoken comedy and progressive rock with an environmental subtext, Consequences started as a single that Godley and Creme planned to make to demonstrate their invention, an electric guitar effect called the Gizmo, which they developed in 10cc. The project grew into a three-LP box set. The comedy sections were originally intended to be performed by a cast including Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov, but Godley and Creme eventually settled on Cook once they realised he could perform most parts himself.
The storyline centres on the impending divorce of ineffectual Englishman Walter Stapleton (Cook) and his French wife Lulu (Judy Huxtable). While meeting their lawyers – the bibulous Mr. Haig and overbearing Mr. Pepperman (both played by Cook) – the encroaching global catastrophe interrupts proceedings with bizarre and mysterious happenings, which seem to centre on Mr. Blint (Cook), a musician and composer living in the flat below Haig's office, to which it is connected by a large hole in the floor.
Although it has since developed a cult following due to Cook's presence, Consequences was released as punk was sweeping the UK and proved a resounding commercial failure, savaged by critics who found the music self-indulgent. The script and story have evident connections to Cook's own life – his then-wife Judy Huxtable plays Walter's wife. Cook's struggles with alcohol are mirrored in Haig's drinking, and there is a parallel between the fictional divorce of Walter and Lulu and Cook's own divorce from his first wife. The voice and accent Cook used for the character of Stapleton are similar to those of Cook's Beyond the Fringe colleague, Alan Bennett, and a book on Cook's comedy, How Very Interesting, speculates that the characters Cook plays in Consequences are caricatures of the four Beyond the Fringe cast members – the alcoholic Haig represents Cook, the tremulous Stapleton is Bennett, the parodically Jewish Pepperman is Miller, and the pianist Blint represents Moore.
1980s
Cook starred in the LWT special Peter Cook & Co. in 1980. The show included comedy sketches, including a Tales of the Unexpected parody "Tales of the Much As We Expected". This involved Cook as Roald Dahl, explaining his name had been Ronald before he dropped the "n". The cast included Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Beryl Reid, Paula Wilcox, and Terry Jones. Partly spurred by Moore's growing film star status, Cook moved to Hollywood in that year, and appeared as an uptight English butler to a wealthy American woman in a short-lived United States television sitcom, The Two of Us, also making cameo appearances in a couple of undistinguished films.
In 1983, Cook played the role of Richard III in the first episode of Blackadder, "The Foretelling", which parodies Laurence Olivier's portrayal. In 1984, he played the role of Nigel, the mathematics teacher, in Jeannot Szwarc's film Supergirl, working alongside the evil Selena played by Faye Dunaway. He then narrated the short film Diplomatix by Norwegian comedy trio Kirkvaag, Lystad, and Mjøen, which won the "Special Prize of the City of Montreux" at the Montreux Comedy Festival in 1985. In 1986, he partnered Joan Rivers on her UK talk show. He appeared as Mr Jolly in 1987 in The Comic Strip Presents...''' episode "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door", playing an assassin who covers the sound of his murders by playing Tom Jones records. That same year, Cook appeared in The Princess Bride as the "Impressive Clergyman" who officiates at the wedding ceremony between Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck, uttering the now-famous line "Mawage!" Also that year, he spent time working with humourist Martin Lewis on a political satire about the 1988 US presidential elections for HBO, but the script went unproduced. Lewis suggested that Cook team with Moore for the US Comic Relief telethon for the homeless. The duo reunited and performed their "One Leg Too Few" sketch. Cook again collaborated with Moore for the 1989 Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.
A 1984 commercial for John Harvey & Sons showed Cook at a poolside party drinking Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry. He then says to "throw away those silly little glasses" whereupon the other party guests toss their sunglasses in the swimming pool.
In 1988, Cook appeared as a contestant on the improvisation comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? He was declared the winner, his prize being to read the credits in the style of a New York cab driver – a character he had portrayed in Peter Cook & Co.Cook occasionally called in to Clive Bull's night-time phone-in radio show on LBC in London. Using the name "Sven from Swiss Cottage", he mused on love, loneliness, and herrings in a mock Norwegian accent. Jokes included Sven's attempts to find his estranged wife, in which he often claimed to be telephoning the show from all over the world, and his hatred of the Norwegian obsession with fish. While Bull was clearly aware that Sven was fictional, he did not learn of the caller's real identity until later.
Revival
In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life, and he reduced his drinking to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while she kept her own property just away.
Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life, based on the song "Twelve Days of Christmas". Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3 in 1994. Morris described them:
On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters – biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp, and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day, he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the following year, his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last television appearance on the show Pebble Mill at One in November 1994.
Personal life and death
Cook was married three times. He was first married to Wendy Snowden, whom he met at university, in 1963; they had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy; they divorced in 1971. Cook then married his second wife, model and actress Judy Huxtable, in 1973, the marriage formally ending in 1989 after they had been separated for some years. He married his third and final wife, Chiew Lin Chong, in 1989, to whom he remained married until his death. Cook became stepfather to Chong's daughter, Nina. Chong died at the age of 71 in November 2016.
Cook died in a coma on 9 January 1995 at age 57 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage, a complication probably resulting from years of heavy drinking. His body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, and his ashes were buried in an unmarked plot behind St John-at-Hampstead, not far from his home in Perrins Walk.
Dudley Moore attended Cook's memorial service at St John-at-Hampstead on 1 May 1995. He and Martin Lewis presented a two-night memorial for Cook at The Improv in Los Angeles, on 15 and 16 November 1995, to mark what would have been Cook's 58th birthday.
Cook was an avid spectator of most sports and was a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur football club.
Legacy
Cook is widely acknowledged as a strong influence on the many British comedians who followed him from the amateur dramatic clubs of British universities to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then to radio and television. On his death, some critics choose to see Cook's life as tragic, insofar as the brilliance of his youth had not been sustained in his later years. However, Cook always maintained he had no ambitions for sustained success. He assessed happiness by his friendships and his enjoyment of life. Eric Idle said Cook had not wasted his talent, but rather that the newspapers had tried to waste him.
Several friends honoured him with a dedication in the closing credits of Fierce Creatures (1997), a comedy film written by John Cleese about a zoo in peril of being closed. It starred Cleese alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin. The dedication displays photos and the lifespan dates of Cook and of naturalist and humourist Gerald Durrell.
In 1999, the minor planet 20468 Petercook, in the main asteroid belt, was named after Cook.
Channel 4 broadcast Not Only But Always, a television film dramatising the relationship between Cook and Moore, with Rhys Ifans portraying Cook. At the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a play, Pete and Dud: Come Again written by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, examined the relationship from Moore's view. The play was transferred to London's West End at The Venue in 2006 and toured the UK the following year. During the West End run, Tom Goodman-Hill starred as Cook, with Kevin Bishop as Moore.
A green plaque to honour Cook was unveiled by the Westminster City Council and the Heritage Foundation at the site of the Establishment Club, at 18 Greek Street, on 15 February 2009.
A blue plaque was unveiled by the Torbay Civic Society on 17 November 2014 at Cook's place of birth, "Shearbridge", Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, with his widow Lin and other members of the family in attendance. A further blue plaque was commissioned and erected at the home of Torquay United, Plainmoor, Torquay, in 2015.
FilmographyBachelor of Hearts (1958) – Pedestrian in Street (uncredited)Ten Thousand Talents (short film, 1960) – voiceWhat's Going on Here (TV film, 1963) The Wrong Box (1966) – Morris FinsburyAlice in Wonderland (TV film, 1966) – Mad HatterBedazzled (1967) – George Spiggott / The DevilA Dandy in Aspic (1968) – PrentissMonte Carlo or Bust! (released in the US as Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies) (1969) – Maj. Digby DawlishThe Bed Sitting Room (1969) – InspectorThe Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) – Michael RimmerBehind the Fridge (TV film, 1971) – Various CharactersAn Apple a Day (TV film, 1971) – Mr Elwood Sr.The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) – DominicSaturday Night at the Baths (1975) – Himself, in theatre audience (uncredited)Find the Lady (1976) – LewenhakEric Sykes Shows a Few of Our Favourite Things (TV film, 1977) – StagehandThe Hound of the Baskervilles (1978) – Sherlock HolmesDerek and Clive Get the Horn (1979) – ClivePeter Cook & Co. (TV Special, 1980) – Various CharactersYellowbeard (1983) – Lord Percy LambournSupergirl (1984) – NigelKenny Everett's Christmas Carol (TV movie, 1985) – Ghost of Christmas Yet To ComeThe Myth (1986) – HimselfThe Princess Bride (1987) – The Impressive ClergymanWhoops Apocalypse (1988) – Sir Mortimer ChrisWithout a Clue (1988) – Norman GreenhoughJake's Journey (TV movie, 1988) – KingGetting It Right (1989) – Mr AdrianGreat Balls of Fire! (1989) – First English ReporterThe Craig Ferguson Story (TV film, 1991) – Fergus Ferguson Roger Mellie (1991) - Roger Mellie (voice)One Foot in the Algarve (1993 episode of One Foot in the Grave) – Martin TroutBlack Beauty (1994) – Lord Wexmire (final film role)Peter Cook Talks Golf Balls (video, 1994) – played four characters: Alec Dunroonie / Dieter Liedbetter / Major Titherly Glibble / Bill Rossi
TV seriesChronicle (1964) – presenter (one episode)A Series of Bird's (1967) – (1 episode)Not Only... But Also (1965–70) – Various Characters (22 episodes)Not Only But Also. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Australia (miniseries, 1971) Thirty-Minute Theatre (1972) – Peter Trilby (1 episode)Revolver (1978) (8 episodes)The Two of Us (1981–1982) – Robert Brentwood (20 episodes)The Black Adder (1983) – Richard III (first episode, "The Foretelling")Diplomatix (TV Short, 1985) – Narrator (voice)The Comic Strip Presents... (1988) – Mr Jolly (one episode)The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only... But Also (1990) – Pete / Himself / other characters (one episode)A Life in Pieces (TV Short, 1990) – Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling (12 episodes)Roger Mellie: The Man on the Telly (1991) – Roger Mellie (voice) Gone to Seed (1992) – Wesley Willis (six episodes)Arena (1993) – himself (two episodes)
Amnesty International performancesPleasure at Her Majesty's (1976)The Mermaid Frolics (1977)The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979)The Secret Policeman's Private Parts (1981) - Intro narratorThe Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball (1989)The Best of Amnesty: Featuring the Stars of Monty Python (1999)
Discography
UK chart singles:
"The Ballad of Spotty Muldoon" (1965)
"Goodbye-ee" (1965) (both with Dudley Moore)
Albums:
Bridge on the River Wye (1962)
The Misty Mr. Wisty (1965) Decca LK 4722
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Cordially Invite You to Go to Hell! (1967)
Behind the Fridge (with Dudley Moore) (1972) Aus #35
Derek and Clive (Live) (with Dudley Moore) (1976)
Derek and Clive Come Again (with Dudley Moore) (1977)
Derek and Clive Ad Nauseam'' (with Dudley Moore) (1978)
References
Further reading
Richard Mills, (2010). Pop half-cocked: a history of "Revolver". In Inglis, Ian, (ed). Popular Music and Television in Britain. Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 149 - 160.
External links
The Establishment
Lengthy 1988 KCRW radio interview in 3 parts "Bob Claster's Funny Stuff" including many excerpts.
Mr Blint's Attic
Tribute to Peter Cook, with texts and commentary
Good Evening, a Peter Cook Fansite incl. Gallery
The BBC Guide to Comedy: Not Only...But Also
Missing-Episodes.com
One Leg Too Few, script for one of Cook and Moore's most famous and oft-performed sketches.
20th-century English male actors
1937 births
1995 deaths
Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge
Comedians from Devon
Deaths from gastrointestinal hemorrhage
English male comedians
English male film actors
English male television actors
English satirists
English television writers
Grammy Award winners
Male actors from Devon
People educated at Radley College
People from Torquay
Private Eye contributors
English male writers
English social commentators
Decca Records artists
British male television writers
20th-century English screenwriters
Special Tony Award recipients
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[
"The Tangut script (Tangut: ; ) was a logographic writing system, used for writing the extinct Tangut language of the Western Xia dynasty. According to the latest count, 5863 Tangut characters are known, excluding variants. The Tangut characters are similar in appearance to Chinese characters, with the same type of strokes, but the methods of forming characters in the Tangut writing system are significantly different from those of forming Chinese characters. As in Chinese calligraphy, regular, running, cursive and seal scripts were used in Tangut writing.\n\nHistory\nAccording to the History of Song (1346), the script was designed by the high-ranking official Yeli Renrong in 1036. The script was invented in a short period of time, and was put into use quickly. Government schools were founded to teach the script. Official documents were written in the script (with diplomatic ones written bilingually). A great number of Buddhist scriptures were translated from Tibetan and Chinese, and block printed in the script. Although the dynasty collapsed in 1227, the script continued to be used for another few centuries. The last known example of the script occurs on a pair of Tangut dharani pillars found at Baoding in present-day Hebei province, which were erected in 1502.\n\nStructure\n\nTangut characters can be divided into two classes: simple and composite. The latter are much more numerous. The simple characters can be either semantic or phonetic. None of the Tangut characters are pictographic, while the Chinese characters were at the time of their creation; this is one of the major differences between Tangut and Chinese characters.\n\nMost composite characters comprise two components. A few comprise three or four. A component can be a simple character, or part of a composite character. The composite characters include semantic-semantic ones and semantic-phonetic ones. A few special composite characters were made for transliterating Chinese and Sanskrit.\n\nThere are a number of pairs of special composite characters worth noting. The members of such a pair have the same components, only the location of the components in them is different (e.g. AB vs. BA, ABC vs. ACB). The members of such a pair have very similar meanings.\n\nThe Sea of Characters (), a 12th century monolingual Tangut rhyming dictionary, analyzes what other characters each character is derived from. Its analyses illustrate another difference between Tangut and Chinese characters. In Chinese, typically, each semantic component has its own meaning, and each phonetic component its own sound; they contribute this meaning or sound to any complex character they appear in. By contrast, in the Sea of Characters analysis of Tangut, a component contributes the meaning or sound of some other character that contains it, potentially a different one in every appearance. For example, the component can have the meaning of \"bird\" ( *dźjwow, of which it is the left side), as in *dze \"wild goose\" = *dźjwow \"bird\" + *dze \"longevity\". But the same component is also used to convey meanings of bone, smoke, food, and time, among others.\n\nSome components take different shape depending on what part of the character they appear in (e.g., left side, right side, middle, bottom).\n\nReconstruction\n\nUnicode\n\n6,125 characters of the Tangut script were included in Unicode version 9.0 in June 2016 in the Tangut block. 755 Radicals and components used in the modern study of Tangut were added to the Tangut Components block. An iteration mark, , was included in the Ideographic Symbols and Punctuation block. Five additional characters were added in June 2018 with the release of Unicode version 11.0. Six additional characters were added in March 2019 with the release of Unicode version 12.0. A further nine Tangut ideographs were added to the Tangut Supplement block and 13 Tangut components were added to the Tangut Components block in March 2020 with the release of Unicode version 13.0. The Tangut Supplement block size was changed in Unicode version 14.0 to correct the erroneous block end point (version 13: → version 14.0: ).\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nExternal links \n\nTangut script at Omniglot\nTangut script, by Andrew West\n Sample Tangut characters at Mojikyo\n \n\nTangut index\n\n \nTanguts\nObsolete writing systems\n1036 introductions",
"The first series of the British medical drama television series Casualty began airing on 6 September 1986, and concluded on 27 December 1986. The show was created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin after the pair were both hospitalised for different reasons. Brock and Unwin were deeply concerned with what they saw within hospitals and decided to pitch a document in 1985 for the BBC. It was reported the pitch document 'read like a manifesto', and the show was then commissioned. Geraint Morris was appointed as the show's producer. Casualty was commissioned to boost ratings on BBC One at peak times after ratings began to decline between 1984 and 1985. Prior to first series airing, Brock and Unwin visited a hospital in Bristol where they met a charge nurse called Pete Salt. Salt was appointed the series medical advisor. \n\nThe first series of Casualty consisted of fifteen episodes, which aired weekly on a Saturday night. Each episode was individually titled. The first series featured ten main characters, who were all appointed different roles within the A&E department. By the end of the first series, two actors would not be returning for the second series: Julia Watson (Baz Samuels) and George Harris (Clive King).\n\nCast\n\nOverview \nThe first series of Casualty featured ten main characters. All ten characters were introduced in the first episode of the series. The fifteenth episode saw the last appearances of characters Baz Samuels and Clive King, whose respective departures would be explained in the second series. The other eight characters reprised their roles in series two.\n\nThroughout the duration of the first series, there were seven notable actors who appeared in guest roles. Graham Cole played a junior doctor in episode one, Michael Garner played PC McMorrow in episode four, Alfred Molina played Fleet Street journalist Harry Horner in episode four, while Vas Blackwood also appeared in episode four, as Bob. Stella Gonet played Clare Wainwright, a specialist registrar in general medicine in episode seven, while Perry Fenwick played patient Marvin Osborne in episode nine.\n\nMain characters \n\nLisa Bowerman as Sandra Mute\nBrenda Fricker as Megan Roach\nBernard Gallagher as Ewart Plimmer\nGeorge Harris as Clive King (until episode 15)\nRobert Pugh as Andrew Ponting\nDebbie Roza as Susie Mercier\nChristopher Rozycki as Kuba Trzcinski\nCathy Shipton as Lisa \"Duffy\" Duffin\nDerek Thompson as Charlie Fairhead\nJulia Watson as Barbara \"Baz\" Samuels (until episode 15)\n\nDevelopment\nThe idea of Casualty came together when co-creators Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin were both hospitalised for different reasons. During their time at the hospital, the pair were 'deeply concerned by what they saw'. Brock and Unwin pitched a document and sent it to the BBC in 1985. Unwin said in an interview with Radio Times that their pitch 'read like a manifesto', with the first sentence being: \"In 1948, a dream was born - a National Health Service. In 1985, the dream is in tatters.\" Unwin said that he and Brock were both 'left–wing and passionate', and that they 'knew what stories there were to tell'. After the commissioning of Casualty, the BBC decided to team Unwin and Brock up with television producer Geraint Morris. \n\nOne of the reasons Casualty was produced was to help boost decreasing ratings for the BBC between 1984 and 1985 during peak viewing times on Friday and Saturday evenings. Before Brock and Unwin scripted the first series, they took a visit to a hospital based in Bristol. There, they met Pete Salt, a charge nurse. Salt was appointed the series medical advisor, advising the team of Casualty on what was and wasn't medically possible or accurate.\n\nEpisodes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Casualty series 1 at the Internet Movie Database\n\n \n1986 British television seasons"
] |
[
"Peter Cook",
"Revival",
"what was the revival of?",
"Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces.",
"was this successful?",
"I don't know.",
"what else was interesting about the revival?",
"On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters",
"what were the four characters?",
"biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp and rock legend Eric Daley."
] |
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Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Besides Peter Cook's roles on the BBC, are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Peter Cook
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In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong (1945-2016) in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life and he reduced his drinking, to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while his wife kept her own property only 100 yards away. Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life based on the Twelve Days of Christmas. Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3. Morris described them: It was a very different style of improvisation from what I'd been used to, working with people like Steve Coogan, Doon Mackichan and Rebecca Front, because those On the Hour and The Day Today things were about trying to establish a character within a situation, and Peter Cook was really doing 'knight's move' and 'double knight's move' thinking to construct jokes or ridiculous scenes flipping back on themselves, and it was amazing. I mean, I held out no great hopes that he wouldn't be a boozy old sack of lard with his hair falling out and scarcely able to get a sentence out, because he hadn't given much evidence that that wouldn't be the case. But, in fact, he stumbled in with a Safeways bag full of Kestrel lager and loads of fags and then proceeded to skip about mentally with the agility of a grasshopper. Really quite extraordinary. On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters - biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared, on 26 December, in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the next year his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last TV appearance on the show Pebble Mill at One in November 1994. CANNOTANSWER
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He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while his wife kept her own property only 100 yards away.
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Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English satirist and comedic actor. He was a leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.
Born in Torquay, he was educated at the University of Cambridge. There he became involved with the Footlights Club, of which he later became president. After graduating he created the comedy stage revue Beyond the Fringe, beginning a long-running partnership with Dudley Moore. In 1961, Cook opened the comedy club The Establishment in Soho, Central London. In 1965, Cook and Moore began a television career, beginning with Not Only... But Also. Cook’s deadpan monologues contrasted with Moore’s buffoonery. They received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. Following the success of the show, the duo appeared together in the films The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967). Cook and Moore returned to television projects continuing to the late 1970s, including co-presenting Saturday Night Live in the United States. From 1978 until his death in 1995, Cook no longer collaborated with Moore, apart from a few cameo appearances but continued to be a regular performer in British television and film.
Referred to as "the father of modern satire" by The Guardian in 2005, Cook was ranked number one in the Comedians' Comedian, a poll of more than 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors in the English-speaking world.
Early life
Cook was born at his parents' house, "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. He was the only son, and eldest of the three children, of Alexander Edward "Alec" Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret (1908–1994), daughter of solicitor Charles Mayo. His father served as political officer and later district officer in Nigeria, then as financial secretary to the colony of Gibraltar, followed by a return to Nigeria as Permanent Secretary of the Eastern Region based at Enugu. Cook's grandfather, Edward Arthur Cook (1869–1914), had also been a colonial civil servant, traffic manager for the Federated Malay States Railway in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya; stress that he suffered, in the lead-up to an interview regarding promotion, led him to commit suicide. His wife, Minnie Jane (1869–1957; daughter of Thomas Wreford, of Thelbridge and Witheridge, Devon, and of Stratford-upon-Avon, of a prominent Devonshire family traced back to 1440), kept this fact secret; Peter Cook only discovered the truth when later researching his family.
Cook was educated at Radley College and then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read French and German. As a student, Cook initially intended to become a career diplomat like his father, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although largely apathetic politically, particularly in later life when he displayed a deep distrust of politicians of all hues, he joined the Cambridge University Liberal Club. At Pembroke, Cook performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs.
While still at university, Cook wrote for Kenneth Williams, providing several sketches for Williams' hit West End comedy revue Pieces of Eight and much of the follow-up, One Over the Eight, before finding prominence in his own right in a four-man group satirical stage show, Beyond the Fringe, alongside Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, and Dudley Moore.
Beyond the Fringe became a great success in London after being first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and included Cook impersonating the prime minister, Harold Macmillan. This was one of the first occasions satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre, and it shocked audiences. During one performance, Macmillan was in the theatre and Cook departed from his script and attacked him verbally.
Career
1960s
In 1961, Cook opened The Establishment, a club at 18 Greek Street in Soho in central London, presenting fellow comedians in a nightclub setting, including American Lenny Bruce. Cook said it was a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets ... which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War"; as a members-only venue, it was outside the censorship restrictions. The Establishment's regular cabaret performers were Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and John Fortune.
Cook befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club. Humphries said in his autobiography, My Life As Me, that he found Cook's lack of interest in art and literature off-putting. Dudley Moore's jazz trio played in the basement of the club during the early 1960s.
Cook also opened an Establishment club in New York in 1963 and Lenny Bruce performed there, as well.
In 1962, the BBC commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on the Establishment Club, but it was not immediately picked up and Cook went to New York City for a year to perform Beyond the Fringe on Broadway. When he returned, the pilot had been refashioned as That Was the Week That Was and had made a star of David Frost, something Cook resented.
The 1960s satire boom was coming to an end and Cook said: "England was about to sink giggling into the sea." He complained that Frost's success was based on copying Cook's own stage persona and Cook dubbed him "the bubonic plagiarist", and said that his only regret in life, according to Alan Bennett, had been saving Frost from drowning. This incident occurred in the summer of 1963, when the rivalry between the two men was at its height. Cook had realised that Frost's potential drowning would have looked deliberate if he had not been rescued.
Around this time, Cook provided financial backing for the satirical magazine Private Eye, supporting it through difficult periods, particularly in libel trials. Cook invested his own money and solicited investment from his friends. For a time, the magazine was produced from the premises of the Establishment Club. In 1963, Cook married Wendy Snowden; the couple had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy, but the marriage ended in 1970.
Cook's first regular television spot was on Granada Television's Braden Beat with Bernard Braden, where he featured his most enduring character: the static, dour and monotonal E. L. Wisty, whom Cook had conceived for Radley College's Marionette Society.
Cook's comedy partnership with Dudley Moore led to Not Only... But Also. This was originally intended by the BBC as a vehicle for Moore's music, but Moore invited Cook to write sketches and appear with him. Using few props, they created dry, absurd television that proved hugely popular and lasted for three series between 1965 and 1970. Cook played characters such as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and the two men created their Pete and Dud alter egos. Other sketches included "Superthunderstingcar", a parody of the Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows, and Cook's pastiche of 1960s trendy arts documentaries – satirised in a parodic segment on Greta Garbo.
When Cook learned a few years later that the videotapes of the series were to be wiped, a common practice at the time, he offered to buy the recordings from the BBC but was refused because of copyright issues. He suggested he could purchase new tapes so that the BBC would have no need to erase the originals, but this was also turned down. Of the original 22 programmes, only eight still survive complete. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only...But Also was shown on television and has been released on both VHS and DVD.
With The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967), Cook and Moore began to act in films together. Directed by Stanley Donen, the underlying story of Bedazzled is credited to Cook and Moore and its screenplay to Cook. A comic parody of Faust, it stars Cook as George Spigott (the Devil) who tempts Stanley Moon (Moore), a frustrated, short-order chef, with the promise of gaining his heart's desire – the unattainable beauty and waitress at his cafe, Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) – in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him. The film features cameo appearances by Barry Humphries as Envy and Raquel Welch as Lust. Moore composed the soundtrack music and co-wrote (with Cook) the songs performed in the film. His jazz trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivered in a deadpan monotone and included his familiar put-down, "you fill me with inertia".
In 1968, Cook and Moore briefly switched to ATV for four one-hour programmes titled Goodbye Again, based on the Pete and Dud characters. Cook's increasing alcoholism led him to become reliant on cue cards; the show was not a popular success, owing in part to a strike causing the suspension of the publication of the ITV listings magazine TV Times. John Cleese was also a cast member, who would become close lifelong friends with Cook and later collaborated on multiple projects together.
1970s
In 1970, Cook took over a project initiated by David Frost for a satirical film about an opinion pollster who rises to become President of Great Britain. Under Cook's guidance, the character became modelled on Frost. The film, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, was not a success, although the cast contained notable names (including Cleese and Graham Chapman, who were co-writers).
Cook became a favourite of the chat show circuit but his effort at hosting such a show for the BBC in 1971, Where Do I Sit?, was said by the critics to have been a disappointment. It was axed after only three episodes and was replaced by Michael Parkinson, the start of Parkinson's career as a chat show host. Parkinson later asked Cook what his ambitions were, Cook replied jocularly "[...] in fact, my ambition is to shut you up altogether you see!"
Cook and Moore fashioned sketches from Not Only....But Also and Goodbye Again with new material into the stage revue called Behind the Fridge. This show toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York City in 1973, re-titled as Good Evening. Cook frequently appeared on and off stage the worse for drink. Nonetheless, the show proved very popular and it won Tony and Grammy Awards. When it finished, Moore stayed in the United States to pursue his film acting ambitions in Hollywood. Cook returned to Britain and in 1973, married the actress and model Judy Huxtable.
Later, the more risqué humour of Pete and Dud went further on such LPs as "Derek and Clive". The first recording was initiated by Cook to alleviate boredom during the Broadway run of Good Evening and used material conceived years before for the two characters but considered too outrageous. One of these audio recordings was also filmed and therein tensions between the duo are seen to rise. Chris Blackwell circulated bootleg copies to friends in the music business. The popularity of the recording convinced Cook to release it commercially, although Moore was initially reluctant, fearing that his rising fame as a Hollywood star would be undermined. Two further Derek and Clive albums were released, the last accompanied by a film.
Cook and Moore hosted Saturday Night Live on 24 January 1976 during the show's first season. They did a number of their classic stage routines, including "One Leg Too Few" and "Frog and Peach" among others, in addition to participating in some skits with the show's ensemble cast. In 1978, Cook appeared on the British music series Revolver as the manager of a ballroom where emerging punk and new wave acts played. For some groups, these were their first appearances on television. Cook's acerbic commentary was a distinctive aspect of the programme. In 1979, Cook recorded comedy-segments as B-sides to the Sparks 12-inch singles "Number One Song in Heaven" and "Tryouts for the Human Race". The main songwriter Ron Mael often began with a banal situation in his lyrics and then went at surreal tangents in the style of Cook and S. J. Perelman.
Amnesty International performances
Cook appeared at the first three fund-raising galas staged by Cleese and Martin Lewis on behalf of Amnesty International. The benefits were dubbed The Secret Policeman's Balls, though it wasn't until the third show in 1979 that the title was used. He performed on all three nights of the first show in April 1976, A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick), as an individual performer and as a member of the cast of Beyond the Fringe, which reunited for the first time since the 1960s. He also appeared in a Monty Python sketch, taking the place of Eric Idle. Cook was on the cast album of the show and in the film, Pleasure at Her Majesty's. He was in the second Amnesty gala in May 1977, An Evening Without Sir Bernard Miles. It was retitled The Mermaid Frolics for the cast album and TV special. Cook performed monologues and skits with Terry Jones.
In June 1979, Cook performed all four nights of The Secret Policeman's Ball, teaming with Cleese. Cook performed a couple of solo pieces and a sketch with Eleanor Bron. He also led the ensemble in the finale – the "End of the World" sketch from Beyond the Fringe.
In response to a barb in The Daily Telegraph that the show was recycled material, Cook wrote a satire of the summing-up by Justice Cantley in the trial of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, a summary now widely thought to show bias in favour of Thorpe. Cook performed it that same night (Friday 29 June – the third of the four nights) and the following night. The nine-minute opus, "Entirely a Matter for You", is considered by many fans and critics to be one of the finest works of Cook's career. Along with Cook, producer of the show Martin Lewis brought out an album on Virgin Records entitled Here Comes the Judge: Live, containing the live performance together with three studio tracks that further lampooned the Thorpe trial.
Although unable to take part in the 1981 gala, Cook supplied the narration over the animated opening title sequence of the 1982 film of the show. With Lewis, he wrote and voiced radio commercials to advertise the film in the UK. He also hosted a spoof film awards ceremony that was part of the world première of the film in London in March 1982.
Following Cook's 1987 stage reunion with Moore for the annual American benefit for the homeless, Comic Relief (not related to the UK Comic Relief benefits), Cook repeated the reunion for a British audience by performing with Moore at the 1989 Amnesty benefit The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.
Consequences album
Cook played multiple roles on the 1977 concept album Consequences, written and produced by former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. A mixture of spoken comedy and progressive rock with an environmental subtext, Consequences started as a single that Godley and Creme planned to make to demonstrate their invention, an electric guitar effect called the Gizmo, which they developed in 10cc. The project grew into a three-LP box set. The comedy sections were originally intended to be performed by a cast including Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov, but Godley and Creme eventually settled on Cook once they realised he could perform most parts himself.
The storyline centres on the impending divorce of ineffectual Englishman Walter Stapleton (Cook) and his French wife Lulu (Judy Huxtable). While meeting their lawyers – the bibulous Mr. Haig and overbearing Mr. Pepperman (both played by Cook) – the encroaching global catastrophe interrupts proceedings with bizarre and mysterious happenings, which seem to centre on Mr. Blint (Cook), a musician and composer living in the flat below Haig's office, to which it is connected by a large hole in the floor.
Although it has since developed a cult following due to Cook's presence, Consequences was released as punk was sweeping the UK and proved a resounding commercial failure, savaged by critics who found the music self-indulgent. The script and story have evident connections to Cook's own life – his then-wife Judy Huxtable plays Walter's wife. Cook's struggles with alcohol are mirrored in Haig's drinking, and there is a parallel between the fictional divorce of Walter and Lulu and Cook's own divorce from his first wife. The voice and accent Cook used for the character of Stapleton are similar to those of Cook's Beyond the Fringe colleague, Alan Bennett, and a book on Cook's comedy, How Very Interesting, speculates that the characters Cook plays in Consequences are caricatures of the four Beyond the Fringe cast members – the alcoholic Haig represents Cook, the tremulous Stapleton is Bennett, the parodically Jewish Pepperman is Miller, and the pianist Blint represents Moore.
1980s
Cook starred in the LWT special Peter Cook & Co. in 1980. The show included comedy sketches, including a Tales of the Unexpected parody "Tales of the Much As We Expected". This involved Cook as Roald Dahl, explaining his name had been Ronald before he dropped the "n". The cast included Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Beryl Reid, Paula Wilcox, and Terry Jones. Partly spurred by Moore's growing film star status, Cook moved to Hollywood in that year, and appeared as an uptight English butler to a wealthy American woman in a short-lived United States television sitcom, The Two of Us, also making cameo appearances in a couple of undistinguished films.
In 1983, Cook played the role of Richard III in the first episode of Blackadder, "The Foretelling", which parodies Laurence Olivier's portrayal. In 1984, he played the role of Nigel, the mathematics teacher, in Jeannot Szwarc's film Supergirl, working alongside the evil Selena played by Faye Dunaway. He then narrated the short film Diplomatix by Norwegian comedy trio Kirkvaag, Lystad, and Mjøen, which won the "Special Prize of the City of Montreux" at the Montreux Comedy Festival in 1985. In 1986, he partnered Joan Rivers on her UK talk show. He appeared as Mr Jolly in 1987 in The Comic Strip Presents...''' episode "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door", playing an assassin who covers the sound of his murders by playing Tom Jones records. That same year, Cook appeared in The Princess Bride as the "Impressive Clergyman" who officiates at the wedding ceremony between Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck, uttering the now-famous line "Mawage!" Also that year, he spent time working with humourist Martin Lewis on a political satire about the 1988 US presidential elections for HBO, but the script went unproduced. Lewis suggested that Cook team with Moore for the US Comic Relief telethon for the homeless. The duo reunited and performed their "One Leg Too Few" sketch. Cook again collaborated with Moore for the 1989 Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.
A 1984 commercial for John Harvey & Sons showed Cook at a poolside party drinking Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry. He then says to "throw away those silly little glasses" whereupon the other party guests toss their sunglasses in the swimming pool.
In 1988, Cook appeared as a contestant on the improvisation comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? He was declared the winner, his prize being to read the credits in the style of a New York cab driver – a character he had portrayed in Peter Cook & Co.Cook occasionally called in to Clive Bull's night-time phone-in radio show on LBC in London. Using the name "Sven from Swiss Cottage", he mused on love, loneliness, and herrings in a mock Norwegian accent. Jokes included Sven's attempts to find his estranged wife, in which he often claimed to be telephoning the show from all over the world, and his hatred of the Norwegian obsession with fish. While Bull was clearly aware that Sven was fictional, he did not learn of the caller's real identity until later.
Revival
In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life, and he reduced his drinking to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th-century house in Perrins Walk, Hampstead, while she kept her own property just away.
Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life, based on the song "Twelve Days of Christmas". Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3 in 1994. Morris described them:
On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters – biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp, and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day, he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid photographer. Before the end of the following year, his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last television appearance on the show Pebble Mill at One in November 1994.
Personal life and death
Cook was married three times. He was first married to Wendy Snowden, whom he met at university, in 1963; they had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy; they divorced in 1971. Cook then married his second wife, model and actress Judy Huxtable, in 1973, the marriage formally ending in 1989 after they had been separated for some years. He married his third and final wife, Chiew Lin Chong, in 1989, to whom he remained married until his death. Cook became stepfather to Chong's daughter, Nina. Chong died at the age of 71 in November 2016.
Cook died in a coma on 9 January 1995 at age 57 at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage, a complication probably resulting from years of heavy drinking. His body was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, and his ashes were buried in an unmarked plot behind St John-at-Hampstead, not far from his home in Perrins Walk.
Dudley Moore attended Cook's memorial service at St John-at-Hampstead on 1 May 1995. He and Martin Lewis presented a two-night memorial for Cook at The Improv in Los Angeles, on 15 and 16 November 1995, to mark what would have been Cook's 58th birthday.
Cook was an avid spectator of most sports and was a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur football club.
Legacy
Cook is widely acknowledged as a strong influence on the many British comedians who followed him from the amateur dramatic clubs of British universities to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then to radio and television. On his death, some critics choose to see Cook's life as tragic, insofar as the brilliance of his youth had not been sustained in his later years. However, Cook always maintained he had no ambitions for sustained success. He assessed happiness by his friendships and his enjoyment of life. Eric Idle said Cook had not wasted his talent, but rather that the newspapers had tried to waste him.
Several friends honoured him with a dedication in the closing credits of Fierce Creatures (1997), a comedy film written by John Cleese about a zoo in peril of being closed. It starred Cleese alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin. The dedication displays photos and the lifespan dates of Cook and of naturalist and humourist Gerald Durrell.
In 1999, the minor planet 20468 Petercook, in the main asteroid belt, was named after Cook.
Channel 4 broadcast Not Only But Always, a television film dramatising the relationship between Cook and Moore, with Rhys Ifans portraying Cook. At the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a play, Pete and Dud: Come Again written by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, examined the relationship from Moore's view. The play was transferred to London's West End at The Venue in 2006 and toured the UK the following year. During the West End run, Tom Goodman-Hill starred as Cook, with Kevin Bishop as Moore.
A green plaque to honour Cook was unveiled by the Westminster City Council and the Heritage Foundation at the site of the Establishment Club, at 18 Greek Street, on 15 February 2009.
A blue plaque was unveiled by the Torbay Civic Society on 17 November 2014 at Cook's place of birth, "Shearbridge", Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, with his widow Lin and other members of the family in attendance. A further blue plaque was commissioned and erected at the home of Torquay United, Plainmoor, Torquay, in 2015.
FilmographyBachelor of Hearts (1958) – Pedestrian in Street (uncredited)Ten Thousand Talents (short film, 1960) – voiceWhat's Going on Here (TV film, 1963) The Wrong Box (1966) – Morris FinsburyAlice in Wonderland (TV film, 1966) – Mad HatterBedazzled (1967) – George Spiggott / The DevilA Dandy in Aspic (1968) – PrentissMonte Carlo or Bust! (released in the US as Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies) (1969) – Maj. Digby DawlishThe Bed Sitting Room (1969) – InspectorThe Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) – Michael RimmerBehind the Fridge (TV film, 1971) – Various CharactersAn Apple a Day (TV film, 1971) – Mr Elwood Sr.The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) – DominicSaturday Night at the Baths (1975) – Himself, in theatre audience (uncredited)Find the Lady (1976) – LewenhakEric Sykes Shows a Few of Our Favourite Things (TV film, 1977) – StagehandThe Hound of the Baskervilles (1978) – Sherlock HolmesDerek and Clive Get the Horn (1979) – ClivePeter Cook & Co. (TV Special, 1980) – Various CharactersYellowbeard (1983) – Lord Percy LambournSupergirl (1984) – NigelKenny Everett's Christmas Carol (TV movie, 1985) – Ghost of Christmas Yet To ComeThe Myth (1986) – HimselfThe Princess Bride (1987) – The Impressive ClergymanWhoops Apocalypse (1988) – Sir Mortimer ChrisWithout a Clue (1988) – Norman GreenhoughJake's Journey (TV movie, 1988) – KingGetting It Right (1989) – Mr AdrianGreat Balls of Fire! (1989) – First English ReporterThe Craig Ferguson Story (TV film, 1991) – Fergus Ferguson Roger Mellie (1991) - Roger Mellie (voice)One Foot in the Algarve (1993 episode of One Foot in the Grave) – Martin TroutBlack Beauty (1994) – Lord Wexmire (final film role)Peter Cook Talks Golf Balls (video, 1994) – played four characters: Alec Dunroonie / Dieter Liedbetter / Major Titherly Glibble / Bill Rossi
TV seriesChronicle (1964) – presenter (one episode)A Series of Bird's (1967) – (1 episode)Not Only... But Also (1965–70) – Various Characters (22 episodes)Not Only But Also. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Australia (miniseries, 1971) Thirty-Minute Theatre (1972) – Peter Trilby (1 episode)Revolver (1978) (8 episodes)The Two of Us (1981–1982) – Robert Brentwood (20 episodes)The Black Adder (1983) – Richard III (first episode, "The Foretelling")Diplomatix (TV Short, 1985) – Narrator (voice)The Comic Strip Presents... (1988) – Mr Jolly (one episode)The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only... But Also (1990) – Pete / Himself / other characters (one episode)A Life in Pieces (TV Short, 1990) – Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling (12 episodes)Roger Mellie: The Man on the Telly (1991) – Roger Mellie (voice) Gone to Seed (1992) – Wesley Willis (six episodes)Arena (1993) – himself (two episodes)
Amnesty International performancesPleasure at Her Majesty's (1976)The Mermaid Frolics (1977)The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979)The Secret Policeman's Private Parts (1981) - Intro narratorThe Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball (1989)The Best of Amnesty: Featuring the Stars of Monty Python (1999)
Discography
UK chart singles:
"The Ballad of Spotty Muldoon" (1965)
"Goodbye-ee" (1965) (both with Dudley Moore)
Albums:
Bridge on the River Wye (1962)
The Misty Mr. Wisty (1965) Decca LK 4722
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Cordially Invite You to Go to Hell! (1967)
Behind the Fridge (with Dudley Moore) (1972) Aus #35
Derek and Clive (Live) (with Dudley Moore) (1976)
Derek and Clive Come Again (with Dudley Moore) (1977)
Derek and Clive Ad Nauseam'' (with Dudley Moore) (1978)
References
Further reading
Richard Mills, (2010). Pop half-cocked: a history of "Revolver". In Inglis, Ian, (ed). Popular Music and Television in Britain. Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 149 - 160.
External links
The Establishment
Lengthy 1988 KCRW radio interview in 3 parts "Bob Claster's Funny Stuff" including many excerpts.
Mr Blint's Attic
Tribute to Peter Cook, with texts and commentary
Good Evening, a Peter Cook Fansite incl. Gallery
The BBC Guide to Comedy: Not Only...But Also
Missing-Episodes.com
One Leg Too Few, script for one of Cook and Moore's most famous and oft-performed sketches.
20th-century English male actors
1937 births
1995 deaths
Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge
Comedians from Devon
Deaths from gastrointestinal hemorrhage
English male comedians
English male film actors
English male television actors
English satirists
English television writers
Grammy Award winners
Male actors from Devon
People educated at Radley College
People from Torquay
Private Eye contributors
English male writers
English social commentators
Decca Records artists
British male television writers
20th-century English screenwriters
Special Tony Award recipients
| false |
[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"James Levine",
"Early years and personal life"
] |
C_0887716a1168499c8e5b18dc6d591f78_1
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What was his early years like
| 1 |
What was James Levine's early years like?
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James Levine
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Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish, musical family. His maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue, his father (Lawrence) was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business, and his mother (Helen Goldstein Levine) was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden". He has a brother Tom who is two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he is very close. He employs Tom as his business assistant (looking after all of his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out where he will live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe), and his brother is a painter as well. He also has a younger sister, Janet, who is a marriage counselor. He began to play the piano as a small child. On February 21, 1954, at the age of 10, Levine made his concert debut as soloist playing Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Ohio. Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School, in Vermont. In the following year he began to study piano with Rosina Lhevinne at the Aspen Music School. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, an acclaimed magnet school in Cincinnati. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Levine lives in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City. CANNOTANSWER
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He began to play the piano as a small child.
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James Lawrence Levine (; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera (the "Met") from 1976 to 2016. He was formally terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 12, 2018, over sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
Levine held leadership positions with the Ravinia Festival, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1980 he started the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program, and trained singers, conductors, and musicians for professional careers.
After taking an almost two-year health-related hiatus from conducting from 2011 to 2013, during which time he held artistic and administrative planning sessions at the Met, and led training of the Lindemann Young Artists, Levine retired as the Met's full-time Music Director following the 2015–16 season to become Music Director Emeritus.
Early years and personal life
Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish, musical family. His maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue; his father, Lawrence, was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business; and his mother, Helen Goldstein Levine, was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden". He had a brother, Tom, who was two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he was very close. He employed Tom as his business assistant, looking after his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out places to live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe. Tom was also a painter. He also had a younger sister, Janet, who is a marriage counselor.
He began to play the piano as a small child. On February 21, 1954, at age 10, Levine made his concert debut as soloist playing Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Ohio.
Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School in Vermont. The next year he began to study piano with Rosina Lhévinne at the Aspen Music School. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, a magnet school in Cincinnati. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from Juilliard in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Levine lived in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City.
Career
Early career
From 1964 to 1965, Levine served as an apprentice to George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra. He then served as the Orchestra's assistant conductor until 1970. That year, he also made debuts as guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell, the Welsh National Opera, and the San Francisco Opera. From 1965 to 1972 he concurrently taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In the summers, he worked at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan and at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. During that time, the charismatic Levine developed a devoted following of young musicians and music lovers.
In June 1971, Levine was called in at the last moment to substitute for István Kertész, to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Mahler's Second Symphony for the Ravinia Festival's opening concert of their 36th season. This concert began a long association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. From 1973 to 1993 he was music director of the Ravinia Festival, succeeding the late Kertész. He made numerous recordings with the orchestra, including the symphonies and German Requiem of Johannes Brahms, and major works of Gershwin, Holst, Berg, Beethoven, Mozart, and others. In 1990, at the request of Roy E. Disney, he arranged the music and conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the soundtrack of Fantasia 2000, released by Walt Disney Pictures. From 1974 to 1978, Levine also served as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival.
Metropolitan Opera
Levine made his Metropolitan Opera debut a few weeks before he turned 28, on June 5, 1971, leading a June Festival performance of Puccini's Tosca. After further appearances with the company, he was named its principal conductor in February 1972. He became its music director in 1975. In 1983, he served as conductor and musical director for the Franco Zeffirelli screen adaptation of Verdi's La Traviata, which featured the Met orchestra and chorus members. He became the company's first artistic director in 1986, and relinquished the title in 2004. In 2005, Levine's combined salary from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Met made him the highest-paid conductor in the country, at $3.5 million.
During Levine's tenure, the Metropolitan Opera orchestra expanded its activities into recording and concert series for the orchestra and chamber ensembles from the orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Levine led the Metropolitan Opera on many domestic and international tours. For the 25th anniversary of his Met debut, Levine conducted the world premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, commissioned for the occasion. On his appointment as general manager of the Met, Peter Gelb emphasized that Levine was welcome to remain as long as he wanted to direct music there. Levine was paid $2.1 million by the Met in 2010.
Following a series of injuries that began with a fall, Levine's health problems led to his withdrawal from many Metropolitan Opera engagements. After a May 2011 performance of Wagner's Die Walküre, Levine formally withdrew from all engagements at the Met. After two years of physical therapy, he returned to conducting with a May 2013 concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. On September 25, 2013, Levine conducted his first Met performance since May 2011, in a revival production of Mozart's Così fan tutte. He was scheduled to conduct three productions at the opera house and three at Carnegie Hall in the 2013–14 season. On April 14, 2016, Met management announced that Levine would step down from his position as music director at the end of the 2015–16 season. Levine was paid $1.8 million by the Met for the 2015–16 season. He assumed the new title of Music Director Emeritus, which he held until December 2017, when in the wake of allegations that Levine had sexually abused four young men, the Met suspended its relationship with him and canceled all his scheduled performances with the company.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Levine first conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in April 1972. In October 2001, he was named its music director effective with the 2004–05 season, with an initial contract of five years, becoming the first American-born conductor to head the BSO.
One unique condition that Levine negotiated was increased flexibility of the time allotted for rehearsal, allowing the orchestra additional time to prepare more challenging works. After the start of his tenure, the orchestra also established an "Artistic Initiative Fund" of about $40 million to fund the more expensive of his projects.
One criticism of Levine during his BSO tenure is that he did not attend many orchestra auditions. A 2005 article reported that he had attended two out of 16 auditions during his tenure up to that time. Levine responded that he has the ability to provide input on musician tenure decisions after the initial probationary period, and that it is difficult to know how well a given player will fit the given position until that person has had a chance to work with the orchestra: "My message is the audition isn't everything."
Another 2005 report stated that during Levine's first season as music director, the greater workload from the demands of playing more unfamiliar and contemporary music had increased physical stress on some of the BSO musicians. Levine and the players met to discuss this, and he agreed to program changes to lessen these demands. He received general critical praise for revitalizing the orchestra's quality and repertoire since the beginning of his tenure.
Levine experienced ongoing health problems, starting with an onstage fall in 2006 that resulted in a torn rotator cuff and started discussion of how long Levine's tenure with the BSO would last. In April 2010, in the wake of his continuing health problems, it emerged that Levine had not officially signed a contract extension, so that he was the BSO's music director without a signed contract. On March 2, 2011, the BSO announced Levine's resignation as music director effective September 2011, after the Orchestra's Tanglewood season.
Working on a commission from Levine and the BSO, the composer John Harbison dedicated his Symphony No. 6 "in friendship and gratitude" to him, whose premature departure from the orchestra prevented him from conducting the premiere.
After allegations of his abusing a number of young men came out in December 2017 the BSO said Levine "will never be employed or contracted by the BSO at any time in the future".
Conducting in Europe
Levine's BSO contract limited his guest appearances with American orchestras, but he still conducted regularly in Europe, with the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and at the Bayreuth Festival. Levine was a regular guest with the Philharmonia of London and the Staatskapelle Dresden. Beginning in 1975 he conducted regularly at the Salzburg Festival and the annual July Verbier Festival. From 1999 to 2004, he was chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, and was credited with improving the quality of instrumental ensemble during his tenure.
Work with students
Levine initiated the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera in 1980, a professional training program for graduated singers with, today, many famous alumni.
Levine was conductor of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the student resident orchestra at the annual summer music festival in Verbier, Switzerland, from 1999 through 2006. It was Levine's first long-term commitment to a student orchestra since becoming music director at the Met.
After becoming music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Levine also served as music director of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO's acclaimed summer academy at Tanglewood for student instrumentalists, singers, composers, and conductors. There he conducted the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, directed fully staged opera performances with student singers, and gave master classes for singers and conductors.
Levine said in an interview:
At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching. You want to teach what you have learned to the next generation so that they don't have to spend time reinventing the wheel. I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment. I love working with young musicians and singers, and those at the Tanglewood Music Center are unequivocally some of the finest and most talented in the world.
He continued to work with young students even when his health issues kept him from conducting. He was awarded the Lotus Award ("for inspiration to young musicians") from Young Concert Artists. Anthony Tommasini wrote in The New York Times in 2016: "The aspiring singers in the Met's young artist development program, one of many important ventures Mr. Levine started, must understand how lucky they are to have, as a teacher and mentor, a musician who even in his 20s worked at the Met with giants like Jon Vickers and Renata Tebaldi."
Health problems and death
Levine experienced recurrent health issues beginning in 2006, including sciatica and what he called "intermittent tremors". On March 1, 2006, he tripped and fell onstage during a standing ovation after a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, leaving the remaining subscription concerts in Boston to his assistant conductor at the time. Later that month, Levine underwent surgery to repair the injury. He returned to the podium on July 7, 2006.
Levine withdrew from the majority of the Tanglewood 2008 summer season because of surgery required to remove a kidney with a malignant cyst. He returned to the podium in Boston on September 24, 2008, at Symphony Hall.
On September 29, 2009, it was announced that Levine would undergo emergency back surgery for a herniated disk. He missed three weeks of engagements.
In March 2010, the BSO announced that Levine would miss the remainder of the Boston Symphony season because of back pain. The Met also announced, on April 4, 2010, that he was withdrawing from the remainder of his performances for the season. According to the Met, Levine was required to have "corrective surgery for an ongoing lower back problem". He returned to conducting at the Met and the BSO at the beginning of the 2010–11 season, but in February 2011 canceled his Boston engagements for the rest of the season.
In the summer of 2011, Levine underwent further surgery on his back. In September 2011, after he fell down a flight of stairs, fractured his spine, and injured his back while on vacation in Vermont, the Met announced that he would not conduct at the Met at least for the rest of 2011.
After two years of surgery and physical therapy, Levine returned to conducting for the first time on May 19, 2013, in a concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Levine conducted from a motorized wheelchair, with a special platform designed to accommodate it, which could rise and descend like an elevator. He returned to the Met on September 24, 2013. The same type of platform was present in the Met orchestra pit for his September 2013 return performance.
For many years, both Levine and the Met denied as unfounded the rumors that Levine had Parkinson's disease. As New York magazine reported: "The conductor states flatly that the condition is not Parkinson's disease, as people had speculated in 'that silly Times piece.'" But in 2016 both he and the Met finally admitted that the rumors were true, and that Levine had in fact had the disease since 1994. The Washington Post noted: "It wasn't just the illnesses, but the constant alternation between concealment and an excess of revelation that kept so much attention focused on them and away from the music."
Levine died in his Palm Springs home on March 9, 2021. Len Horovitz, his personal physician, announced Levine's death on March 17 and said that he had died of natural causes.
Sexual assault allegations
Four men accused Levine of sexually molesting them (starting when they were 16, 17, 17, and 20 years old), from the 1960s to the 1990s.
On December 2, 2017, it was publicly revealed that an October 2016 police report detailed that Levine had allegedly sexually molested a male teenager for years. The alleged sexual abuse began while Levine was guest conductor at the Ravinia Festival, outside Chicago, where Levine was music director for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's summer residencies from 1973 to 1993.
One accuser said that in the summer of 1968, when he was a 17-year-old high school student attending Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan, Levine (then a 25-year-old faculty member) had sexual contact with a student. When he next saw Levine, the accuser told him that he would not repeat the sexual behavior, but asked if they could continue to make music as they had before; Levine said no. The accuser later played bass in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for decades and became a professor.
A second accuser said that that same summer, Levine had sexual contact with a 17-year-old student and that Levine then initiated with the teenager a number of sexual encounters that have since haunted him. He said (and another male corroborated, on the condition of anonymity) that the next year, in Cleveland, where Levine was an assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, Levine on several occasions had sexual contact with that student and other students.
A third accuser, a violinist and pianist who grew up in Illinois near the Ravinia Music Festival, a summer program for aspiring musicians of which Levine was music director from 1971 to 1993, said Levine sexually abused him beginning when the accuser was 16 years old (and Levine was in his 40s) in 1986. He had previously detailed his accusation in 2016 in a report to the Lake Forest Police Department in Illinois. On December 8, the department announced that Levine could not be charged criminally in Illinois because the accuser was 16 years old at the time, and while today a 16-year-old is not considered old enough to consent to such conduct in Illinois (he must be 17, or 18 in cases in which the suspect is in a position of trust, authority, or supervision in relation to the victim), at the time that was the statutory age of consent. The department noted: "we are bound to apply the law that was in effect at the time the allegations occurred rather than the law as it currently exists."
On December 4, a fourth man, who later had a long career as a violinist in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, said he had been abused by Levine beginning in 1968, when he was 20 years old and attending the Meadow Brook School of Music. Levine was a teacher in the summer program.
Reactions
The New York Times said that the Met had known of at least one sexual abuse allegation as early as 1979, but dismissed it as baseless. Furthermore, the Met (including its General Manager Peter Gelb, who was contacted directly by a police detective about the allegations in October 2016) had been aware of both the third accuser's abuse allegations since they were made in the 2016 police report, and of the attendant police investigation. But the Met did not suspend Levine or launch an investigation of its own until over a year later, in December 2017.
In response to the December 2017 news article, the Met announced that it would investigate the sexual abuse allegations dating to the 1980s that were set forth in the 2016 police report. On December 3, after two additional males came forward with allegations of abuse, the Met suspended its ties with Levine, and canceled all upcoming engagements with him. A fourth accuser came forward the following day.
For its part, the Ravinia Festival, in April 2017, six months after the criminal investigation of Levine began, created an honorific title for Levine—"Conductor Laureate"—and signed him to a five-year renewable contract to begin in 2018. On December 4, 2017, the Ravinia Festival severed all ties with Levine, and terminated his five-year contract to lead the Chicago Symphony there.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra said Levine "will never be employed or contracted by the BSO at any time in the future". The Juilliard School, where Levine had studied, replaced him in a February 2018 performance where he was scheduled to lead the Juilliard Orchestra and singers from the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. On December 5, the Cincinnati May Festival canceled Levine's appearance in May. On December 7, in New Plymouth, New Zealand, the cinema chain Event Cinemas abruptly cancelled the screening of a Met production of Levine conducting Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. On December 8, Fred Child, host of the classical music radio show Performance Today, wrote that Levine "is accused of inflicting grievous harm to living members of our musical community. Out of respect for these people and their wounds, I choose not to broadcast performances featuring Mr. Levine on the podium."
Classical music blogger, former Village Voice music critic, and Juilliard School faculty member Greg Sandow said he had been contacted by three men over the years who said that Levine had abused them, and that reports of sexual abuse by Levine were "widely talked about" for 40 years. Sandow said further: "Everybody in the classical music business at least since the 1980s has talked about Levine as a sex abuser. The investigation should have been done decades ago." Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Justin Davidson mused on the culture website of New York magazine, "James Levine's career has clearly ended" and "I'm not sure the Met can survive Levine's disgrace." Similarly, drama critic Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal wrote an article called "The Levine Cataclysm; How allegations against James Levine of sexual misconduct with teenagers could topple the entire Metropolitan Opera". The Washington Post music critic Anne Midgette noted: "The Met has known about these allegations for at least a year, and are only investigating them now that they are public", and opined on her Facebook page that the Met has "quite probably spent years protecting its star conductor from just this kind of allegation". Music critic Tim Pfaff of the LGBT Bay Area Reporter wrote that The New York Times chief classical music critic Anthony Tommasini had the "weirdest" reaction, "lamenting the ugliness of it all under a...headline, 'Should I Put Away My James Levine Recordings?' His conclusion was that he and his husband...should move those recordings from their living room."
The Met orchestra musicians applauded the courage of the four men who came forward with accusations that Levine had abused them. Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents the Met's orchestra and Levine, said, "We are horrified and sickened by the recently reported allegations of sexual abuse by Mr. Levine."
Five days after news of the accusations by the four men broke, Levine spoke about them for the first time, and called them "unfounded". The accusers stood by their claims, with one saying, "I will take a lie-detector test. Will he?" Six days later, music critic Arthur Kaptainis wrote in the Montreal Gazette that Levine's denial "had little effect".
On March 12, 2018, the Met announced that it had fired Levine. Its investigation found Levine had "engaged in sexually abusive and harassing conduct towards vulnerable artists in the early stages of their careers".
Levine sued the Metropolitan Opera in New York State Supreme Court for breach of contract and defamation on March 15, 2018, three days after the company fired him, seeking more than $5.8 million in damages. The Met denied Levine's allegations. A year later, a New York State Supreme Court judge dismissed most of Levine's claims, but ruled that the Met and its attorney had made defamatory statements.
The Metropolitan Opera and Levine announced a settlement on undisclosed terms in August 2019. In September 2020, the size of the payout was indirectly exposed by annual disclosure statements required for nonprofits; Levine had received $3.5 million in the settlement. It is speculated that he was able to negotiate such a large settlement due to the lack of a morals clause in his contract with the Met.
Recordings and film
Levine made many audio and video recordings. He recorded extensively with many orchestras, and especially often with the Metropolitan Opera. His performance of Aida with Leontyne Price, her last in opera, was preserved on video and may be seen at the Met's own online archive of performances. Of particular note are his performances of Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen. A studio recording made for Deutsche Grammophon from 1987 to 1989 is on compact disc, and a 1989 live performance of the Ring is available on DVD. He also appears on several dozen albums as a pianist, collaborating with such singers as Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Christa Ludwig, and Dawn Upshaw, as well as performing the chamber music of Franz Schubert and Francis Poulenc, among others.
Levine was featured in the animated Disney film Fantasia 2000. He conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack recordings of all the music in the film (with the exception of one segment from the original 1940 Fantasia). Levine is also seen in the film talking briefly with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, just as his predecessor Leopold Stokowski did in the original film.
Discography
Marilyn Horne: Divas in Song (1994), RCA Victor Red Seal CD, 09026-62547-2
Videography
Mozart: Idomeneo (1982), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4234
The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala (1983), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4538
The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991, Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4582
James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala (1996), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, B0004602-09
Honors
Among the awards listed in his Met biography are:
1980 – Manhattan Cultural Award
1982 – first of eight Grammy Awards
1984 – Named "Musician of the Year" by Musical America
1986 – Smetana Medal (presented by the former Czechoslovakia)
1997 – National Medal of Arts
1999 – Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize from the Committee for Cultural Advancement of Baden-Baden, Germany
2003 – Kennedy Center Honors
2005 – Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
2006 – Opera News Award
2009 – Award in the Vocal Arts from Bard College
2009 – Ditson Conductors Award from Columbia University
2010 – National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honoree
2010 – George Peabody Award from Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University
2010 – elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
In addition, his biography says Levine has received honorary doctorates from the University of Cincinnati, the New England Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University, the State University of New York, and the Juilliard School. On May 3, 2018, SUNY revoked Levine's honorary doctorate in response to the sexual abuse allegations against him.
References
External links
1943 births
2021 deaths
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century classical pianists
21st-century American conductors (music)
21st-century American male musicians
21st-century American pianists
21st-century classical pianists
American classical pianists
American male conductors (music)
American male pianists
Aspen Music Festival and School alumni
Conductors of the Metropolitan Opera
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Grammy Award winners
Jewish American classical musicians
Jewish classical pianists
Juilliard School alumni
Kennedy Center honorees
Male classical pianists
Metropolitan Opera people
Music directors (opera)
Musicians from Cincinnati
Musicians from New York City
Oehms Classics artists
People stripped of honorary degrees
People with Parkinson's disease
United States National Medal of Arts recipients
21st-century American Jews
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[
"\"That's What It's Like to Be Lonesome\" is a song written and recorded by American country singer-songwriter Bill Anderson. It was released as a single in December 1958 via Decca Records and became a major hit. A similar version was released by American country artist Ray Price the same year via Columbia Records.\n\nBill Anderson version\n\"That's What It's Like to Be Lonesome\" was recorded at the Bradley Studio, located in Nashville, Tennessee. The sessions were produced by Owen Bradley, who would serve as Anderson's producer through most of years with Decca Records.\n\n\"That's What It's Like to Be Lonesome\" was released as a single by Decca Records in December 1958. It spent a total of 17 weeks on the Billboard Hot Country and Western Sides chart before reaching number 12 in February 1959. It became Anderson's first major hit as a music artist and his first charting record. It was not first released on a proper album. However, seven years later, it appeared on his compilation From This Pen.\n\nTrack listings\n7\" vinyl single<ref>{{cite web |title=Bill Anderson -- That's What It's Like to Be Lonesome\" (1958, Vinyl) |url=https://www.discogs.com/Bill-Anderson-Thats-What-Its-Like-To-Be-Lonesome-The-Thrill-Of-My-Life/release/14241289 |website=Discogs |accessdate=21 July 2020}}</ref>\n \"That's What It's Like to Be Lonesome\" – 2:30\n \"The Thrill of My Life\" – 2:25\n\nChart performance\n\nRay Price version\n\n\"That's What It's Like to Be Lonesome\" was recorded at the Columbia Studio, located in Nashville, Tennessee. The sessions were produced by Don Law.\n\n\"That's What It's Like to Be Lonesome\" was released as a single by Columbia Records in December 1958. It spent a total of 19 weeks on the Billboard'' Hot Country and Western Sides chart before reaching number 7 in February 1959. It was one of many top ten hits for Price on the Columbia label and was followed by several number one hits as well. It was not first released on a proper album.\n\nTrack listings\n7\" vinyl single\n \"That's What It's Like to Be Lonesome\" – 2:44\n \"Kissing Your Picture Is So Cold\" – 2:39\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1958 singles\n1958 songs\nBill Anderson (singer) songs\nDecca Records singles\nColumbia Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Owen Bradley\nSongs written by Bill Anderson (singer)\nRay Price (musician) songs",
"Miguel Reveriego is a Spanish fashion photographer\n\nEarly life \nSince he was 8 years old Reveriego had been obsessed with pictures of models and was very into movies as well. It was his first communion when he asked his parents for a camera though, he was not conscious at that age of what he wanted to do, but wanted to be like the movie directors or the photographers and just wanted that instrument ‘they had’.\n\nPhotography career \nReveriego was in Madrid, assisting fashion photographers when Pop came out he became a fan of photographers Mert & Marcus, he wanted to go to London and ask for a job. It was very difficult since he didn't speak fluent English but after trying several times, going there over and over again, he got the job. Miguel met their first assistant at the moment and through her, he got an interview with them. At that time Mert & Marcus have just bought their house in Ibiza and they were looking for someone who could speak Spanish and it happened. What he attributes to that period of his career, it's how clear the concept of the woman was.\n\nReferences\n\nSpanish photographers\nFashion photographers\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
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"James Levine",
"Early years and personal life",
"What was his early years like",
"He began to play the piano as a small child."
] |
C_0887716a1168499c8e5b18dc6d591f78_1
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What age
| 2 |
What age did James Levine start to play piano?
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James Levine
|
Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish, musical family. His maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue, his father (Lawrence) was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business, and his mother (Helen Goldstein Levine) was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden". He has a brother Tom who is two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he is very close. He employs Tom as his business assistant (looking after all of his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out where he will live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe), and his brother is a painter as well. He also has a younger sister, Janet, who is a marriage counselor. He began to play the piano as a small child. On February 21, 1954, at the age of 10, Levine made his concert debut as soloist playing Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Ohio. Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School, in Vermont. In the following year he began to study piano with Rosina Lhevinne at the Aspen Music School. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, an acclaimed magnet school in Cincinnati. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Levine lives in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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James Lawrence Levine (; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera (the "Met") from 1976 to 2016. He was formally terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 12, 2018, over sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
Levine held leadership positions with the Ravinia Festival, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1980 he started the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program, and trained singers, conductors, and musicians for professional careers.
After taking an almost two-year health-related hiatus from conducting from 2011 to 2013, during which time he held artistic and administrative planning sessions at the Met, and led training of the Lindemann Young Artists, Levine retired as the Met's full-time Music Director following the 2015–16 season to become Music Director Emeritus.
Early years and personal life
Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish, musical family. His maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue; his father, Lawrence, was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business; and his mother, Helen Goldstein Levine, was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden". He had a brother, Tom, who was two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he was very close. He employed Tom as his business assistant, looking after his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out places to live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe. Tom was also a painter. He also had a younger sister, Janet, who is a marriage counselor.
He began to play the piano as a small child. On February 21, 1954, at age 10, Levine made his concert debut as soloist playing Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Ohio.
Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School in Vermont. The next year he began to study piano with Rosina Lhévinne at the Aspen Music School. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, a magnet school in Cincinnati. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from Juilliard in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Levine lived in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City.
Career
Early career
From 1964 to 1965, Levine served as an apprentice to George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra. He then served as the Orchestra's assistant conductor until 1970. That year, he also made debuts as guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell, the Welsh National Opera, and the San Francisco Opera. From 1965 to 1972 he concurrently taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In the summers, he worked at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan and at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. During that time, the charismatic Levine developed a devoted following of young musicians and music lovers.
In June 1971, Levine was called in at the last moment to substitute for István Kertész, to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Mahler's Second Symphony for the Ravinia Festival's opening concert of their 36th season. This concert began a long association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. From 1973 to 1993 he was music director of the Ravinia Festival, succeeding the late Kertész. He made numerous recordings with the orchestra, including the symphonies and German Requiem of Johannes Brahms, and major works of Gershwin, Holst, Berg, Beethoven, Mozart, and others. In 1990, at the request of Roy E. Disney, he arranged the music and conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the soundtrack of Fantasia 2000, released by Walt Disney Pictures. From 1974 to 1978, Levine also served as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival.
Metropolitan Opera
Levine made his Metropolitan Opera debut a few weeks before he turned 28, on June 5, 1971, leading a June Festival performance of Puccini's Tosca. After further appearances with the company, he was named its principal conductor in February 1972. He became its music director in 1975. In 1983, he served as conductor and musical director for the Franco Zeffirelli screen adaptation of Verdi's La Traviata, which featured the Met orchestra and chorus members. He became the company's first artistic director in 1986, and relinquished the title in 2004. In 2005, Levine's combined salary from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Met made him the highest-paid conductor in the country, at $3.5 million.
During Levine's tenure, the Metropolitan Opera orchestra expanded its activities into recording and concert series for the orchestra and chamber ensembles from the orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Levine led the Metropolitan Opera on many domestic and international tours. For the 25th anniversary of his Met debut, Levine conducted the world premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, commissioned for the occasion. On his appointment as general manager of the Met, Peter Gelb emphasized that Levine was welcome to remain as long as he wanted to direct music there. Levine was paid $2.1 million by the Met in 2010.
Following a series of injuries that began with a fall, Levine's health problems led to his withdrawal from many Metropolitan Opera engagements. After a May 2011 performance of Wagner's Die Walküre, Levine formally withdrew from all engagements at the Met. After two years of physical therapy, he returned to conducting with a May 2013 concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. On September 25, 2013, Levine conducted his first Met performance since May 2011, in a revival production of Mozart's Così fan tutte. He was scheduled to conduct three productions at the opera house and three at Carnegie Hall in the 2013–14 season. On April 14, 2016, Met management announced that Levine would step down from his position as music director at the end of the 2015–16 season. Levine was paid $1.8 million by the Met for the 2015–16 season. He assumed the new title of Music Director Emeritus, which he held until December 2017, when in the wake of allegations that Levine had sexually abused four young men, the Met suspended its relationship with him and canceled all his scheduled performances with the company.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Levine first conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in April 1972. In October 2001, he was named its music director effective with the 2004–05 season, with an initial contract of five years, becoming the first American-born conductor to head the BSO.
One unique condition that Levine negotiated was increased flexibility of the time allotted for rehearsal, allowing the orchestra additional time to prepare more challenging works. After the start of his tenure, the orchestra also established an "Artistic Initiative Fund" of about $40 million to fund the more expensive of his projects.
One criticism of Levine during his BSO tenure is that he did not attend many orchestra auditions. A 2005 article reported that he had attended two out of 16 auditions during his tenure up to that time. Levine responded that he has the ability to provide input on musician tenure decisions after the initial probationary period, and that it is difficult to know how well a given player will fit the given position until that person has had a chance to work with the orchestra: "My message is the audition isn't everything."
Another 2005 report stated that during Levine's first season as music director, the greater workload from the demands of playing more unfamiliar and contemporary music had increased physical stress on some of the BSO musicians. Levine and the players met to discuss this, and he agreed to program changes to lessen these demands. He received general critical praise for revitalizing the orchestra's quality and repertoire since the beginning of his tenure.
Levine experienced ongoing health problems, starting with an onstage fall in 2006 that resulted in a torn rotator cuff and started discussion of how long Levine's tenure with the BSO would last. In April 2010, in the wake of his continuing health problems, it emerged that Levine had not officially signed a contract extension, so that he was the BSO's music director without a signed contract. On March 2, 2011, the BSO announced Levine's resignation as music director effective September 2011, after the Orchestra's Tanglewood season.
Working on a commission from Levine and the BSO, the composer John Harbison dedicated his Symphony No. 6 "in friendship and gratitude" to him, whose premature departure from the orchestra prevented him from conducting the premiere.
After allegations of his abusing a number of young men came out in December 2017 the BSO said Levine "will never be employed or contracted by the BSO at any time in the future".
Conducting in Europe
Levine's BSO contract limited his guest appearances with American orchestras, but he still conducted regularly in Europe, with the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and at the Bayreuth Festival. Levine was a regular guest with the Philharmonia of London and the Staatskapelle Dresden. Beginning in 1975 he conducted regularly at the Salzburg Festival and the annual July Verbier Festival. From 1999 to 2004, he was chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, and was credited with improving the quality of instrumental ensemble during his tenure.
Work with students
Levine initiated the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera in 1980, a professional training program for graduated singers with, today, many famous alumni.
Levine was conductor of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the student resident orchestra at the annual summer music festival in Verbier, Switzerland, from 1999 through 2006. It was Levine's first long-term commitment to a student orchestra since becoming music director at the Met.
After becoming music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Levine also served as music director of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO's acclaimed summer academy at Tanglewood for student instrumentalists, singers, composers, and conductors. There he conducted the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, directed fully staged opera performances with student singers, and gave master classes for singers and conductors.
Levine said in an interview:
At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching. You want to teach what you have learned to the next generation so that they don't have to spend time reinventing the wheel. I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment. I love working with young musicians and singers, and those at the Tanglewood Music Center are unequivocally some of the finest and most talented in the world.
He continued to work with young students even when his health issues kept him from conducting. He was awarded the Lotus Award ("for inspiration to young musicians") from Young Concert Artists. Anthony Tommasini wrote in The New York Times in 2016: "The aspiring singers in the Met's young artist development program, one of many important ventures Mr. Levine started, must understand how lucky they are to have, as a teacher and mentor, a musician who even in his 20s worked at the Met with giants like Jon Vickers and Renata Tebaldi."
Health problems and death
Levine experienced recurrent health issues beginning in 2006, including sciatica and what he called "intermittent tremors". On March 1, 2006, he tripped and fell onstage during a standing ovation after a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, leaving the remaining subscription concerts in Boston to his assistant conductor at the time. Later that month, Levine underwent surgery to repair the injury. He returned to the podium on July 7, 2006.
Levine withdrew from the majority of the Tanglewood 2008 summer season because of surgery required to remove a kidney with a malignant cyst. He returned to the podium in Boston on September 24, 2008, at Symphony Hall.
On September 29, 2009, it was announced that Levine would undergo emergency back surgery for a herniated disk. He missed three weeks of engagements.
In March 2010, the BSO announced that Levine would miss the remainder of the Boston Symphony season because of back pain. The Met also announced, on April 4, 2010, that he was withdrawing from the remainder of his performances for the season. According to the Met, Levine was required to have "corrective surgery for an ongoing lower back problem". He returned to conducting at the Met and the BSO at the beginning of the 2010–11 season, but in February 2011 canceled his Boston engagements for the rest of the season.
In the summer of 2011, Levine underwent further surgery on his back. In September 2011, after he fell down a flight of stairs, fractured his spine, and injured his back while on vacation in Vermont, the Met announced that he would not conduct at the Met at least for the rest of 2011.
After two years of surgery and physical therapy, Levine returned to conducting for the first time on May 19, 2013, in a concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Levine conducted from a motorized wheelchair, with a special platform designed to accommodate it, which could rise and descend like an elevator. He returned to the Met on September 24, 2013. The same type of platform was present in the Met orchestra pit for his September 2013 return performance.
For many years, both Levine and the Met denied as unfounded the rumors that Levine had Parkinson's disease. As New York magazine reported: "The conductor states flatly that the condition is not Parkinson's disease, as people had speculated in 'that silly Times piece.'" But in 2016 both he and the Met finally admitted that the rumors were true, and that Levine had in fact had the disease since 1994. The Washington Post noted: "It wasn't just the illnesses, but the constant alternation between concealment and an excess of revelation that kept so much attention focused on them and away from the music."
Levine died in his Palm Springs home on March 9, 2021. Len Horovitz, his personal physician, announced Levine's death on March 17 and said that he had died of natural causes.
Sexual assault allegations
Four men accused Levine of sexually molesting them (starting when they were 16, 17, 17, and 20 years old), from the 1960s to the 1990s.
On December 2, 2017, it was publicly revealed that an October 2016 police report detailed that Levine had allegedly sexually molested a male teenager for years. The alleged sexual abuse began while Levine was guest conductor at the Ravinia Festival, outside Chicago, where Levine was music director for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's summer residencies from 1973 to 1993.
One accuser said that in the summer of 1968, when he was a 17-year-old high school student attending Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan, Levine (then a 25-year-old faculty member) had sexual contact with a student. When he next saw Levine, the accuser told him that he would not repeat the sexual behavior, but asked if they could continue to make music as they had before; Levine said no. The accuser later played bass in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for decades and became a professor.
A second accuser said that that same summer, Levine had sexual contact with a 17-year-old student and that Levine then initiated with the teenager a number of sexual encounters that have since haunted him. He said (and another male corroborated, on the condition of anonymity) that the next year, in Cleveland, where Levine was an assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, Levine on several occasions had sexual contact with that student and other students.
A third accuser, a violinist and pianist who grew up in Illinois near the Ravinia Music Festival, a summer program for aspiring musicians of which Levine was music director from 1971 to 1993, said Levine sexually abused him beginning when the accuser was 16 years old (and Levine was in his 40s) in 1986. He had previously detailed his accusation in 2016 in a report to the Lake Forest Police Department in Illinois. On December 8, the department announced that Levine could not be charged criminally in Illinois because the accuser was 16 years old at the time, and while today a 16-year-old is not considered old enough to consent to such conduct in Illinois (he must be 17, or 18 in cases in which the suspect is in a position of trust, authority, or supervision in relation to the victim), at the time that was the statutory age of consent. The department noted: "we are bound to apply the law that was in effect at the time the allegations occurred rather than the law as it currently exists."
On December 4, a fourth man, who later had a long career as a violinist in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, said he had been abused by Levine beginning in 1968, when he was 20 years old and attending the Meadow Brook School of Music. Levine was a teacher in the summer program.
Reactions
The New York Times said that the Met had known of at least one sexual abuse allegation as early as 1979, but dismissed it as baseless. Furthermore, the Met (including its General Manager Peter Gelb, who was contacted directly by a police detective about the allegations in October 2016) had been aware of both the third accuser's abuse allegations since they were made in the 2016 police report, and of the attendant police investigation. But the Met did not suspend Levine or launch an investigation of its own until over a year later, in December 2017.
In response to the December 2017 news article, the Met announced that it would investigate the sexual abuse allegations dating to the 1980s that were set forth in the 2016 police report. On December 3, after two additional males came forward with allegations of abuse, the Met suspended its ties with Levine, and canceled all upcoming engagements with him. A fourth accuser came forward the following day.
For its part, the Ravinia Festival, in April 2017, six months after the criminal investigation of Levine began, created an honorific title for Levine—"Conductor Laureate"—and signed him to a five-year renewable contract to begin in 2018. On December 4, 2017, the Ravinia Festival severed all ties with Levine, and terminated his five-year contract to lead the Chicago Symphony there.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra said Levine "will never be employed or contracted by the BSO at any time in the future". The Juilliard School, where Levine had studied, replaced him in a February 2018 performance where he was scheduled to lead the Juilliard Orchestra and singers from the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. On December 5, the Cincinnati May Festival canceled Levine's appearance in May. On December 7, in New Plymouth, New Zealand, the cinema chain Event Cinemas abruptly cancelled the screening of a Met production of Levine conducting Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. On December 8, Fred Child, host of the classical music radio show Performance Today, wrote that Levine "is accused of inflicting grievous harm to living members of our musical community. Out of respect for these people and their wounds, I choose not to broadcast performances featuring Mr. Levine on the podium."
Classical music blogger, former Village Voice music critic, and Juilliard School faculty member Greg Sandow said he had been contacted by three men over the years who said that Levine had abused them, and that reports of sexual abuse by Levine were "widely talked about" for 40 years. Sandow said further: "Everybody in the classical music business at least since the 1980s has talked about Levine as a sex abuser. The investigation should have been done decades ago." Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Justin Davidson mused on the culture website of New York magazine, "James Levine's career has clearly ended" and "I'm not sure the Met can survive Levine's disgrace." Similarly, drama critic Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal wrote an article called "The Levine Cataclysm; How allegations against James Levine of sexual misconduct with teenagers could topple the entire Metropolitan Opera". The Washington Post music critic Anne Midgette noted: "The Met has known about these allegations for at least a year, and are only investigating them now that they are public", and opined on her Facebook page that the Met has "quite probably spent years protecting its star conductor from just this kind of allegation". Music critic Tim Pfaff of the LGBT Bay Area Reporter wrote that The New York Times chief classical music critic Anthony Tommasini had the "weirdest" reaction, "lamenting the ugliness of it all under a...headline, 'Should I Put Away My James Levine Recordings?' His conclusion was that he and his husband...should move those recordings from their living room."
The Met orchestra musicians applauded the courage of the four men who came forward with accusations that Levine had abused them. Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents the Met's orchestra and Levine, said, "We are horrified and sickened by the recently reported allegations of sexual abuse by Mr. Levine."
Five days after news of the accusations by the four men broke, Levine spoke about them for the first time, and called them "unfounded". The accusers stood by their claims, with one saying, "I will take a lie-detector test. Will he?" Six days later, music critic Arthur Kaptainis wrote in the Montreal Gazette that Levine's denial "had little effect".
On March 12, 2018, the Met announced that it had fired Levine. Its investigation found Levine had "engaged in sexually abusive and harassing conduct towards vulnerable artists in the early stages of their careers".
Levine sued the Metropolitan Opera in New York State Supreme Court for breach of contract and defamation on March 15, 2018, three days after the company fired him, seeking more than $5.8 million in damages. The Met denied Levine's allegations. A year later, a New York State Supreme Court judge dismissed most of Levine's claims, but ruled that the Met and its attorney had made defamatory statements.
The Metropolitan Opera and Levine announced a settlement on undisclosed terms in August 2019. In September 2020, the size of the payout was indirectly exposed by annual disclosure statements required for nonprofits; Levine had received $3.5 million in the settlement. It is speculated that he was able to negotiate such a large settlement due to the lack of a morals clause in his contract with the Met.
Recordings and film
Levine made many audio and video recordings. He recorded extensively with many orchestras, and especially often with the Metropolitan Opera. His performance of Aida with Leontyne Price, her last in opera, was preserved on video and may be seen at the Met's own online archive of performances. Of particular note are his performances of Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen. A studio recording made for Deutsche Grammophon from 1987 to 1989 is on compact disc, and a 1989 live performance of the Ring is available on DVD. He also appears on several dozen albums as a pianist, collaborating with such singers as Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Christa Ludwig, and Dawn Upshaw, as well as performing the chamber music of Franz Schubert and Francis Poulenc, among others.
Levine was featured in the animated Disney film Fantasia 2000. He conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack recordings of all the music in the film (with the exception of one segment from the original 1940 Fantasia). Levine is also seen in the film talking briefly with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, just as his predecessor Leopold Stokowski did in the original film.
Discography
Marilyn Horne: Divas in Song (1994), RCA Victor Red Seal CD, 09026-62547-2
Videography
Mozart: Idomeneo (1982), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4234
The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala (1983), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4538
The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991, Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4582
James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala (1996), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, B0004602-09
Honors
Among the awards listed in his Met biography are:
1980 – Manhattan Cultural Award
1982 – first of eight Grammy Awards
1984 – Named "Musician of the Year" by Musical America
1986 – Smetana Medal (presented by the former Czechoslovakia)
1997 – National Medal of Arts
1999 – Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize from the Committee for Cultural Advancement of Baden-Baden, Germany
2003 – Kennedy Center Honors
2005 – Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
2006 – Opera News Award
2009 – Award in the Vocal Arts from Bard College
2009 – Ditson Conductors Award from Columbia University
2010 – National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honoree
2010 – George Peabody Award from Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University
2010 – elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
In addition, his biography says Levine has received honorary doctorates from the University of Cincinnati, the New England Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University, the State University of New York, and the Juilliard School. On May 3, 2018, SUNY revoked Levine's honorary doctorate in response to the sexual abuse allegations against him.
References
External links
1943 births
2021 deaths
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century classical pianists
21st-century American conductors (music)
21st-century American male musicians
21st-century American pianists
21st-century classical pianists
American classical pianists
American male conductors (music)
American male pianists
Aspen Music Festival and School alumni
Conductors of the Metropolitan Opera
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Grammy Award winners
Jewish American classical musicians
Jewish classical pianists
Juilliard School alumni
Kennedy Center honorees
Male classical pianists
Metropolitan Opera people
Music directors (opera)
Musicians from Cincinnati
Musicians from New York City
Oehms Classics artists
People stripped of honorary degrees
People with Parkinson's disease
United States National Medal of Arts recipients
21st-century American Jews
| false |
[
"Last ice age may refer to:\n\n Last Glacial Period, the most recent glacial period of the current major ice age\n Little Ice Age, a hundred years of relative cold in the Middle Ages after what historians term the Medieval Warm Period\n Quaternary glaciation, the current major ice age\n\nSee also\n Global cooling",
"What It Feels Like may refer to:\n\n\"What it Feels Like\", a column in Esquire magazine\n\"What It Feels Like\", song by Prince from Art Official Age\n\"What It Feels Like\", song by Sandro Cavazza \n\"What It Feels Like\", song by We Are the Ocean \n\"What It Feels Like\", song by FFH\n\"What It Feels Like\", song by Nipsey Hussle and Jay-Z from Judas and the Black Messiah soundtrack\n\nSee also\n \"This Is What It Feels Like\", a 2013 song by Dutch DJ Armin van Buuren\n \"This Is What It Feels Like\", a song by American singer-songwriter Banks\n \"What It Feels Like for a Girl\", a 2000 song by American singer-songwriter Madonna"
] |
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"James Levine",
"Early years and personal life",
"What was his early years like",
"He began to play the piano as a small child.",
"What age",
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C_0887716a1168499c8e5b18dc6d591f78_1
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Was he married
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Was James Levine married?
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James Levine
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Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish, musical family. His maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue, his father (Lawrence) was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business, and his mother (Helen Goldstein Levine) was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden". He has a brother Tom who is two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he is very close. He employs Tom as his business assistant (looking after all of his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out where he will live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe), and his brother is a painter as well. He also has a younger sister, Janet, who is a marriage counselor. He began to play the piano as a small child. On February 21, 1954, at the age of 10, Levine made his concert debut as soloist playing Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Ohio. Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School, in Vermont. In the following year he began to study piano with Rosina Lhevinne at the Aspen Music School. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, an acclaimed magnet school in Cincinnati. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Levine lives in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City. CANNOTANSWER
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James Lawrence Levine (; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera (the "Met") from 1976 to 2016. He was formally terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 12, 2018, over sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
Levine held leadership positions with the Ravinia Festival, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1980 he started the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program, and trained singers, conductors, and musicians for professional careers.
After taking an almost two-year health-related hiatus from conducting from 2011 to 2013, during which time he held artistic and administrative planning sessions at the Met, and led training of the Lindemann Young Artists, Levine retired as the Met's full-time Music Director following the 2015–16 season to become Music Director Emeritus.
Early years and personal life
Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish, musical family. His maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue; his father, Lawrence, was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business; and his mother, Helen Goldstein Levine, was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden". He had a brother, Tom, who was two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he was very close. He employed Tom as his business assistant, looking after his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out places to live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe. Tom was also a painter. He also had a younger sister, Janet, who is a marriage counselor.
He began to play the piano as a small child. On February 21, 1954, at age 10, Levine made his concert debut as soloist playing Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Ohio.
Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School in Vermont. The next year he began to study piano with Rosina Lhévinne at the Aspen Music School. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, a magnet school in Cincinnati. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from Juilliard in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Levine lived in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City.
Career
Early career
From 1964 to 1965, Levine served as an apprentice to George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra. He then served as the Orchestra's assistant conductor until 1970. That year, he also made debuts as guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell, the Welsh National Opera, and the San Francisco Opera. From 1965 to 1972 he concurrently taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In the summers, he worked at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan and at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. During that time, the charismatic Levine developed a devoted following of young musicians and music lovers.
In June 1971, Levine was called in at the last moment to substitute for István Kertész, to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Mahler's Second Symphony for the Ravinia Festival's opening concert of their 36th season. This concert began a long association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. From 1973 to 1993 he was music director of the Ravinia Festival, succeeding the late Kertész. He made numerous recordings with the orchestra, including the symphonies and German Requiem of Johannes Brahms, and major works of Gershwin, Holst, Berg, Beethoven, Mozart, and others. In 1990, at the request of Roy E. Disney, he arranged the music and conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the soundtrack of Fantasia 2000, released by Walt Disney Pictures. From 1974 to 1978, Levine also served as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival.
Metropolitan Opera
Levine made his Metropolitan Opera debut a few weeks before he turned 28, on June 5, 1971, leading a June Festival performance of Puccini's Tosca. After further appearances with the company, he was named its principal conductor in February 1972. He became its music director in 1975. In 1983, he served as conductor and musical director for the Franco Zeffirelli screen adaptation of Verdi's La Traviata, which featured the Met orchestra and chorus members. He became the company's first artistic director in 1986, and relinquished the title in 2004. In 2005, Levine's combined salary from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Met made him the highest-paid conductor in the country, at $3.5 million.
During Levine's tenure, the Metropolitan Opera orchestra expanded its activities into recording and concert series for the orchestra and chamber ensembles from the orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Levine led the Metropolitan Opera on many domestic and international tours. For the 25th anniversary of his Met debut, Levine conducted the world premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, commissioned for the occasion. On his appointment as general manager of the Met, Peter Gelb emphasized that Levine was welcome to remain as long as he wanted to direct music there. Levine was paid $2.1 million by the Met in 2010.
Following a series of injuries that began with a fall, Levine's health problems led to his withdrawal from many Metropolitan Opera engagements. After a May 2011 performance of Wagner's Die Walküre, Levine formally withdrew from all engagements at the Met. After two years of physical therapy, he returned to conducting with a May 2013 concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. On September 25, 2013, Levine conducted his first Met performance since May 2011, in a revival production of Mozart's Così fan tutte. He was scheduled to conduct three productions at the opera house and three at Carnegie Hall in the 2013–14 season. On April 14, 2016, Met management announced that Levine would step down from his position as music director at the end of the 2015–16 season. Levine was paid $1.8 million by the Met for the 2015–16 season. He assumed the new title of Music Director Emeritus, which he held until December 2017, when in the wake of allegations that Levine had sexually abused four young men, the Met suspended its relationship with him and canceled all his scheduled performances with the company.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Levine first conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in April 1972. In October 2001, he was named its music director effective with the 2004–05 season, with an initial contract of five years, becoming the first American-born conductor to head the BSO.
One unique condition that Levine negotiated was increased flexibility of the time allotted for rehearsal, allowing the orchestra additional time to prepare more challenging works. After the start of his tenure, the orchestra also established an "Artistic Initiative Fund" of about $40 million to fund the more expensive of his projects.
One criticism of Levine during his BSO tenure is that he did not attend many orchestra auditions. A 2005 article reported that he had attended two out of 16 auditions during his tenure up to that time. Levine responded that he has the ability to provide input on musician tenure decisions after the initial probationary period, and that it is difficult to know how well a given player will fit the given position until that person has had a chance to work with the orchestra: "My message is the audition isn't everything."
Another 2005 report stated that during Levine's first season as music director, the greater workload from the demands of playing more unfamiliar and contemporary music had increased physical stress on some of the BSO musicians. Levine and the players met to discuss this, and he agreed to program changes to lessen these demands. He received general critical praise for revitalizing the orchestra's quality and repertoire since the beginning of his tenure.
Levine experienced ongoing health problems, starting with an onstage fall in 2006 that resulted in a torn rotator cuff and started discussion of how long Levine's tenure with the BSO would last. In April 2010, in the wake of his continuing health problems, it emerged that Levine had not officially signed a contract extension, so that he was the BSO's music director without a signed contract. On March 2, 2011, the BSO announced Levine's resignation as music director effective September 2011, after the Orchestra's Tanglewood season.
Working on a commission from Levine and the BSO, the composer John Harbison dedicated his Symphony No. 6 "in friendship and gratitude" to him, whose premature departure from the orchestra prevented him from conducting the premiere.
After allegations of his abusing a number of young men came out in December 2017 the BSO said Levine "will never be employed or contracted by the BSO at any time in the future".
Conducting in Europe
Levine's BSO contract limited his guest appearances with American orchestras, but he still conducted regularly in Europe, with the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and at the Bayreuth Festival. Levine was a regular guest with the Philharmonia of London and the Staatskapelle Dresden. Beginning in 1975 he conducted regularly at the Salzburg Festival and the annual July Verbier Festival. From 1999 to 2004, he was chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, and was credited with improving the quality of instrumental ensemble during his tenure.
Work with students
Levine initiated the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera in 1980, a professional training program for graduated singers with, today, many famous alumni.
Levine was conductor of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the student resident orchestra at the annual summer music festival in Verbier, Switzerland, from 1999 through 2006. It was Levine's first long-term commitment to a student orchestra since becoming music director at the Met.
After becoming music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Levine also served as music director of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO's acclaimed summer academy at Tanglewood for student instrumentalists, singers, composers, and conductors. There he conducted the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, directed fully staged opera performances with student singers, and gave master classes for singers and conductors.
Levine said in an interview:
At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching. You want to teach what you have learned to the next generation so that they don't have to spend time reinventing the wheel. I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment. I love working with young musicians and singers, and those at the Tanglewood Music Center are unequivocally some of the finest and most talented in the world.
He continued to work with young students even when his health issues kept him from conducting. He was awarded the Lotus Award ("for inspiration to young musicians") from Young Concert Artists. Anthony Tommasini wrote in The New York Times in 2016: "The aspiring singers in the Met's young artist development program, one of many important ventures Mr. Levine started, must understand how lucky they are to have, as a teacher and mentor, a musician who even in his 20s worked at the Met with giants like Jon Vickers and Renata Tebaldi."
Health problems and death
Levine experienced recurrent health issues beginning in 2006, including sciatica and what he called "intermittent tremors". On March 1, 2006, he tripped and fell onstage during a standing ovation after a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, leaving the remaining subscription concerts in Boston to his assistant conductor at the time. Later that month, Levine underwent surgery to repair the injury. He returned to the podium on July 7, 2006.
Levine withdrew from the majority of the Tanglewood 2008 summer season because of surgery required to remove a kidney with a malignant cyst. He returned to the podium in Boston on September 24, 2008, at Symphony Hall.
On September 29, 2009, it was announced that Levine would undergo emergency back surgery for a herniated disk. He missed three weeks of engagements.
In March 2010, the BSO announced that Levine would miss the remainder of the Boston Symphony season because of back pain. The Met also announced, on April 4, 2010, that he was withdrawing from the remainder of his performances for the season. According to the Met, Levine was required to have "corrective surgery for an ongoing lower back problem". He returned to conducting at the Met and the BSO at the beginning of the 2010–11 season, but in February 2011 canceled his Boston engagements for the rest of the season.
In the summer of 2011, Levine underwent further surgery on his back. In September 2011, after he fell down a flight of stairs, fractured his spine, and injured his back while on vacation in Vermont, the Met announced that he would not conduct at the Met at least for the rest of 2011.
After two years of surgery and physical therapy, Levine returned to conducting for the first time on May 19, 2013, in a concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Levine conducted from a motorized wheelchair, with a special platform designed to accommodate it, which could rise and descend like an elevator. He returned to the Met on September 24, 2013. The same type of platform was present in the Met orchestra pit for his September 2013 return performance.
For many years, both Levine and the Met denied as unfounded the rumors that Levine had Parkinson's disease. As New York magazine reported: "The conductor states flatly that the condition is not Parkinson's disease, as people had speculated in 'that silly Times piece.'" But in 2016 both he and the Met finally admitted that the rumors were true, and that Levine had in fact had the disease since 1994. The Washington Post noted: "It wasn't just the illnesses, but the constant alternation between concealment and an excess of revelation that kept so much attention focused on them and away from the music."
Levine died in his Palm Springs home on March 9, 2021. Len Horovitz, his personal physician, announced Levine's death on March 17 and said that he had died of natural causes.
Sexual assault allegations
Four men accused Levine of sexually molesting them (starting when they were 16, 17, 17, and 20 years old), from the 1960s to the 1990s.
On December 2, 2017, it was publicly revealed that an October 2016 police report detailed that Levine had allegedly sexually molested a male teenager for years. The alleged sexual abuse began while Levine was guest conductor at the Ravinia Festival, outside Chicago, where Levine was music director for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's summer residencies from 1973 to 1993.
One accuser said that in the summer of 1968, when he was a 17-year-old high school student attending Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan, Levine (then a 25-year-old faculty member) had sexual contact with a student. When he next saw Levine, the accuser told him that he would not repeat the sexual behavior, but asked if they could continue to make music as they had before; Levine said no. The accuser later played bass in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for decades and became a professor.
A second accuser said that that same summer, Levine had sexual contact with a 17-year-old student and that Levine then initiated with the teenager a number of sexual encounters that have since haunted him. He said (and another male corroborated, on the condition of anonymity) that the next year, in Cleveland, where Levine was an assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, Levine on several occasions had sexual contact with that student and other students.
A third accuser, a violinist and pianist who grew up in Illinois near the Ravinia Music Festival, a summer program for aspiring musicians of which Levine was music director from 1971 to 1993, said Levine sexually abused him beginning when the accuser was 16 years old (and Levine was in his 40s) in 1986. He had previously detailed his accusation in 2016 in a report to the Lake Forest Police Department in Illinois. On December 8, the department announced that Levine could not be charged criminally in Illinois because the accuser was 16 years old at the time, and while today a 16-year-old is not considered old enough to consent to such conduct in Illinois (he must be 17, or 18 in cases in which the suspect is in a position of trust, authority, or supervision in relation to the victim), at the time that was the statutory age of consent. The department noted: "we are bound to apply the law that was in effect at the time the allegations occurred rather than the law as it currently exists."
On December 4, a fourth man, who later had a long career as a violinist in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, said he had been abused by Levine beginning in 1968, when he was 20 years old and attending the Meadow Brook School of Music. Levine was a teacher in the summer program.
Reactions
The New York Times said that the Met had known of at least one sexual abuse allegation as early as 1979, but dismissed it as baseless. Furthermore, the Met (including its General Manager Peter Gelb, who was contacted directly by a police detective about the allegations in October 2016) had been aware of both the third accuser's abuse allegations since they were made in the 2016 police report, and of the attendant police investigation. But the Met did not suspend Levine or launch an investigation of its own until over a year later, in December 2017.
In response to the December 2017 news article, the Met announced that it would investigate the sexual abuse allegations dating to the 1980s that were set forth in the 2016 police report. On December 3, after two additional males came forward with allegations of abuse, the Met suspended its ties with Levine, and canceled all upcoming engagements with him. A fourth accuser came forward the following day.
For its part, the Ravinia Festival, in April 2017, six months after the criminal investigation of Levine began, created an honorific title for Levine—"Conductor Laureate"—and signed him to a five-year renewable contract to begin in 2018. On December 4, 2017, the Ravinia Festival severed all ties with Levine, and terminated his five-year contract to lead the Chicago Symphony there.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra said Levine "will never be employed or contracted by the BSO at any time in the future". The Juilliard School, where Levine had studied, replaced him in a February 2018 performance where he was scheduled to lead the Juilliard Orchestra and singers from the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. On December 5, the Cincinnati May Festival canceled Levine's appearance in May. On December 7, in New Plymouth, New Zealand, the cinema chain Event Cinemas abruptly cancelled the screening of a Met production of Levine conducting Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. On December 8, Fred Child, host of the classical music radio show Performance Today, wrote that Levine "is accused of inflicting grievous harm to living members of our musical community. Out of respect for these people and their wounds, I choose not to broadcast performances featuring Mr. Levine on the podium."
Classical music blogger, former Village Voice music critic, and Juilliard School faculty member Greg Sandow said he had been contacted by three men over the years who said that Levine had abused them, and that reports of sexual abuse by Levine were "widely talked about" for 40 years. Sandow said further: "Everybody in the classical music business at least since the 1980s has talked about Levine as a sex abuser. The investigation should have been done decades ago." Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Justin Davidson mused on the culture website of New York magazine, "James Levine's career has clearly ended" and "I'm not sure the Met can survive Levine's disgrace." Similarly, drama critic Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal wrote an article called "The Levine Cataclysm; How allegations against James Levine of sexual misconduct with teenagers could topple the entire Metropolitan Opera". The Washington Post music critic Anne Midgette noted: "The Met has known about these allegations for at least a year, and are only investigating them now that they are public", and opined on her Facebook page that the Met has "quite probably spent years protecting its star conductor from just this kind of allegation". Music critic Tim Pfaff of the LGBT Bay Area Reporter wrote that The New York Times chief classical music critic Anthony Tommasini had the "weirdest" reaction, "lamenting the ugliness of it all under a...headline, 'Should I Put Away My James Levine Recordings?' His conclusion was that he and his husband...should move those recordings from their living room."
The Met orchestra musicians applauded the courage of the four men who came forward with accusations that Levine had abused them. Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents the Met's orchestra and Levine, said, "We are horrified and sickened by the recently reported allegations of sexual abuse by Mr. Levine."
Five days after news of the accusations by the four men broke, Levine spoke about them for the first time, and called them "unfounded". The accusers stood by their claims, with one saying, "I will take a lie-detector test. Will he?" Six days later, music critic Arthur Kaptainis wrote in the Montreal Gazette that Levine's denial "had little effect".
On March 12, 2018, the Met announced that it had fired Levine. Its investigation found Levine had "engaged in sexually abusive and harassing conduct towards vulnerable artists in the early stages of their careers".
Levine sued the Metropolitan Opera in New York State Supreme Court for breach of contract and defamation on March 15, 2018, three days after the company fired him, seeking more than $5.8 million in damages. The Met denied Levine's allegations. A year later, a New York State Supreme Court judge dismissed most of Levine's claims, but ruled that the Met and its attorney had made defamatory statements.
The Metropolitan Opera and Levine announced a settlement on undisclosed terms in August 2019. In September 2020, the size of the payout was indirectly exposed by annual disclosure statements required for nonprofits; Levine had received $3.5 million in the settlement. It is speculated that he was able to negotiate such a large settlement due to the lack of a morals clause in his contract with the Met.
Recordings and film
Levine made many audio and video recordings. He recorded extensively with many orchestras, and especially often with the Metropolitan Opera. His performance of Aida with Leontyne Price, her last in opera, was preserved on video and may be seen at the Met's own online archive of performances. Of particular note are his performances of Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen. A studio recording made for Deutsche Grammophon from 1987 to 1989 is on compact disc, and a 1989 live performance of the Ring is available on DVD. He also appears on several dozen albums as a pianist, collaborating with such singers as Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Christa Ludwig, and Dawn Upshaw, as well as performing the chamber music of Franz Schubert and Francis Poulenc, among others.
Levine was featured in the animated Disney film Fantasia 2000. He conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack recordings of all the music in the film (with the exception of one segment from the original 1940 Fantasia). Levine is also seen in the film talking briefly with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, just as his predecessor Leopold Stokowski did in the original film.
Discography
Marilyn Horne: Divas in Song (1994), RCA Victor Red Seal CD, 09026-62547-2
Videography
Mozart: Idomeneo (1982), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4234
The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala (1983), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4538
The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991, Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4582
James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala (1996), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, B0004602-09
Honors
Among the awards listed in his Met biography are:
1980 – Manhattan Cultural Award
1982 – first of eight Grammy Awards
1984 – Named "Musician of the Year" by Musical America
1986 – Smetana Medal (presented by the former Czechoslovakia)
1997 – National Medal of Arts
1999 – Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize from the Committee for Cultural Advancement of Baden-Baden, Germany
2003 – Kennedy Center Honors
2005 – Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
2006 – Opera News Award
2009 – Award in the Vocal Arts from Bard College
2009 – Ditson Conductors Award from Columbia University
2010 – National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honoree
2010 – George Peabody Award from Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University
2010 – elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
In addition, his biography says Levine has received honorary doctorates from the University of Cincinnati, the New England Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University, the State University of New York, and the Juilliard School. On May 3, 2018, SUNY revoked Levine's honorary doctorate in response to the sexual abuse allegations against him.
References
External links
1943 births
2021 deaths
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century classical pianists
21st-century American conductors (music)
21st-century American male musicians
21st-century American pianists
21st-century classical pianists
American classical pianists
American male conductors (music)
American male pianists
Aspen Music Festival and School alumni
Conductors of the Metropolitan Opera
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Grammy Award winners
Jewish American classical musicians
Jewish classical pianists
Juilliard School alumni
Kennedy Center honorees
Male classical pianists
Metropolitan Opera people
Music directors (opera)
Musicians from Cincinnati
Musicians from New York City
Oehms Classics artists
People stripped of honorary degrees
People with Parkinson's disease
United States National Medal of Arts recipients
21st-century American Jews
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[
"This article contains a list of child bridegrooms or child husbands wherein notable or historically significant examples have been singled out.\n\nList\n\nAntiquity \n Tutankhamun was married before the age of nine years to his half-sister Ankhesenamun (aged about 16).\n\n8th century \n The future Emperor Shōmu (aged about 16) was married to in Asukabe-hime (aged 16) .\n\n10th century \n The future Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor (aged 16/17), was married to Theophanu (aged about 17) in 972.\n\n The future Louis V of France (aged about 15) was married to the twice-widowed Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou (aged 40) in 982.\n\n The future Emperor Ichijō (aged 10) was married to Fujiwara no Teishi (about 12/13) in October 990.\n\n11th century \n Fujiwara no Shōshi (aged about 12) was married to the future Emperor Ichijō (aged 19/20) in 1000.\n\n The future Emperor Go-Ichijō (aged 10) married his aunt Fujiwara no Ishi (aged 19) in 1018.\n\n The future Emperor Horikawa (aged 14) was married to his paternal aunt Princess Tokushi (aged about 33) in 1093.\n\n12th century \n Pons, Count of Tripoli (aged 13/14), was married to Cecile of France (aged 14/15) in 1112.\n\n William Adelin (aged 15), son and heir of Henry I of England, was married to Matilda of Anjou (aged about 13) in 1119.\n\n Louis VII of France (aged 17) married Eleanor of Aquitaine (aged about 15) in 1137; their marriage was annulled in 1152.\n\n Eustace IV, Count of Boulogne (aged about 12/13), was married to Constance of France (aged about 15/16) in 1140.\n\n Philip I, Count of Flanders (aged 15/16), was married to Elisabeth of Vermandois (aged 16) in 1159.\n\n The future Emperor Nijō (aged 15) was married to his paternal aunt Princess Yoshiko (aged 17) in March 1159.\n\n Alfonso VIII of Castile (aged 14/15) married Eleanor of England in 1170, when she was about 9-years-old.\n\n Henry the Young King (aged 17) was married to Margaret of France (aged 13/14) in 1172. They had been betrothed since 1160, when Henry was 5 and Margaret was about 2.\n\n Canute VI of Denmark (aged about 13/14) was married to Gertrude of Bavaria (aged 22 or 25) in 1177. They had been engaged since 1171, since he was about 7/8 and she was about 16 or 19.\n\n Henry I, Duke of Brabant (aged about 14), was married to Matilda of Boulogne (aged 9) in 1179.\n\n Alexios II Komnenos was 10 when he is reported to have married Agnes of France (aged 9) in 1180.\n\n Philip II of France (aged 14) married Isabella of Hainault (aged 10) in 1180.\n\n Humphrey IV of Toron (aged about 17) married Isabella of Jerusalem (aged 10/11) in 1183. They had been betrothed when Humphrey was about 14/15 and Isabella was 8-years-old.\n\n Conrad II, Duke of Swabia (aged 13/14), married Berengaria of Castile in 1187, when she was about 8-years-old. The marriage was never consummated due to Berengaria's young age.\n\n William IV, Count of Ponthieu (aged 15/16), was married to Alys of France, Countess of Vexin (aged 34), in 1195.\n\n13th century \n Henry VI, Count Palatine of the Rhine (aged about 16), was married to Matilda of Brabant (aged about 12) in 1212.\n\n Henry I of Castile married his cousin Mafalda of Portugal (aged about 20) in 1215, when he was either 10- or 11-years-old. The marriage was never consummated due to Henry's young age; and the marriage was annulled by the Pope in 1216 on the grounds of consanguinity. Later that year, Henry was betrothed to his second cousin Sancha, heiress of León, but he died in 1217 at the age of 13.\n\n Baldwin II of Constantinople (aged about 17) was married to Marie of Brienne (aged about 10) in 1234.\n\n Alexander III of Scotland (aged 10) was married to Margaret of England (aged 11) in December 1251.\n\n Edward I of England (aged 15) was married to Eleanor of Castile (aged 13) in 1254.\n\n The future Philip III of France (aged 17) was married to Isabella of Aragon (aged 13/14) in May 1262. They had been betrothed since May 1258, when he was 13 and she was 9/10.\n\n John I, Duke of Brabant (17/18), was married to Margaret of France (aged 15/16) in 1270.\n\n The future Ladislaus IV of Hungary (aged 7/8) was married to Elizabeth of Sicily (aged 8/9) in 1270.\n\n Philip of Sicily (aged about 15/16) was married to Isabella of Villehardouin (aged either 8 or 11) in May 1271.\n\n The future Philip IV of France (aged 16) was married to Joan I of Navarre (aged 11) in August 1285.\n\n Wenceslaus II of Bohemia (aged 13) was married to Judith of Habsburg (aged 13) in January 1285.\n\n John II, Duke of Brabant (aged 14), was married to Margaret of England (aged 15) in 1290. John and Margaret had been betrothed since they were 2 and 3, respectively.\n\n Henry, Count of Luxembourg (aged about 13/14), was married to Margaret of Brabant (aged 15) in July 1292.\n\n John I, Count of Holland (aged 12/13), was married to Elizabeth of Rhuddlan (aged 14) in 1297.\n\n14th century \n Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (aged 14), was married to Joan de Geneville (aged 15) in 1301.\n\n The future Gaston I, Count of Foix (aged 13/14), was married to Joan of Artois (aged 11/12) in 1301.\n\n The future Louis X of France (aged 15) was married to Margaret of Burgundy (aged about 15) in 1305.\n\n Philip V of France (aged about 13/14) was married to Joan of Burgundy (aged 14/15) in 1307.\n\n The future Charles IV of France (aged 13) was married to Blanche of Burgundy (aged about 11/12) in January 1308.\n\n John of Luxembourg (aged 14) was married to Elizabeth of Bohemia (aged 18) in September 1310.\n\n John III, Duke of Brabant (aged 10/11), was married to Marie of Évreux (aged 7/8) in 1311.\n\n Edmund Mortimer (aged about 13/14, possibly younger) was married to Elizabeth de Badlesmere (aged 3) in 1316.\n\n Thomas Beauchamp (aged about 6) was married to Katherine Mortimer (aged about 5) in 1319.\n\n Louis I, Count of Flanders (aged about 15/16), was married to Margaret of France (aged 9/10) in 1320.\n\n Guigues VIII of Viennois (aged 13/14) was married to Isabella of France (aged 10/11) in 1323.\n\n Alfonso XI of Castile (aged 13/14) was married to Constanza Manuel of Villena (aged at most 10) in 1325. He had the marriage annulled two years later, and in 1328, at the age of 16/17, married his double first cousin Maria of Portugal (aged 14/15).\n \n Edward III of England (aged 15) was married to Philippa of Hainault (between the ages of 12 and 17) in 1327.\n\n The future David II of Scotland (aged 4) was married to Joan of the Tower (aged 7) in 1328.\n\n Laurence Hastings, 1st Earl of Pembroke (aged about 9/10), was married to Agnes Mortimer (aged about 11/12) in 1328 or 1329. Laurence was a ward of Agnes's father, Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March.\n\n Charles IV, King of Bohemia (aged about 12/13; later Holy Roman Emperor), was married to Blanche of Valois (aged about 12/13) in 1329.\n\n Reginald II, Duke of Guelders (aged about 16), was married to Sophia Berthout in 1311. After Sophia's death in 1329, he married Eleanor of Woodstock (aged 13) in 1332, when he was about 37-years-old.\n\n John, Duke of Normandy (aged 13), was married to Bonne of Luxembourg (aged 17) in July 1332.\n\n Andrew of Hungary (aged 6) was married to the future Joanna I of Naples (aged about 6/7) in 1333.\n\n William IV, Count of Holland (aged 10/11), was married to Joanna of Brabant (aged 11/12) in 1334.\n\n Marie de Namur (aged about 13/14) was married to Henry II, Graf of Vianden, in 1335/36. Henry was murdered in 1337; about three years later, in 1340, Marie (now about 17/18) was married to Theobald of Bar, Seigneur de Pierrepont (aged about 25/26), her second cousin, once removed.\n\n Philip of Burgundy (aged about 14/15) was married to Joan I, Countess of Auvergne (aged about 11/12), circa 1338.\n\n William Montagu (aged 12) was married to Joan of Kent (aged 13) in either late 1340 or early 1341. In 1348, it was revealed that Joan had secretly married Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent, in 1340; and, as a result, Montagu's marriage to Joan was annulled.\n\n Gaston III, Count of Foix (aged 16/17), was married to Agnes of Navarre (aged 13/14) in 1348.\n\n Charles V of France (aged 12) was married Joanna of Bourbon (aged 12) to in April 1350.\n\n Thomas de Vere, 8th Earl of Oxford (aged about 15), was married to Maud de Ufford (born 1345/46) sometime before 10 June 1350, when Maud was about 5-years-old.\n\n Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence (aged 13/14), was married to Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster (aged 20), in 1352.\n\n Philip I, Duke of Burgundy (aged 10/11), was married to the future Margaret III, Countess of Flanders (aged 6/7), in 1357.\n\n Richard Fitzalan (aged 12/13) was married to Elizabeth de Bohun (aged about 9) in 1359.\n\n John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (aged 11), was married to Margaret of England (aged 12), daughter of Henry III of England, in 1359.\n\n Gian Galeazzo Visconti (aged 8) was married to Isabella of Valois (aged 11/12) in October 1360, about a week before Gian's 9th birthday.\n\n Albert III, Duke of Austria (aged 16/17), was married to Elisabeth of Bohemia (aged 7/8) in 1366.\n\n Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March (aged 15/16), was married to Philippa of Clarence (aged 12/13) in 1368.\n\n The future Charles III of Navarre (aged 13/14) was married to Eleanor of Castile (aged about 12) in May 1375.\n\n John V, Lord of Arkel (aged 14), was married to Joanna of Jülich in October 1376.\n\n John Hastings, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (aged 8), was married to Elizabeth of Lancaster (aged 17) in 1380. The marriage remained unconsummated due to John's age, and was annulled after Elizabeth became pregnant by John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter, whom she later married.\n\n Henry Bolingbroke (aged 13; later King Henry IV of England) was married to Mary de Bohun (aged about 10/11) in 1380.\n\n Richard II of England (aged 15) was married to Anne of Bohemia (aged 15) in January 1382.\n\n John, Count of Nevers (aged 14) was married to Margaret of Bavaria (aged 21/22) in April 1385.\n\n The future John V, Duke of Brittany (aged 6/7), was married to Joan of France (aged 4/5) in 1396.\n\n John of Perche (aged 10/11) was married to Marie of Brittany (aged 5) in July 1396.\n\n15th century \n Louis, Duke of Guyenne (aged 7), married Margaret of Nevers (aged 10) in August 1404.\nCharles, Duke of Orléans (aged 11), married his cousin Isabella of Valois (aged 16) in June 1406.\n\n Philip the Good (aged 12) was married to Michelle of Valois (aged 14) in June 1409.\n\n John, Duke of Touraine (aged 16), was married to Jacqueline of Hainaut (aged 14) in 1415.\n\n John IV, Duke of Brabant (aged 14), was married to Jacqueline of Hainaut (aged 16) in March 1418, following her first husband's death the year before.\n\n John II, Duke of Alençon (aged 15), married Joan of Valois (aged 15), daughter of Charles, Duke of Orléans, in 1424.\n\n Louis, Dauphin of France (aged 12), was married to Margaret Stewart (aged 11), daughter of James I of Scotland, in June 1436. The wedding took place a little over a week before Louis's thirteenth birthday.\n\n Henry IV of Castile (aged 14/15) was married to his cousin Blanche of Navarre (aged 15/16) in 1440.\n\n Afonso V of Portugal (aged 15) was married to Isabel of Coimbra (aged 15) in May 1447.\n\n John de la Pole (age 7) was married to Margaret Beaufort, (age 7; approximately) in 1450 by the arrangement John's father. The marriage was annulled in 1453.\n\n Ferdinand II of Aragon (aged 17) was married to his second cousin Infanta Isabella of Castile (aged 18; later Isabella I of Castile) in 1469. They became the parents of Catherine of Aragon.\n\n John, Prince of Portugal (aged 14) was married to his first cousin Eleanor of Viseu (aged 11) in January 1470.\n\n Louis, Duke of Orléans (aged 14) was married to his cousin Joan of France, Duchess of Berry (age 12), in 1476.\n\n Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York (age 4), was married to Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk (age 6), in 1477. She died at age 10 and he, as one of the Princes in the Tower, is believed to have been murdered at age 10.\n\n Afonso, Prince of Portugal (aged about 15), was married by proxy to Isabella of Aragon (aged 19) in the spring of 1490.\n\n16th century \n Arthur, Prince of Wales (aged 15), was married to Catherine of Aragon (aged 15) in 1501. He died a few months later and she eventually married his younger brother, Henry VIII of England.\n\n Charles, Count of Montpensier (aged 15), was married to Suzanne, Duchess of Bourbon (aged 14), in 1505.\n\n Henry VIII of England (aged 17), married Catherine of Aragon (aged 23) in June 1509, a couple of weeks before his 18th birthday.\n\n Claude, Duke of Guise (aged 16), was married to Antoinette de Bourbon (aged 18) in 1513.\n\n Henry, Duke of Orléans (aged 14), was married to Catherine de' Medici (aged 14) in 1533.\n\n Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset (aged 15/16), was married to Lady Frances Brandon (aged 15/16) in 1533.\n\n Henry Clifford (aged 17/18) was married to Lady Eleanor Brandon (aged 15/16) in 1535.\n\n Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma (aged 14), grandson of Pope Paul III, was married to Margaret of Parma (aged 15), illegitimate daughter of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in November 1538.\n\n Philip, Prince of Asturias (aged 16; later Philip II of Spain), was married to Maria Manuela, Princess of Portugal (aged 16), in 1543.\n\n João Manuel, Prince of Portugal (aged 14), was married to his double first cousin Joanna of Austria (aged 16) in 1552.\n\n Lord Guildford Dudley (aged about 17/18) was married to Lady Jane Grey (aged about 16/17) in 1553.\n\n Henry, Lord Herbert, was at most 15-years-old, was married to Lady Katherine Grey (aged 12), younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, in 1553. The marriage was annulled in 1554.\n\n Francis, Dauphin of France (aged 13/14), was married to Mary, Queen of Scots (aged 15/16), in 1558. The pair had been betrothed since Mary was five and Francis was three.\n\n Charles III, Duke of Lorraine (aged 15), was married to Claude of France (aged 11), daughter of Henry II of France, in 1559.\n\n17th century \n Alfonso, Hereditary Prince of Modena (aged 16/17), was married to Isabella of Savoy (aged 16) in 1608.\n\n César, Duke of Vendôme (aged 14), was married to Françoise de Lorraine (aged 15/16) in July 1608.\n\n Frederick V, Elector Palatine (aged 16), married Elizabeth Stuart (aged 16), eldest daughter of James VI and I and Anne of Denmark, in 1613.\n\n Louis XIII of France (aged 14) was married to his second cousin Anne of Austria (aged 14) in November 1615.\n\n The future Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria (aged 14), was married to Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy (aged 14) in December 1650.\n\n The future William II, Prince of Orange (aged 15), married Mary, Princess Royal (aged 9), in 1641. The marriage was reported to not have been consummated for a number of years due to the bride's age.\n\n Walter Scott of Highchester (aged 14) was married to Mary Scott, 3rd Countess of Buccleuch (aged 11), in 1659.\n\n James Crofts, 1st Duke of Monmouth (aged 14), illegitimate son of Charles II of England and his mistress Lucy Walter, was married to Anne Scott, 1st Duchess of Buccleuch (aged 12), in April 1663.\n\n Sir Edward Lee (aged 14) was married to Lady Charlotte FitzRoy (aged 13) in 1677. They had been betrothed since 1674, before Charlotte's tenth birthday.\n\n Ivan V of Russia (aged 17) was married to Praskovia Saltykova (aged 18/19) in either late 1683 or early 1684.\n\n Louis, Prince of Condé (aged 16), was married to his distant cousin Louise Françoise de Bourbon (aged 11) in 1685.\n\n Philippe, Duke of Chartres (aged 17), married his first cousin Françoise Marie de Bourbon (aged 14), legitimated daughter of Louis XIV, in February 1692.\n\n Louis, Duke of Burgundy (aged 15), was married to Marie Adélaïde of Savoy (aged 12) in December 1697.\n\n18th century \n Philip V of Spain (aged 17) was married to Maria Luisa Gabriela of Savoy (aged 12) in September 1701, five days before Maria Luisa's 13th birthday.\n\n Louis Armand II, Prince of Conti (aged 17), was married to Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon (aged 19) in July 1713.\n\n Jules, Prince of Soubise (aged 17), was married to Anne Julie de Melun (aged 15/16) in September 1714.\n\n Louis, Prince of Asturias (aged 14), was married by proxy to Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans (aged 11) in November 1721.\n\n Louis XV of France (aged 15) was married to Marie Leszczyńska (aged 22) in 1725.\n\n José, Prince of Brazil (aged 14), was married to Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain (aged 10) in January 1729.\n\n Louis François, Prince of Conti (aged 14), was married to Louise Diane d'Orléans (aged 15) in January 1732.\n\n Gaston, Count of Marsan (aged 17), was married to Marie Louise de Rohan (aged 16) in June 1736.\n\n Ercole Rinaldo d'Este (aged 13/14) was married to Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina, Duchess of Massa (aged 15/16) in 1741.\n\n Louis, Dauphin of France (aged 15), was married to Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain (aged 18) in 1744. After Maria Teresa's death in early 1746, Louis was required to remarry quickly in order to secure the succession to the French crown. Thus, he married again in February 1747, at the age of 17, to Duchess Maria Josepha of Saxony (aged 15).\n\n Peter of Holstein-Gottorp (later Peter III of Russia) was 17-years-old when he married his 16-year-old second cousin Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst (later known as Catherine the Great) in 1745.\n\n Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé (aged 16), was married to Charlotte de Rohan (aged 15) in 1753.\n\n Christian VII of Denmark (aged 17) was married to Princess Caroline Matilda of Great Britain (aged 15) in 1766.\n\n Ferdinand IV & III of Naples and Sicily (aged 17) was married by proxy to Maria Carolina of Austria (aged 15) in April 1768.\n\n Louis Henri, Duke of Enghien (aged 14), was married to Bathilde d'Orléans (aged 19) in 1770.\n\n Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France (aged 15), was married to Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria (aged 14; later known as Marie Antoinette) in April 1770.\n\n Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence (aged 15; the future King Louis XVIII of France), was married to Marie Joséphine of Savoy (aged 17) in 1771.\n\n Charles Philippe, Duke of Artois (aged 16; later Charles X of France), was married to Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy (aged 17) in 1773.\n\n The future Alexander I of Russia (aged 15) married Princess Louise of Baden (aged 14) in 1793.\n\n19th century\n Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias (aged 17; later Ferdinand VII of Spain), was married to his first cousin Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily (aged 17) in October 1802, about a week before his 18th birthday.\n\n Tokugawa Iemochi (aged 15) was married to Chikako, Princess Kazu (aged 15), daughter of Emperor Ninkō, in February 1862.\n\nCeremonial marriages\n\nSanele Masilela, a nine year old South African boy married 62-year-old Helen Shabangu.\nJose Griggs, at the age of seven, married nine-year-old Jayla Cooper\n\nSee also\nList of child brides\nTeen marriage\n\nReferences\n\nLists of men\nHusbands",
"Lachlan Og MacLean, 1st Laird of Torloisk was the second son of Sir Lachlan Mor Maclean and the first Laird of Torloisk.\n\nBiography\nHe was the second son of Sir Lachlan Mor Maclean, and he received from his father a charter of the lands of Lehire-Torloisk, forfeited by the son of Ailean nan Sop, which was afterward confirmed by royal grant. He was present at the Battle of Gruinnart, and was severely wounded. He was a witness to a charter given by his father to Martin MacGillivray of Pennyghael, and subscribed himself in the Irish characters, Mise Lachin Mhac Gilleoin. He was an important man in his day, and was so influential that he was compelled to make his appearance before the privy council.\n\nHe was first married to Marian, daughter of Sir Duncan Campbell of Achnabreck and had:\nHector MacLean, 2nd Laird of Torloisk\nHe was a second time married to Margaret, daughter of Captain Stewart of Dumbarton, but had no children. \nHe was a third time married to Marian, daughter of Donald MacDonald of Clanranald, and had:\nHector Maclean\nLachlan Og Maclean, who died unmarried but had a son Donald Maclean\nLachlan Catanach Maclean was killed at Inverkeithing\nEwen Maclean\nJohn Diuriach Maclean married the daughter of John Maclean, Laird of Ardgour and had Allan and several daughters\nOther children include: \nAllan Maclean who died unmarried at Harris\nNeil Maclean who married a daughter of Lochbuie, by whom he had a daughter\nLachlan, who died a lieutenant-colonel in the British service\nJannet Maclean, married Hector, first MacLean of Kinlochaline \nMary Maclean, married John Garbh, eldest son of John Dubh of Morvern \nCatherine Maclean, married John, brother to MacNeil of Barra\nJulian Maclean, married Allan MacLean, brother of Lochbuie\nIsabella Maclean, married Martin MacGillivray of Pennyghael\n\nLachlan Og lived to an advanced age, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Hector MacLean, 2nd Laird of Torloisk.\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing\nYear of death missing\nLachlan Og MacLean, 1st Laird of Torloisk\nLachlan"
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"James Levine",
"Early years and personal life",
"What was his early years like",
"He began to play the piano as a small child.",
"What age",
"I don't know.",
"Was he married",
"I don't know."
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Other than James Levine playing piano, are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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James Levine
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Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish, musical family. His maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue, his father (Lawrence) was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business, and his mother (Helen Goldstein Levine) was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden". He has a brother Tom who is two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he is very close. He employs Tom as his business assistant (looking after all of his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out where he will live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe), and his brother is a painter as well. He also has a younger sister, Janet, who is a marriage counselor. He began to play the piano as a small child. On February 21, 1954, at the age of 10, Levine made his concert debut as soloist playing Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Ohio. Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School, in Vermont. In the following year he began to study piano with Rosina Lhevinne at the Aspen Music School. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, an acclaimed magnet school in Cincinnati. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Levine lives in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City. CANNOTANSWER
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Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio,
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James Lawrence Levine (; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera (the "Met") from 1976 to 2016. He was formally terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 12, 2018, over sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
Levine held leadership positions with the Ravinia Festival, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1980 he started the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program, and trained singers, conductors, and musicians for professional careers.
After taking an almost two-year health-related hiatus from conducting from 2011 to 2013, during which time he held artistic and administrative planning sessions at the Met, and led training of the Lindemann Young Artists, Levine retired as the Met's full-time Music Director following the 2015–16 season to become Music Director Emeritus.
Early years and personal life
Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish, musical family. His maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue; his father, Lawrence, was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business; and his mother, Helen Goldstein Levine, was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden". He had a brother, Tom, who was two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he was very close. He employed Tom as his business assistant, looking after his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out places to live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe. Tom was also a painter. He also had a younger sister, Janet, who is a marriage counselor.
He began to play the piano as a small child. On February 21, 1954, at age 10, Levine made his concert debut as soloist playing Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Ohio.
Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School in Vermont. The next year he began to study piano with Rosina Lhévinne at the Aspen Music School. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, a magnet school in Cincinnati. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from Juilliard in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Levine lived in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City.
Career
Early career
From 1964 to 1965, Levine served as an apprentice to George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra. He then served as the Orchestra's assistant conductor until 1970. That year, he also made debuts as guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell, the Welsh National Opera, and the San Francisco Opera. From 1965 to 1972 he concurrently taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In the summers, he worked at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan and at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. During that time, the charismatic Levine developed a devoted following of young musicians and music lovers.
In June 1971, Levine was called in at the last moment to substitute for István Kertész, to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Mahler's Second Symphony for the Ravinia Festival's opening concert of their 36th season. This concert began a long association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. From 1973 to 1993 he was music director of the Ravinia Festival, succeeding the late Kertész. He made numerous recordings with the orchestra, including the symphonies and German Requiem of Johannes Brahms, and major works of Gershwin, Holst, Berg, Beethoven, Mozart, and others. In 1990, at the request of Roy E. Disney, he arranged the music and conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the soundtrack of Fantasia 2000, released by Walt Disney Pictures. From 1974 to 1978, Levine also served as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival.
Metropolitan Opera
Levine made his Metropolitan Opera debut a few weeks before he turned 28, on June 5, 1971, leading a June Festival performance of Puccini's Tosca. After further appearances with the company, he was named its principal conductor in February 1972. He became its music director in 1975. In 1983, he served as conductor and musical director for the Franco Zeffirelli screen adaptation of Verdi's La Traviata, which featured the Met orchestra and chorus members. He became the company's first artistic director in 1986, and relinquished the title in 2004. In 2005, Levine's combined salary from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Met made him the highest-paid conductor in the country, at $3.5 million.
During Levine's tenure, the Metropolitan Opera orchestra expanded its activities into recording and concert series for the orchestra and chamber ensembles from the orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Levine led the Metropolitan Opera on many domestic and international tours. For the 25th anniversary of his Met debut, Levine conducted the world premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, commissioned for the occasion. On his appointment as general manager of the Met, Peter Gelb emphasized that Levine was welcome to remain as long as he wanted to direct music there. Levine was paid $2.1 million by the Met in 2010.
Following a series of injuries that began with a fall, Levine's health problems led to his withdrawal from many Metropolitan Opera engagements. After a May 2011 performance of Wagner's Die Walküre, Levine formally withdrew from all engagements at the Met. After two years of physical therapy, he returned to conducting with a May 2013 concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. On September 25, 2013, Levine conducted his first Met performance since May 2011, in a revival production of Mozart's Così fan tutte. He was scheduled to conduct three productions at the opera house and three at Carnegie Hall in the 2013–14 season. On April 14, 2016, Met management announced that Levine would step down from his position as music director at the end of the 2015–16 season. Levine was paid $1.8 million by the Met for the 2015–16 season. He assumed the new title of Music Director Emeritus, which he held until December 2017, when in the wake of allegations that Levine had sexually abused four young men, the Met suspended its relationship with him and canceled all his scheduled performances with the company.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Levine first conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in April 1972. In October 2001, he was named its music director effective with the 2004–05 season, with an initial contract of five years, becoming the first American-born conductor to head the BSO.
One unique condition that Levine negotiated was increased flexibility of the time allotted for rehearsal, allowing the orchestra additional time to prepare more challenging works. After the start of his tenure, the orchestra also established an "Artistic Initiative Fund" of about $40 million to fund the more expensive of his projects.
One criticism of Levine during his BSO tenure is that he did not attend many orchestra auditions. A 2005 article reported that he had attended two out of 16 auditions during his tenure up to that time. Levine responded that he has the ability to provide input on musician tenure decisions after the initial probationary period, and that it is difficult to know how well a given player will fit the given position until that person has had a chance to work with the orchestra: "My message is the audition isn't everything."
Another 2005 report stated that during Levine's first season as music director, the greater workload from the demands of playing more unfamiliar and contemporary music had increased physical stress on some of the BSO musicians. Levine and the players met to discuss this, and he agreed to program changes to lessen these demands. He received general critical praise for revitalizing the orchestra's quality and repertoire since the beginning of his tenure.
Levine experienced ongoing health problems, starting with an onstage fall in 2006 that resulted in a torn rotator cuff and started discussion of how long Levine's tenure with the BSO would last. In April 2010, in the wake of his continuing health problems, it emerged that Levine had not officially signed a contract extension, so that he was the BSO's music director without a signed contract. On March 2, 2011, the BSO announced Levine's resignation as music director effective September 2011, after the Orchestra's Tanglewood season.
Working on a commission from Levine and the BSO, the composer John Harbison dedicated his Symphony No. 6 "in friendship and gratitude" to him, whose premature departure from the orchestra prevented him from conducting the premiere.
After allegations of his abusing a number of young men came out in December 2017 the BSO said Levine "will never be employed or contracted by the BSO at any time in the future".
Conducting in Europe
Levine's BSO contract limited his guest appearances with American orchestras, but he still conducted regularly in Europe, with the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and at the Bayreuth Festival. Levine was a regular guest with the Philharmonia of London and the Staatskapelle Dresden. Beginning in 1975 he conducted regularly at the Salzburg Festival and the annual July Verbier Festival. From 1999 to 2004, he was chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, and was credited with improving the quality of instrumental ensemble during his tenure.
Work with students
Levine initiated the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera in 1980, a professional training program for graduated singers with, today, many famous alumni.
Levine was conductor of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the student resident orchestra at the annual summer music festival in Verbier, Switzerland, from 1999 through 2006. It was Levine's first long-term commitment to a student orchestra since becoming music director at the Met.
After becoming music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Levine also served as music director of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO's acclaimed summer academy at Tanglewood for student instrumentalists, singers, composers, and conductors. There he conducted the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, directed fully staged opera performances with student singers, and gave master classes for singers and conductors.
Levine said in an interview:
At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching. You want to teach what you have learned to the next generation so that they don't have to spend time reinventing the wheel. I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment. I love working with young musicians and singers, and those at the Tanglewood Music Center are unequivocally some of the finest and most talented in the world.
He continued to work with young students even when his health issues kept him from conducting. He was awarded the Lotus Award ("for inspiration to young musicians") from Young Concert Artists. Anthony Tommasini wrote in The New York Times in 2016: "The aspiring singers in the Met's young artist development program, one of many important ventures Mr. Levine started, must understand how lucky they are to have, as a teacher and mentor, a musician who even in his 20s worked at the Met with giants like Jon Vickers and Renata Tebaldi."
Health problems and death
Levine experienced recurrent health issues beginning in 2006, including sciatica and what he called "intermittent tremors". On March 1, 2006, he tripped and fell onstage during a standing ovation after a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, leaving the remaining subscription concerts in Boston to his assistant conductor at the time. Later that month, Levine underwent surgery to repair the injury. He returned to the podium on July 7, 2006.
Levine withdrew from the majority of the Tanglewood 2008 summer season because of surgery required to remove a kidney with a malignant cyst. He returned to the podium in Boston on September 24, 2008, at Symphony Hall.
On September 29, 2009, it was announced that Levine would undergo emergency back surgery for a herniated disk. He missed three weeks of engagements.
In March 2010, the BSO announced that Levine would miss the remainder of the Boston Symphony season because of back pain. The Met also announced, on April 4, 2010, that he was withdrawing from the remainder of his performances for the season. According to the Met, Levine was required to have "corrective surgery for an ongoing lower back problem". He returned to conducting at the Met and the BSO at the beginning of the 2010–11 season, but in February 2011 canceled his Boston engagements for the rest of the season.
In the summer of 2011, Levine underwent further surgery on his back. In September 2011, after he fell down a flight of stairs, fractured his spine, and injured his back while on vacation in Vermont, the Met announced that he would not conduct at the Met at least for the rest of 2011.
After two years of surgery and physical therapy, Levine returned to conducting for the first time on May 19, 2013, in a concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Levine conducted from a motorized wheelchair, with a special platform designed to accommodate it, which could rise and descend like an elevator. He returned to the Met on September 24, 2013. The same type of platform was present in the Met orchestra pit for his September 2013 return performance.
For many years, both Levine and the Met denied as unfounded the rumors that Levine had Parkinson's disease. As New York magazine reported: "The conductor states flatly that the condition is not Parkinson's disease, as people had speculated in 'that silly Times piece.'" But in 2016 both he and the Met finally admitted that the rumors were true, and that Levine had in fact had the disease since 1994. The Washington Post noted: "It wasn't just the illnesses, but the constant alternation between concealment and an excess of revelation that kept so much attention focused on them and away from the music."
Levine died in his Palm Springs home on March 9, 2021. Len Horovitz, his personal physician, announced Levine's death on March 17 and said that he had died of natural causes.
Sexual assault allegations
Four men accused Levine of sexually molesting them (starting when they were 16, 17, 17, and 20 years old), from the 1960s to the 1990s.
On December 2, 2017, it was publicly revealed that an October 2016 police report detailed that Levine had allegedly sexually molested a male teenager for years. The alleged sexual abuse began while Levine was guest conductor at the Ravinia Festival, outside Chicago, where Levine was music director for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's summer residencies from 1973 to 1993.
One accuser said that in the summer of 1968, when he was a 17-year-old high school student attending Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan, Levine (then a 25-year-old faculty member) had sexual contact with a student. When he next saw Levine, the accuser told him that he would not repeat the sexual behavior, but asked if they could continue to make music as they had before; Levine said no. The accuser later played bass in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for decades and became a professor.
A second accuser said that that same summer, Levine had sexual contact with a 17-year-old student and that Levine then initiated with the teenager a number of sexual encounters that have since haunted him. He said (and another male corroborated, on the condition of anonymity) that the next year, in Cleveland, where Levine was an assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, Levine on several occasions had sexual contact with that student and other students.
A third accuser, a violinist and pianist who grew up in Illinois near the Ravinia Music Festival, a summer program for aspiring musicians of which Levine was music director from 1971 to 1993, said Levine sexually abused him beginning when the accuser was 16 years old (and Levine was in his 40s) in 1986. He had previously detailed his accusation in 2016 in a report to the Lake Forest Police Department in Illinois. On December 8, the department announced that Levine could not be charged criminally in Illinois because the accuser was 16 years old at the time, and while today a 16-year-old is not considered old enough to consent to such conduct in Illinois (he must be 17, or 18 in cases in which the suspect is in a position of trust, authority, or supervision in relation to the victim), at the time that was the statutory age of consent. The department noted: "we are bound to apply the law that was in effect at the time the allegations occurred rather than the law as it currently exists."
On December 4, a fourth man, who later had a long career as a violinist in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, said he had been abused by Levine beginning in 1968, when he was 20 years old and attending the Meadow Brook School of Music. Levine was a teacher in the summer program.
Reactions
The New York Times said that the Met had known of at least one sexual abuse allegation as early as 1979, but dismissed it as baseless. Furthermore, the Met (including its General Manager Peter Gelb, who was contacted directly by a police detective about the allegations in October 2016) had been aware of both the third accuser's abuse allegations since they were made in the 2016 police report, and of the attendant police investigation. But the Met did not suspend Levine or launch an investigation of its own until over a year later, in December 2017.
In response to the December 2017 news article, the Met announced that it would investigate the sexual abuse allegations dating to the 1980s that were set forth in the 2016 police report. On December 3, after two additional males came forward with allegations of abuse, the Met suspended its ties with Levine, and canceled all upcoming engagements with him. A fourth accuser came forward the following day.
For its part, the Ravinia Festival, in April 2017, six months after the criminal investigation of Levine began, created an honorific title for Levine—"Conductor Laureate"—and signed him to a five-year renewable contract to begin in 2018. On December 4, 2017, the Ravinia Festival severed all ties with Levine, and terminated his five-year contract to lead the Chicago Symphony there.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra said Levine "will never be employed or contracted by the BSO at any time in the future". The Juilliard School, where Levine had studied, replaced him in a February 2018 performance where he was scheduled to lead the Juilliard Orchestra and singers from the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. On December 5, the Cincinnati May Festival canceled Levine's appearance in May. On December 7, in New Plymouth, New Zealand, the cinema chain Event Cinemas abruptly cancelled the screening of a Met production of Levine conducting Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. On December 8, Fred Child, host of the classical music radio show Performance Today, wrote that Levine "is accused of inflicting grievous harm to living members of our musical community. Out of respect for these people and their wounds, I choose not to broadcast performances featuring Mr. Levine on the podium."
Classical music blogger, former Village Voice music critic, and Juilliard School faculty member Greg Sandow said he had been contacted by three men over the years who said that Levine had abused them, and that reports of sexual abuse by Levine were "widely talked about" for 40 years. Sandow said further: "Everybody in the classical music business at least since the 1980s has talked about Levine as a sex abuser. The investigation should have been done decades ago." Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Justin Davidson mused on the culture website of New York magazine, "James Levine's career has clearly ended" and "I'm not sure the Met can survive Levine's disgrace." Similarly, drama critic Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal wrote an article called "The Levine Cataclysm; How allegations against James Levine of sexual misconduct with teenagers could topple the entire Metropolitan Opera". The Washington Post music critic Anne Midgette noted: "The Met has known about these allegations for at least a year, and are only investigating them now that they are public", and opined on her Facebook page that the Met has "quite probably spent years protecting its star conductor from just this kind of allegation". Music critic Tim Pfaff of the LGBT Bay Area Reporter wrote that The New York Times chief classical music critic Anthony Tommasini had the "weirdest" reaction, "lamenting the ugliness of it all under a...headline, 'Should I Put Away My James Levine Recordings?' His conclusion was that he and his husband...should move those recordings from their living room."
The Met orchestra musicians applauded the courage of the four men who came forward with accusations that Levine had abused them. Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents the Met's orchestra and Levine, said, "We are horrified and sickened by the recently reported allegations of sexual abuse by Mr. Levine."
Five days after news of the accusations by the four men broke, Levine spoke about them for the first time, and called them "unfounded". The accusers stood by their claims, with one saying, "I will take a lie-detector test. Will he?" Six days later, music critic Arthur Kaptainis wrote in the Montreal Gazette that Levine's denial "had little effect".
On March 12, 2018, the Met announced that it had fired Levine. Its investigation found Levine had "engaged in sexually abusive and harassing conduct towards vulnerable artists in the early stages of their careers".
Levine sued the Metropolitan Opera in New York State Supreme Court for breach of contract and defamation on March 15, 2018, three days after the company fired him, seeking more than $5.8 million in damages. The Met denied Levine's allegations. A year later, a New York State Supreme Court judge dismissed most of Levine's claims, but ruled that the Met and its attorney had made defamatory statements.
The Metropolitan Opera and Levine announced a settlement on undisclosed terms in August 2019. In September 2020, the size of the payout was indirectly exposed by annual disclosure statements required for nonprofits; Levine had received $3.5 million in the settlement. It is speculated that he was able to negotiate such a large settlement due to the lack of a morals clause in his contract with the Met.
Recordings and film
Levine made many audio and video recordings. He recorded extensively with many orchestras, and especially often with the Metropolitan Opera. His performance of Aida with Leontyne Price, her last in opera, was preserved on video and may be seen at the Met's own online archive of performances. Of particular note are his performances of Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen. A studio recording made for Deutsche Grammophon from 1987 to 1989 is on compact disc, and a 1989 live performance of the Ring is available on DVD. He also appears on several dozen albums as a pianist, collaborating with such singers as Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Christa Ludwig, and Dawn Upshaw, as well as performing the chamber music of Franz Schubert and Francis Poulenc, among others.
Levine was featured in the animated Disney film Fantasia 2000. He conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack recordings of all the music in the film (with the exception of one segment from the original 1940 Fantasia). Levine is also seen in the film talking briefly with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, just as his predecessor Leopold Stokowski did in the original film.
Discography
Marilyn Horne: Divas in Song (1994), RCA Victor Red Seal CD, 09026-62547-2
Videography
Mozart: Idomeneo (1982), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4234
The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala (1983), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4538
The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991, Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4582
James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala (1996), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, B0004602-09
Honors
Among the awards listed in his Met biography are:
1980 – Manhattan Cultural Award
1982 – first of eight Grammy Awards
1984 – Named "Musician of the Year" by Musical America
1986 – Smetana Medal (presented by the former Czechoslovakia)
1997 – National Medal of Arts
1999 – Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize from the Committee for Cultural Advancement of Baden-Baden, Germany
2003 – Kennedy Center Honors
2005 – Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
2006 – Opera News Award
2009 – Award in the Vocal Arts from Bard College
2009 – Ditson Conductors Award from Columbia University
2010 – National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honoree
2010 – George Peabody Award from Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University
2010 – elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
In addition, his biography says Levine has received honorary doctorates from the University of Cincinnati, the New England Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University, the State University of New York, and the Juilliard School. On May 3, 2018, SUNY revoked Levine's honorary doctorate in response to the sexual abuse allegations against him.
References
External links
1943 births
2021 deaths
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century classical pianists
21st-century American conductors (music)
21st-century American male musicians
21st-century American pianists
21st-century classical pianists
American classical pianists
American male conductors (music)
American male pianists
Aspen Music Festival and School alumni
Conductors of the Metropolitan Opera
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Grammy Award winners
Jewish American classical musicians
Jewish classical pianists
Juilliard School alumni
Kennedy Center honorees
Male classical pianists
Metropolitan Opera people
Music directors (opera)
Musicians from Cincinnati
Musicians from New York City
Oehms Classics artists
People stripped of honorary degrees
People with Parkinson's disease
United States National Medal of Arts recipients
21st-century American Jews
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[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
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"James Levine",
"Early years and personal life",
"What was his early years like",
"He began to play the piano as a small child.",
"What age",
"I don't know.",
"Was he married",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio,"
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C_0887716a1168499c8e5b18dc6d591f78_1
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What year was he born
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What year was James Levine born?
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James Levine
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Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish, musical family. His maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue, his father (Lawrence) was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business, and his mother (Helen Goldstein Levine) was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden". He has a brother Tom who is two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he is very close. He employs Tom as his business assistant (looking after all of his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out where he will live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe), and his brother is a painter as well. He also has a younger sister, Janet, who is a marriage counselor. He began to play the piano as a small child. On February 21, 1954, at the age of 10, Levine made his concert debut as soloist playing Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Ohio. Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School, in Vermont. In the following year he began to study piano with Rosina Lhevinne at the Aspen Music School. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, an acclaimed magnet school in Cincinnati. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Levine lives in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City. CANNOTANSWER
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James Lawrence Levine (; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera (the "Met") from 1976 to 2016. He was formally terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 12, 2018, over sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
Levine held leadership positions with the Ravinia Festival, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1980 he started the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program, and trained singers, conductors, and musicians for professional careers.
After taking an almost two-year health-related hiatus from conducting from 2011 to 2013, during which time he held artistic and administrative planning sessions at the Met, and led training of the Lindemann Young Artists, Levine retired as the Met's full-time Music Director following the 2015–16 season to become Music Director Emeritus.
Early years and personal life
Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish, musical family. His maternal grandfather was a composer and a cantor in a synagogue; his father, Lawrence, was a violinist who led dance bands under the name "Larry Lee" before entering his father's clothing business; and his mother, Helen Goldstein Levine, was briefly an actress on Broadway, performing as "Helen Golden". He had a brother, Tom, who was two years younger, who followed him to New York City from Cincinnati in 1974, and with whom he was very close. He employed Tom as his business assistant, looking after his affairs, arranging his rehearsal schedules, fielding queries, scouting out places to live, meeting with accountants, and accompanying Levine on trips to Europe. Tom was also a painter. He also had a younger sister, Janet, who is a marriage counselor.
He began to play the piano as a small child. On February 21, 1954, at age 10, Levine made his concert debut as soloist playing Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Ohio.
Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School in Vermont. The next year he began to study piano with Rosina Lhévinne at the Aspen Music School. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, a magnet school in Cincinnati. He entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from Juilliard in 1964, and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Levine lived in The San Remo on Central Park West in New York City.
Career
Early career
From 1964 to 1965, Levine served as an apprentice to George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra. He then served as the Orchestra's assistant conductor until 1970. That year, he also made debuts as guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell, the Welsh National Opera, and the San Francisco Opera. From 1965 to 1972 he concurrently taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In the summers, he worked at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan and at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. During that time, the charismatic Levine developed a devoted following of young musicians and music lovers.
In June 1971, Levine was called in at the last moment to substitute for István Kertész, to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Mahler's Second Symphony for the Ravinia Festival's opening concert of their 36th season. This concert began a long association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. From 1973 to 1993 he was music director of the Ravinia Festival, succeeding the late Kertész. He made numerous recordings with the orchestra, including the symphonies and German Requiem of Johannes Brahms, and major works of Gershwin, Holst, Berg, Beethoven, Mozart, and others. In 1990, at the request of Roy E. Disney, he arranged the music and conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the soundtrack of Fantasia 2000, released by Walt Disney Pictures. From 1974 to 1978, Levine also served as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival.
Metropolitan Opera
Levine made his Metropolitan Opera debut a few weeks before he turned 28, on June 5, 1971, leading a June Festival performance of Puccini's Tosca. After further appearances with the company, he was named its principal conductor in February 1972. He became its music director in 1975. In 1983, he served as conductor and musical director for the Franco Zeffirelli screen adaptation of Verdi's La Traviata, which featured the Met orchestra and chorus members. He became the company's first artistic director in 1986, and relinquished the title in 2004. In 2005, Levine's combined salary from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Met made him the highest-paid conductor in the country, at $3.5 million.
During Levine's tenure, the Metropolitan Opera orchestra expanded its activities into recording and concert series for the orchestra and chamber ensembles from the orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Levine led the Metropolitan Opera on many domestic and international tours. For the 25th anniversary of his Met debut, Levine conducted the world premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, commissioned for the occasion. On his appointment as general manager of the Met, Peter Gelb emphasized that Levine was welcome to remain as long as he wanted to direct music there. Levine was paid $2.1 million by the Met in 2010.
Following a series of injuries that began with a fall, Levine's health problems led to his withdrawal from many Metropolitan Opera engagements. After a May 2011 performance of Wagner's Die Walküre, Levine formally withdrew from all engagements at the Met. After two years of physical therapy, he returned to conducting with a May 2013 concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. On September 25, 2013, Levine conducted his first Met performance since May 2011, in a revival production of Mozart's Così fan tutte. He was scheduled to conduct three productions at the opera house and three at Carnegie Hall in the 2013–14 season. On April 14, 2016, Met management announced that Levine would step down from his position as music director at the end of the 2015–16 season. Levine was paid $1.8 million by the Met for the 2015–16 season. He assumed the new title of Music Director Emeritus, which he held until December 2017, when in the wake of allegations that Levine had sexually abused four young men, the Met suspended its relationship with him and canceled all his scheduled performances with the company.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Levine first conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in April 1972. In October 2001, he was named its music director effective with the 2004–05 season, with an initial contract of five years, becoming the first American-born conductor to head the BSO.
One unique condition that Levine negotiated was increased flexibility of the time allotted for rehearsal, allowing the orchestra additional time to prepare more challenging works. After the start of his tenure, the orchestra also established an "Artistic Initiative Fund" of about $40 million to fund the more expensive of his projects.
One criticism of Levine during his BSO tenure is that he did not attend many orchestra auditions. A 2005 article reported that he had attended two out of 16 auditions during his tenure up to that time. Levine responded that he has the ability to provide input on musician tenure decisions after the initial probationary period, and that it is difficult to know how well a given player will fit the given position until that person has had a chance to work with the orchestra: "My message is the audition isn't everything."
Another 2005 report stated that during Levine's first season as music director, the greater workload from the demands of playing more unfamiliar and contemporary music had increased physical stress on some of the BSO musicians. Levine and the players met to discuss this, and he agreed to program changes to lessen these demands. He received general critical praise for revitalizing the orchestra's quality and repertoire since the beginning of his tenure.
Levine experienced ongoing health problems, starting with an onstage fall in 2006 that resulted in a torn rotator cuff and started discussion of how long Levine's tenure with the BSO would last. In April 2010, in the wake of his continuing health problems, it emerged that Levine had not officially signed a contract extension, so that he was the BSO's music director without a signed contract. On March 2, 2011, the BSO announced Levine's resignation as music director effective September 2011, after the Orchestra's Tanglewood season.
Working on a commission from Levine and the BSO, the composer John Harbison dedicated his Symphony No. 6 "in friendship and gratitude" to him, whose premature departure from the orchestra prevented him from conducting the premiere.
After allegations of his abusing a number of young men came out in December 2017 the BSO said Levine "will never be employed or contracted by the BSO at any time in the future".
Conducting in Europe
Levine's BSO contract limited his guest appearances with American orchestras, but he still conducted regularly in Europe, with the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and at the Bayreuth Festival. Levine was a regular guest with the Philharmonia of London and the Staatskapelle Dresden. Beginning in 1975 he conducted regularly at the Salzburg Festival and the annual July Verbier Festival. From 1999 to 2004, he was chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, and was credited with improving the quality of instrumental ensemble during his tenure.
Work with students
Levine initiated the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera in 1980, a professional training program for graduated singers with, today, many famous alumni.
Levine was conductor of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the student resident orchestra at the annual summer music festival in Verbier, Switzerland, from 1999 through 2006. It was Levine's first long-term commitment to a student orchestra since becoming music director at the Met.
After becoming music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Levine also served as music director of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO's acclaimed summer academy at Tanglewood for student instrumentalists, singers, composers, and conductors. There he conducted the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, directed fully staged opera performances with student singers, and gave master classes for singers and conductors.
Levine said in an interview:
At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching. You want to teach what you have learned to the next generation so that they don't have to spend time reinventing the wheel. I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment. I love working with young musicians and singers, and those at the Tanglewood Music Center are unequivocally some of the finest and most talented in the world.
He continued to work with young students even when his health issues kept him from conducting. He was awarded the Lotus Award ("for inspiration to young musicians") from Young Concert Artists. Anthony Tommasini wrote in The New York Times in 2016: "The aspiring singers in the Met's young artist development program, one of many important ventures Mr. Levine started, must understand how lucky they are to have, as a teacher and mentor, a musician who even in his 20s worked at the Met with giants like Jon Vickers and Renata Tebaldi."
Health problems and death
Levine experienced recurrent health issues beginning in 2006, including sciatica and what he called "intermittent tremors". On March 1, 2006, he tripped and fell onstage during a standing ovation after a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, leaving the remaining subscription concerts in Boston to his assistant conductor at the time. Later that month, Levine underwent surgery to repair the injury. He returned to the podium on July 7, 2006.
Levine withdrew from the majority of the Tanglewood 2008 summer season because of surgery required to remove a kidney with a malignant cyst. He returned to the podium in Boston on September 24, 2008, at Symphony Hall.
On September 29, 2009, it was announced that Levine would undergo emergency back surgery for a herniated disk. He missed three weeks of engagements.
In March 2010, the BSO announced that Levine would miss the remainder of the Boston Symphony season because of back pain. The Met also announced, on April 4, 2010, that he was withdrawing from the remainder of his performances for the season. According to the Met, Levine was required to have "corrective surgery for an ongoing lower back problem". He returned to conducting at the Met and the BSO at the beginning of the 2010–11 season, but in February 2011 canceled his Boston engagements for the rest of the season.
In the summer of 2011, Levine underwent further surgery on his back. In September 2011, after he fell down a flight of stairs, fractured his spine, and injured his back while on vacation in Vermont, the Met announced that he would not conduct at the Met at least for the rest of 2011.
After two years of surgery and physical therapy, Levine returned to conducting for the first time on May 19, 2013, in a concert with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Levine conducted from a motorized wheelchair, with a special platform designed to accommodate it, which could rise and descend like an elevator. He returned to the Met on September 24, 2013. The same type of platform was present in the Met orchestra pit for his September 2013 return performance.
For many years, both Levine and the Met denied as unfounded the rumors that Levine had Parkinson's disease. As New York magazine reported: "The conductor states flatly that the condition is not Parkinson's disease, as people had speculated in 'that silly Times piece.'" But in 2016 both he and the Met finally admitted that the rumors were true, and that Levine had in fact had the disease since 1994. The Washington Post noted: "It wasn't just the illnesses, but the constant alternation between concealment and an excess of revelation that kept so much attention focused on them and away from the music."
Levine died in his Palm Springs home on March 9, 2021. Len Horovitz, his personal physician, announced Levine's death on March 17 and said that he had died of natural causes.
Sexual assault allegations
Four men accused Levine of sexually molesting them (starting when they were 16, 17, 17, and 20 years old), from the 1960s to the 1990s.
On December 2, 2017, it was publicly revealed that an October 2016 police report detailed that Levine had allegedly sexually molested a male teenager for years. The alleged sexual abuse began while Levine was guest conductor at the Ravinia Festival, outside Chicago, where Levine was music director for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's summer residencies from 1973 to 1993.
One accuser said that in the summer of 1968, when he was a 17-year-old high school student attending Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan, Levine (then a 25-year-old faculty member) had sexual contact with a student. When he next saw Levine, the accuser told him that he would not repeat the sexual behavior, but asked if they could continue to make music as they had before; Levine said no. The accuser later played bass in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for decades and became a professor.
A second accuser said that that same summer, Levine had sexual contact with a 17-year-old student and that Levine then initiated with the teenager a number of sexual encounters that have since haunted him. He said (and another male corroborated, on the condition of anonymity) that the next year, in Cleveland, where Levine was an assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, Levine on several occasions had sexual contact with that student and other students.
A third accuser, a violinist and pianist who grew up in Illinois near the Ravinia Music Festival, a summer program for aspiring musicians of which Levine was music director from 1971 to 1993, said Levine sexually abused him beginning when the accuser was 16 years old (and Levine was in his 40s) in 1986. He had previously detailed his accusation in 2016 in a report to the Lake Forest Police Department in Illinois. On December 8, the department announced that Levine could not be charged criminally in Illinois because the accuser was 16 years old at the time, and while today a 16-year-old is not considered old enough to consent to such conduct in Illinois (he must be 17, or 18 in cases in which the suspect is in a position of trust, authority, or supervision in relation to the victim), at the time that was the statutory age of consent. The department noted: "we are bound to apply the law that was in effect at the time the allegations occurred rather than the law as it currently exists."
On December 4, a fourth man, who later had a long career as a violinist in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, said he had been abused by Levine beginning in 1968, when he was 20 years old and attending the Meadow Brook School of Music. Levine was a teacher in the summer program.
Reactions
The New York Times said that the Met had known of at least one sexual abuse allegation as early as 1979, but dismissed it as baseless. Furthermore, the Met (including its General Manager Peter Gelb, who was contacted directly by a police detective about the allegations in October 2016) had been aware of both the third accuser's abuse allegations since they were made in the 2016 police report, and of the attendant police investigation. But the Met did not suspend Levine or launch an investigation of its own until over a year later, in December 2017.
In response to the December 2017 news article, the Met announced that it would investigate the sexual abuse allegations dating to the 1980s that were set forth in the 2016 police report. On December 3, after two additional males came forward with allegations of abuse, the Met suspended its ties with Levine, and canceled all upcoming engagements with him. A fourth accuser came forward the following day.
For its part, the Ravinia Festival, in April 2017, six months after the criminal investigation of Levine began, created an honorific title for Levine—"Conductor Laureate"—and signed him to a five-year renewable contract to begin in 2018. On December 4, 2017, the Ravinia Festival severed all ties with Levine, and terminated his five-year contract to lead the Chicago Symphony there.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra said Levine "will never be employed or contracted by the BSO at any time in the future". The Juilliard School, where Levine had studied, replaced him in a February 2018 performance where he was scheduled to lead the Juilliard Orchestra and singers from the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. On December 5, the Cincinnati May Festival canceled Levine's appearance in May. On December 7, in New Plymouth, New Zealand, the cinema chain Event Cinemas abruptly cancelled the screening of a Met production of Levine conducting Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. On December 8, Fred Child, host of the classical music radio show Performance Today, wrote that Levine "is accused of inflicting grievous harm to living members of our musical community. Out of respect for these people and their wounds, I choose not to broadcast performances featuring Mr. Levine on the podium."
Classical music blogger, former Village Voice music critic, and Juilliard School faculty member Greg Sandow said he had been contacted by three men over the years who said that Levine had abused them, and that reports of sexual abuse by Levine were "widely talked about" for 40 years. Sandow said further: "Everybody in the classical music business at least since the 1980s has talked about Levine as a sex abuser. The investigation should have been done decades ago." Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Justin Davidson mused on the culture website of New York magazine, "James Levine's career has clearly ended" and "I'm not sure the Met can survive Levine's disgrace." Similarly, drama critic Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal wrote an article called "The Levine Cataclysm; How allegations against James Levine of sexual misconduct with teenagers could topple the entire Metropolitan Opera". The Washington Post music critic Anne Midgette noted: "The Met has known about these allegations for at least a year, and are only investigating them now that they are public", and opined on her Facebook page that the Met has "quite probably spent years protecting its star conductor from just this kind of allegation". Music critic Tim Pfaff of the LGBT Bay Area Reporter wrote that The New York Times chief classical music critic Anthony Tommasini had the "weirdest" reaction, "lamenting the ugliness of it all under a...headline, 'Should I Put Away My James Levine Recordings?' His conclusion was that he and his husband...should move those recordings from their living room."
The Met orchestra musicians applauded the courage of the four men who came forward with accusations that Levine had abused them. Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents the Met's orchestra and Levine, said, "We are horrified and sickened by the recently reported allegations of sexual abuse by Mr. Levine."
Five days after news of the accusations by the four men broke, Levine spoke about them for the first time, and called them "unfounded". The accusers stood by their claims, with one saying, "I will take a lie-detector test. Will he?" Six days later, music critic Arthur Kaptainis wrote in the Montreal Gazette that Levine's denial "had little effect".
On March 12, 2018, the Met announced that it had fired Levine. Its investigation found Levine had "engaged in sexually abusive and harassing conduct towards vulnerable artists in the early stages of their careers".
Levine sued the Metropolitan Opera in New York State Supreme Court for breach of contract and defamation on March 15, 2018, three days after the company fired him, seeking more than $5.8 million in damages. The Met denied Levine's allegations. A year later, a New York State Supreme Court judge dismissed most of Levine's claims, but ruled that the Met and its attorney had made defamatory statements.
The Metropolitan Opera and Levine announced a settlement on undisclosed terms in August 2019. In September 2020, the size of the payout was indirectly exposed by annual disclosure statements required for nonprofits; Levine had received $3.5 million in the settlement. It is speculated that he was able to negotiate such a large settlement due to the lack of a morals clause in his contract with the Met.
Recordings and film
Levine made many audio and video recordings. He recorded extensively with many orchestras, and especially often with the Metropolitan Opera. His performance of Aida with Leontyne Price, her last in opera, was preserved on video and may be seen at the Met's own online archive of performances. Of particular note are his performances of Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen. A studio recording made for Deutsche Grammophon from 1987 to 1989 is on compact disc, and a 1989 live performance of the Ring is available on DVD. He also appears on several dozen albums as a pianist, collaborating with such singers as Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Christa Ludwig, and Dawn Upshaw, as well as performing the chamber music of Franz Schubert and Francis Poulenc, among others.
Levine was featured in the animated Disney film Fantasia 2000. He conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack recordings of all the music in the film (with the exception of one segment from the original 1940 Fantasia). Levine is also seen in the film talking briefly with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, just as his predecessor Leopold Stokowski did in the original film.
Discography
Marilyn Horne: Divas in Song (1994), RCA Victor Red Seal CD, 09026-62547-2
Videography
Mozart: Idomeneo (1982), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4234
The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala (1983), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4538
The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991, Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4582
James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala (1996), Deutsche Grammophon DVD, B0004602-09
Honors
Among the awards listed in his Met biography are:
1980 – Manhattan Cultural Award
1982 – first of eight Grammy Awards
1984 – Named "Musician of the Year" by Musical America
1986 – Smetana Medal (presented by the former Czechoslovakia)
1997 – National Medal of Arts
1999 – Wilhelm Furtwängler Prize from the Committee for Cultural Advancement of Baden-Baden, Germany
2003 – Kennedy Center Honors
2005 – Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
2006 – Opera News Award
2009 – Award in the Vocal Arts from Bard College
2009 – Ditson Conductors Award from Columbia University
2010 – National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honoree
2010 – George Peabody Award from Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University
2010 – elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
In addition, his biography says Levine has received honorary doctorates from the University of Cincinnati, the New England Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University, the State University of New York, and the Juilliard School. On May 3, 2018, SUNY revoked Levine's honorary doctorate in response to the sexual abuse allegations against him.
References
External links
1943 births
2021 deaths
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century classical pianists
21st-century American conductors (music)
21st-century American male musicians
21st-century American pianists
21st-century classical pianists
American classical pianists
American male conductors (music)
American male pianists
Aspen Music Festival and School alumni
Conductors of the Metropolitan Opera
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Grammy Award winners
Jewish American classical musicians
Jewish classical pianists
Juilliard School alumni
Kennedy Center honorees
Male classical pianists
Metropolitan Opera people
Music directors (opera)
Musicians from Cincinnati
Musicians from New York City
Oehms Classics artists
People stripped of honorary degrees
People with Parkinson's disease
United States National Medal of Arts recipients
21st-century American Jews
| false |
[
"William Zeiman was a Democratic member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. Zeiman was a member during the 1877 session from the 1st District of Dodge County, Wisconsin. He was born on March 31, 1846, in what is now North Prairie, Wisconsin in what is now Waukesha County, Wisconsin.\n\nReferences\n\nPeople from North Prairie, Wisconsin\nPeople from Dodge County, Wisconsin\nWisconsin Democrats\nMembers of the Wisconsin State Assembly\n1846 births\nYear of death missing",
"John R. Hofstatter was a member of the Assembly during the 1911 session. Additionally, he was a Baraboo, Wisconsin alderman (similar to city councilman). He was a Democrat. Hofstatter was born in what is now Sumpter, Wisconsin in 1858.\n\nReferences\n\nPeople from Baraboo, Wisconsin\nPeople from Sumpter, Wisconsin\nMembers of the Wisconsin State Assembly\nWisconsin city council members\nWisconsin Democrats\n1858 births\nYear of death missing"
] |
[
"Archie Manning",
"NFL career"
] |
C_c6678c6d86204048b1c324cf98bbcfe0_1
|
What can you tell me about Mannings NFL career?
| 1 |
What can you tell me about Archie Manning's NFL career?
|
Archie Manning
|
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once, in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career. According to Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman, it should have been much more than that. However, Zimmerman wrote, opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard. For his part Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times, on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced . . . I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even suggested that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn't have gotten in without having me to sack." In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7-9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News. Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He went on to conclude his career with the Houston Oilers (1982-1983), and the Minnesota Vikings (1983-1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards and 125 touchdowns, with 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35-101-3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record nor made the playoffs. The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season. CANNOTANSWER
|
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and
|
Elisha Archibald Manning III (born May 19, 1949) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints. He was a member of the Saints from 1971 to 1982 and also had brief stints with the Houston Oilers and Minnesota Vikings. In college, he played for the Ole Miss Rebels football team at the University of Mississippi and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning is the patriarch of the Manning football family.
Early life
Born in Drew, Mississippi, Manning was the son of Jane Elizabeth (née Nelson) and Elisha Archibald Manning Jr. He grew up heavily involved in football, basketball, baseball, and track. His father, known as "Buddy", was interested in Archie's sports activities, but the nature of his job left him little if any time for attending games. Instead, Archie III drew his inspiration from a local high school sports star, James Hobson. His mother was "a ubiquitous presence at all of his games, no matter what the sport or level." Manning attended Drew High School. Archie was selected in the Major League Baseball draft four times, first in 1967 by the Braves, twice by the White Sox, and finally by the Royals in 1971. In the summer of 1969, his father, Buddy Manning, died by suicide. Archie, who was home from college for summer vacation, was the first to discover Buddy's body. In the biopic-documentary Book of Manning, Manning said that he considered dropping out and getting a job to support his mother and sister, but his mother persuaded him to return to college and not put his rising football career to waste.
College career
Manning attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford and was the starting quarterback at Ole Miss for three years. In the first national prime time broadcast of a college football game (1969), Manning threw 436 yards and three touchdowns, also rushing for 104 yards, in a 33–32 loss to Alabama.
However, the rest of the team was not at his level and despite Manning's considerable talent the Rebels had a record of only 15–7 in his last two years. In his college career, he threw 4,753 yards and 31 touchdowns (despite 40 interceptions) and ran for 823 yards. He scored 14 touchdowns in 1969. In both 1969 and 1970, he was named to the All-SEC team and his No. 18 jersey was retired by Ole Miss. In 1969, Manning was Mississippi Sportsman of the Year and recipient of the Nashville Banner Trophy as Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference in addition to winning the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy. He was fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1969 and third in 1970. He was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 1970 at Mississippi. Manning was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning's legacy is honored to this day on the campus of Ole Miss where the speed limit is 18 miles per hour in honor of Manning's jersey number. During his time at Ole Miss, Manning was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He was named Southeastern Conference Quarterback of the Quarter Century (1950–75) by several publications.
NFL career
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the New Orleans Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, while he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career, Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman wrote in 2007 that the number should have been even higher than that. Zimmerman wrote that opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard as they could. For his part, Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced ... I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even stated that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn’t have gotten in without having me to sack."
In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2–11–1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7–9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News.
Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He finished his career with the Houston Oilers (1982–1983) and the Minnesota Vikings (1983–1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards, 125 touchdowns, and 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35–101–3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record or made the playoffs. Indeed, he is one of the few players to have played 10 or more years in the NFL without taking part in an official playoff game.
The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season.
Post-NFL career
Manning continues to make his home in New Orleans, though he also owns a condo in Oxford, Mississippi, to which he relocated following Hurricane Katrina. He has served as an analyst with the Saints' radio and television broadcasts, and has worked as a commentator for CBS Sports' college football broadcasts. Archie has also appeared as a commercial spokesman for products in Southeast Louisiana, where he remains popular with many fans. Working with his three sons, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli, Archie hosts the Manning Passing Academy each summer. This camp brings together young players from grades 8–12 who work with high school coaches and college players. In 2007, Manning was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America. The Silver Buffalo is the highest award given for service to Youth on a national basis.
In 2007, Manning was hired as spokesman for a United Parcel Service contest to promote its "Delivery Intercept" service. He appeared in an advertising campaign for the UPS Delivery Intercept Challenge Video Contest, which solicited amateur videos of football interceptions from high school and youth games. Among the prizes were a tailgate party with Manning as well as Manning-autographed footballs.
In October 2013, Manning was selected to be one of the 13 inaugural members of The College Football Playoff Selection Committee. He is one of three appointees who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2014, due to health reasons, he stepped down from the College Football Playoff Committee.
Manning owns a football-themed restaurant he named Manning's.
Family
Manning is married to Olivia. They met while at Ole Miss. The couple has three sons: Cooper, who was diagnosed with spinal stenosis prior to his senior year of high school, which ended his football career; Peyton, who played 18 years in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021; and Eli, who played 16 years in the NFL, also winning two Super Bowls. Cooper's son, Arch, is a top-rated high school quarterback in the class of 2023.
References
External links
1949 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
College football announcers
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
College Football Playoff Selection Committee members
Houston Oilers players
Archie
Minnesota Vikings players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League announcers
New Orleans Saints announcers
New Orleans Saints players
Ole Miss Rebels baseball players
Ole Miss Rebels football players
People from Drew, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi
Players of American football from New Orleans
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Sportspeople from Oxford, Mississippi
| true |
[
"\"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" is the title of a number-one R&B single by singer Tevin Campbell. To date, the single is Campbell's biggest hit peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending one week at number-one on the US R&B chart. The hit song is also Tevin's one and only Adult Contemporary hit, where it peaked at number 43. The song showcases Campbell's four-octave vocal range from a low note of E2 to a D#6 during the bridge of the song.\n\nTrack listings\nUS 7\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental) – 5:00\n\n12\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (album version) – 5:02\n\nUK CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:16\n \"Goodbye\" (7\" Remix Edit) – 3:48\n \"Goodbye\" (Sidub and Listen) – 4:58\n \"Goodbye\" (Tevin's Dub Pt 1 & 2) – 6:53\n\nJapan CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:10\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental version) – 4:10\n\nGermany CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:10\n \"Just Ask Me\" (featuring Chubb Rock) – 4:07\n \"Tomorrow\" (A Better You, Better Me) – 4:46\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nSee also\nList of number-one R&B singles of 1992 (U.S.)\n\nReferences\n\nTevin Campbell songs\n1991 singles\n1991 songs\nSongs written by Tevin Campbell\nSongs written by Narada Michael Walden\nSong recordings produced by Narada Michael Walden\nWarner Records singles\nContemporary R&B ballads\nPop ballads\nSoul ballads\n1990s ballads",
"\"Tell Me What You Want\" is the fourth single by English R&B band Loose Ends from their first studio album, A Little Spice, and was released in February 1984 by Virgin Records. The single reached number 74 in the UK Singles Chart.\n\nTrack listing\n7” Single: VS658\n \"Tell Me What You Want) 3.35\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Dub Mix)\" 3.34\n\n12” Single: VS658-12\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Version)\" 6.11\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Dub Mix)\" 5.41\n\nU.S. only release - 12” Single: MCA23596 (released 1985)\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Extended Remix)\" 6.08 *\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Dub Version)\" 5.18\n\n* The U.S. Extended Remix version was released on CD on the U.S. Version of the 'A Little Spice' album (MCAD27141).\n\nThe Extended Version also featured on Side D of the limited gatefold sleeve version of 'Magic Touch'\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Tell Me What You Want at Discogs.\n\n1984 singles\nLoose Ends (band) songs\nSong recordings produced by Nick Martinelli\nSongs written by Carl McIntosh (musician)\nSongs written by Steve Nichol\n1984 songs\nVirgin Records singles"
] |
[
"Archie Manning",
"NFL career",
"What can you tell me about Mannings NFL career?",
"Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and"
] |
C_c6678c6d86204048b1c324cf98bbcfe0_1
|
Who did he play for then?
| 2 |
Who did Archie Manning play for in 1971?
|
Archie Manning
|
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once, in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career. According to Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman, it should have been much more than that. However, Zimmerman wrote, opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard. For his part Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times, on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced . . . I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even suggested that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn't have gotten in without having me to sack." In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7-9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News. Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He went on to conclude his career with the Houston Oilers (1982-1983), and the Minnesota Vikings (1983-1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards and 125 touchdowns, with 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35-101-3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record nor made the playoffs. The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season. CANNOTANSWER
|
played for the Saints
|
Elisha Archibald Manning III (born May 19, 1949) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints. He was a member of the Saints from 1971 to 1982 and also had brief stints with the Houston Oilers and Minnesota Vikings. In college, he played for the Ole Miss Rebels football team at the University of Mississippi and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning is the patriarch of the Manning football family.
Early life
Born in Drew, Mississippi, Manning was the son of Jane Elizabeth (née Nelson) and Elisha Archibald Manning Jr. He grew up heavily involved in football, basketball, baseball, and track. His father, known as "Buddy", was interested in Archie's sports activities, but the nature of his job left him little if any time for attending games. Instead, Archie III drew his inspiration from a local high school sports star, James Hobson. His mother was "a ubiquitous presence at all of his games, no matter what the sport or level." Manning attended Drew High School. Archie was selected in the Major League Baseball draft four times, first in 1967 by the Braves, twice by the White Sox, and finally by the Royals in 1971. In the summer of 1969, his father, Buddy Manning, died by suicide. Archie, who was home from college for summer vacation, was the first to discover Buddy's body. In the biopic-documentary Book of Manning, Manning said that he considered dropping out and getting a job to support his mother and sister, but his mother persuaded him to return to college and not put his rising football career to waste.
College career
Manning attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford and was the starting quarterback at Ole Miss for three years. In the first national prime time broadcast of a college football game (1969), Manning threw 436 yards and three touchdowns, also rushing for 104 yards, in a 33–32 loss to Alabama.
However, the rest of the team was not at his level and despite Manning's considerable talent the Rebels had a record of only 15–7 in his last two years. In his college career, he threw 4,753 yards and 31 touchdowns (despite 40 interceptions) and ran for 823 yards. He scored 14 touchdowns in 1969. In both 1969 and 1970, he was named to the All-SEC team and his No. 18 jersey was retired by Ole Miss. In 1969, Manning was Mississippi Sportsman of the Year and recipient of the Nashville Banner Trophy as Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference in addition to winning the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy. He was fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1969 and third in 1970. He was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 1970 at Mississippi. Manning was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning's legacy is honored to this day on the campus of Ole Miss where the speed limit is 18 miles per hour in honor of Manning's jersey number. During his time at Ole Miss, Manning was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He was named Southeastern Conference Quarterback of the Quarter Century (1950–75) by several publications.
NFL career
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the New Orleans Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, while he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career, Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman wrote in 2007 that the number should have been even higher than that. Zimmerman wrote that opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard as they could. For his part, Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced ... I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even stated that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn’t have gotten in without having me to sack."
In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2–11–1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7–9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News.
Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He finished his career with the Houston Oilers (1982–1983) and the Minnesota Vikings (1983–1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards, 125 touchdowns, and 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35–101–3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record or made the playoffs. Indeed, he is one of the few players to have played 10 or more years in the NFL without taking part in an official playoff game.
The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season.
Post-NFL career
Manning continues to make his home in New Orleans, though he also owns a condo in Oxford, Mississippi, to which he relocated following Hurricane Katrina. He has served as an analyst with the Saints' radio and television broadcasts, and has worked as a commentator for CBS Sports' college football broadcasts. Archie has also appeared as a commercial spokesman for products in Southeast Louisiana, where he remains popular with many fans. Working with his three sons, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli, Archie hosts the Manning Passing Academy each summer. This camp brings together young players from grades 8–12 who work with high school coaches and college players. In 2007, Manning was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America. The Silver Buffalo is the highest award given for service to Youth on a national basis.
In 2007, Manning was hired as spokesman for a United Parcel Service contest to promote its "Delivery Intercept" service. He appeared in an advertising campaign for the UPS Delivery Intercept Challenge Video Contest, which solicited amateur videos of football interceptions from high school and youth games. Among the prizes were a tailgate party with Manning as well as Manning-autographed footballs.
In October 2013, Manning was selected to be one of the 13 inaugural members of The College Football Playoff Selection Committee. He is one of three appointees who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2014, due to health reasons, he stepped down from the College Football Playoff Committee.
Manning owns a football-themed restaurant he named Manning's.
Family
Manning is married to Olivia. They met while at Ole Miss. The couple has three sons: Cooper, who was diagnosed with spinal stenosis prior to his senior year of high school, which ended his football career; Peyton, who played 18 years in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021; and Eli, who played 16 years in the NFL, also winning two Super Bowls. Cooper's son, Arch, is a top-rated high school quarterback in the class of 2023.
References
External links
1949 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
College football announcers
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
College Football Playoff Selection Committee members
Houston Oilers players
Archie
Minnesota Vikings players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League announcers
New Orleans Saints announcers
New Orleans Saints players
Ole Miss Rebels baseball players
Ole Miss Rebels football players
People from Drew, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi
Players of American football from New Orleans
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Sportspeople from Oxford, Mississippi
| false |
[
"Peter McDonnell (c.1874– 24 May 1950) was a New Zealand rugby union player who represented the All Blacks in 1896. His position of choice was wing three-quarter. McDonnell did not play in any test matches as New Zealand did not play their first until 1903.\n\nCareer \nDescribed as \"tricky and clever\", McDonnell was educated at Wanganui High School and then Te Aute College. McDonnell first played provincially for Hawke's Bay in 1893. The next year he switched to the Wanganui province. He then returned to play for Hawke's Bay in 1895. In 1896 he again represented Wanganui and continued playing in the province until 1900.\n\nIt was in 1896, the start of his second stint playing for Wanganui that McDonnell became an All Black. He was called into the team to play Queensland in Wellington after the initial pick, Alfred Wilson, became unable to play because of injury. The game was won 9-0. McDonnell did not score any points in his sole appearance.\n\nAlso in 1896, while playing for Wanganui in a 32-0 win over Manawatu, McDonnell became the first player in New Zealand first class history to score four tries in a game.\n\nReferences \n\n1950 deaths\nPeople educated at Wanganui High School\nPeople educated at Te Aute College\nNew Zealand rugby union players\nWanganui rugby union players\nNew Zealand international rugby union players\nRugby union players from Whanganui",
"John Badham (April 1, 1937December 8, 2016) was a Canadian sportscaster and radio announcer. He did play-by-play commentary for five Canadian Football League teams for 22 seasons and announced at 24 Grey Cups. He also covered the 1976 Summer Olympics and 1984 Winter Olympics for CBC Sports, and later worked for radio stations in Peterborough, Ontario from 1988 to 2016. He was inducted into the media section of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1995.\n\nEarly career in Saskatchewan\nJohn Badham was born on April 1, 1937, in Brock, Saskatchewan, and was the son of an Anglican priest. His family moved around to several locations in Saskatchewan, then settled in Weyburn where he finished high school. He then worked at the Weyburn Mental Hospital and met his future wife, Dorothy Issac, who was a nurse. He and his wife had four children.\n\nBadham began his sports career doing radio broadcasts for the Weyburn Beavers senior ice hockey team during the 1957–58 season. He then did play-by-play commentary for Saskatchewan Roughriders games in the Canadian Football League from 1959 to 1969, while working for CKCK-FM based in Regina, Saskatchewan.\n\nMiddle career across Canada\nBadham moved to Toronto in 1969, and did play-by-play for the Toronto Argonauts, including three tenures on three separate radio stations. He briefly returned to Saskatchewan to do play-by-play for the Regina Pats in the Western Hockey League for the 1974 Memorial Cup.\n\nWhile working for CBC Sports, Badham covered the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. For his commentary at the canoe and kayak events, neither he nor the director knew anything about the sport and relied on fellow commentator Marjorie Homer-Dixon who represented Canada in kayak events at the Summer Olympic Games in 1968 and 1972.\n\nBadham became the play-by-play announcer for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on CJJD-AM in 1978. He later moved to Vancouver to be the play-by-play announcer on CFUN for the BC Lions until the 1983 season.\n\nBadham covered the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo for CBC Sports.\nHe was in attendance when Gaétan Boucher won two gold medals and a bronze for Canada in speed skating at the 1984 Winter Olympics. Badham also recalled that in Sarajevo, \"the airport was jam-packed with planes coming from all over and the military with guns were everywhere\". \n\nBadham became the voice of the Ottawa Rough Riders to replace Ernie Calcutt who died, and worked as the sports director at CFRA 580 AM in Ottawa. His play-by-play career ended in 1988, after he had called Canadian Football League games for 22 seasons for five different teams. \n\nBadham's other work included play-by-play for at least 24 Grey Cups, the Canadian College Bowl and as a regular presenter of the Schenley Award ceremonies for the league's most value player. He also covered the Commonwealth Games, a Super Bowl, and Canadian and World Curling Championships.\n\nLater career in Peterborough\nBadham departed Ottawa for Peterborough after he was hired at CHEX-TV in 1988, by Wally Macht who knew him when they were competing radio news anchors in Saskatchewan during the 1960s. CHEX operated both Kruz 100.5 and The Wolf 101.5, for which Badham appeared on air until he retired from full-time work in 2011. He and his partner Mike Melnik worked together on the Kruz for more than 5,000 morning shows over a span of 20 years. Badham also briefly served as the public address announcer for Peterborough Petes home games, but resigned after a few games to remain as a journalist for the team.\n\nBadham returned to radio part-time in 2013 as host of the show The Regulars on Extra 90.5 until early in 2016, then hosted a noon-hour current events show until July 2016. He died on December 8, 2016, at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre due to liver cancer.\n\nHonours and legacy\nThe Regina Leader-Post noted that Badham had a reputation for \"energetic play-by-play\" commentary of the Canadian Football League, and \"became known for his colourful and sometimes controversial news reports and interviews\". He was inducted into the media section of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1995. He was recognized with a career achievement award from Sports Media Canada in November 2016, accepted on his behalf by his sons while he was in hospital watching via FaceTime.\n\nThe John Badham Bursary was posthumously established at Trent University, given annually to a student in journalism, with funding by donations and the annual John Badham Memorial Golf Tournament.\n\nReferences\n\n1937 births\n2016 deaths\nCanadian colour commentators\nCanadian Football Hall of Fame inductees\nCanadian Football League announcers\nCanadian radio hosts\nCanadian radio sportscasters\nDeaths from cancer in Ontario\nOlympic Games broadcasters\nSportspeople from Kindersley\nSportspeople from Peterborough, Ontario"
] |
[
"Archie Manning",
"NFL career",
"What can you tell me about Mannings NFL career?",
"Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and",
"Who did he play for then?",
"played for the Saints"
] |
C_c6678c6d86204048b1c324cf98bbcfe0_1
|
how long did he play for the Saints?
| 3 |
How long did Archie Manning play for the Saints?
|
Archie Manning
|
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once, in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career. According to Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman, it should have been much more than that. However, Zimmerman wrote, opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard. For his part Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times, on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced . . . I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even suggested that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn't have gotten in without having me to sack." In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7-9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News. Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He went on to conclude his career with the Houston Oilers (1982-1983), and the Minnesota Vikings (1983-1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards and 125 touchdowns, with 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35-101-3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record nor made the playoffs. The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season. CANNOTANSWER
|
ten full seasons.
|
Elisha Archibald Manning III (born May 19, 1949) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints. He was a member of the Saints from 1971 to 1982 and also had brief stints with the Houston Oilers and Minnesota Vikings. In college, he played for the Ole Miss Rebels football team at the University of Mississippi and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning is the patriarch of the Manning football family.
Early life
Born in Drew, Mississippi, Manning was the son of Jane Elizabeth (née Nelson) and Elisha Archibald Manning Jr. He grew up heavily involved in football, basketball, baseball, and track. His father, known as "Buddy", was interested in Archie's sports activities, but the nature of his job left him little if any time for attending games. Instead, Archie III drew his inspiration from a local high school sports star, James Hobson. His mother was "a ubiquitous presence at all of his games, no matter what the sport or level." Manning attended Drew High School. Archie was selected in the Major League Baseball draft four times, first in 1967 by the Braves, twice by the White Sox, and finally by the Royals in 1971. In the summer of 1969, his father, Buddy Manning, died by suicide. Archie, who was home from college for summer vacation, was the first to discover Buddy's body. In the biopic-documentary Book of Manning, Manning said that he considered dropping out and getting a job to support his mother and sister, but his mother persuaded him to return to college and not put his rising football career to waste.
College career
Manning attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford and was the starting quarterback at Ole Miss for three years. In the first national prime time broadcast of a college football game (1969), Manning threw 436 yards and three touchdowns, also rushing for 104 yards, in a 33–32 loss to Alabama.
However, the rest of the team was not at his level and despite Manning's considerable talent the Rebels had a record of only 15–7 in his last two years. In his college career, he threw 4,753 yards and 31 touchdowns (despite 40 interceptions) and ran for 823 yards. He scored 14 touchdowns in 1969. In both 1969 and 1970, he was named to the All-SEC team and his No. 18 jersey was retired by Ole Miss. In 1969, Manning was Mississippi Sportsman of the Year and recipient of the Nashville Banner Trophy as Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference in addition to winning the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy. He was fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1969 and third in 1970. He was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 1970 at Mississippi. Manning was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning's legacy is honored to this day on the campus of Ole Miss where the speed limit is 18 miles per hour in honor of Manning's jersey number. During his time at Ole Miss, Manning was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He was named Southeastern Conference Quarterback of the Quarter Century (1950–75) by several publications.
NFL career
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the New Orleans Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, while he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career, Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman wrote in 2007 that the number should have been even higher than that. Zimmerman wrote that opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard as they could. For his part, Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced ... I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even stated that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn’t have gotten in without having me to sack."
In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2–11–1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7–9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News.
Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He finished his career with the Houston Oilers (1982–1983) and the Minnesota Vikings (1983–1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards, 125 touchdowns, and 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35–101–3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record or made the playoffs. Indeed, he is one of the few players to have played 10 or more years in the NFL without taking part in an official playoff game.
The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season.
Post-NFL career
Manning continues to make his home in New Orleans, though he also owns a condo in Oxford, Mississippi, to which he relocated following Hurricane Katrina. He has served as an analyst with the Saints' radio and television broadcasts, and has worked as a commentator for CBS Sports' college football broadcasts. Archie has also appeared as a commercial spokesman for products in Southeast Louisiana, where he remains popular with many fans. Working with his three sons, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli, Archie hosts the Manning Passing Academy each summer. This camp brings together young players from grades 8–12 who work with high school coaches and college players. In 2007, Manning was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America. The Silver Buffalo is the highest award given for service to Youth on a national basis.
In 2007, Manning was hired as spokesman for a United Parcel Service contest to promote its "Delivery Intercept" service. He appeared in an advertising campaign for the UPS Delivery Intercept Challenge Video Contest, which solicited amateur videos of football interceptions from high school and youth games. Among the prizes were a tailgate party with Manning as well as Manning-autographed footballs.
In October 2013, Manning was selected to be one of the 13 inaugural members of The College Football Playoff Selection Committee. He is one of three appointees who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2014, due to health reasons, he stepped down from the College Football Playoff Committee.
Manning owns a football-themed restaurant he named Manning's.
Family
Manning is married to Olivia. They met while at Ole Miss. The couple has three sons: Cooper, who was diagnosed with spinal stenosis prior to his senior year of high school, which ended his football career; Peyton, who played 18 years in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021; and Eli, who played 16 years in the NFL, also winning two Super Bowls. Cooper's son, Arch, is a top-rated high school quarterback in the class of 2023.
References
External links
1949 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
College football announcers
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
College Football Playoff Selection Committee members
Houston Oilers players
Archie
Minnesota Vikings players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League announcers
New Orleans Saints announcers
New Orleans Saints players
Ole Miss Rebels baseball players
Ole Miss Rebels football players
People from Drew, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi
Players of American football from New Orleans
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Sportspeople from Oxford, Mississippi
| true |
[
"Regardt Dreyer (born 10 December 1982, Johannesburg) is a professional South African Rugby footballer currently playing for Aviva Premiership side Northampton Saints. His preferred position is at Prop.\n\nCareer\nDreyer signed for Northampton Saints along with Juandré Kruger, another fellow South African Rugby player on 6 October 2008 but did not officially join until after his Currie Cup commitments. Although he did not play for the saints in his first season, he played for their reserves team (the Wanderers) helping them winning the Guinness A League. He made his first start the following season.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNorthampton Profile\n\nSouth African rugby union players\n1982 births\nLiving people\nNorthampton Saints players",
"Carlos R. Bell (born September 21, 1947) is a former American football running back, fullback, and tight end who played one season in the National Football League for the New Orleans Saints in 1971. He also played for the Richmond Roadrunners/Saints of the Atlantic Coast Football League.\n\nEarly life\nCarlos Bell was born on September 21, 1947 in Clinton, Oklahoma. He went to high school at Clinton (OH).\n\nCollege career\nBell went to college at Houston. In 1967 he had 14 rushes for 139 yards and 2 touchdowns. In 1968 he had 107 rushes for 691 yards and 5 touchdowns.\n\nCareer college statistics\n\nProfessional career\n\nRichmond Roadrunner/Saints\nBell had his first season in 1969. He was with the Richmond Roadrunners of the Atlantic Coast Football League. He scored two touchdowns in 1969. In 1970, the Roadrunners were renamed the Saints. With the Saints he had 113 rushes for 449 yards and two touchdowns. He also had 13 receptions for 148 yards and two touchdowns. He scored 6 touchdowns with the Roadrunners/Saints.\n\nNew Orleans Saints\nIn 1971 he was drafted in the 4th round (82nd overall) by the New Orleans Saints. He played in one game for them. He played as a tight end. He did not play anymore after 1971.\n\nCareer Professional statistics\n\nReferences\n\n1947 births\nLiving people\nHouston Cougars football players\nNew Orleans Saints players\nAmerican football tight ends\nAmerican football running backs"
] |
[
"Archie Manning",
"NFL career",
"What can you tell me about Mannings NFL career?",
"Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and",
"Who did he play for then?",
"played for the Saints",
"how long did he play for the Saints?",
"ten full seasons."
] |
C_c6678c6d86204048b1c324cf98bbcfe0_1
|
did he retire from the saints?
| 4 |
Did Archie Manning retire from the saints?
|
Archie Manning
|
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once, in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career. According to Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman, it should have been much more than that. However, Zimmerman wrote, opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard. For his part Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times, on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced . . . I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even suggested that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn't have gotten in without having me to sack." In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7-9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News. Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He went on to conclude his career with the Houston Oilers (1982-1983), and the Minnesota Vikings (1983-1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards and 125 touchdowns, with 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35-101-3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record nor made the playoffs. The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season. CANNOTANSWER
|
13-year career
|
Elisha Archibald Manning III (born May 19, 1949) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints. He was a member of the Saints from 1971 to 1982 and also had brief stints with the Houston Oilers and Minnesota Vikings. In college, he played for the Ole Miss Rebels football team at the University of Mississippi and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning is the patriarch of the Manning football family.
Early life
Born in Drew, Mississippi, Manning was the son of Jane Elizabeth (née Nelson) and Elisha Archibald Manning Jr. He grew up heavily involved in football, basketball, baseball, and track. His father, known as "Buddy", was interested in Archie's sports activities, but the nature of his job left him little if any time for attending games. Instead, Archie III drew his inspiration from a local high school sports star, James Hobson. His mother was "a ubiquitous presence at all of his games, no matter what the sport or level." Manning attended Drew High School. Archie was selected in the Major League Baseball draft four times, first in 1967 by the Braves, twice by the White Sox, and finally by the Royals in 1971. In the summer of 1969, his father, Buddy Manning, died by suicide. Archie, who was home from college for summer vacation, was the first to discover Buddy's body. In the biopic-documentary Book of Manning, Manning said that he considered dropping out and getting a job to support his mother and sister, but his mother persuaded him to return to college and not put his rising football career to waste.
College career
Manning attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford and was the starting quarterback at Ole Miss for three years. In the first national prime time broadcast of a college football game (1969), Manning threw 436 yards and three touchdowns, also rushing for 104 yards, in a 33–32 loss to Alabama.
However, the rest of the team was not at his level and despite Manning's considerable talent the Rebels had a record of only 15–7 in his last two years. In his college career, he threw 4,753 yards and 31 touchdowns (despite 40 interceptions) and ran for 823 yards. He scored 14 touchdowns in 1969. In both 1969 and 1970, he was named to the All-SEC team and his No. 18 jersey was retired by Ole Miss. In 1969, Manning was Mississippi Sportsman of the Year and recipient of the Nashville Banner Trophy as Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference in addition to winning the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy. He was fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1969 and third in 1970. He was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 1970 at Mississippi. Manning was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning's legacy is honored to this day on the campus of Ole Miss where the speed limit is 18 miles per hour in honor of Manning's jersey number. During his time at Ole Miss, Manning was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He was named Southeastern Conference Quarterback of the Quarter Century (1950–75) by several publications.
NFL career
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the New Orleans Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, while he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career, Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman wrote in 2007 that the number should have been even higher than that. Zimmerman wrote that opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard as they could. For his part, Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced ... I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even stated that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn’t have gotten in without having me to sack."
In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2–11–1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7–9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News.
Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He finished his career with the Houston Oilers (1982–1983) and the Minnesota Vikings (1983–1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards, 125 touchdowns, and 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35–101–3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record or made the playoffs. Indeed, he is one of the few players to have played 10 or more years in the NFL without taking part in an official playoff game.
The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season.
Post-NFL career
Manning continues to make his home in New Orleans, though he also owns a condo in Oxford, Mississippi, to which he relocated following Hurricane Katrina. He has served as an analyst with the Saints' radio and television broadcasts, and has worked as a commentator for CBS Sports' college football broadcasts. Archie has also appeared as a commercial spokesman for products in Southeast Louisiana, where he remains popular with many fans. Working with his three sons, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli, Archie hosts the Manning Passing Academy each summer. This camp brings together young players from grades 8–12 who work with high school coaches and college players. In 2007, Manning was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America. The Silver Buffalo is the highest award given for service to Youth on a national basis.
In 2007, Manning was hired as spokesman for a United Parcel Service contest to promote its "Delivery Intercept" service. He appeared in an advertising campaign for the UPS Delivery Intercept Challenge Video Contest, which solicited amateur videos of football interceptions from high school and youth games. Among the prizes were a tailgate party with Manning as well as Manning-autographed footballs.
In October 2013, Manning was selected to be one of the 13 inaugural members of The College Football Playoff Selection Committee. He is one of three appointees who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2014, due to health reasons, he stepped down from the College Football Playoff Committee.
Manning owns a football-themed restaurant he named Manning's.
Family
Manning is married to Olivia. They met while at Ole Miss. The couple has three sons: Cooper, who was diagnosed with spinal stenosis prior to his senior year of high school, which ended his football career; Peyton, who played 18 years in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021; and Eli, who played 16 years in the NFL, also winning two Super Bowls. Cooper's son, Arch, is a top-rated high school quarterback in the class of 2023.
References
External links
1949 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
College football announcers
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
College Football Playoff Selection Committee members
Houston Oilers players
Archie
Minnesota Vikings players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League announcers
New Orleans Saints announcers
New Orleans Saints players
Ole Miss Rebels baseball players
Ole Miss Rebels football players
People from Drew, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi
Players of American football from New Orleans
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Sportspeople from Oxford, Mississippi
| true |
[
"Barry Quentin Word (born July 17, 1964) is a former American football running back for the National Football League.\n\nCollege\nWord played college football at the University of Virginia. In 1985, he ran for 1224 yards, which is currently the fifth largest rushing yards total put up by a Virginia Cavaliers running back. Also in 1985, Word was the Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year. He was drafted in the 3rd round, 62nd overall, by the New Orleans Saints. In 1987, he and two other Virginia athletes were indicted on cocaine distribution charges. Word pleaded guilty, and his willingness to cooperate and his limited involvement in the case meant he only received 5 months in prison.\n \nHe now lives in Haymarket, Virginia and owns SpeedPro Imaging of Centreville, a wide-formating printing company.\n\nNFL career\nAfter Word’s release from prison, he signed a three-year contract with the Saints. He ran for 133 yards in 1987, his rookie year. In 1988, however, he fell to third-string running back for the Saints behind Rueben Mayes and Dalton Hilliard, two running backs drafted by the Saints the prior year. He started the entire 1989 season before being picked up by the Kansas City Chiefs before the start of the 1990 season. Word had a career year in 1990, rushing for 1015 yards on 204 carries, garnering NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award for his performance. He split carries with Christian Okoye during the 1990 season as well as the next two years. At the start of the 1994 season Word was traded to the Minnesota Vikings, starting 8 games. He ran for 847 yards on 142 carries. He was signed by the Cardinals at the start of the 1994 season. He only played one game, with 345 rushing yards, and retired. He has said that being able to retire early is not a bad thing, and said as much to Tiki Barber when Barber was set to retire concluding the 2006 season.\n\nReferences\n\n1964 births\nLiving people\nAmerican football running backs\nArizona Cardinals players\nKansas City Chiefs players\nMinnesota Vikings players\nNew Orleans Saints players\nVirginia Cavaliers football players\nPeople from Pittsylvania County, Virginia\nPeople from South Boston, Virginia\nPlayers of American football from Virginia\nPeople from Haymarket, Virginia",
"Gordon Lynn Strate (May 28, 1935 – September 5, 2012) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played 61 games in the National Hockey League for the Detroit Red Wings as a defenceman. He holds the record as the player to have played the most NHL games without recording a point.\n\nAfter retiring from hockey, he owned a tire shop in Fort St. John, British Columbia. Gord and his wife eventually returned to Sherwood Park, Alberta, just outside his hometown, to retire. He was an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and died at the age of 77.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1935 births\n2012 deaths\nCanadian ice hockey defencemen\nCanadian Latter Day Saints\nDetroit Red Wings players\nEdmonton Oil Kings (WCHL) players\nSportspeople from Edmonton\nIce hockey people from Alberta"
] |
[
"Archie Manning",
"NFL career",
"What can you tell me about Mannings NFL career?",
"Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and",
"Who did he play for then?",
"played for the Saints",
"how long did he play for the Saints?",
"ten full seasons.",
"did he retire from the saints?",
"13-year career"
] |
C_c6678c6d86204048b1c324cf98bbcfe0_1
|
did he go to the superbowl with the saints?
| 5 |
Did Archie Manning go to the superbowl with the saints?
|
Archie Manning
|
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once, in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career. According to Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman, it should have been much more than that. However, Zimmerman wrote, opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard. For his part Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times, on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced . . . I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even suggested that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn't have gotten in without having me to sack." In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7-9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News. Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He went on to conclude his career with the Houston Oilers (1982-1983), and the Minnesota Vikings (1983-1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards and 125 touchdowns, with 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35-101-3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record nor made the playoffs. The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Elisha Archibald Manning III (born May 19, 1949) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints. He was a member of the Saints from 1971 to 1982 and also had brief stints with the Houston Oilers and Minnesota Vikings. In college, he played for the Ole Miss Rebels football team at the University of Mississippi and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning is the patriarch of the Manning football family.
Early life
Born in Drew, Mississippi, Manning was the son of Jane Elizabeth (née Nelson) and Elisha Archibald Manning Jr. He grew up heavily involved in football, basketball, baseball, and track. His father, known as "Buddy", was interested in Archie's sports activities, but the nature of his job left him little if any time for attending games. Instead, Archie III drew his inspiration from a local high school sports star, James Hobson. His mother was "a ubiquitous presence at all of his games, no matter what the sport or level." Manning attended Drew High School. Archie was selected in the Major League Baseball draft four times, first in 1967 by the Braves, twice by the White Sox, and finally by the Royals in 1971. In the summer of 1969, his father, Buddy Manning, died by suicide. Archie, who was home from college for summer vacation, was the first to discover Buddy's body. In the biopic-documentary Book of Manning, Manning said that he considered dropping out and getting a job to support his mother and sister, but his mother persuaded him to return to college and not put his rising football career to waste.
College career
Manning attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford and was the starting quarterback at Ole Miss for three years. In the first national prime time broadcast of a college football game (1969), Manning threw 436 yards and three touchdowns, also rushing for 104 yards, in a 33–32 loss to Alabama.
However, the rest of the team was not at his level and despite Manning's considerable talent the Rebels had a record of only 15–7 in his last two years. In his college career, he threw 4,753 yards and 31 touchdowns (despite 40 interceptions) and ran for 823 yards. He scored 14 touchdowns in 1969. In both 1969 and 1970, he was named to the All-SEC team and his No. 18 jersey was retired by Ole Miss. In 1969, Manning was Mississippi Sportsman of the Year and recipient of the Nashville Banner Trophy as Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference in addition to winning the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy. He was fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1969 and third in 1970. He was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 1970 at Mississippi. Manning was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning's legacy is honored to this day on the campus of Ole Miss where the speed limit is 18 miles per hour in honor of Manning's jersey number. During his time at Ole Miss, Manning was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He was named Southeastern Conference Quarterback of the Quarter Century (1950–75) by several publications.
NFL career
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the New Orleans Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, while he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career, Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman wrote in 2007 that the number should have been even higher than that. Zimmerman wrote that opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard as they could. For his part, Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced ... I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even stated that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn’t have gotten in without having me to sack."
In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2–11–1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7–9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News.
Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He finished his career with the Houston Oilers (1982–1983) and the Minnesota Vikings (1983–1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards, 125 touchdowns, and 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35–101–3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record or made the playoffs. Indeed, he is one of the few players to have played 10 or more years in the NFL without taking part in an official playoff game.
The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season.
Post-NFL career
Manning continues to make his home in New Orleans, though he also owns a condo in Oxford, Mississippi, to which he relocated following Hurricane Katrina. He has served as an analyst with the Saints' radio and television broadcasts, and has worked as a commentator for CBS Sports' college football broadcasts. Archie has also appeared as a commercial spokesman for products in Southeast Louisiana, where he remains popular with many fans. Working with his three sons, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli, Archie hosts the Manning Passing Academy each summer. This camp brings together young players from grades 8–12 who work with high school coaches and college players. In 2007, Manning was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America. The Silver Buffalo is the highest award given for service to Youth on a national basis.
In 2007, Manning was hired as spokesman for a United Parcel Service contest to promote its "Delivery Intercept" service. He appeared in an advertising campaign for the UPS Delivery Intercept Challenge Video Contest, which solicited amateur videos of football interceptions from high school and youth games. Among the prizes were a tailgate party with Manning as well as Manning-autographed footballs.
In October 2013, Manning was selected to be one of the 13 inaugural members of The College Football Playoff Selection Committee. He is one of three appointees who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2014, due to health reasons, he stepped down from the College Football Playoff Committee.
Manning owns a football-themed restaurant he named Manning's.
Family
Manning is married to Olivia. They met while at Ole Miss. The couple has three sons: Cooper, who was diagnosed with spinal stenosis prior to his senior year of high school, which ended his football career; Peyton, who played 18 years in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021; and Eli, who played 16 years in the NFL, also winning two Super Bowls. Cooper's son, Arch, is a top-rated high school quarterback in the class of 2023.
References
External links
1949 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
College football announcers
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
College Football Playoff Selection Committee members
Houston Oilers players
Archie
Minnesota Vikings players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League announcers
New Orleans Saints announcers
New Orleans Saints players
Ole Miss Rebels baseball players
Ole Miss Rebels football players
People from Drew, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi
Players of American football from New Orleans
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Sportspeople from Oxford, Mississippi
| false |
[
"\"The One After the Superbowl\" is a double-length episode of the American television sitcom Friends' second season. The episode premiered on NBC on January 28, 1996, as the lead-out for NBC's telecast of Super Bowl XXX. The main storyline of the episode follows Ross, who learns that his former pet monkey Marcel had been employed for a film being shot in New York City, and then tries to get a role in said film as a ploy to reunite with the monkey.\n\nCiting previous failures in the high-profile post-Super Bowl timeslot, NBC deliberately decided against premiering a new series, and instead chose to schedule a high-profile episode of an existing, popular series. It was part of an effort by the network to achieve the \"highest-grossing ad-revenue day in television history.\" The episode featured many guest stars, including Brooke Shields, Chris Isaak, Julia Roberts, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Fred Willard, and Dan Castellaneta.\n\nWith 52.925 million viewers and a 47 percent audience share, \"The One After the Superbowl\" was the most-watched episode of the series, and is the highest-rated Super Bowl lead-out program of all time. The episode itself received mixed reviews, with some critics arguing that the excessive number of guest stars dampened the episode's quality (with several reviews making comparisons to The Love Boat), but others praising it for its funnier moments. Brooke Shields was considered a standout among the guest stars; impressed by her performance, NBC would cast her in the starring role of its new sitcom Suddenly Susan.\n\nPlot\nAfter seeing a monkey in a beer commercial that reminds him of his former pet monkey Marcel, Ross decides to pay a visit to his old pet at the San Diego Zoo during his business trip to California. When Ross cannot find the monkey, the zoo administrator (Fred Willard) tells him that Marcel has died. However, a janitor (Dan Castellaneta) later informs Ross that Marcel was kidnapped and forced into show business and is currently filming a movie in New York. Meanwhile, Joey has to contend with a mentally ill stalker (Brooke Shields) who delusionally thinks that Joey is actually Dr. Drake Ramoray, the character he plays on Days of Our Lives. Despite this, Joey goes on a date with her. She later confronts him when she suspects \"Drake\" is cheating on her with another woman (actually another character in the soap opera). He tells her he is just an actor, but when she does not believe him, the others claim that Joey is \"Drake\"'s evil twin \"Hans\", in order to get her to leave him alone. Phoebe dates Rob (Chris Isaak) who hires her to perform at children's concerts at a local library. However, the songs she sings to the children are disturbing to the attending parents because they tell truths that the children have never heard before. When Rob's attempts to convince Phoebe to tone down her material for her next performances fail, he is forced to fire her, but the children then come to Central Perk to listen to more of Phoebe's songs.\n\nRoss, hoping for a reunion with Marcel, looks for him on the movie set. Joey meanwhile, sucks up to the production assistant to land a part in the movie. While on set, Chandler meets his old childhood friend Susie \"Underpants\" Moss (Julia Roberts) working on the production, with whom he has a colored history; when they were in elementary school, Chandler pulled up Susie's skirt when she was on stage, revealing her panties to the entire school. They arrange a date, Chandler unsuspecting that it is a plot to get revenge. After convincing him to wear her panties, Susie leaves him wearing nothing but the panties in a bathroom stall in the restaurant where they are having dinner. Meanwhile, Monica (Courteney Cox) and Rachel meet the movie's star Jean-Claude Van Damme, and compete for his attention. This creates tension between them, as they both argue over who should get to date him. They both dump him when he tries to convince them to have a threesome with Drew Barrymore. Ross finally reunites with Marcel and Joey lands a small role in the movie, but loses his solitary line after overacting.\n\nProduction\n\nThe first part of \"The One After the Superbowl\" was written by Mike Sikowitz and Jeffrey Astrof, and the second part by Michael Borkow. Both parts were directed by Michael Lembeck. On January 28, 1996, the day the episode aired, executive producer Kevin S. Bright commented: \"It'll be bigger in size and scope than a regular Friends episode. Tonight we go one step beyond.\" At the beginning of January 1996, it was confirmed that Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields, Chris Isaak and Jean-Claude Van Damme would all guest star in \"The One After the Superbowl\". Actors and comedians Fred Willard and Dan Castellaneta also made minor guest appearances in the episode, as the zookeeper and the zoo janitor respectively. Shields was dating future husband Andre Agassi at the time and during filming of the restaurant sequence, he stormed on to the set and according to witnesses had a blazing row with her as he felt she was flirting with Matt Leblanc.\n\nBright commented that Shields' performance was \"a little into silly land\" at first, but it \"eventually turned in a very funny performance.\" Shields commented that when she was asked to appear on the show, she \"said yes basically sight unseen. I don't know where I was on the list. Maybe everybody else said no.\" The writers had difficulty devising jokes that would be funny when Van Damme said them. In order to create \"Van Damme-proof\" jokes, one writer \"would say them in a really horrible French accent, putting the emphasis on the wrong word\". If people laughed, Van Damme was given the joke to perform. One line created in this way was Van Damme's \"I can crack a walnut with my butt.\"\n\nRoberts recorded her scenes from January 6–8, 1996. She had a relationship with cast member Matthew Perry at the time and an audience member said about their on-screen kiss, \"Julia looked at Matt and said 'I'm glad we rehearsed this over the weekend'.\" A sound recordist commented: \"I've seen screen kisses before but this was the best. They really went at it.\" Roberts thought her appearance on the show was \"the most nerve-wracking thing\" she had done since auditioning for Pretty Woman. \"I wanted to be the best I could be. [Perry] is incredibly funny, and you want to inspire that same kind of joy that he does. Then at a certain point at lunch, you go, 'Well, it ain't gonna happen. I'll just try to be cute.'\"\n\nThe decision to air the episode directly after Super Bowl XXX was made by NBC in hopes of making that Sunday the \"highest-grossing ad-revenue day in television history.\" The guest stars were cast to draw more viewers and further increase the advertising revenue. In past years, networks had \"exploited\" the post-Super Bowl time slot to launch new series. NBC made an exception with Friends because they believed it would attract more advertising revenue than a new show. Curt King, press manager for Friends, commented: \"Try to think of the new shows that were premiered after recent Super Bowls and name one that's still around. What we decided to do this year was not to unveil a new show but give people an extra-special version of a show they already like a lot.\"\n\nReception\n\"The One After the Superbowl\" is the most-watched episode in the history of Friends, with a total of 52.9 million viewers tuned in after the Super Bowl ended. The episode generated a 29.5 Nielsen rating and a 47 percent audience share, making it the highest-rated episode of any show ever (scripted or otherwise) to debut after the Super Bowl. The advertising rates for \"The One After the Superbowl\" averaged $600,000 for 30 seconds of commercial time. This was one of the largest advertising rates ever for a sitcom at the time. The episode's director, Michael Lembeck, won the 1996 Emmy Award in the \"Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing for a Comedy Series\" category for this episode, the only Emmy won by Friends that year.\n\n\"The One After the Superbowl\" received mixed reviews from television critics. Lisa Davis of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram called the guest appearances \"a blatant ploy to boost ratings.\" The Charlotte Observer's Tim Goodman said the episode's \"pathetic infusion of 'star appeal'\" made him \"nauseous\" and commented that the producers \"should just make Bernie Kopell a regular and turn it into the Love Boat all over again.\" Diane Holloway of the Austin American-Statesman also noted the similarities with the television series Love Boat, known for its many guest stars: \"[The episode] had a couple of chuckles, but came off like a young Love Boat.\" Entertainment Weekly called the episode \"fragmented, poorly paced, and only sporadically funny. Cramming the already crowded ensemble with celebs may have been a ratings grabber ... but the results are forced sitcomedy and stilted acting,\" specifically citing Van Damme. Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide wrote that the episode \"feels like nothing more than a big stunt to follow the big game.\" He went on to say that the cameos of Willard and Castellaneta \"offers easily the best parts of the program.\"\n\nShields was praised for her performance. Alan Pergament of The Buffalo News said she \"showed a different side and was the best guest star\" in the episode. Peter Marks of The New York Times commented that Shields' performance was \"so edgy and unbridled\" that she \"stole the episode\" from Roberts and Isaak. Jae-Ha Kim of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that the chemistry between Perry and Roberts was \"authentic\" and that Shields \"may have found her niche as a sitcom queen.\" Her performance in the episode impressed NBC so much that she was offered her own sitcom, Suddenly Susan, for the network's 1996 fall lineup. In discussion of Shields performance, \nJoanne Ostrow of The Denver Post noted that she \"did a nice turn to help her stalled career.\" She went on to say that Roberts' appearance was \"to little effect\".\n\nOstrow commented that the Monica and Rachel storyline \"was evidence of unfunny, lazy writing.\" Kim, however, thought the storyline offered some \"funny moments.\" Ostrow was complimentary of cast members Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer's performances. \"Lisa Kudrow, as Phoebe, singer of truthful folk songs, continues to be a Friends highlight and David Schwimmer can carry off amusing, emotionally tinged moments even opposite a monkey.\" DVD Talk's Earl Cressey named the episode one of the highlights of the second season of Friends. Hal Boedeker of The Orlando Sentinel praised \"The One After the Superbowl\" for being better than most episodes of Friends and \"pleasantly off-the-wall and in keeping with the Friends spirit.\" The authors of Friends Like Us: The Unofficial Guide to Friends wrote that there are \"some lovely moments of slapstick\" in the episode. They called Roberts \"a fine guest-star\", while Van Damme was \"embarrassing\". Pergament said \"The One After the Superbowl\" \"had its moments\", but he thought it felt more like an episode of Seinfeld than an episode of Friends. The Houston Chronicles Ann Hodges gave the episode a more negative review, commenting that the Friends writers \"dropped the ball\" with it: \"Women's underwear, three-way-sex jokes, and a monkey — that was it. The insipid, stupid script was an insult to guest stars like Julia Roberts and Jean-Claude Van Damme.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\"The One After the Superbowl: Part 1\" at the Internet Movie Database\n\"The One After the Superbowl: Part 2\" at the Internet Movie Database\n\"The One After the Superbowl: Part 2 at the TV.com\n\n1996 American television episodes\nFriends (season 2) episodes\nSuper Bowl lead-out shows\nEmmy Award-winning episodes",
"Superbowl may refer to:\n A misspelling of Super Bowl, American football championship game\n Superbowl of Debate is a program by the University of Louisville Debate Society to increase minority participation in debate\n Superbowl of Wrestling held in the 1970s\n Super Bowl of Poker held in the 1980s\n The championship game of the Italian Football League was known as the Superbowl italiano until 2014\n A performance venue at the Sun City resort located in South Africa\n The Super Dave Superbowl of Knowledge, a 1994 TV special by Super Dave Osborne"
] |
[
"Archie Manning",
"NFL career",
"What can you tell me about Mannings NFL career?",
"Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and",
"Who did he play for then?",
"played for the Saints",
"how long did he play for the Saints?",
"ten full seasons.",
"did he retire from the saints?",
"13-year career",
"did he go to the superbowl with the saints?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_c6678c6d86204048b1c324cf98bbcfe0_1
|
is there any interesting facts about the article that you liked?
| 6 |
Besides Archie Manning's career with the saints, is there any interesting facts about the article that you liked?
|
Archie Manning
|
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once, in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career. According to Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman, it should have been much more than that. However, Zimmerman wrote, opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard. For his part Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times, on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced . . . I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even suggested that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn't have gotten in without having me to sack." In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7-9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News. Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He went on to conclude his career with the Houston Oilers (1982-1983), and the Minnesota Vikings (1983-1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards and 125 touchdowns, with 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35-101-3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record nor made the playoffs. The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season. CANNOTANSWER
|
In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1.
|
Elisha Archibald Manning III (born May 19, 1949) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints. He was a member of the Saints from 1971 to 1982 and also had brief stints with the Houston Oilers and Minnesota Vikings. In college, he played for the Ole Miss Rebels football team at the University of Mississippi and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning is the patriarch of the Manning football family.
Early life
Born in Drew, Mississippi, Manning was the son of Jane Elizabeth (née Nelson) and Elisha Archibald Manning Jr. He grew up heavily involved in football, basketball, baseball, and track. His father, known as "Buddy", was interested in Archie's sports activities, but the nature of his job left him little if any time for attending games. Instead, Archie III drew his inspiration from a local high school sports star, James Hobson. His mother was "a ubiquitous presence at all of his games, no matter what the sport or level." Manning attended Drew High School. Archie was selected in the Major League Baseball draft four times, first in 1967 by the Braves, twice by the White Sox, and finally by the Royals in 1971. In the summer of 1969, his father, Buddy Manning, died by suicide. Archie, who was home from college for summer vacation, was the first to discover Buddy's body. In the biopic-documentary Book of Manning, Manning said that he considered dropping out and getting a job to support his mother and sister, but his mother persuaded him to return to college and not put his rising football career to waste.
College career
Manning attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford and was the starting quarterback at Ole Miss for three years. In the first national prime time broadcast of a college football game (1969), Manning threw 436 yards and three touchdowns, also rushing for 104 yards, in a 33–32 loss to Alabama.
However, the rest of the team was not at his level and despite Manning's considerable talent the Rebels had a record of only 15–7 in his last two years. In his college career, he threw 4,753 yards and 31 touchdowns (despite 40 interceptions) and ran for 823 yards. He scored 14 touchdowns in 1969. In both 1969 and 1970, he was named to the All-SEC team and his No. 18 jersey was retired by Ole Miss. In 1969, Manning was Mississippi Sportsman of the Year and recipient of the Nashville Banner Trophy as Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference in addition to winning the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy. He was fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1969 and third in 1970. He was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 1970 at Mississippi. Manning was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning's legacy is honored to this day on the campus of Ole Miss where the speed limit is 18 miles per hour in honor of Manning's jersey number. During his time at Ole Miss, Manning was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He was named Southeastern Conference Quarterback of the Quarter Century (1950–75) by several publications.
NFL career
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the New Orleans Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, while he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career, Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman wrote in 2007 that the number should have been even higher than that. Zimmerman wrote that opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard as they could. For his part, Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced ... I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even stated that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn’t have gotten in without having me to sack."
In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2–11–1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7–9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News.
Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He finished his career with the Houston Oilers (1982–1983) and the Minnesota Vikings (1983–1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards, 125 touchdowns, and 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35–101–3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record or made the playoffs. Indeed, he is one of the few players to have played 10 or more years in the NFL without taking part in an official playoff game.
The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season.
Post-NFL career
Manning continues to make his home in New Orleans, though he also owns a condo in Oxford, Mississippi, to which he relocated following Hurricane Katrina. He has served as an analyst with the Saints' radio and television broadcasts, and has worked as a commentator for CBS Sports' college football broadcasts. Archie has also appeared as a commercial spokesman for products in Southeast Louisiana, where he remains popular with many fans. Working with his three sons, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli, Archie hosts the Manning Passing Academy each summer. This camp brings together young players from grades 8–12 who work with high school coaches and college players. In 2007, Manning was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America. The Silver Buffalo is the highest award given for service to Youth on a national basis.
In 2007, Manning was hired as spokesman for a United Parcel Service contest to promote its "Delivery Intercept" service. He appeared in an advertising campaign for the UPS Delivery Intercept Challenge Video Contest, which solicited amateur videos of football interceptions from high school and youth games. Among the prizes were a tailgate party with Manning as well as Manning-autographed footballs.
In October 2013, Manning was selected to be one of the 13 inaugural members of The College Football Playoff Selection Committee. He is one of three appointees who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2014, due to health reasons, he stepped down from the College Football Playoff Committee.
Manning owns a football-themed restaurant he named Manning's.
Family
Manning is married to Olivia. They met while at Ole Miss. The couple has three sons: Cooper, who was diagnosed with spinal stenosis prior to his senior year of high school, which ended his football career; Peyton, who played 18 years in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021; and Eli, who played 16 years in the NFL, also winning two Super Bowls. Cooper's son, Arch, is a top-rated high school quarterback in the class of 2023.
References
External links
1949 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
College football announcers
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
College Football Playoff Selection Committee members
Houston Oilers players
Archie
Minnesota Vikings players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League announcers
New Orleans Saints announcers
New Orleans Saints players
Ole Miss Rebels baseball players
Ole Miss Rebels football players
People from Drew, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi
Players of American football from New Orleans
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Sportspeople from Oxford, Mississippi
| false |
[
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts",
"In philosophy, further facts are facts that do not follow logically from the physical facts of the world. Reductionists who argue that at bottom there is nothing more than the physical facts thus argue against the existence of further facts. The concept of further facts plays a key role in some of the major works in analytic philosophy of the late 20th century, including in Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons, and David Chalmers's The Conscious Mind.\n\nOne context in which the existence of further facts is debated is that of personal identity across time: in what sense is Alice today really the same person as Alice yesterday, given that across the two days the state of her brain is different and the atoms that constitute her are different? One may believe that at bottom, there is nothing more than the atoms and their arrangement at different points in time; while we may for practical purposes come up with some notion of sameness of a person, this notion does not reflect anything deeper about reality. Under this view there would be no further facts. Alternatively, one may believe that there is a deeper sense in which Alice yesterday and Alice today really are the same person. For example, if one believes in Cartesian souls, one may believe that Alice yesterday and Alice today are the same person if and only if they correspond to the same soul. Or one may not believe in Cartesian souls, but yet believe that whether Alice yesterday and Alice today are the same person is a question about something other than facts about which atoms constitute them and how they are arranged. These would both be further-fact views.\n\nThe debate about further facts about personal identity over time is most closely associated with Derek Parfit. In his Reasons and Persons, he describes the non-reductionist's view that \"personal identity is a deep further fact, distinct from physical and psychological continuity\". Parfit takes a reductionist stance and argues against this further-fact view. As a result it is not clear whether a person has any reason to be worried about his or her future self in a special way that does not also apply to worrying about others, with Parfit arguing that it is plausible that \"only the deep further fact gives me a reason to be specially concerned about my future\" (his so-called \"Extreme Claim\"). Sydney Shoemaker objects that it is not clear how a further fact would give a reason for such special concerns, either. Harold Langsam has attempted to give a positive account of how a further fact would give such a reason.\n\nDavid Chalmers lists a number of other types of candidates for further facts. One is facts about conscious experience. For example, it is difficult to see how it follows from the physical facts what it is like to experience seeing red; indeed, inverted spectrum scenarios, where we imagine that experiences of colors are swapped without anything else changing, might suggest that things could have been different without the physical facts changing. Another candidate for a further fact is the fact that there is any conscious experience at all, rather than everyone being a philosophical zombie. Christopher Hill and Brian Mclaughlin have argued against the idea that facts about consciousness are further facts, disputing the logical possibility of a world physically identical to ours in which the facts about consciousness are different.\n\nChalmers also considers facts about indexicality. He cites the fact that \"I am David Chalmers\", noting that its significance seems to go beyond the tautology that David Chalmers is David Chalmers. (See also Caspar Hare's egocentric presentism and Benj Hellie's vertiginous question.) Similarly, in the philosophy of time, what date and time it is now might be considered a candidate for a further fact, in the sense that a being that knows everything about the full four-dimensional block of spacetime would still not know what time it is now. (See also the A-theory and the B-theory of time.)\n\nA final type of fact that Chalmers considers is that of negative facts. For example, consider the following statement: there do not exist nonphysical angels. If in fact true, it does not seem that this logically follows from any of the physical facts by themselves; but, he argues, it would follow if one added a \"That is all\" statement at the end of the list of all the physical facts.\n\nSee also\n Benj Hellie's vertiginous question\n B-theory of time\n Centered world\n Consciousness\n Personal identity\n Simulation hypothesis\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Conitzer, Vincent. A Puzzle about Further Facts. Open access version of article in Erkenntnis.\n\nEpistemological theories\nMetaphysics of mind\nPhilosophy of time\nTheory of mind\nConceptions of self\nIdentity (philosophy)\nThought experiments in philosophy"
] |
[
"Archie Manning",
"NFL career",
"What can you tell me about Mannings NFL career?",
"Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and",
"Who did he play for then?",
"played for the Saints",
"how long did he play for the Saints?",
"ten full seasons.",
"did he retire from the saints?",
"13-year career",
"did he go to the superbowl with the saints?",
"I don't know.",
"is there any interesting facts about the article that you liked?",
"In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1."
] |
C_c6678c6d86204048b1c324cf98bbcfe0_1
|
What else did he do in his career that was significant?
| 7 |
Besides leading the National Football Conference in passing yards, what else did Archie Manning do in his career that was significant?
|
Archie Manning
|
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once, in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career. According to Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman, it should have been much more than that. However, Zimmerman wrote, opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard. For his part Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times, on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced . . . I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even suggested that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn't have gotten in without having me to sack." In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7-9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News. Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He went on to conclude his career with the Houston Oilers (1982-1983), and the Minnesota Vikings (1983-1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards and 125 touchdowns, with 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35-101-3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record nor made the playoffs. The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season. CANNOTANSWER
|
Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979.
|
Elisha Archibald Manning III (born May 19, 1949) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints. He was a member of the Saints from 1971 to 1982 and also had brief stints with the Houston Oilers and Minnesota Vikings. In college, he played for the Ole Miss Rebels football team at the University of Mississippi and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning is the patriarch of the Manning football family.
Early life
Born in Drew, Mississippi, Manning was the son of Jane Elizabeth (née Nelson) and Elisha Archibald Manning Jr. He grew up heavily involved in football, basketball, baseball, and track. His father, known as "Buddy", was interested in Archie's sports activities, but the nature of his job left him little if any time for attending games. Instead, Archie III drew his inspiration from a local high school sports star, James Hobson. His mother was "a ubiquitous presence at all of his games, no matter what the sport or level." Manning attended Drew High School. Archie was selected in the Major League Baseball draft four times, first in 1967 by the Braves, twice by the White Sox, and finally by the Royals in 1971. In the summer of 1969, his father, Buddy Manning, died by suicide. Archie, who was home from college for summer vacation, was the first to discover Buddy's body. In the biopic-documentary Book of Manning, Manning said that he considered dropping out and getting a job to support his mother and sister, but his mother persuaded him to return to college and not put his rising football career to waste.
College career
Manning attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford and was the starting quarterback at Ole Miss for three years. In the first national prime time broadcast of a college football game (1969), Manning threw 436 yards and three touchdowns, also rushing for 104 yards, in a 33–32 loss to Alabama.
However, the rest of the team was not at his level and despite Manning's considerable talent the Rebels had a record of only 15–7 in his last two years. In his college career, he threw 4,753 yards and 31 touchdowns (despite 40 interceptions) and ran for 823 yards. He scored 14 touchdowns in 1969. In both 1969 and 1970, he was named to the All-SEC team and his No. 18 jersey was retired by Ole Miss. In 1969, Manning was Mississippi Sportsman of the Year and recipient of the Nashville Banner Trophy as Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference in addition to winning the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy. He was fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1969 and third in 1970. He was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 1970 at Mississippi. Manning was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning's legacy is honored to this day on the campus of Ole Miss where the speed limit is 18 miles per hour in honor of Manning's jersey number. During his time at Ole Miss, Manning was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He was named Southeastern Conference Quarterback of the Quarter Century (1950–75) by several publications.
NFL career
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the New Orleans Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, while he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career, Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman wrote in 2007 that the number should have been even higher than that. Zimmerman wrote that opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard as they could. For his part, Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced ... I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even stated that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn’t have gotten in without having me to sack."
In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2–11–1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7–9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News.
Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He finished his career with the Houston Oilers (1982–1983) and the Minnesota Vikings (1983–1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards, 125 touchdowns, and 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35–101–3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record or made the playoffs. Indeed, he is one of the few players to have played 10 or more years in the NFL without taking part in an official playoff game.
The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season.
Post-NFL career
Manning continues to make his home in New Orleans, though he also owns a condo in Oxford, Mississippi, to which he relocated following Hurricane Katrina. He has served as an analyst with the Saints' radio and television broadcasts, and has worked as a commentator for CBS Sports' college football broadcasts. Archie has also appeared as a commercial spokesman for products in Southeast Louisiana, where he remains popular with many fans. Working with his three sons, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli, Archie hosts the Manning Passing Academy each summer. This camp brings together young players from grades 8–12 who work with high school coaches and college players. In 2007, Manning was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America. The Silver Buffalo is the highest award given for service to Youth on a national basis.
In 2007, Manning was hired as spokesman for a United Parcel Service contest to promote its "Delivery Intercept" service. He appeared in an advertising campaign for the UPS Delivery Intercept Challenge Video Contest, which solicited amateur videos of football interceptions from high school and youth games. Among the prizes were a tailgate party with Manning as well as Manning-autographed footballs.
In October 2013, Manning was selected to be one of the 13 inaugural members of The College Football Playoff Selection Committee. He is one of three appointees who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2014, due to health reasons, he stepped down from the College Football Playoff Committee.
Manning owns a football-themed restaurant he named Manning's.
Family
Manning is married to Olivia. They met while at Ole Miss. The couple has three sons: Cooper, who was diagnosed with spinal stenosis prior to his senior year of high school, which ended his football career; Peyton, who played 18 years in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021; and Eli, who played 16 years in the NFL, also winning two Super Bowls. Cooper's son, Arch, is a top-rated high school quarterback in the class of 2023.
References
External links
1949 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
College football announcers
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
College Football Playoff Selection Committee members
Houston Oilers players
Archie
Minnesota Vikings players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League announcers
New Orleans Saints announcers
New Orleans Saints players
Ole Miss Rebels baseball players
Ole Miss Rebels football players
People from Drew, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi
Players of American football from New Orleans
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Sportspeople from Oxford, Mississippi
| true |
[
"Oil and Vinegar is a screenplay that was written but never filmed. It is a screenplay that John Hughes wrote and that Howard Deutch planned to direct. It would have starred Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick.\n\nPlot\nA soon-to-be-married man and a hitchhiking girl end up talking about their lives during the length of the car ride.\n\nProduction\n\nCasting\nThe film was set to have Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick as the two main characters.\n\nDevelopment\nThe screenplay was written by Hughes, with Howard Deutch set to direct. Its style was said to be similar to The Breakfast Club (1985) but instead of taking place in detention, it would have taken place in a car with Ringwald's and Broderick's characters both discussing their lives to each other.\n\nFuture\nWhen asked about Oil and Vinegar Howard Deutch said,\n\nYes. That was John's favorite script and he was saving it for himself, and I convinced him to let me do it. It was the story of a traveling salesman that Matthew Broderick was going to play, and a rock-and-roll girl, a real rocker. Polar opposites. Molly [Ringwald] was going to play that. And I had to make a personal decision about whether to go forward or not. We had rehearsals in a couple weeks, and I was exhausted, and my girlfriend Lea Thompson, who became my wife, said, \"You're going to die. You can't do this. I'm not going to stick around and watch that.\" And I think it was also sprinkled with the fact that I wanted to do one movie that was my movie, not necessarily in service to John, even though I loved John. So between the two things, I didn't... It could still happen. I would do it. Not with Matthew and Molly anymore, but the script is still there. It doesn't need anything. It's one of his great scripts. He had so many great scripts. For instance, he would stay up all night, music blasting, and at like 5:30 or 6 a.m., he'd hand me what was supposed to be a rewrite on Some Kind of Wonderful. We needed five pages, and it was 50 pages. I said, \"What did you do?! What is this?\" and he said, \"Oh, I didn't do that. I did something else. Tell me what you think?\" And it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He wrote the first half of the movie in, like, eight hours, and then finished it a couple days later. That was John. I never knew a writer who could do that. No one else had that ability. Even the stuff I fished out of the garbage was gold.\n\nReferences\n\nUnproduced screenplays\nFilms with screenplays by John Hughes (filmmaker)",
"Fredrick Else (31 March 193320 July 2015) was an English footballer, who played as a goalkeeper. Else gained over 600 professional appearances in his career playing for three clubs, Preston North End, Blackburn Rovers and Barrow.\n\nClub career\nElse was born in Golborne near Wigan on 31 March 1933. Whilst on national service in the north-east he played for amateur club Axwell Park Colliery Welfare in the Derwent Valley League. He attracted the attention of Football League teams and signed as a junior for Preston North End in 1951, and as a professional in 1953. He made his debut for Preston against Manchester City in 1954, but was restricted to 14 appearances over his first three seasons. He eventually became first choice, displacing George Thompson, and played 238 times for North End. During this time Preston's most successful season came in 1957–58, when the club finished as runners up in Division One.\n\nThe 1960–61 season ended in relegation for Preston and Else was sold to neighbours Blackburn Rovers for £20,000. Else became a first choice for Blackburn straight away and played 221 times for the club. A collarbone injury in 1964–65 resulted in a period out of the game, though Else returned to regain the goalkeeper's jersey at Blackburn. Nonetheless the team were relegated the following season and Else was released. During the summer of 1966 Else signed with Barrow of the Fourth Division. Else became part of Barrow's most successful team, with the side winning promotion to the Third Division in his first season there. Else was Barrow's first choice keeper for the entire period that they were in the third division, and played 148 league matches for the club. He retired from football after Barrow's relegation in 1970 following a leg infection. His final season included a brief stint as caretaker manager at Barrow.\n\nHonours\n Football League Division One Runner-up 1957–1958\n Football League Division Four Promotion 1966–1967\n\nInternational career\nElse has been described by fans of the clubs that he played for as one of the best English goalkeepers never to win a full international cap. He did, however, make one appearance for the England B team in 1957 against Scotland B, as well as participating in a Football Association touring side of 1961.\n\nPersonal life and death\nElse met his wife Marjorie in 1949 in Douglas on the Isle of Man. They married when Else was 22 and Marjorie 20, on 29 October 1955, a Saturday morning. The wedding was held in Marjorie's home town of Blackpool and the date was chosen so that the couple could marry in the morning and Else could then travel either to Deepdale, to play for Preston North End's reserve team, or to Bloomfield Road where Preston's first team was due to be playing Blackpool F.C. In the event Else was selected for the reserves and the couple had to travel by bus to Preston.\n\nAfter retiring from football, Else remained in Barrow-in-Furness, becoming a geography and maths teacher at a local secondary school. He retired from teaching in 1999 and moved to Cyprus, though still attended some Barrow matches. Else died in Barrow-in-Furness on 20 July 2015, aged 82.\n\nReferences\n\n2015 deaths\n1933 births\nBarrow A.F.C. managers\nBarrow A.F.C. players\nBlackburn Rovers F.C. players\nPreston North End F.C. players\nPeople from Golborne\nEnglish footballers\nAssociation football goalkeepers\nSchoolteachers from Cumbria\nEnglish Football League players\nEngland B international footballers\nEnglish football managers"
] |
[
"Archie Manning",
"NFL career",
"What can you tell me about Mannings NFL career?",
"Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and",
"Who did he play for then?",
"played for the Saints",
"how long did he play for the Saints?",
"ten full seasons.",
"did he retire from the saints?",
"13-year career",
"did he go to the superbowl with the saints?",
"I don't know.",
"is there any interesting facts about the article that you liked?",
"In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1.",
"What else did he do in his career that was significant?",
"Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979."
] |
C_c6678c6d86204048b1c324cf98bbcfe0_1
|
How did he do with that?
| 8 |
How did Archie Manning's do with his selection to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979?
|
Archie Manning
|
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once, in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career. According to Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman, it should have been much more than that. However, Zimmerman wrote, opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard. For his part Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times, on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced . . . I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even suggested that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn't have gotten in without having me to sack." In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2-11-1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7-9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News. Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He went on to conclude his career with the Houston Oilers (1982-1983), and the Minnesota Vikings (1983-1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards and 125 touchdowns, with 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35-101-3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record nor made the playoffs. The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season. CANNOTANSWER
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He went on to conclude his career with the Houston Oilers (1982-1983), and the Minnesota Vikings (1983-1984).
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Elisha Archibald Manning III (born May 19, 1949) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints. He was a member of the Saints from 1971 to 1982 and also had brief stints with the Houston Oilers and Minnesota Vikings. In college, he played for the Ole Miss Rebels football team at the University of Mississippi and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning is the patriarch of the Manning football family.
Early life
Born in Drew, Mississippi, Manning was the son of Jane Elizabeth (née Nelson) and Elisha Archibald Manning Jr. He grew up heavily involved in football, basketball, baseball, and track. His father, known as "Buddy", was interested in Archie's sports activities, but the nature of his job left him little if any time for attending games. Instead, Archie III drew his inspiration from a local high school sports star, James Hobson. His mother was "a ubiquitous presence at all of his games, no matter what the sport or level." Manning attended Drew High School. Archie was selected in the Major League Baseball draft four times, first in 1967 by the Braves, twice by the White Sox, and finally by the Royals in 1971. In the summer of 1969, his father, Buddy Manning, died by suicide. Archie, who was home from college for summer vacation, was the first to discover Buddy's body. In the biopic-documentary Book of Manning, Manning said that he considered dropping out and getting a job to support his mother and sister, but his mother persuaded him to return to college and not put his rising football career to waste.
College career
Manning attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford and was the starting quarterback at Ole Miss for three years. In the first national prime time broadcast of a college football game (1969), Manning threw 436 yards and three touchdowns, also rushing for 104 yards, in a 33–32 loss to Alabama.
However, the rest of the team was not at his level and despite Manning's considerable talent the Rebels had a record of only 15–7 in his last two years. In his college career, he threw 4,753 yards and 31 touchdowns (despite 40 interceptions) and ran for 823 yards. He scored 14 touchdowns in 1969. In both 1969 and 1970, he was named to the All-SEC team and his No. 18 jersey was retired by Ole Miss. In 1969, Manning was Mississippi Sportsman of the Year and recipient of the Nashville Banner Trophy as Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference in addition to winning the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy. He was fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1969 and third in 1970. He was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 1970 at Mississippi. Manning was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning's legacy is honored to this day on the campus of Ole Miss where the speed limit is 18 miles per hour in honor of Manning's jersey number. During his time at Ole Miss, Manning was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He was named Southeastern Conference Quarterback of the Quarter Century (1950–75) by several publications.
NFL career
Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the New Orleans Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, while he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career, Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman wrote in 2007 that the number should have been even higher than that. Zimmerman wrote that opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard as they could. For his part, Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the Los Angeles Times on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced ... I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even stated that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn’t have gotten in without having me to sack."
In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2–11–1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7–9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and The Sporting News.
Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He finished his career with the Houston Oilers (1982–1983) and the Minnesota Vikings (1983–1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards, 125 touchdowns, and 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35–101–3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record or made the playoffs. Indeed, he is one of the few players to have played 10 or more years in the NFL without taking part in an official playoff game.
The Saints have not reissued Manning's No. 8 since he left the team midway through the 1982 season.
Post-NFL career
Manning continues to make his home in New Orleans, though he also owns a condo in Oxford, Mississippi, to which he relocated following Hurricane Katrina. He has served as an analyst with the Saints' radio and television broadcasts, and has worked as a commentator for CBS Sports' college football broadcasts. Archie has also appeared as a commercial spokesman for products in Southeast Louisiana, where he remains popular with many fans. Working with his three sons, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli, Archie hosts the Manning Passing Academy each summer. This camp brings together young players from grades 8–12 who work with high school coaches and college players. In 2007, Manning was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America. The Silver Buffalo is the highest award given for service to Youth on a national basis.
In 2007, Manning was hired as spokesman for a United Parcel Service contest to promote its "Delivery Intercept" service. He appeared in an advertising campaign for the UPS Delivery Intercept Challenge Video Contest, which solicited amateur videos of football interceptions from high school and youth games. Among the prizes were a tailgate party with Manning as well as Manning-autographed footballs.
In October 2013, Manning was selected to be one of the 13 inaugural members of The College Football Playoff Selection Committee. He is one of three appointees who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 2014, due to health reasons, he stepped down from the College Football Playoff Committee.
Manning owns a football-themed restaurant he named Manning's.
Family
Manning is married to Olivia. They met while at Ole Miss. The couple has three sons: Cooper, who was diagnosed with spinal stenosis prior to his senior year of high school, which ended his football career; Peyton, who played 18 years in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021; and Eli, who played 16 years in the NFL, also winning two Super Bowls. Cooper's son, Arch, is a top-rated high school quarterback in the class of 2023.
References
External links
1949 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
College football announcers
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
College Football Playoff Selection Committee members
Houston Oilers players
Archie
Minnesota Vikings players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League announcers
New Orleans Saints announcers
New Orleans Saints players
Ole Miss Rebels baseball players
Ole Miss Rebels football players
People from Drew, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi
Players of American football from New Orleans
Sportspeople from New Orleans
Sportspeople from Oxford, Mississippi
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[
"Robert Paul Smith (April 16, 1915 – January 30, 1977) was an American author, most famous for his classic evocation of childhood, Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing.\n\nBiography\nRobert Paul Smith was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Mount Vernon, NY, and graduated from Columbia College in 1936. He worked as a writer for CBS Radio and wrote four novels: So It Doesn't Whistle (1946) (1941, according to Avon Publishing Co., Inc., reprint edition ... Plus Blood in Their Veins copyright 1952); The Journey, (1943); Because of My Love (1946); The Time and the Place (1951).\n\nThe Tender Trap, a play by Smith and Dobie Gillis creator Max Shulman, opened in 1954 with Robert Preston in the leading role. It was later made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds. A classic example of the \"battle-of-the-sexes\" comedy, it revolves around the mutual envy of a bachelor living in New York City and a settled family man living in the New York suburbs.\n\nWhere Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing is a nostalgic evocation of the inner life of childhood. It advocates the value of privacy to children; the importance of unstructured time; the joys of boredom; and the virtues of freedom from adult supervision. He opens by saying \"The thing is, I don't understand what kids do with themselves any more.\" He contrasts the overstructured, overscheduled, oversupervised suburban life of the child in the suburban 1950's with reminiscences of his own childhood. He concludes \"I guess what I am saying is that people who don't have nightmares don't have dreams. If you will excuse me, I have an appointment with myself to sit on the front steps and watch some grass growing.\"\n\nTranslations from the English (1958) collects a series of articles originally published in Good Housekeeping magazine. The first, \"Translations from the Children,\" may be the earliest known example of the genre of humor that consists of a series of translations from what is said (e.g. \"I don't know why. He just hit me\") into what is meant (e.g. \"He hit his brother.\")\n\nHow to Do Nothing With Nobody All Alone By Yourself (1958) is a how-to book, illustrated by Robert Paul Smith's wife Elinor Goulding Smith. It gives step-by-step directions on how to: play mumbly-peg; build a spool tank; make polly-noses; construct an indoor boomerang, etc. It was republished in 2010 by Tin House Books.\n\nList of works\n\nEssays and humor\nWhere Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing (1957)\nTranslations from the English (1958) \nCrank: A Book of Lamentations, Exhortations, Mixed Memories and Desires, All Hard Or Chewy Centers, No Creams(1962)\nHow to Grow Up in One Piece (1963)\nGot to Stop Draggin’ that Little Red Wagon Around (1969)\nRobert Paul Smith’s Lost & Found (1973)\n\nFor children\nJack Mack, illus. Erik Blegvad (1960)\nWhen I Am Big, illus. Lillian Hoban (1965)\nNothingatall, Nothingatall, Nothingatall, illus. Allan E. Cober (1965)\nHow To Do Nothing With No One All Alone By Yourself, illus Elinor Goulding Smith (1958) Republished by Tin House Books (2010)\n\nNovels\nSo It Doesn't Whistle (1941) \nThe Journey (1943) \nBecause of My Love (1946) \nThe Time and the Place (1952)\nWhere He Went: Three Novels (1958)\n\nTheatre\nThe Tender Trap, by Max Shulman and Robert Paul Smith (first Broadway performance, 1954; Random House edition, 1955)\n\nVerse\nThe Man with the Gold-headed Cane (1943)\n…and Another Thing (1959)\n\nExternal links\n\n1915 births\n1977 deaths\n20th-century American novelists\nAmerican children's writers\nAmerican humorists\nAmerican instructional writers\nAmerican male novelists\n20th-century American dramatists and playwrights\nAmerican male dramatists and playwrights\n20th-century American male writers\n20th-century American non-fiction writers\nAmerican male non-fiction writers\nColumbia College (New York) alumni",
"\"How Do I Make You\" is a song composed by Billy Steinberg and recorded by Linda Ronstadt in 1980, reaching the top 10 in the United States.\n\nWriting and recording\nSteinberg stated that he was \"a little bit influenced\" by the Knack hit \"My Sharona\" in writing \"How Do I Make You\". He originally recorded the song with his band Billy Thermal as one of several demos produced while the band was signed to Planet Records. The label ultimately did not release these songs. However, several Billy Thermal demos, including \"How Do I Make You\", were eventually included on a Billy Thermal EP released by Kinetic Records, a Los Angeles-based independent label.\n\nAccording to Steinberg, the song's later rise to fame was born from a relationship between Billy Thermal's guitarist, Craig Hull, and Wendy Waldman, a backing vocalist for Linda Ronstadt's live shows: \"without asking my permission or anything, Wendy and Craig played the Billy Thermal demos for Linda Ronstadt, and Linda liked the song 'How Do I Make You.'\"\n\nRelease\n\"How Do I Make You\", which featured Nicolette Larson on backing vocals, was released as an advance single from the album Mad Love. It exemplified Ronstadt's change to a harder-edged style, propelling her stardom briefly in the direction of new wave. Shipped on January 15, 1980, \"How Do I Make You\" hit number 6 on the Cash Box Top 100 chart. On the Billboard Hot 100, it reached a peak of number 10.\n\nA non-album track, Ronstadt's version of the traditional \"Rambler Gambler\", was the B-side of \"How Do I Make You\" and was serviced to C&W radio, charting on the Billboard C&W chart at number 42.\n\n\"How Do I Make You\" appeared in the U.S. Top 10 for several weeks during March and April 1980. The track hit number 1 on many AOR (Album Oriented Rock) stations' charts. The single was also successful in Australia (number 19) and New Zealand (number 3).\n\nA live version, recorded for an HBO special in April 1980, is included in the 2019 release \"Live In Hollywood\".\n\nCritical reception\nAllMusic critic Mike DeGagne assessed \"How Do I Make You\" as \"a far cry from the ballads, the love songs, and the ample amount of cover versions that [Ronstadt] had charted with in the past\" saying \"[the track's] quick tempo and pulsating pace had Ronstadt showing some new wave spunk mixed with a desire to rock out a little.\" However, Rolling Stone critic Stephen Holden, felt that on \"How Do I Make You\" Ronstadt \"frankly imitates Deborah Harry,\" the lead vocalist of defining new wave act Blondie. He further described the song as \"Buddy Holly-like\" and that it roughly brackets \"How Do I Make You\" with earlier Ronstadt hits \"That'll Be the Day\" (1976) and \"It's So Easy\" (1977), both remakes of Buddy Holly records.\n\nCover version\nThe 1980 album Chipmunk Punk by Alvin and the Chipmunks featured a cover of How Do I Make You, with Simon Seville singing the lead.\n\nIn 2019, Australian hard rock band Baby Animals released a version as the lead single from their first greatest hits album.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLinda Ronstadt songs\nBaby Animals songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\n1980 singles\n2019 singles\nSong recordings produced by Peter Asher\n1979 songs\nAsylum Records singles\nAlvin and the Chipmunks songs"
] |
[
"W. H. Auden",
"Childhood"
] |
C_2ec0c88681c74ea89029850ddad923d3_1
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when did this persons childhood begin
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When did W. H. Auden's childhood begin?
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W. H. Auden
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Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (nee Bicknell; 1869-1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900-1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903-1991), became a geologist. Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work. In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do." CANNOTANSWER
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Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden
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Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".
He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys.
In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria.
He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand.
Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men. In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky.
Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
Life
Childhood
Auden was born on Bootham in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872–1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (née Bicknell; 1869–1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900–1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903–1991), became a geologist. The Audens were minor gentry with a strong clerical tradition, originally of Rowley Regis, later of Horninglow, Staffordshire.
Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism, with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work.
His family moved to Homer Road in Solihull, near Birmingham, in 1908, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do."
Education
Auden attended St Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, later famous in his own right as a novelist. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Norfolk; there, in 1922, when his friend Robert Medley asked him if he wrote poetry, Auden first realised his vocation was to be a poet. Soon after, he "discover(ed) that he (had) lost his faith" (through a gradual realisation that he had lost interest in religion, not through any decisive change of views). In school productions of Shakespeare, he played Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew in 1922, and Caliban in The Tempest in 1925, his last year at Gresham's. His first published poems appeared in the school magazine in 1923. Auden later wrote a chapter on Gresham's for Graham Greene's The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands (1934).
In 1925, he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, with a scholarship in biology; he switched to English by his second year, and was introduced to Old English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Tolkien. Friends he met at Oxford include Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender; these four were commonly though misleadingly identified in the 1930s as the "Auden Group" for their shared (but not identical) left-wing views. Auden left Oxford in 1928 with a third-class degree.
Auden was reintroduced to Christopher Isherwood in 1925 by his fellow student A. S. T. Fisher. For the next few years Auden sent poems to Isherwood for comments and criticism; the two maintained a sexual friendship in intervals between their relations with others. In 1935–39 they collaborated on three plays and a travel book.
From his Oxford years onward, Auden's friends uniformly described him as funny, extravagant, sympathetic, generous, and, partly by his own choice, lonely. In groups he was often dogmatic and overbearing in a comic way; in more private settings he was diffident and shy except when certain of his welcome. He was punctual in his habits, and obsessive about meeting deadlines, while choosing to live amidst physical disorder.
Britain and Europe, 1928–1938
In late 1928, Auden left Britain for nine months, going to Berlin, perhaps partly as an escape from English repressiveness. In Berlin, he first experienced the political and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects. Around the same time, Stephen Spender privately printed a small pamphlet of Auden's Poems in an edition of about 45 copies, distributed among Auden's and Spender's friends and family; this edition is usually referred to as Poems [1928] to avoid confusion with Auden's commercially published 1930 volume.
On returning to Britain in 1929, he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930, his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T. S. Eliot for Faber and Faber, and the same firm remained the British publisher of all the books he published thereafter. In 1930, he began five years as a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the Downs School in the Malvern Hills, where he was a much-loved teacher. At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape", while sitting with three fellow-teachers at the school, when he suddenly found that he loved them for themselves, that their existence had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940.
During these years, Auden's erotic interests focused, as he later said, on an idealised "Alter Ego" rather than on individual persons. His relationships (and his unsuccessful courtships) tended to be unequal either in age or intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved into long friendships. He contrasted these relationships with what he later regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that he began with Chester Kallman in 1939, based on the unique individuality of both partners.
In 1935, Auden married Erika Mann (1905–1969), the lesbian novelist daughter of Thomas Mann when it became apparent that the Nazis were intending to strip her of her German citizenship. Mann had asked Christopher Isherwood if he would marry her so she could become a British citizen. He declined but suggested she approach Auden, who readily agreed to a marriage of convenience. Mann and Auden never lived together, but remained on good terms throughout their lives and were still married when Mann died in 1969. She left him a small bequest in her will. In 1936, Auden introduced actress Therese Giehse, Mann's lover, to the writer John Hampson and they too married so that Giehse could leave Germany.
From 1935 until he left Britain early in 1939, Auden worked as freelance reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, first with the GPO Film Unit, a documentary film-making branch of the post office, headed by John Grierson. Through his work for the Film Unit in 1935 he met and collaborated with Benjamin Britten, with whom he also worked on plays, song cycles, and a libretto. Auden's plays in the 1930s were performed by the Group Theatre, in productions that he supervised to varying degrees.
His work now reflected his belief that any good artist must be "more than a bit of a reporting journalist". In 1936, Auden spent three months in Iceland where he gathered material for a travel book Letters from Iceland (1937), written in collaboration with Louis MacNeice. In 1937, he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, but was put to work writing propaganda at the Republican press and propaganda office, where he felt useless and left after a week. He returned to England after a brief visit to the front at Sarineña. His seven-week visit to Spain affected him deeply, and his social views grew more complex as he found political realities to be more ambiguous and troubling than he had imagined. Again attempting to combine reportage and art, he and Isherwood spent six months in 1938 visiting China amid the Sino-Japanese War, working on their book Journey to a War (1939). On their way back to England they stayed briefly in New York and decided to move to the United States. Auden spent late 1938 partly in England, partly in Brussels.
Many of Auden's poems during the 1930s and after were inspired by unconsummated love, and in the 1950s he summarised his emotional life in a famous couplet: "If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me" ("The More Loving One"). He had a gift for friendship and, starting in the late 1930s, a strong wish for the stability of marriage; in a letter to his friend James Stern he called marriage "the only subject." Throughout his life, Auden performed charitable acts, sometimes in public (as in his 1935 marriage of convenience to Erika Mann that provided her with a British passport to escape the Nazis), but, especially in later years, more often in private. He was embarrassed if they were publicly revealed, as when his gift to his friend Dorothy Day for the Catholic Worker movement was reported on the front page of The New York Times in 1956.
United States and Europe, 1939–1973
Auden and Isherwood sailed to New York City in January 1939, entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many as a betrayal, and Auden's reputation suffered. In April 1939, Isherwood moved to California, and he and Auden saw each other only intermittently in later years. Around this time, Auden met the poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for the next two years (Auden described their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey).
In 1941, Kallman ended their sexual relationship because he could not accept Auden's insistence on mutual fidelity, but he and Auden remained companions for the rest of Auden's life, sharing houses and apartments from 1953 until Auden's death. Auden dedicated both editions of his collected poetry (1945/50 and 1966) to Isherwood and Kallman.
In 1940–41, Auden lived in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights, that he shared with Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others, which became a famous centre of artistic life, nicknamed "February House". In 1940, Auden joined the Episcopal Church, returning to the Anglican Communion he had abandoned at fifteen. His reconversion was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" of Charles Williams, whom he had met in 1937, and partly by reading Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central element in his life.
After Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Auden told the British embassy in Washington that he would return to the UK if needed. He was told that, among those his age (32), only qualified personnel were needed. In 1941–42 he taught English at the University of Michigan. He was called for the draft in the United States Army in August 1942, but was rejected on medical grounds. He had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1942–43 but did not use it, choosing instead to teach at Swarthmore College in 1942–45.
In mid-1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, he was in Germany with the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, studying the effects of Allied bombing on German morale, an experience that affected his postwar work as his visit to Spain had affected him earlier. On his return, he settled in Manhattan, working as a freelance writer, a lecturer at The New School for Social Research, and a visiting professor at Bennington, Smith, and other American colleges. In 1946, he became a naturalised citizen of the US.
In 1948, Auden began spending his summers in Europe, together with Chester Kallman, first in Ischia, Italy, where he rented a house. Then, starting in 1958, he began spending his summers in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he bought a farmhouse from the prize money of the Premio Feltrinelli awarded to him in 1957. He said that he shed tears of joy at owning a home for the first time. In 1956–61, Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University where he was required to give three lectures each year. This fairly light workload allowed him to continue to spend winter in New York, where he lived at 77 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan's East Village, and to spend summer in Europe, spending only three weeks each year lecturing in Oxford. He earned his income mostly from readings and lecture tours, and by writing for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines.
In 1963, Kallman left the apartment he shared in New York with Auden, and lived during the winter in Athens while continuing to spend his summers with Auden in Austria. In 1972, Auden moved his winter home from New York to Oxford, where his old college, Christ Church, offered him a cottage, while he continued to spend summers in Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973, a few hours after giving a reading of his poems at the Austrian Society for Literature; his death occurred at the Hotel Altenburger Hof where he was staying overnight before his intended return to Oxford the next day. He was buried in Kirchstetten.
Work
Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). His poetry was encyclopaedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to the lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks, from doggerel through haiku and villanelles to a "Christmas Oratorio" and a baroque eclogue in Anglo-Saxon meters. The tone and content of his poems ranged from pop-song clichés to complex philosophical meditations, from the corns on his toes to atoms and stars, from contemporary crises to the evolution of society.
He also wrote more than four hundred essays and reviews about literature, history, politics, music, religion, and many other subjects. He collaborated on plays with Christopher Isherwood and on opera libretti with Chester Kallman, and worked with a group of artists and filmmakers on documentary films in the 1930s and with the New York Pro Musica early music group in the 1950s and 1960s. About collaboration he wrote in 1964: "collaboration has brought me greater erotic joy . . . than any sexual relations I have had."
Auden controversially rewrote or discarded some of his most famous poems when he prepared his later collected editions. He wrote that he rejected poems that he found "boring" or "dishonest" in the sense that they expressed views he had never held but had used only because he felt they would be rhetorically effective. His rejected poems include "Spain" and "September 1, 1939". His literary executor, Edward Mendelson, argues in his introduction to Selected Poems that Auden's practice reflected his sense of the persuasive power of poetry and his reluctance to misuse it. (Selected Poems includes some poems that Auden rejected and early texts of poems that he revised.)
Early work, 1922–1939
Up to 1930
Auden began writing poems in 1922, at fifteen, mostly in the styles of 19th-century romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, and later poets with rural interests, especially Thomas Hardy. At eighteen he discovered T. S. Eliot and adopted an extreme version of Eliot's style. He found his own voice at twenty when he wrote the first poem later included in his collected work, "From the very first coming down". This and other poems of the late 1920s tended to be in a clipped, elusive style that alluded to, but did not directly state, their themes of loneliness and loss. Twenty of these poems appeared in his first book Poems (1928), a pamphlet hand-printed by Stephen Spender.
In 1928, he wrote his first dramatic work, Paid on Both Sides, subtitled "A Charade", which combined style and content from the Icelandic sagas with jokes from English school life. This mixture of tragedy and farce, with a dream play-within-a-play, introduced the mixed styles and content of much of his later work. This drama and thirty short poems appeared in his first published book Poems (1930, 2nd edition with seven poems replaced, 1933); the poems in the book were mostly lyrical and gnomic meditations on hoped-for or unconsummated love and on themes of personal, social, and seasonal renewal; among these poems were "It was Easter as I walked," "Doom is dark," "Sir, no man's enemy," and "This lunar beauty."
A recurrent theme in these early poems is the effect of "family ghosts", Auden's term for the powerful, unseen psychological effects of preceding generations on any individual life (and the title of a poem). A parallel theme, present throughout his work, is the contrast between biological evolution (unchosen and involuntary) and the psychological evolution of cultures and individuals (voluntary and deliberate even in its subconscious aspects).
1931–1935
Auden's next large-scale work was The Orators: An English Study (1932; revised editions, 1934, 1966), in verse and prose, largely about hero-worship in personal and political life. In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in The Orators reflect his new interest in Robert Burns. During the next few years, many of his poems took their form and style from traditional ballads and popular songs, and also from expansive classical forms like the Odes of Horace, which he seems to have discovered through the German poet Hölderlin. Around this time his main influences were Dante, William Langland, and Alexander Pope.
During these years, much of his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely known as a political poet although he was privately more ambivalent about revolutionary politics than many reviewers recognised, and Mendelson argues that he expounded political views partly out of a sense of moral duty and partly because it enhanced his reputation, and that he later regretted having done so. He generally wrote about revolutionary change in terms of a "change of heart", a transformation of a society from a closed-off psychology of fear to an open psychology of love.
His verse drama The Dance of Death (1933) was a political extravaganza in the style of a theatrical revue, which Auden later called "a nihilistic leg-pull." His next play The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), written in collaboration with Isherwood, was similarly a quasi-Marxist updating of Gilbert and Sullivan in which the general idea of social transformation was more prominent than any specific political action or structure.
The Ascent of F6 (1937), another play written with Isherwood, was partly an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an examination of Auden's own motives in taking on a public role as a political poet. This play included the first version of "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks"), written as a satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the poem as a "Cabaret Song" about lost love (written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson, for whom he wrote many lyrics in the 1930s). In 1935, he worked briefly on documentary films with the GPO Film Unit, writing his famous verse commentary for Night Mail and lyrics for other films that were among his attempts in the 1930s to create a widely accessible, socially conscious art.
1936–1939
In 1936, Auden's publisher chose the title Look, Stranger! for a collection of political odes, love poems, comic songs, meditative lyrics, and a variety of intellectually intense but emotionally accessible verse; Auden hated the title and retitled the collection for the 1937 US edition On This Island. Among the poems included in the book are "Hearing of harvests", "Out on the lawn I lie in bed", "O what is that sound", "Look, stranger, on this island now" (later revised versions change "on" to "at"), and "Our hunting fathers".
Auden was now arguing that an artist should be a kind of journalist, and he put this view into practice in Letters from Iceland (1937) a travel book in prose and verse written with Louis MacNeice, which included his long social, literary, and autobiographical commentary "Letter to Lord Byron". In 1937, after observing the Spanish Civil War he wrote a politically engaged pamphlet poem Spain (1937); he later discarded it from his collected works. Journey to a War (1939) a travel book in prose and verse, was written with Isherwood after their visit to the Sino-Japanese War. Auden's last collaboration with Isherwood was their third play, On the Frontier, an anti-war satire written in Broadway and West End styles.
Auden's shorter poems now engaged with the fragility and transience of personal love ("Danse Macabre", "The Dream", "Lay your sleeping head"), a subject he treated with ironic wit in his "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson" (which included "Tell Me the Truth About Love" and the revised version of "Funeral Blues"), and also the corrupting effect of public and official culture on individual lives ("Casino", "School Children", "Dover"). In 1938, he wrote a series of dark, ironic ballads about individual failure ("Miss Gee", "James Honeyman", "Victor"). All these appeared in Another Time (1940), together with poems including "Dover", "As He Is", and "Musée des Beaux Arts" (all of which were written before he moved to America in 1939), and "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "The Unknown Citizen", "Law Like Love", "September 1, 1939", and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (all written in America).
The elegies for Yeats and Freud are partly anti-heroic statements, in which great deeds are performed, not by unique geniuses whom others cannot hope to imitate, but by otherwise ordinary individuals who were "silly like us" (Yeats) or of whom it could be said "he wasn't clever at all" (Freud), and who became teachers of others, not awe-inspiring heroes.
Middle period, 1940–1957
1940–1946
In 1940, Auden wrote a long philosophical poem "New Year Letter", which appeared with miscellaneous notes and other poems in The Double Man (1941). At the time of his return to the Anglican Communion he began writing abstract verse on theological themes, such as "Canzone" and "Kairos and Logos". Around 1942, as he became more comfortable with religious themes, his verse became more open and relaxed, and he increasingly used the syllabic verse he had learned from the poetry of Marianne Moore.
Auden's work in this era addresses the artist's temptation to use other persons as material for his art rather than valuing them for themselves ("Prospero to Ariel") and the corresponding moral obligation to make and keep commitments while recognising the temptation to break them ("In Sickness and Health"). From 1942 through 1947 he worked mostly on three long poems in dramatic form, each differing from the others in form and content: "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest" (both published in For the Time Being, 1944), and The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (published separately in 1947). The first two, with Auden's other new poems from 1940 to 1944, were included in his first collected edition, The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (1945), with most of his earlier poems, many in revised versions.
1947–1957
After completing The Age of Anxiety in 1946 he focused again on shorter poems, notably "A Walk After Dark", "The Love Feast", and "The Fall of Rome". Many of these evoked the Italian village where he spent his summers between 1948 and 1957, and his next book, Nones (1951), had a Mediterranean atmosphere new to his work. A new theme was the "sacred importance" of the human body in its ordinary aspect (breathing, sleeping, eating) and the continuity with nature that the body made possible (in contrast to the division between humanity and nature that he had emphasised in the 1930s); his poems on these themes included "In Praise of Limestone" (1948) and "Memorial for the City" (1949). In 1949, Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and later collaborated on two libretti for operas by Hans Werner Henze.
Auden's first separate prose book was The Enchafèd Flood: The Romantic Iconography of the Sea (1950), based on a series of lectures on the image of the sea in romantic literature. Between 1949 and 1954 he worked on a sequence of seven Good Friday poems, titled "Horae Canonicae", an encyclopaedic survey of geological, biological, cultural, and personal history, focused on the irreversible act of murder; the poem was also a study in cyclical and linear ideas of time. While writing this, he also wrote "Bucolics," a sequence of seven poems about man's relation to nature. Both sequences appeared in his next book, The Shield of Achilles (1955), with other short poems, including the book's title poem, "Fleet Visit", and "Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier".
In 1955–56 Auden wrote a group of poems about "history", the term he used to mean the set of unique events made by human choices, as opposed to "nature", the set of involuntary events created by natural processes, statistics, and anonymous forces such as crowds. These poems included "T the Great", "The Maker", and the title poem of his next collection Homage to Clio (1960).
Later work, 1958–1973
In the late 1950s Auden's style became less rhetorical while its range of styles increased. In 1958, having moved his summer home from Italy to Austria, he wrote "Good-bye to the Mezzogiorno"; other poems from this period include "Dichtung und Wahrheit: An Unwritten Poem", a prose poem about the relation between love and personal and poetic language, and the contrasting "Dame Kind", about the anonymous impersonal reproductive instinct. These and other poems, including his 1955–66 poems about history, appeared in Homage to Clio (1960). His prose book The Dyer's Hand (1962) gathered many of the lectures he gave in Oxford as Professor of Poetry in 1956–61, together with revised versions of essays and notes written since the mid-1940s.
Among the new styles and forms in Auden's later work were the haiku and tanka that he began writing after translating the haiku and other verse in Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings. A sequence of fifteen poems about his house in Austria, "Thanksgiving for a Habitat" (written in various styles that included an imitation of William Carlos Williams) appeared in About the House (1965), together with other poems that included his reflection on his lecture tours, "On the Circuit". In the late 1960s he wrote some of his most vigorous poems, including "River Profile" and two poems that looked back over his life, "Prologue at Sixty" and "Forty Years On". All these appeared in City Without Walls (1969). His lifelong passion for Icelandic legend culminated in his verse translation of The Elder Edda (1969). Among his later themes was the "religionless Christianity" he learned partly from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the dedicatee of his poem "Friday's Child."
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970) was a kind of self-portrait made up of favourite quotations with commentary, arranged in alphabetical order by subject. His last prose book was a selection of essays and reviews, Forewords and Afterwords (1973). His last books of verse, Epistle to a Godson (1972) and the unfinished Thank You, Fog (published posthumously, 1974) include reflective poems about language ("Natural Linguistics", "Aubade"), philosophy and science ("No, Plato, No", "Unpredictable but Providential"), and his own aging ("A New Year Greeting", "Talking to Myself", "A Lullaby" ["The din of work is subdued"]). His last completed poem was "Archaeology", about ritual and timelessness, two recurring themes in his later years.
Reputation and influence
Auden's stature in modern literature has been contested. Probably the most common critical view from the 1930s onward ranked him as the last and least of the three major twentieth-century British and Irish poets—behind Yeats and Eliot—while a minority view, more prominent in recent years, ranks him as the highest of the three. Opinions have ranged from those of Hugh MacDiarmid, who called him "a complete wash-out"; F. R. Leavis, who wrote that Auden's ironic style was "self-defensive, self-indulgent or merely irresponsible"; and Harold Bloom, who wrote "Close thy Auden, open thy [Wallace] Stevens," to the obituarist in The Times, who wrote: "W.H. Auden, for long the enfant terrible of English poetry… emerges as its undisputed master." Joseph Brodsky wrote that Auden had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century".
Critical estimates were divided from the start. Reviewing Auden's first book, Poems (1930), Naomi Mitchison wrote "If this is really only the beginning, we have perhaps a master to look forward to." But John Sparrow, recalling Mitchison's comment in 1934, dismissed Auden's early work as "a monument to the misguided aims that prevail among contemporary poets, and the fact that… he is being hailed as 'a master' shows how criticism is helping poetry on the downward path."
Auden's clipped, satiric, and ironic style in the 1930s was widely imitated by younger poets such as Charles Madge, who wrote in a poem "there waited for me in the summer morning / Auden fiercely. I read, shuddered, and knew." He was widely described as the leader of an "Auden group" that comprised his friends Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. The four were mocked by the poet Roy Campbell as if they were a single undifferentiated poet named "Macspaunday." Auden's propagandistic poetic plays, including The Dog Beneath the Skin and The Ascent of F6, and his political poems such as "Spain" gave him the reputation as a political poet writing in a progressive and accessible voice, in contrast to Eliot; but this political stance provoked opposing opinions, such as that of Austin Clarke who called Auden's work "liberal, democratic, and humane", and John Drummond, who wrote that Auden misused a "characteristic and popularizing trick, the generalized image", to present ostensibly left-wing views that were in fact "confined to bourgeois experience."
Auden's departure for America in 1939 was debated in Britain (once even in Parliament), with some seeing his emigration as a betrayal. Defenders of Auden such as Geoffrey Grigson, in an introduction to a 1949 anthology of modern poetry, wrote that Auden "arches over all". His stature was suggested by book titles such as Auden and After by Francis Scarfe (1942) and The Auden Generation by Samuel Hynes (1977).
In the US, starting in the late 1930s, the detached, ironic tone of Auden's regular stanzas became influential; John Ashbery recalled that in the 1940s Auden "was the modern poet". Auden's formal influences were so pervasive in American poetry that the ecstatic style of the Beat Generation was partly a reaction against his influence. From the 1940s through the 1960s, many critics lamented that Auden's work had declined from its earlier promise; Randall Jarrell wrote a series of essays making a case against Auden's later work, and Philip Larkin's "What's Become of Wystan?" (1960) had a wide impact.
After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues", "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Refugee Blues", "The Unknown Citizen", and "September 1, 1939", became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
The first full-length study of Auden was Richard Hoggart's Auden: An Introductory Essay (1951), which concluded that "Auden's work, then, is a civilising force." It was followed by Joseph Warren Beach's The Making of the Auden Canon (1957), a disapproving account of Auden's revisions of his earlier work.
The first systematic critical account was Monroe K. Spears' The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island (1963), "written out of the conviction that Auden's poetry can offer the reader entertainment, instruction, intellectual excitement, and a prodigal variety of aesthetic pleasures, all in a generous abundance that is unique in our time."
Auden was one of three candidates recommended by the Nobel Committee to the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963 and 1965 and six recommended for the 1964 prize. By the time of his death in 1973 he had attained the status of a respected elder statesman, and a memorial stone for him was placed in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1974. The Encyclopædia Britannica writes that "by the time of Eliot's death in 1965… a convincing case could be made for the assertion that Auden was indeed Eliot's successor, as Eliot had inherited sole claim to supremacy when Yeats died in 1939." With some exceptions, British critics tended to treat his early work as his best, while American critics tended to favour his middle and later work.
Another group of critics and poets has maintained that unlike other modern poets, Auden's reputation did not decline after his death, and the influence of his later writing was especially strong on younger American poets including John Ashbery, James Merrill, Anthony Hecht, and Maxine Kumin. Typical later evaluations describe him as "arguably the [20th] century's greatest poet" (Peter Parker and Frank Kermode), who "now clearly seems the greatest poet in English since Tennyson" (Philip Hensher).
Public recognition of Auden's work sharply increased after his "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem "As I walked out one evening" was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995).
After 11 September 2001 his 1939 poem "September 1, 1939" was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.
Overall, Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.
Memorial stones and plaques commemorating Auden include those in Westminster Abbey; at his birthplace at 55 Bootham, York; near his home on Lordswood Road, Birmingham; in the chapel of Christ Church, Oxford; on the site of his apartment at 1 Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights; at his apartment in 77 St. Marks Place, New York (damaged and now removed); at the site of his death at Walfischgasse 5 in Vienna; and in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco. In his house in Kirchstetten, his study is open to the public upon request.
Published works
The following list includes only the books of poems and essays that Auden prepared during his lifetime; for a more complete list, including other works and posthumous editions, see W. H. Auden bibliography.
In the list below, works reprinted in the Complete Works of W. H. Auden are indicated by footnote references.
Books
Poems (London, 1930; second edn., seven poems substituted, London, 1933; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood).
The Orators: An English Study (London, 1932, verse and prose; slightly revised edn., London, 1934; revised edn. with new preface, London, 1966; New York 1967) (dedicated to Stephen Spender).
The Dance of Death (London, 1933, play) (dedicated to Robert Medley and Rupert Doone).
Poems (New York, 1934; contains Poems [1933 edition], The Orators [1932 edition], and The Dance of Death).
The Dog Beneath the Skin (London, New York, 1935; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Robert Moody).
The Ascent of F6 (London, 1936; 2nd edn., 1937; New York, 1937; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).
Look, Stranger! (London, 1936, poems; US edn., On This Island, New York, 1937) (dedicated to Erika Mann)
Letters from Iceland (London, New York, 1937; verse and prose, with Louis MacNeice) (dedicated to George Augustus Auden).
On the Frontier (London, 1938; New York 1939; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).
Journey to a War (London, New York, 1939; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to E. M. Forster).
Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
The Double Man (New York, 1941, poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, 1941) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).
For the Time Being (New York, 1944; London, 1945; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", in memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).
The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York, 1945; includes new poems) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman). Full text.
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New York, 1947; London, 1948; verse; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).
Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (London, 1950; similar to 1945 Collected Poetry) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
The Enchafèd Flood (New York, 1950; London, 1951; prose) (dedicated to Alan Ansen).
Nones (New York, 1951; London, 1952; poems) (dedicated to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)
The Shield of Achilles (New York, London, 1955; poems) (won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry) (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).
Homage to Clio (New York, London, 1960; poems) (dedicated to E. R. and A. E. Dodds).
The Dyer's Hand (New York, 1962; London, 1963; essays) (dedicated to Nevill Coghill).
About the House (New York, London, 1965; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).
Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London, 1966; New York, 1967) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
Collected Longer Poems (London, 1968; New York, 1969).
Secondary Worlds (London, New York, 1969; prose) (dedicated to Valerie Eliot).
City Without Walls and Other Poems (London, New York, 1969) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, 1970; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Grigson).
Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems (London, New York, 1972) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).
Forewords and Afterwords (New York, London, 1973; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).
Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, 1974) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).
Film scripts and opera libretti
Coal Face (1935, closing chorus for GPO Film Unit documentary).
Night Mail (1936, narrative for GPO Film Unit documentary, not published separately except as a programme note).
Paul Bunyan (1941, libretto for operetta by Benjamin Britten; not published until 1976).
The Rake's Progress (1951, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Igor Stravinsky).
Elegy for Young Lovers (1956, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze).
The Bassarids (1961, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze based on The Bacchae of Euripides).
Runner (1962, documentary film narrative for National Film Board of Canada)
Love's Labour's Lost (1973, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, based on Shakespeare's play).
Musical collaborations
Our Hunting Fathers (1936, song cycle written for Benjamin Britten)
An Evening of Elizabethan Verse and its Music (1954 recording with the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg; Auden spoke the verse texts)
The Play of Daniel (1958, verse narration for a production by the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg)
References
Sources
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1990) "The Map of All My Youth": early works, friends and influences (Auden Studies 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1994). "The Language of Learning and the Language of Love": uncollected writings, new interpretations (Auden Studies 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1995). "In Solitude, For Company": W. H. Auden after 1940: unpublished prose and recent criticism (Auden Studies 3). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Carpenter, Humphrey (1981). W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin. .
Clark, Thekla (1995). Wystan and Chester: A Personal Memoir of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. London: Faber and Faber. .
Davenport-Hines, Richard (1996). Auden. London: Heinemann. .
Farnan, Dorothy J. (1984). Auden in Love. New York: Simon & Schuster. .
Fuller, John (1998). W. H. Auden: A Commentary. London: Faber and Faber. .
Haffenden, John, ed. (1983). W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. .
Kirsch, Arthur (2005). Auden and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
Mendelson, Edward (1981). Early Auden. New York: Viking. .
Mendelson, Edward (1999). Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. .
Mendelson, Edward (2017). Early Auden, Later Auden: A Critical Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. .
Mitchell, Donald (1981), Britten and Auden in the Thirties: the year 1936. London: Faber and Faber. .
Myers, Alan and Forsythe, Robert (1999), W. H. Auden: Pennine Poet . Nenthead: North Pennines Heritage Trust. . Pamphlet with map and gazetteer.
Sharpe, Tony, ed. (2013). W. H. Auden in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Smith, Stan, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island. New York: Oxford University Press.
Further reading
Costello, Bonnie, and Rachel Galvin, eds. (2015). Auden at Work. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. .
Spender, Stephen, ed. (1975). W. H. Auden: A Tribute. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. .
Wright, George T. (1969; rev. ed. 1981). W. H. Auden. Boston: Twayne. .
External links
(book publication records and links to digital talking books editions)
W H Auden at the British Library
Papers at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Finding aid to W.H. Auden papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
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"Gypsy: A Memoir is a 1957 autobiography of renowned striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee, which inspired the 1959 Broadway musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable. The book tells Lee's true life story in three acts beginning with her early childhood days in theatre when she toured with her sister, June Havoc. The book ends just as Gypsy has gotten on a train and is headed to Hollywood to begin her career in the movies. Her Hollywood career was short lived and she did not get many roles. The roles she did get were so small that at one point she wanted to be billed under her birth name, Louise Hovick.\n\nThe first edition was published by Harper in 1957. It is now available in a 1999 paperback reprint.\n\n1957 non-fiction books\nAmerican memoirs",
"Because Japanese names historically begin with the surname, the position of the names in these listings differ. Both persons however have the same surname.\n\nKisaburō Suzuki may refer to two persons: \n\nSuzuki Kisaburō (1867–1940), Japanese statesman\nKisaburō Suzuki (musician) (1953— ), Japanese musician and songwriter"
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"W. H. Auden",
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"when did this persons childhood begin",
"Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden"
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C_2ec0c88681c74ea89029850ddad923d3_1
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did he live anywhere else during his upbringing
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Did W. H. Auden live anywhere else during his upbringing besides York, England?
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W. H. Auden
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Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (nee Bicknell; 1869-1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900-1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903-1991), became a geologist. Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work. In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do." CANNOTANSWER
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In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer
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Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".
He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys.
In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria.
He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand.
Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men. In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky.
Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
Life
Childhood
Auden was born on Bootham in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872–1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (née Bicknell; 1869–1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900–1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903–1991), became a geologist. The Audens were minor gentry with a strong clerical tradition, originally of Rowley Regis, later of Horninglow, Staffordshire.
Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism, with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work.
His family moved to Homer Road in Solihull, near Birmingham, in 1908, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do."
Education
Auden attended St Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, later famous in his own right as a novelist. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Norfolk; there, in 1922, when his friend Robert Medley asked him if he wrote poetry, Auden first realised his vocation was to be a poet. Soon after, he "discover(ed) that he (had) lost his faith" (through a gradual realisation that he had lost interest in religion, not through any decisive change of views). In school productions of Shakespeare, he played Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew in 1922, and Caliban in The Tempest in 1925, his last year at Gresham's. His first published poems appeared in the school magazine in 1923. Auden later wrote a chapter on Gresham's for Graham Greene's The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands (1934).
In 1925, he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, with a scholarship in biology; he switched to English by his second year, and was introduced to Old English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Tolkien. Friends he met at Oxford include Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender; these four were commonly though misleadingly identified in the 1930s as the "Auden Group" for their shared (but not identical) left-wing views. Auden left Oxford in 1928 with a third-class degree.
Auden was reintroduced to Christopher Isherwood in 1925 by his fellow student A. S. T. Fisher. For the next few years Auden sent poems to Isherwood for comments and criticism; the two maintained a sexual friendship in intervals between their relations with others. In 1935–39 they collaborated on three plays and a travel book.
From his Oxford years onward, Auden's friends uniformly described him as funny, extravagant, sympathetic, generous, and, partly by his own choice, lonely. In groups he was often dogmatic and overbearing in a comic way; in more private settings he was diffident and shy except when certain of his welcome. He was punctual in his habits, and obsessive about meeting deadlines, while choosing to live amidst physical disorder.
Britain and Europe, 1928–1938
In late 1928, Auden left Britain for nine months, going to Berlin, perhaps partly as an escape from English repressiveness. In Berlin, he first experienced the political and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects. Around the same time, Stephen Spender privately printed a small pamphlet of Auden's Poems in an edition of about 45 copies, distributed among Auden's and Spender's friends and family; this edition is usually referred to as Poems [1928] to avoid confusion with Auden's commercially published 1930 volume.
On returning to Britain in 1929, he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930, his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T. S. Eliot for Faber and Faber, and the same firm remained the British publisher of all the books he published thereafter. In 1930, he began five years as a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the Downs School in the Malvern Hills, where he was a much-loved teacher. At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape", while sitting with three fellow-teachers at the school, when he suddenly found that he loved them for themselves, that their existence had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940.
During these years, Auden's erotic interests focused, as he later said, on an idealised "Alter Ego" rather than on individual persons. His relationships (and his unsuccessful courtships) tended to be unequal either in age or intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved into long friendships. He contrasted these relationships with what he later regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that he began with Chester Kallman in 1939, based on the unique individuality of both partners.
In 1935, Auden married Erika Mann (1905–1969), the lesbian novelist daughter of Thomas Mann when it became apparent that the Nazis were intending to strip her of her German citizenship. Mann had asked Christopher Isherwood if he would marry her so she could become a British citizen. He declined but suggested she approach Auden, who readily agreed to a marriage of convenience. Mann and Auden never lived together, but remained on good terms throughout their lives and were still married when Mann died in 1969. She left him a small bequest in her will. In 1936, Auden introduced actress Therese Giehse, Mann's lover, to the writer John Hampson and they too married so that Giehse could leave Germany.
From 1935 until he left Britain early in 1939, Auden worked as freelance reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, first with the GPO Film Unit, a documentary film-making branch of the post office, headed by John Grierson. Through his work for the Film Unit in 1935 he met and collaborated with Benjamin Britten, with whom he also worked on plays, song cycles, and a libretto. Auden's plays in the 1930s were performed by the Group Theatre, in productions that he supervised to varying degrees.
His work now reflected his belief that any good artist must be "more than a bit of a reporting journalist". In 1936, Auden spent three months in Iceland where he gathered material for a travel book Letters from Iceland (1937), written in collaboration with Louis MacNeice. In 1937, he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, but was put to work writing propaganda at the Republican press and propaganda office, where he felt useless and left after a week. He returned to England after a brief visit to the front at Sarineña. His seven-week visit to Spain affected him deeply, and his social views grew more complex as he found political realities to be more ambiguous and troubling than he had imagined. Again attempting to combine reportage and art, he and Isherwood spent six months in 1938 visiting China amid the Sino-Japanese War, working on their book Journey to a War (1939). On their way back to England they stayed briefly in New York and decided to move to the United States. Auden spent late 1938 partly in England, partly in Brussels.
Many of Auden's poems during the 1930s and after were inspired by unconsummated love, and in the 1950s he summarised his emotional life in a famous couplet: "If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me" ("The More Loving One"). He had a gift for friendship and, starting in the late 1930s, a strong wish for the stability of marriage; in a letter to his friend James Stern he called marriage "the only subject." Throughout his life, Auden performed charitable acts, sometimes in public (as in his 1935 marriage of convenience to Erika Mann that provided her with a British passport to escape the Nazis), but, especially in later years, more often in private. He was embarrassed if they were publicly revealed, as when his gift to his friend Dorothy Day for the Catholic Worker movement was reported on the front page of The New York Times in 1956.
United States and Europe, 1939–1973
Auden and Isherwood sailed to New York City in January 1939, entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many as a betrayal, and Auden's reputation suffered. In April 1939, Isherwood moved to California, and he and Auden saw each other only intermittently in later years. Around this time, Auden met the poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for the next two years (Auden described their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey).
In 1941, Kallman ended their sexual relationship because he could not accept Auden's insistence on mutual fidelity, but he and Auden remained companions for the rest of Auden's life, sharing houses and apartments from 1953 until Auden's death. Auden dedicated both editions of his collected poetry (1945/50 and 1966) to Isherwood and Kallman.
In 1940–41, Auden lived in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights, that he shared with Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others, which became a famous centre of artistic life, nicknamed "February House". In 1940, Auden joined the Episcopal Church, returning to the Anglican Communion he had abandoned at fifteen. His reconversion was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" of Charles Williams, whom he had met in 1937, and partly by reading Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central element in his life.
After Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Auden told the British embassy in Washington that he would return to the UK if needed. He was told that, among those his age (32), only qualified personnel were needed. In 1941–42 he taught English at the University of Michigan. He was called for the draft in the United States Army in August 1942, but was rejected on medical grounds. He had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1942–43 but did not use it, choosing instead to teach at Swarthmore College in 1942–45.
In mid-1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, he was in Germany with the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, studying the effects of Allied bombing on German morale, an experience that affected his postwar work as his visit to Spain had affected him earlier. On his return, he settled in Manhattan, working as a freelance writer, a lecturer at The New School for Social Research, and a visiting professor at Bennington, Smith, and other American colleges. In 1946, he became a naturalised citizen of the US.
In 1948, Auden began spending his summers in Europe, together with Chester Kallman, first in Ischia, Italy, where he rented a house. Then, starting in 1958, he began spending his summers in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he bought a farmhouse from the prize money of the Premio Feltrinelli awarded to him in 1957. He said that he shed tears of joy at owning a home for the first time. In 1956–61, Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University where he was required to give three lectures each year. This fairly light workload allowed him to continue to spend winter in New York, where he lived at 77 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan's East Village, and to spend summer in Europe, spending only three weeks each year lecturing in Oxford. He earned his income mostly from readings and lecture tours, and by writing for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines.
In 1963, Kallman left the apartment he shared in New York with Auden, and lived during the winter in Athens while continuing to spend his summers with Auden in Austria. In 1972, Auden moved his winter home from New York to Oxford, where his old college, Christ Church, offered him a cottage, while he continued to spend summers in Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973, a few hours after giving a reading of his poems at the Austrian Society for Literature; his death occurred at the Hotel Altenburger Hof where he was staying overnight before his intended return to Oxford the next day. He was buried in Kirchstetten.
Work
Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). His poetry was encyclopaedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to the lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks, from doggerel through haiku and villanelles to a "Christmas Oratorio" and a baroque eclogue in Anglo-Saxon meters. The tone and content of his poems ranged from pop-song clichés to complex philosophical meditations, from the corns on his toes to atoms and stars, from contemporary crises to the evolution of society.
He also wrote more than four hundred essays and reviews about literature, history, politics, music, religion, and many other subjects. He collaborated on plays with Christopher Isherwood and on opera libretti with Chester Kallman, and worked with a group of artists and filmmakers on documentary films in the 1930s and with the New York Pro Musica early music group in the 1950s and 1960s. About collaboration he wrote in 1964: "collaboration has brought me greater erotic joy . . . than any sexual relations I have had."
Auden controversially rewrote or discarded some of his most famous poems when he prepared his later collected editions. He wrote that he rejected poems that he found "boring" or "dishonest" in the sense that they expressed views he had never held but had used only because he felt they would be rhetorically effective. His rejected poems include "Spain" and "September 1, 1939". His literary executor, Edward Mendelson, argues in his introduction to Selected Poems that Auden's practice reflected his sense of the persuasive power of poetry and his reluctance to misuse it. (Selected Poems includes some poems that Auden rejected and early texts of poems that he revised.)
Early work, 1922–1939
Up to 1930
Auden began writing poems in 1922, at fifteen, mostly in the styles of 19th-century romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, and later poets with rural interests, especially Thomas Hardy. At eighteen he discovered T. S. Eliot and adopted an extreme version of Eliot's style. He found his own voice at twenty when he wrote the first poem later included in his collected work, "From the very first coming down". This and other poems of the late 1920s tended to be in a clipped, elusive style that alluded to, but did not directly state, their themes of loneliness and loss. Twenty of these poems appeared in his first book Poems (1928), a pamphlet hand-printed by Stephen Spender.
In 1928, he wrote his first dramatic work, Paid on Both Sides, subtitled "A Charade", which combined style and content from the Icelandic sagas with jokes from English school life. This mixture of tragedy and farce, with a dream play-within-a-play, introduced the mixed styles and content of much of his later work. This drama and thirty short poems appeared in his first published book Poems (1930, 2nd edition with seven poems replaced, 1933); the poems in the book were mostly lyrical and gnomic meditations on hoped-for or unconsummated love and on themes of personal, social, and seasonal renewal; among these poems were "It was Easter as I walked," "Doom is dark," "Sir, no man's enemy," and "This lunar beauty."
A recurrent theme in these early poems is the effect of "family ghosts", Auden's term for the powerful, unseen psychological effects of preceding generations on any individual life (and the title of a poem). A parallel theme, present throughout his work, is the contrast between biological evolution (unchosen and involuntary) and the psychological evolution of cultures and individuals (voluntary and deliberate even in its subconscious aspects).
1931–1935
Auden's next large-scale work was The Orators: An English Study (1932; revised editions, 1934, 1966), in verse and prose, largely about hero-worship in personal and political life. In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in The Orators reflect his new interest in Robert Burns. During the next few years, many of his poems took their form and style from traditional ballads and popular songs, and also from expansive classical forms like the Odes of Horace, which he seems to have discovered through the German poet Hölderlin. Around this time his main influences were Dante, William Langland, and Alexander Pope.
During these years, much of his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely known as a political poet although he was privately more ambivalent about revolutionary politics than many reviewers recognised, and Mendelson argues that he expounded political views partly out of a sense of moral duty and partly because it enhanced his reputation, and that he later regretted having done so. He generally wrote about revolutionary change in terms of a "change of heart", a transformation of a society from a closed-off psychology of fear to an open psychology of love.
His verse drama The Dance of Death (1933) was a political extravaganza in the style of a theatrical revue, which Auden later called "a nihilistic leg-pull." His next play The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), written in collaboration with Isherwood, was similarly a quasi-Marxist updating of Gilbert and Sullivan in which the general idea of social transformation was more prominent than any specific political action or structure.
The Ascent of F6 (1937), another play written with Isherwood, was partly an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an examination of Auden's own motives in taking on a public role as a political poet. This play included the first version of "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks"), written as a satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the poem as a "Cabaret Song" about lost love (written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson, for whom he wrote many lyrics in the 1930s). In 1935, he worked briefly on documentary films with the GPO Film Unit, writing his famous verse commentary for Night Mail and lyrics for other films that were among his attempts in the 1930s to create a widely accessible, socially conscious art.
1936–1939
In 1936, Auden's publisher chose the title Look, Stranger! for a collection of political odes, love poems, comic songs, meditative lyrics, and a variety of intellectually intense but emotionally accessible verse; Auden hated the title and retitled the collection for the 1937 US edition On This Island. Among the poems included in the book are "Hearing of harvests", "Out on the lawn I lie in bed", "O what is that sound", "Look, stranger, on this island now" (later revised versions change "on" to "at"), and "Our hunting fathers".
Auden was now arguing that an artist should be a kind of journalist, and he put this view into practice in Letters from Iceland (1937) a travel book in prose and verse written with Louis MacNeice, which included his long social, literary, and autobiographical commentary "Letter to Lord Byron". In 1937, after observing the Spanish Civil War he wrote a politically engaged pamphlet poem Spain (1937); he later discarded it from his collected works. Journey to a War (1939) a travel book in prose and verse, was written with Isherwood after their visit to the Sino-Japanese War. Auden's last collaboration with Isherwood was their third play, On the Frontier, an anti-war satire written in Broadway and West End styles.
Auden's shorter poems now engaged with the fragility and transience of personal love ("Danse Macabre", "The Dream", "Lay your sleeping head"), a subject he treated with ironic wit in his "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson" (which included "Tell Me the Truth About Love" and the revised version of "Funeral Blues"), and also the corrupting effect of public and official culture on individual lives ("Casino", "School Children", "Dover"). In 1938, he wrote a series of dark, ironic ballads about individual failure ("Miss Gee", "James Honeyman", "Victor"). All these appeared in Another Time (1940), together with poems including "Dover", "As He Is", and "Musée des Beaux Arts" (all of which were written before he moved to America in 1939), and "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "The Unknown Citizen", "Law Like Love", "September 1, 1939", and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (all written in America).
The elegies for Yeats and Freud are partly anti-heroic statements, in which great deeds are performed, not by unique geniuses whom others cannot hope to imitate, but by otherwise ordinary individuals who were "silly like us" (Yeats) or of whom it could be said "he wasn't clever at all" (Freud), and who became teachers of others, not awe-inspiring heroes.
Middle period, 1940–1957
1940–1946
In 1940, Auden wrote a long philosophical poem "New Year Letter", which appeared with miscellaneous notes and other poems in The Double Man (1941). At the time of his return to the Anglican Communion he began writing abstract verse on theological themes, such as "Canzone" and "Kairos and Logos". Around 1942, as he became more comfortable with religious themes, his verse became more open and relaxed, and he increasingly used the syllabic verse he had learned from the poetry of Marianne Moore.
Auden's work in this era addresses the artist's temptation to use other persons as material for his art rather than valuing them for themselves ("Prospero to Ariel") and the corresponding moral obligation to make and keep commitments while recognising the temptation to break them ("In Sickness and Health"). From 1942 through 1947 he worked mostly on three long poems in dramatic form, each differing from the others in form and content: "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest" (both published in For the Time Being, 1944), and The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (published separately in 1947). The first two, with Auden's other new poems from 1940 to 1944, were included in his first collected edition, The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (1945), with most of his earlier poems, many in revised versions.
1947–1957
After completing The Age of Anxiety in 1946 he focused again on shorter poems, notably "A Walk After Dark", "The Love Feast", and "The Fall of Rome". Many of these evoked the Italian village where he spent his summers between 1948 and 1957, and his next book, Nones (1951), had a Mediterranean atmosphere new to his work. A new theme was the "sacred importance" of the human body in its ordinary aspect (breathing, sleeping, eating) and the continuity with nature that the body made possible (in contrast to the division between humanity and nature that he had emphasised in the 1930s); his poems on these themes included "In Praise of Limestone" (1948) and "Memorial for the City" (1949). In 1949, Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and later collaborated on two libretti for operas by Hans Werner Henze.
Auden's first separate prose book was The Enchafèd Flood: The Romantic Iconography of the Sea (1950), based on a series of lectures on the image of the sea in romantic literature. Between 1949 and 1954 he worked on a sequence of seven Good Friday poems, titled "Horae Canonicae", an encyclopaedic survey of geological, biological, cultural, and personal history, focused on the irreversible act of murder; the poem was also a study in cyclical and linear ideas of time. While writing this, he also wrote "Bucolics," a sequence of seven poems about man's relation to nature. Both sequences appeared in his next book, The Shield of Achilles (1955), with other short poems, including the book's title poem, "Fleet Visit", and "Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier".
In 1955–56 Auden wrote a group of poems about "history", the term he used to mean the set of unique events made by human choices, as opposed to "nature", the set of involuntary events created by natural processes, statistics, and anonymous forces such as crowds. These poems included "T the Great", "The Maker", and the title poem of his next collection Homage to Clio (1960).
Later work, 1958–1973
In the late 1950s Auden's style became less rhetorical while its range of styles increased. In 1958, having moved his summer home from Italy to Austria, he wrote "Good-bye to the Mezzogiorno"; other poems from this period include "Dichtung und Wahrheit: An Unwritten Poem", a prose poem about the relation between love and personal and poetic language, and the contrasting "Dame Kind", about the anonymous impersonal reproductive instinct. These and other poems, including his 1955–66 poems about history, appeared in Homage to Clio (1960). His prose book The Dyer's Hand (1962) gathered many of the lectures he gave in Oxford as Professor of Poetry in 1956–61, together with revised versions of essays and notes written since the mid-1940s.
Among the new styles and forms in Auden's later work were the haiku and tanka that he began writing after translating the haiku and other verse in Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings. A sequence of fifteen poems about his house in Austria, "Thanksgiving for a Habitat" (written in various styles that included an imitation of William Carlos Williams) appeared in About the House (1965), together with other poems that included his reflection on his lecture tours, "On the Circuit". In the late 1960s he wrote some of his most vigorous poems, including "River Profile" and two poems that looked back over his life, "Prologue at Sixty" and "Forty Years On". All these appeared in City Without Walls (1969). His lifelong passion for Icelandic legend culminated in his verse translation of The Elder Edda (1969). Among his later themes was the "religionless Christianity" he learned partly from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the dedicatee of his poem "Friday's Child."
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970) was a kind of self-portrait made up of favourite quotations with commentary, arranged in alphabetical order by subject. His last prose book was a selection of essays and reviews, Forewords and Afterwords (1973). His last books of verse, Epistle to a Godson (1972) and the unfinished Thank You, Fog (published posthumously, 1974) include reflective poems about language ("Natural Linguistics", "Aubade"), philosophy and science ("No, Plato, No", "Unpredictable but Providential"), and his own aging ("A New Year Greeting", "Talking to Myself", "A Lullaby" ["The din of work is subdued"]). His last completed poem was "Archaeology", about ritual and timelessness, two recurring themes in his later years.
Reputation and influence
Auden's stature in modern literature has been contested. Probably the most common critical view from the 1930s onward ranked him as the last and least of the three major twentieth-century British and Irish poets—behind Yeats and Eliot—while a minority view, more prominent in recent years, ranks him as the highest of the three. Opinions have ranged from those of Hugh MacDiarmid, who called him "a complete wash-out"; F. R. Leavis, who wrote that Auden's ironic style was "self-defensive, self-indulgent or merely irresponsible"; and Harold Bloom, who wrote "Close thy Auden, open thy [Wallace] Stevens," to the obituarist in The Times, who wrote: "W.H. Auden, for long the enfant terrible of English poetry… emerges as its undisputed master." Joseph Brodsky wrote that Auden had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century".
Critical estimates were divided from the start. Reviewing Auden's first book, Poems (1930), Naomi Mitchison wrote "If this is really only the beginning, we have perhaps a master to look forward to." But John Sparrow, recalling Mitchison's comment in 1934, dismissed Auden's early work as "a monument to the misguided aims that prevail among contemporary poets, and the fact that… he is being hailed as 'a master' shows how criticism is helping poetry on the downward path."
Auden's clipped, satiric, and ironic style in the 1930s was widely imitated by younger poets such as Charles Madge, who wrote in a poem "there waited for me in the summer morning / Auden fiercely. I read, shuddered, and knew." He was widely described as the leader of an "Auden group" that comprised his friends Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. The four were mocked by the poet Roy Campbell as if they were a single undifferentiated poet named "Macspaunday." Auden's propagandistic poetic plays, including The Dog Beneath the Skin and The Ascent of F6, and his political poems such as "Spain" gave him the reputation as a political poet writing in a progressive and accessible voice, in contrast to Eliot; but this political stance provoked opposing opinions, such as that of Austin Clarke who called Auden's work "liberal, democratic, and humane", and John Drummond, who wrote that Auden misused a "characteristic and popularizing trick, the generalized image", to present ostensibly left-wing views that were in fact "confined to bourgeois experience."
Auden's departure for America in 1939 was debated in Britain (once even in Parliament), with some seeing his emigration as a betrayal. Defenders of Auden such as Geoffrey Grigson, in an introduction to a 1949 anthology of modern poetry, wrote that Auden "arches over all". His stature was suggested by book titles such as Auden and After by Francis Scarfe (1942) and The Auden Generation by Samuel Hynes (1977).
In the US, starting in the late 1930s, the detached, ironic tone of Auden's regular stanzas became influential; John Ashbery recalled that in the 1940s Auden "was the modern poet". Auden's formal influences were so pervasive in American poetry that the ecstatic style of the Beat Generation was partly a reaction against his influence. From the 1940s through the 1960s, many critics lamented that Auden's work had declined from its earlier promise; Randall Jarrell wrote a series of essays making a case against Auden's later work, and Philip Larkin's "What's Become of Wystan?" (1960) had a wide impact.
After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues", "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Refugee Blues", "The Unknown Citizen", and "September 1, 1939", became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
The first full-length study of Auden was Richard Hoggart's Auden: An Introductory Essay (1951), which concluded that "Auden's work, then, is a civilising force." It was followed by Joseph Warren Beach's The Making of the Auden Canon (1957), a disapproving account of Auden's revisions of his earlier work.
The first systematic critical account was Monroe K. Spears' The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island (1963), "written out of the conviction that Auden's poetry can offer the reader entertainment, instruction, intellectual excitement, and a prodigal variety of aesthetic pleasures, all in a generous abundance that is unique in our time."
Auden was one of three candidates recommended by the Nobel Committee to the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963 and 1965 and six recommended for the 1964 prize. By the time of his death in 1973 he had attained the status of a respected elder statesman, and a memorial stone for him was placed in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1974. The Encyclopædia Britannica writes that "by the time of Eliot's death in 1965… a convincing case could be made for the assertion that Auden was indeed Eliot's successor, as Eliot had inherited sole claim to supremacy when Yeats died in 1939." With some exceptions, British critics tended to treat his early work as his best, while American critics tended to favour his middle and later work.
Another group of critics and poets has maintained that unlike other modern poets, Auden's reputation did not decline after his death, and the influence of his later writing was especially strong on younger American poets including John Ashbery, James Merrill, Anthony Hecht, and Maxine Kumin. Typical later evaluations describe him as "arguably the [20th] century's greatest poet" (Peter Parker and Frank Kermode), who "now clearly seems the greatest poet in English since Tennyson" (Philip Hensher).
Public recognition of Auden's work sharply increased after his "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem "As I walked out one evening" was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995).
After 11 September 2001 his 1939 poem "September 1, 1939" was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.
Overall, Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.
Memorial stones and plaques commemorating Auden include those in Westminster Abbey; at his birthplace at 55 Bootham, York; near his home on Lordswood Road, Birmingham; in the chapel of Christ Church, Oxford; on the site of his apartment at 1 Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights; at his apartment in 77 St. Marks Place, New York (damaged and now removed); at the site of his death at Walfischgasse 5 in Vienna; and in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco. In his house in Kirchstetten, his study is open to the public upon request.
Published works
The following list includes only the books of poems and essays that Auden prepared during his lifetime; for a more complete list, including other works and posthumous editions, see W. H. Auden bibliography.
In the list below, works reprinted in the Complete Works of W. H. Auden are indicated by footnote references.
Books
Poems (London, 1930; second edn., seven poems substituted, London, 1933; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood).
The Orators: An English Study (London, 1932, verse and prose; slightly revised edn., London, 1934; revised edn. with new preface, London, 1966; New York 1967) (dedicated to Stephen Spender).
The Dance of Death (London, 1933, play) (dedicated to Robert Medley and Rupert Doone).
Poems (New York, 1934; contains Poems [1933 edition], The Orators [1932 edition], and The Dance of Death).
The Dog Beneath the Skin (London, New York, 1935; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Robert Moody).
The Ascent of F6 (London, 1936; 2nd edn., 1937; New York, 1937; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).
Look, Stranger! (London, 1936, poems; US edn., On This Island, New York, 1937) (dedicated to Erika Mann)
Letters from Iceland (London, New York, 1937; verse and prose, with Louis MacNeice) (dedicated to George Augustus Auden).
On the Frontier (London, 1938; New York 1939; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).
Journey to a War (London, New York, 1939; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to E. M. Forster).
Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
The Double Man (New York, 1941, poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, 1941) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).
For the Time Being (New York, 1944; London, 1945; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", in memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).
The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York, 1945; includes new poems) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman). Full text.
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New York, 1947; London, 1948; verse; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).
Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (London, 1950; similar to 1945 Collected Poetry) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
The Enchafèd Flood (New York, 1950; London, 1951; prose) (dedicated to Alan Ansen).
Nones (New York, 1951; London, 1952; poems) (dedicated to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)
The Shield of Achilles (New York, London, 1955; poems) (won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry) (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).
Homage to Clio (New York, London, 1960; poems) (dedicated to E. R. and A. E. Dodds).
The Dyer's Hand (New York, 1962; London, 1963; essays) (dedicated to Nevill Coghill).
About the House (New York, London, 1965; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).
Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London, 1966; New York, 1967) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
Collected Longer Poems (London, 1968; New York, 1969).
Secondary Worlds (London, New York, 1969; prose) (dedicated to Valerie Eliot).
City Without Walls and Other Poems (London, New York, 1969) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, 1970; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Grigson).
Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems (London, New York, 1972) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).
Forewords and Afterwords (New York, London, 1973; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).
Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, 1974) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).
Film scripts and opera libretti
Coal Face (1935, closing chorus for GPO Film Unit documentary).
Night Mail (1936, narrative for GPO Film Unit documentary, not published separately except as a programme note).
Paul Bunyan (1941, libretto for operetta by Benjamin Britten; not published until 1976).
The Rake's Progress (1951, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Igor Stravinsky).
Elegy for Young Lovers (1956, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze).
The Bassarids (1961, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze based on The Bacchae of Euripides).
Runner (1962, documentary film narrative for National Film Board of Canada)
Love's Labour's Lost (1973, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, based on Shakespeare's play).
Musical collaborations
Our Hunting Fathers (1936, song cycle written for Benjamin Britten)
An Evening of Elizabethan Verse and its Music (1954 recording with the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg; Auden spoke the verse texts)
The Play of Daniel (1958, verse narration for a production by the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg)
References
Sources
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1990) "The Map of All My Youth": early works, friends and influences (Auden Studies 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1994). "The Language of Learning and the Language of Love": uncollected writings, new interpretations (Auden Studies 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1995). "In Solitude, For Company": W. H. Auden after 1940: unpublished prose and recent criticism (Auden Studies 3). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Carpenter, Humphrey (1981). W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin. .
Clark, Thekla (1995). Wystan and Chester: A Personal Memoir of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. London: Faber and Faber. .
Davenport-Hines, Richard (1996). Auden. London: Heinemann. .
Farnan, Dorothy J. (1984). Auden in Love. New York: Simon & Schuster. .
Fuller, John (1998). W. H. Auden: A Commentary. London: Faber and Faber. .
Haffenden, John, ed. (1983). W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. .
Kirsch, Arthur (2005). Auden and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
Mendelson, Edward (1981). Early Auden. New York: Viking. .
Mendelson, Edward (1999). Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. .
Mendelson, Edward (2017). Early Auden, Later Auden: A Critical Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. .
Mitchell, Donald (1981), Britten and Auden in the Thirties: the year 1936. London: Faber and Faber. .
Myers, Alan and Forsythe, Robert (1999), W. H. Auden: Pennine Poet . Nenthead: North Pennines Heritage Trust. . Pamphlet with map and gazetteer.
Sharpe, Tony, ed. (2013). W. H. Auden in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Smith, Stan, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island. New York: Oxford University Press.
Further reading
Costello, Bonnie, and Rachel Galvin, eds. (2015). Auden at Work. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. .
Spender, Stephen, ed. (1975). W. H. Auden: A Tribute. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. .
Wright, George T. (1969; rev. ed. 1981). W. H. Auden. Boston: Twayne. .
External links
(book publication records and links to digital talking books editions)
W H Auden at the British Library
Papers at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Finding aid to W.H. Auden papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1907 births
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University of Michigan faculty
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"\"Be Someone Else\" is a song by Slimmy, released in 2010 as the lead single from his second studio album Be Someone Else. The single wasn't particularly successful, charting anywhere.\nA music video was also made for \"Be Someone Else\", produced by Riot Films. It premiered on 27 June 2010 on YouTube.\n\nBackground\n\"Be Someone Else\" was unveiled as the album's lead single. The song was written by Fernandes and produced by Quico Serrano and Mark J Turner. It was released to MySpace on 1 January 2010.\n\nMusic video\nA music video was also made for \"Be Someone Else\", produced by Riot Films. It premiered on 27 June 2010 on YouTube. The music video features two different scenes which alternate with each other many times during the video. The first scene features Slimmy performing the song with an electric guitar and the second scene features Slimmy performing with the band in the background.\n\nChart performance\nThe single wasn't particularly successful, charting anywhere.\n\nLive performances\n A Very Slimmy Tour\n Be Someone Else Tour\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital single\n\"Be Someone Else\" (album version) - 3:22\n\nPersonnel\nTaken from the album's booklet.\n\nPaulo Fernandes – main vocals, guitar\nPaulo Garim – bass\nTó-Zé – drums\n\nRelease history\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial music video at YouTube.\n\n2010 singles\nEnglish-language Portuguese songs\n2009 songs",
"The Homeless Gospel Choir, also known as Derek Zanetti, is a folk-punk musician from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is signed to A-F Records and has released five albums to date. His debut album, \"Some People Never Go Anywhere,\" was released in 2010, \"You Work So Hard to Be Like Everyone Else,\" in 2011, Luxury Problems, his third was released in 2012; and his fourth album, I Used To Be So Young, which was released in 2014, contains his hit song, \"Untitled\". Most of his songs revolve around the topics of politics and mental health.\n\nDiscography\nSome People Never Go Anywhere (2010)\nYou Work So Hard Just to Be Like Everyone Else (2011)\nLuxury Problems (2012)\nI Used To Be So Young (2014)\nNormal (2017)\nThis Land Is Your Landfill (2020)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Website of The Homeless Gospel Choir\nI Used to Be So Young Review, Punknews.org\nThe Homeless Gospel Choir – ‘I Used To Be So Young’ album stream, Alternative Press\nPresents: Normal Review, Hectic Eclectic Music Reviews\n\nMusicians from Pittsburgh\nLiving people\nFolk punk musicians\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
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Did W. H. Auden have siblings?
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W. H. Auden
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Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (nee Bicknell; 1869-1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900-1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903-1991), became a geologist. Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work. In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do." CANNOTANSWER
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He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900-1978),
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Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".
He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys.
In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria.
He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand.
Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men. In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky.
Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
Life
Childhood
Auden was born on Bootham in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872–1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (née Bicknell; 1869–1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900–1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903–1991), became a geologist. The Audens were minor gentry with a strong clerical tradition, originally of Rowley Regis, later of Horninglow, Staffordshire.
Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism, with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work.
His family moved to Homer Road in Solihull, near Birmingham, in 1908, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do."
Education
Auden attended St Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, later famous in his own right as a novelist. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Norfolk; there, in 1922, when his friend Robert Medley asked him if he wrote poetry, Auden first realised his vocation was to be a poet. Soon after, he "discover(ed) that he (had) lost his faith" (through a gradual realisation that he had lost interest in religion, not through any decisive change of views). In school productions of Shakespeare, he played Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew in 1922, and Caliban in The Tempest in 1925, his last year at Gresham's. His first published poems appeared in the school magazine in 1923. Auden later wrote a chapter on Gresham's for Graham Greene's The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands (1934).
In 1925, he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, with a scholarship in biology; he switched to English by his second year, and was introduced to Old English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Tolkien. Friends he met at Oxford include Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender; these four were commonly though misleadingly identified in the 1930s as the "Auden Group" for their shared (but not identical) left-wing views. Auden left Oxford in 1928 with a third-class degree.
Auden was reintroduced to Christopher Isherwood in 1925 by his fellow student A. S. T. Fisher. For the next few years Auden sent poems to Isherwood for comments and criticism; the two maintained a sexual friendship in intervals between their relations with others. In 1935–39 they collaborated on three plays and a travel book.
From his Oxford years onward, Auden's friends uniformly described him as funny, extravagant, sympathetic, generous, and, partly by his own choice, lonely. In groups he was often dogmatic and overbearing in a comic way; in more private settings he was diffident and shy except when certain of his welcome. He was punctual in his habits, and obsessive about meeting deadlines, while choosing to live amidst physical disorder.
Britain and Europe, 1928–1938
In late 1928, Auden left Britain for nine months, going to Berlin, perhaps partly as an escape from English repressiveness. In Berlin, he first experienced the political and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects. Around the same time, Stephen Spender privately printed a small pamphlet of Auden's Poems in an edition of about 45 copies, distributed among Auden's and Spender's friends and family; this edition is usually referred to as Poems [1928] to avoid confusion with Auden's commercially published 1930 volume.
On returning to Britain in 1929, he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930, his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T. S. Eliot for Faber and Faber, and the same firm remained the British publisher of all the books he published thereafter. In 1930, he began five years as a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the Downs School in the Malvern Hills, where he was a much-loved teacher. At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape", while sitting with three fellow-teachers at the school, when he suddenly found that he loved them for themselves, that their existence had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940.
During these years, Auden's erotic interests focused, as he later said, on an idealised "Alter Ego" rather than on individual persons. His relationships (and his unsuccessful courtships) tended to be unequal either in age or intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved into long friendships. He contrasted these relationships with what he later regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that he began with Chester Kallman in 1939, based on the unique individuality of both partners.
In 1935, Auden married Erika Mann (1905–1969), the lesbian novelist daughter of Thomas Mann when it became apparent that the Nazis were intending to strip her of her German citizenship. Mann had asked Christopher Isherwood if he would marry her so she could become a British citizen. He declined but suggested she approach Auden, who readily agreed to a marriage of convenience. Mann and Auden never lived together, but remained on good terms throughout their lives and were still married when Mann died in 1969. She left him a small bequest in her will. In 1936, Auden introduced actress Therese Giehse, Mann's lover, to the writer John Hampson and they too married so that Giehse could leave Germany.
From 1935 until he left Britain early in 1939, Auden worked as freelance reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, first with the GPO Film Unit, a documentary film-making branch of the post office, headed by John Grierson. Through his work for the Film Unit in 1935 he met and collaborated with Benjamin Britten, with whom he also worked on plays, song cycles, and a libretto. Auden's plays in the 1930s were performed by the Group Theatre, in productions that he supervised to varying degrees.
His work now reflected his belief that any good artist must be "more than a bit of a reporting journalist". In 1936, Auden spent three months in Iceland where he gathered material for a travel book Letters from Iceland (1937), written in collaboration with Louis MacNeice. In 1937, he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, but was put to work writing propaganda at the Republican press and propaganda office, where he felt useless and left after a week. He returned to England after a brief visit to the front at Sarineña. His seven-week visit to Spain affected him deeply, and his social views grew more complex as he found political realities to be more ambiguous and troubling than he had imagined. Again attempting to combine reportage and art, he and Isherwood spent six months in 1938 visiting China amid the Sino-Japanese War, working on their book Journey to a War (1939). On their way back to England they stayed briefly in New York and decided to move to the United States. Auden spent late 1938 partly in England, partly in Brussels.
Many of Auden's poems during the 1930s and after were inspired by unconsummated love, and in the 1950s he summarised his emotional life in a famous couplet: "If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me" ("The More Loving One"). He had a gift for friendship and, starting in the late 1930s, a strong wish for the stability of marriage; in a letter to his friend James Stern he called marriage "the only subject." Throughout his life, Auden performed charitable acts, sometimes in public (as in his 1935 marriage of convenience to Erika Mann that provided her with a British passport to escape the Nazis), but, especially in later years, more often in private. He was embarrassed if they were publicly revealed, as when his gift to his friend Dorothy Day for the Catholic Worker movement was reported on the front page of The New York Times in 1956.
United States and Europe, 1939–1973
Auden and Isherwood sailed to New York City in January 1939, entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many as a betrayal, and Auden's reputation suffered. In April 1939, Isherwood moved to California, and he and Auden saw each other only intermittently in later years. Around this time, Auden met the poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for the next two years (Auden described their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey).
In 1941, Kallman ended their sexual relationship because he could not accept Auden's insistence on mutual fidelity, but he and Auden remained companions for the rest of Auden's life, sharing houses and apartments from 1953 until Auden's death. Auden dedicated both editions of his collected poetry (1945/50 and 1966) to Isherwood and Kallman.
In 1940–41, Auden lived in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights, that he shared with Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others, which became a famous centre of artistic life, nicknamed "February House". In 1940, Auden joined the Episcopal Church, returning to the Anglican Communion he had abandoned at fifteen. His reconversion was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" of Charles Williams, whom he had met in 1937, and partly by reading Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central element in his life.
After Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Auden told the British embassy in Washington that he would return to the UK if needed. He was told that, among those his age (32), only qualified personnel were needed. In 1941–42 he taught English at the University of Michigan. He was called for the draft in the United States Army in August 1942, but was rejected on medical grounds. He had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1942–43 but did not use it, choosing instead to teach at Swarthmore College in 1942–45.
In mid-1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, he was in Germany with the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, studying the effects of Allied bombing on German morale, an experience that affected his postwar work as his visit to Spain had affected him earlier. On his return, he settled in Manhattan, working as a freelance writer, a lecturer at The New School for Social Research, and a visiting professor at Bennington, Smith, and other American colleges. In 1946, he became a naturalised citizen of the US.
In 1948, Auden began spending his summers in Europe, together with Chester Kallman, first in Ischia, Italy, where he rented a house. Then, starting in 1958, he began spending his summers in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he bought a farmhouse from the prize money of the Premio Feltrinelli awarded to him in 1957. He said that he shed tears of joy at owning a home for the first time. In 1956–61, Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University where he was required to give three lectures each year. This fairly light workload allowed him to continue to spend winter in New York, where he lived at 77 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan's East Village, and to spend summer in Europe, spending only three weeks each year lecturing in Oxford. He earned his income mostly from readings and lecture tours, and by writing for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines.
In 1963, Kallman left the apartment he shared in New York with Auden, and lived during the winter in Athens while continuing to spend his summers with Auden in Austria. In 1972, Auden moved his winter home from New York to Oxford, where his old college, Christ Church, offered him a cottage, while he continued to spend summers in Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973, a few hours after giving a reading of his poems at the Austrian Society for Literature; his death occurred at the Hotel Altenburger Hof where he was staying overnight before his intended return to Oxford the next day. He was buried in Kirchstetten.
Work
Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). His poetry was encyclopaedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to the lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks, from doggerel through haiku and villanelles to a "Christmas Oratorio" and a baroque eclogue in Anglo-Saxon meters. The tone and content of his poems ranged from pop-song clichés to complex philosophical meditations, from the corns on his toes to atoms and stars, from contemporary crises to the evolution of society.
He also wrote more than four hundred essays and reviews about literature, history, politics, music, religion, and many other subjects. He collaborated on plays with Christopher Isherwood and on opera libretti with Chester Kallman, and worked with a group of artists and filmmakers on documentary films in the 1930s and with the New York Pro Musica early music group in the 1950s and 1960s. About collaboration he wrote in 1964: "collaboration has brought me greater erotic joy . . . than any sexual relations I have had."
Auden controversially rewrote or discarded some of his most famous poems when he prepared his later collected editions. He wrote that he rejected poems that he found "boring" or "dishonest" in the sense that they expressed views he had never held but had used only because he felt they would be rhetorically effective. His rejected poems include "Spain" and "September 1, 1939". His literary executor, Edward Mendelson, argues in his introduction to Selected Poems that Auden's practice reflected his sense of the persuasive power of poetry and his reluctance to misuse it. (Selected Poems includes some poems that Auden rejected and early texts of poems that he revised.)
Early work, 1922–1939
Up to 1930
Auden began writing poems in 1922, at fifteen, mostly in the styles of 19th-century romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, and later poets with rural interests, especially Thomas Hardy. At eighteen he discovered T. S. Eliot and adopted an extreme version of Eliot's style. He found his own voice at twenty when he wrote the first poem later included in his collected work, "From the very first coming down". This and other poems of the late 1920s tended to be in a clipped, elusive style that alluded to, but did not directly state, their themes of loneliness and loss. Twenty of these poems appeared in his first book Poems (1928), a pamphlet hand-printed by Stephen Spender.
In 1928, he wrote his first dramatic work, Paid on Both Sides, subtitled "A Charade", which combined style and content from the Icelandic sagas with jokes from English school life. This mixture of tragedy and farce, with a dream play-within-a-play, introduced the mixed styles and content of much of his later work. This drama and thirty short poems appeared in his first published book Poems (1930, 2nd edition with seven poems replaced, 1933); the poems in the book were mostly lyrical and gnomic meditations on hoped-for or unconsummated love and on themes of personal, social, and seasonal renewal; among these poems were "It was Easter as I walked," "Doom is dark," "Sir, no man's enemy," and "This lunar beauty."
A recurrent theme in these early poems is the effect of "family ghosts", Auden's term for the powerful, unseen psychological effects of preceding generations on any individual life (and the title of a poem). A parallel theme, present throughout his work, is the contrast between biological evolution (unchosen and involuntary) and the psychological evolution of cultures and individuals (voluntary and deliberate even in its subconscious aspects).
1931–1935
Auden's next large-scale work was The Orators: An English Study (1932; revised editions, 1934, 1966), in verse and prose, largely about hero-worship in personal and political life. In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in The Orators reflect his new interest in Robert Burns. During the next few years, many of his poems took their form and style from traditional ballads and popular songs, and also from expansive classical forms like the Odes of Horace, which he seems to have discovered through the German poet Hölderlin. Around this time his main influences were Dante, William Langland, and Alexander Pope.
During these years, much of his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely known as a political poet although he was privately more ambivalent about revolutionary politics than many reviewers recognised, and Mendelson argues that he expounded political views partly out of a sense of moral duty and partly because it enhanced his reputation, and that he later regretted having done so. He generally wrote about revolutionary change in terms of a "change of heart", a transformation of a society from a closed-off psychology of fear to an open psychology of love.
His verse drama The Dance of Death (1933) was a political extravaganza in the style of a theatrical revue, which Auden later called "a nihilistic leg-pull." His next play The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), written in collaboration with Isherwood, was similarly a quasi-Marxist updating of Gilbert and Sullivan in which the general idea of social transformation was more prominent than any specific political action or structure.
The Ascent of F6 (1937), another play written with Isherwood, was partly an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an examination of Auden's own motives in taking on a public role as a political poet. This play included the first version of "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks"), written as a satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the poem as a "Cabaret Song" about lost love (written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson, for whom he wrote many lyrics in the 1930s). In 1935, he worked briefly on documentary films with the GPO Film Unit, writing his famous verse commentary for Night Mail and lyrics for other films that were among his attempts in the 1930s to create a widely accessible, socially conscious art.
1936–1939
In 1936, Auden's publisher chose the title Look, Stranger! for a collection of political odes, love poems, comic songs, meditative lyrics, and a variety of intellectually intense but emotionally accessible verse; Auden hated the title and retitled the collection for the 1937 US edition On This Island. Among the poems included in the book are "Hearing of harvests", "Out on the lawn I lie in bed", "O what is that sound", "Look, stranger, on this island now" (later revised versions change "on" to "at"), and "Our hunting fathers".
Auden was now arguing that an artist should be a kind of journalist, and he put this view into practice in Letters from Iceland (1937) a travel book in prose and verse written with Louis MacNeice, which included his long social, literary, and autobiographical commentary "Letter to Lord Byron". In 1937, after observing the Spanish Civil War he wrote a politically engaged pamphlet poem Spain (1937); he later discarded it from his collected works. Journey to a War (1939) a travel book in prose and verse, was written with Isherwood after their visit to the Sino-Japanese War. Auden's last collaboration with Isherwood was their third play, On the Frontier, an anti-war satire written in Broadway and West End styles.
Auden's shorter poems now engaged with the fragility and transience of personal love ("Danse Macabre", "The Dream", "Lay your sleeping head"), a subject he treated with ironic wit in his "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson" (which included "Tell Me the Truth About Love" and the revised version of "Funeral Blues"), and also the corrupting effect of public and official culture on individual lives ("Casino", "School Children", "Dover"). In 1938, he wrote a series of dark, ironic ballads about individual failure ("Miss Gee", "James Honeyman", "Victor"). All these appeared in Another Time (1940), together with poems including "Dover", "As He Is", and "Musée des Beaux Arts" (all of which were written before he moved to America in 1939), and "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "The Unknown Citizen", "Law Like Love", "September 1, 1939", and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (all written in America).
The elegies for Yeats and Freud are partly anti-heroic statements, in which great deeds are performed, not by unique geniuses whom others cannot hope to imitate, but by otherwise ordinary individuals who were "silly like us" (Yeats) or of whom it could be said "he wasn't clever at all" (Freud), and who became teachers of others, not awe-inspiring heroes.
Middle period, 1940–1957
1940–1946
In 1940, Auden wrote a long philosophical poem "New Year Letter", which appeared with miscellaneous notes and other poems in The Double Man (1941). At the time of his return to the Anglican Communion he began writing abstract verse on theological themes, such as "Canzone" and "Kairos and Logos". Around 1942, as he became more comfortable with religious themes, his verse became more open and relaxed, and he increasingly used the syllabic verse he had learned from the poetry of Marianne Moore.
Auden's work in this era addresses the artist's temptation to use other persons as material for his art rather than valuing them for themselves ("Prospero to Ariel") and the corresponding moral obligation to make and keep commitments while recognising the temptation to break them ("In Sickness and Health"). From 1942 through 1947 he worked mostly on three long poems in dramatic form, each differing from the others in form and content: "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest" (both published in For the Time Being, 1944), and The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (published separately in 1947). The first two, with Auden's other new poems from 1940 to 1944, were included in his first collected edition, The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (1945), with most of his earlier poems, many in revised versions.
1947–1957
After completing The Age of Anxiety in 1946 he focused again on shorter poems, notably "A Walk After Dark", "The Love Feast", and "The Fall of Rome". Many of these evoked the Italian village where he spent his summers between 1948 and 1957, and his next book, Nones (1951), had a Mediterranean atmosphere new to his work. A new theme was the "sacred importance" of the human body in its ordinary aspect (breathing, sleeping, eating) and the continuity with nature that the body made possible (in contrast to the division between humanity and nature that he had emphasised in the 1930s); his poems on these themes included "In Praise of Limestone" (1948) and "Memorial for the City" (1949). In 1949, Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and later collaborated on two libretti for operas by Hans Werner Henze.
Auden's first separate prose book was The Enchafèd Flood: The Romantic Iconography of the Sea (1950), based on a series of lectures on the image of the sea in romantic literature. Between 1949 and 1954 he worked on a sequence of seven Good Friday poems, titled "Horae Canonicae", an encyclopaedic survey of geological, biological, cultural, and personal history, focused on the irreversible act of murder; the poem was also a study in cyclical and linear ideas of time. While writing this, he also wrote "Bucolics," a sequence of seven poems about man's relation to nature. Both sequences appeared in his next book, The Shield of Achilles (1955), with other short poems, including the book's title poem, "Fleet Visit", and "Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier".
In 1955–56 Auden wrote a group of poems about "history", the term he used to mean the set of unique events made by human choices, as opposed to "nature", the set of involuntary events created by natural processes, statistics, and anonymous forces such as crowds. These poems included "T the Great", "The Maker", and the title poem of his next collection Homage to Clio (1960).
Later work, 1958–1973
In the late 1950s Auden's style became less rhetorical while its range of styles increased. In 1958, having moved his summer home from Italy to Austria, he wrote "Good-bye to the Mezzogiorno"; other poems from this period include "Dichtung und Wahrheit: An Unwritten Poem", a prose poem about the relation between love and personal and poetic language, and the contrasting "Dame Kind", about the anonymous impersonal reproductive instinct. These and other poems, including his 1955–66 poems about history, appeared in Homage to Clio (1960). His prose book The Dyer's Hand (1962) gathered many of the lectures he gave in Oxford as Professor of Poetry in 1956–61, together with revised versions of essays and notes written since the mid-1940s.
Among the new styles and forms in Auden's later work were the haiku and tanka that he began writing after translating the haiku and other verse in Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings. A sequence of fifteen poems about his house in Austria, "Thanksgiving for a Habitat" (written in various styles that included an imitation of William Carlos Williams) appeared in About the House (1965), together with other poems that included his reflection on his lecture tours, "On the Circuit". In the late 1960s he wrote some of his most vigorous poems, including "River Profile" and two poems that looked back over his life, "Prologue at Sixty" and "Forty Years On". All these appeared in City Without Walls (1969). His lifelong passion for Icelandic legend culminated in his verse translation of The Elder Edda (1969). Among his later themes was the "religionless Christianity" he learned partly from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the dedicatee of his poem "Friday's Child."
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970) was a kind of self-portrait made up of favourite quotations with commentary, arranged in alphabetical order by subject. His last prose book was a selection of essays and reviews, Forewords and Afterwords (1973). His last books of verse, Epistle to a Godson (1972) and the unfinished Thank You, Fog (published posthumously, 1974) include reflective poems about language ("Natural Linguistics", "Aubade"), philosophy and science ("No, Plato, No", "Unpredictable but Providential"), and his own aging ("A New Year Greeting", "Talking to Myself", "A Lullaby" ["The din of work is subdued"]). His last completed poem was "Archaeology", about ritual and timelessness, two recurring themes in his later years.
Reputation and influence
Auden's stature in modern literature has been contested. Probably the most common critical view from the 1930s onward ranked him as the last and least of the three major twentieth-century British and Irish poets—behind Yeats and Eliot—while a minority view, more prominent in recent years, ranks him as the highest of the three. Opinions have ranged from those of Hugh MacDiarmid, who called him "a complete wash-out"; F. R. Leavis, who wrote that Auden's ironic style was "self-defensive, self-indulgent or merely irresponsible"; and Harold Bloom, who wrote "Close thy Auden, open thy [Wallace] Stevens," to the obituarist in The Times, who wrote: "W.H. Auden, for long the enfant terrible of English poetry… emerges as its undisputed master." Joseph Brodsky wrote that Auden had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century".
Critical estimates were divided from the start. Reviewing Auden's first book, Poems (1930), Naomi Mitchison wrote "If this is really only the beginning, we have perhaps a master to look forward to." But John Sparrow, recalling Mitchison's comment in 1934, dismissed Auden's early work as "a monument to the misguided aims that prevail among contemporary poets, and the fact that… he is being hailed as 'a master' shows how criticism is helping poetry on the downward path."
Auden's clipped, satiric, and ironic style in the 1930s was widely imitated by younger poets such as Charles Madge, who wrote in a poem "there waited for me in the summer morning / Auden fiercely. I read, shuddered, and knew." He was widely described as the leader of an "Auden group" that comprised his friends Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. The four were mocked by the poet Roy Campbell as if they were a single undifferentiated poet named "Macspaunday." Auden's propagandistic poetic plays, including The Dog Beneath the Skin and The Ascent of F6, and his political poems such as "Spain" gave him the reputation as a political poet writing in a progressive and accessible voice, in contrast to Eliot; but this political stance provoked opposing opinions, such as that of Austin Clarke who called Auden's work "liberal, democratic, and humane", and John Drummond, who wrote that Auden misused a "characteristic and popularizing trick, the generalized image", to present ostensibly left-wing views that were in fact "confined to bourgeois experience."
Auden's departure for America in 1939 was debated in Britain (once even in Parliament), with some seeing his emigration as a betrayal. Defenders of Auden such as Geoffrey Grigson, in an introduction to a 1949 anthology of modern poetry, wrote that Auden "arches over all". His stature was suggested by book titles such as Auden and After by Francis Scarfe (1942) and The Auden Generation by Samuel Hynes (1977).
In the US, starting in the late 1930s, the detached, ironic tone of Auden's regular stanzas became influential; John Ashbery recalled that in the 1940s Auden "was the modern poet". Auden's formal influences were so pervasive in American poetry that the ecstatic style of the Beat Generation was partly a reaction against his influence. From the 1940s through the 1960s, many critics lamented that Auden's work had declined from its earlier promise; Randall Jarrell wrote a series of essays making a case against Auden's later work, and Philip Larkin's "What's Become of Wystan?" (1960) had a wide impact.
After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues", "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Refugee Blues", "The Unknown Citizen", and "September 1, 1939", became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
The first full-length study of Auden was Richard Hoggart's Auden: An Introductory Essay (1951), which concluded that "Auden's work, then, is a civilising force." It was followed by Joseph Warren Beach's The Making of the Auden Canon (1957), a disapproving account of Auden's revisions of his earlier work.
The first systematic critical account was Monroe K. Spears' The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island (1963), "written out of the conviction that Auden's poetry can offer the reader entertainment, instruction, intellectual excitement, and a prodigal variety of aesthetic pleasures, all in a generous abundance that is unique in our time."
Auden was one of three candidates recommended by the Nobel Committee to the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963 and 1965 and six recommended for the 1964 prize. By the time of his death in 1973 he had attained the status of a respected elder statesman, and a memorial stone for him was placed in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1974. The Encyclopædia Britannica writes that "by the time of Eliot's death in 1965… a convincing case could be made for the assertion that Auden was indeed Eliot's successor, as Eliot had inherited sole claim to supremacy when Yeats died in 1939." With some exceptions, British critics tended to treat his early work as his best, while American critics tended to favour his middle and later work.
Another group of critics and poets has maintained that unlike other modern poets, Auden's reputation did not decline after his death, and the influence of his later writing was especially strong on younger American poets including John Ashbery, James Merrill, Anthony Hecht, and Maxine Kumin. Typical later evaluations describe him as "arguably the [20th] century's greatest poet" (Peter Parker and Frank Kermode), who "now clearly seems the greatest poet in English since Tennyson" (Philip Hensher).
Public recognition of Auden's work sharply increased after his "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem "As I walked out one evening" was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995).
After 11 September 2001 his 1939 poem "September 1, 1939" was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.
Overall, Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.
Memorial stones and plaques commemorating Auden include those in Westminster Abbey; at his birthplace at 55 Bootham, York; near his home on Lordswood Road, Birmingham; in the chapel of Christ Church, Oxford; on the site of his apartment at 1 Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights; at his apartment in 77 St. Marks Place, New York (damaged and now removed); at the site of his death at Walfischgasse 5 in Vienna; and in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco. In his house in Kirchstetten, his study is open to the public upon request.
Published works
The following list includes only the books of poems and essays that Auden prepared during his lifetime; for a more complete list, including other works and posthumous editions, see W. H. Auden bibliography.
In the list below, works reprinted in the Complete Works of W. H. Auden are indicated by footnote references.
Books
Poems (London, 1930; second edn., seven poems substituted, London, 1933; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood).
The Orators: An English Study (London, 1932, verse and prose; slightly revised edn., London, 1934; revised edn. with new preface, London, 1966; New York 1967) (dedicated to Stephen Spender).
The Dance of Death (London, 1933, play) (dedicated to Robert Medley and Rupert Doone).
Poems (New York, 1934; contains Poems [1933 edition], The Orators [1932 edition], and The Dance of Death).
The Dog Beneath the Skin (London, New York, 1935; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Robert Moody).
The Ascent of F6 (London, 1936; 2nd edn., 1937; New York, 1937; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).
Look, Stranger! (London, 1936, poems; US edn., On This Island, New York, 1937) (dedicated to Erika Mann)
Letters from Iceland (London, New York, 1937; verse and prose, with Louis MacNeice) (dedicated to George Augustus Auden).
On the Frontier (London, 1938; New York 1939; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).
Journey to a War (London, New York, 1939; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to E. M. Forster).
Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
The Double Man (New York, 1941, poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, 1941) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).
For the Time Being (New York, 1944; London, 1945; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", in memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).
The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York, 1945; includes new poems) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman). Full text.
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New York, 1947; London, 1948; verse; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).
Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (London, 1950; similar to 1945 Collected Poetry) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
The Enchafèd Flood (New York, 1950; London, 1951; prose) (dedicated to Alan Ansen).
Nones (New York, 1951; London, 1952; poems) (dedicated to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)
The Shield of Achilles (New York, London, 1955; poems) (won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry) (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).
Homage to Clio (New York, London, 1960; poems) (dedicated to E. R. and A. E. Dodds).
The Dyer's Hand (New York, 1962; London, 1963; essays) (dedicated to Nevill Coghill).
About the House (New York, London, 1965; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).
Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London, 1966; New York, 1967) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
Collected Longer Poems (London, 1968; New York, 1969).
Secondary Worlds (London, New York, 1969; prose) (dedicated to Valerie Eliot).
City Without Walls and Other Poems (London, New York, 1969) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, 1970; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Grigson).
Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems (London, New York, 1972) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).
Forewords and Afterwords (New York, London, 1973; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).
Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, 1974) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).
Film scripts and opera libretti
Coal Face (1935, closing chorus for GPO Film Unit documentary).
Night Mail (1936, narrative for GPO Film Unit documentary, not published separately except as a programme note).
Paul Bunyan (1941, libretto for operetta by Benjamin Britten; not published until 1976).
The Rake's Progress (1951, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Igor Stravinsky).
Elegy for Young Lovers (1956, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze).
The Bassarids (1961, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze based on The Bacchae of Euripides).
Runner (1962, documentary film narrative for National Film Board of Canada)
Love's Labour's Lost (1973, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, based on Shakespeare's play).
Musical collaborations
Our Hunting Fathers (1936, song cycle written for Benjamin Britten)
An Evening of Elizabethan Verse and its Music (1954 recording with the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg; Auden spoke the verse texts)
The Play of Daniel (1958, verse narration for a production by the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg)
References
Sources
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1990) "The Map of All My Youth": early works, friends and influences (Auden Studies 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1994). "The Language of Learning and the Language of Love": uncollected writings, new interpretations (Auden Studies 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1995). "In Solitude, For Company": W. H. Auden after 1940: unpublished prose and recent criticism (Auden Studies 3). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Carpenter, Humphrey (1981). W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin. .
Clark, Thekla (1995). Wystan and Chester: A Personal Memoir of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. London: Faber and Faber. .
Davenport-Hines, Richard (1996). Auden. London: Heinemann. .
Farnan, Dorothy J. (1984). Auden in Love. New York: Simon & Schuster. .
Fuller, John (1998). W. H. Auden: A Commentary. London: Faber and Faber. .
Haffenden, John, ed. (1983). W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. .
Kirsch, Arthur (2005). Auden and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
Mendelson, Edward (1981). Early Auden. New York: Viking. .
Mendelson, Edward (1999). Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. .
Mendelson, Edward (2017). Early Auden, Later Auden: A Critical Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. .
Mitchell, Donald (1981), Britten and Auden in the Thirties: the year 1936. London: Faber and Faber. .
Myers, Alan and Forsythe, Robert (1999), W. H. Auden: Pennine Poet . Nenthead: North Pennines Heritage Trust. . Pamphlet with map and gazetteer.
Sharpe, Tony, ed. (2013). W. H. Auden in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Smith, Stan, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island. New York: Oxford University Press.
Further reading
Costello, Bonnie, and Rachel Galvin, eds. (2015). Auden at Work. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. .
Spender, Stephen, ed. (1975). W. H. Auden: A Tribute. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. .
Wright, George T. (1969; rev. ed. 1981). W. H. Auden. Boston: Twayne. .
External links
(book publication records and links to digital talking books editions)
W H Auden at the British Library
Papers at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Finding aid to W.H. Auden papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1907 births
1973 deaths
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
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"Kayin Maunghnama (; ) are two traditional Karen nats, named San Sae Phoe and Naw Mu Phan, who are believed to live in Mount Zwegabin, Hpa-An, Kayin State.\n\nLegend\nAccording to local legends, a Karen man Saw Phar Thant and his wife Naw Phaw Ya had two children named San Sae Phoe and Naw Mu Phan. After years of saving and honestly collecting all the hard-earned money, he needed to initiate his son into the Buddhist order and to make a big donation. While he was working in the farm, he died after being bitten by a tiger due to bad luck. After the death of Saw Phar Thant, Naw Phaw Ya was left a widow with two children. And then she remarried with Saw Phar Pug, a widower from the same village. At that time, two innocent siblings, San Sae Po and Naw Mu Phan, were full of fear and anxiety. Anxiety and pain overwhelmed them. The quiet little house was full of swearing and shouting. The two siblings burst into tears under the angry and violent insults of their stepfather. \n\nOne day, the stepfather took two siblings to the farm and pushed them down a steep cliff on the way to the farm and returned home alone. Two brothers and sisters fell from the mountain and prayed for Zwegabin Pagoda to be saved so they survived by lying on a bamboo tree under the cliff without dying. The two siblings returned to their mother in almost dawn and told her all about it. Their mother, Naw Phaw Ya was sad and cried. However, when it was not possible to bring the two children back home, she hid them in a forest cave on Mount Zwegabin to keep them safe. The two siblings did not dare go far from the forest cave that their mother left behind. Everywhere they looked in the forest was dark. It was a place they had never been to before, where they could only hear the sounds of wild animals. The younger sister did not know anything so the elder brother had to take care of her. One day morning two siblings made a campfire in the cold weather and a weizza-hermit came to them and greets two siblings. And then he was given three golden pills and forced to go down into the fire, transforming into a young man and a young woman. The two siblings gained the power of influence. They took care Pagoda as promised to hermit, Work diligently for the sake of the Dhamma and all those who believe in the Dhamma and all those who come to the Mount Zwegabin to pray the Pagoda that you will be took care of them, two siblings. \n\nThe Kayin Maunghnama shrine was built about 50 years ago by Sayadaw U Kay Tu of Naung Ein Saing at the foot of Mount Zwegabin. Zwegabin Sayadaw U Kawidaza was also a pilgrimage resort. The Lumbini Garden has also been remodeled to make it more memorable.\n\nReferences\n\nBurmese nats\nBurmese goddesses",
"(1548 – September 19, 1603) was a Japanese samurai of the Sengoku through early Edo period. He is believed to have been the illegitimate son of Matsudaira Hirotada of Okazaki, and therefore the half-brother of Tokugawa Ieyasu. He known as Matsudaira Saburo Goro Iemoto.\n\nFamily\n Father: Matsudaira Hirotada\n Half-siblings:\n Tokugawa Ieyasu\n Naito Nobunari\n Matsudaira Tadamasa (1544-1591)\n Shooko Eike\n Matsudaira Chikayoshi\n Natural Siblings:\nIchibahime (d.1593) married Arakawa Yoshihiro\n Yadahime married Matsudaira Yasutada\n\n1548 births\n1603 deaths\nSamurai"
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W. H. Auden
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Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (nee Bicknell; 1869-1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900-1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903-1991), became a geologist. Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work. In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do." CANNOTANSWER
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He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood.
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Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".
He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys.
In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria.
He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand.
Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men. In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky.
Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
Life
Childhood
Auden was born on Bootham in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872–1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (née Bicknell; 1869–1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900–1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903–1991), became a geologist. The Audens were minor gentry with a strong clerical tradition, originally of Rowley Regis, later of Horninglow, Staffordshire.
Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism, with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work.
His family moved to Homer Road in Solihull, near Birmingham, in 1908, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do."
Education
Auden attended St Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, later famous in his own right as a novelist. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Norfolk; there, in 1922, when his friend Robert Medley asked him if he wrote poetry, Auden first realised his vocation was to be a poet. Soon after, he "discover(ed) that he (had) lost his faith" (through a gradual realisation that he had lost interest in religion, not through any decisive change of views). In school productions of Shakespeare, he played Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew in 1922, and Caliban in The Tempest in 1925, his last year at Gresham's. His first published poems appeared in the school magazine in 1923. Auden later wrote a chapter on Gresham's for Graham Greene's The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands (1934).
In 1925, he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, with a scholarship in biology; he switched to English by his second year, and was introduced to Old English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Tolkien. Friends he met at Oxford include Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender; these four were commonly though misleadingly identified in the 1930s as the "Auden Group" for their shared (but not identical) left-wing views. Auden left Oxford in 1928 with a third-class degree.
Auden was reintroduced to Christopher Isherwood in 1925 by his fellow student A. S. T. Fisher. For the next few years Auden sent poems to Isherwood for comments and criticism; the two maintained a sexual friendship in intervals between their relations with others. In 1935–39 they collaborated on three plays and a travel book.
From his Oxford years onward, Auden's friends uniformly described him as funny, extravagant, sympathetic, generous, and, partly by his own choice, lonely. In groups he was often dogmatic and overbearing in a comic way; in more private settings he was diffident and shy except when certain of his welcome. He was punctual in his habits, and obsessive about meeting deadlines, while choosing to live amidst physical disorder.
Britain and Europe, 1928–1938
In late 1928, Auden left Britain for nine months, going to Berlin, perhaps partly as an escape from English repressiveness. In Berlin, he first experienced the political and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects. Around the same time, Stephen Spender privately printed a small pamphlet of Auden's Poems in an edition of about 45 copies, distributed among Auden's and Spender's friends and family; this edition is usually referred to as Poems [1928] to avoid confusion with Auden's commercially published 1930 volume.
On returning to Britain in 1929, he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930, his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T. S. Eliot for Faber and Faber, and the same firm remained the British publisher of all the books he published thereafter. In 1930, he began five years as a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the Downs School in the Malvern Hills, where he was a much-loved teacher. At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape", while sitting with three fellow-teachers at the school, when he suddenly found that he loved them for themselves, that their existence had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940.
During these years, Auden's erotic interests focused, as he later said, on an idealised "Alter Ego" rather than on individual persons. His relationships (and his unsuccessful courtships) tended to be unequal either in age or intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved into long friendships. He contrasted these relationships with what he later regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that he began with Chester Kallman in 1939, based on the unique individuality of both partners.
In 1935, Auden married Erika Mann (1905–1969), the lesbian novelist daughter of Thomas Mann when it became apparent that the Nazis were intending to strip her of her German citizenship. Mann had asked Christopher Isherwood if he would marry her so she could become a British citizen. He declined but suggested she approach Auden, who readily agreed to a marriage of convenience. Mann and Auden never lived together, but remained on good terms throughout their lives and were still married when Mann died in 1969. She left him a small bequest in her will. In 1936, Auden introduced actress Therese Giehse, Mann's lover, to the writer John Hampson and they too married so that Giehse could leave Germany.
From 1935 until he left Britain early in 1939, Auden worked as freelance reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, first with the GPO Film Unit, a documentary film-making branch of the post office, headed by John Grierson. Through his work for the Film Unit in 1935 he met and collaborated with Benjamin Britten, with whom he also worked on plays, song cycles, and a libretto. Auden's plays in the 1930s were performed by the Group Theatre, in productions that he supervised to varying degrees.
His work now reflected his belief that any good artist must be "more than a bit of a reporting journalist". In 1936, Auden spent three months in Iceland where he gathered material for a travel book Letters from Iceland (1937), written in collaboration with Louis MacNeice. In 1937, he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, but was put to work writing propaganda at the Republican press and propaganda office, where he felt useless and left after a week. He returned to England after a brief visit to the front at Sarineña. His seven-week visit to Spain affected him deeply, and his social views grew more complex as he found political realities to be more ambiguous and troubling than he had imagined. Again attempting to combine reportage and art, he and Isherwood spent six months in 1938 visiting China amid the Sino-Japanese War, working on their book Journey to a War (1939). On their way back to England they stayed briefly in New York and decided to move to the United States. Auden spent late 1938 partly in England, partly in Brussels.
Many of Auden's poems during the 1930s and after were inspired by unconsummated love, and in the 1950s he summarised his emotional life in a famous couplet: "If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me" ("The More Loving One"). He had a gift for friendship and, starting in the late 1930s, a strong wish for the stability of marriage; in a letter to his friend James Stern he called marriage "the only subject." Throughout his life, Auden performed charitable acts, sometimes in public (as in his 1935 marriage of convenience to Erika Mann that provided her with a British passport to escape the Nazis), but, especially in later years, more often in private. He was embarrassed if they were publicly revealed, as when his gift to his friend Dorothy Day for the Catholic Worker movement was reported on the front page of The New York Times in 1956.
United States and Europe, 1939–1973
Auden and Isherwood sailed to New York City in January 1939, entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many as a betrayal, and Auden's reputation suffered. In April 1939, Isherwood moved to California, and he and Auden saw each other only intermittently in later years. Around this time, Auden met the poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for the next two years (Auden described their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey).
In 1941, Kallman ended their sexual relationship because he could not accept Auden's insistence on mutual fidelity, but he and Auden remained companions for the rest of Auden's life, sharing houses and apartments from 1953 until Auden's death. Auden dedicated both editions of his collected poetry (1945/50 and 1966) to Isherwood and Kallman.
In 1940–41, Auden lived in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights, that he shared with Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others, which became a famous centre of artistic life, nicknamed "February House". In 1940, Auden joined the Episcopal Church, returning to the Anglican Communion he had abandoned at fifteen. His reconversion was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" of Charles Williams, whom he had met in 1937, and partly by reading Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central element in his life.
After Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Auden told the British embassy in Washington that he would return to the UK if needed. He was told that, among those his age (32), only qualified personnel were needed. In 1941–42 he taught English at the University of Michigan. He was called for the draft in the United States Army in August 1942, but was rejected on medical grounds. He had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1942–43 but did not use it, choosing instead to teach at Swarthmore College in 1942–45.
In mid-1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, he was in Germany with the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, studying the effects of Allied bombing on German morale, an experience that affected his postwar work as his visit to Spain had affected him earlier. On his return, he settled in Manhattan, working as a freelance writer, a lecturer at The New School for Social Research, and a visiting professor at Bennington, Smith, and other American colleges. In 1946, he became a naturalised citizen of the US.
In 1948, Auden began spending his summers in Europe, together with Chester Kallman, first in Ischia, Italy, where he rented a house. Then, starting in 1958, he began spending his summers in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he bought a farmhouse from the prize money of the Premio Feltrinelli awarded to him in 1957. He said that he shed tears of joy at owning a home for the first time. In 1956–61, Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University where he was required to give three lectures each year. This fairly light workload allowed him to continue to spend winter in New York, where he lived at 77 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan's East Village, and to spend summer in Europe, spending only three weeks each year lecturing in Oxford. He earned his income mostly from readings and lecture tours, and by writing for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines.
In 1963, Kallman left the apartment he shared in New York with Auden, and lived during the winter in Athens while continuing to spend his summers with Auden in Austria. In 1972, Auden moved his winter home from New York to Oxford, where his old college, Christ Church, offered him a cottage, while he continued to spend summers in Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973, a few hours after giving a reading of his poems at the Austrian Society for Literature; his death occurred at the Hotel Altenburger Hof where he was staying overnight before his intended return to Oxford the next day. He was buried in Kirchstetten.
Work
Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). His poetry was encyclopaedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to the lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks, from doggerel through haiku and villanelles to a "Christmas Oratorio" and a baroque eclogue in Anglo-Saxon meters. The tone and content of his poems ranged from pop-song clichés to complex philosophical meditations, from the corns on his toes to atoms and stars, from contemporary crises to the evolution of society.
He also wrote more than four hundred essays and reviews about literature, history, politics, music, religion, and many other subjects. He collaborated on plays with Christopher Isherwood and on opera libretti with Chester Kallman, and worked with a group of artists and filmmakers on documentary films in the 1930s and with the New York Pro Musica early music group in the 1950s and 1960s. About collaboration he wrote in 1964: "collaboration has brought me greater erotic joy . . . than any sexual relations I have had."
Auden controversially rewrote or discarded some of his most famous poems when he prepared his later collected editions. He wrote that he rejected poems that he found "boring" or "dishonest" in the sense that they expressed views he had never held but had used only because he felt they would be rhetorically effective. His rejected poems include "Spain" and "September 1, 1939". His literary executor, Edward Mendelson, argues in his introduction to Selected Poems that Auden's practice reflected his sense of the persuasive power of poetry and his reluctance to misuse it. (Selected Poems includes some poems that Auden rejected and early texts of poems that he revised.)
Early work, 1922–1939
Up to 1930
Auden began writing poems in 1922, at fifteen, mostly in the styles of 19th-century romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, and later poets with rural interests, especially Thomas Hardy. At eighteen he discovered T. S. Eliot and adopted an extreme version of Eliot's style. He found his own voice at twenty when he wrote the first poem later included in his collected work, "From the very first coming down". This and other poems of the late 1920s tended to be in a clipped, elusive style that alluded to, but did not directly state, their themes of loneliness and loss. Twenty of these poems appeared in his first book Poems (1928), a pamphlet hand-printed by Stephen Spender.
In 1928, he wrote his first dramatic work, Paid on Both Sides, subtitled "A Charade", which combined style and content from the Icelandic sagas with jokes from English school life. This mixture of tragedy and farce, with a dream play-within-a-play, introduced the mixed styles and content of much of his later work. This drama and thirty short poems appeared in his first published book Poems (1930, 2nd edition with seven poems replaced, 1933); the poems in the book were mostly lyrical and gnomic meditations on hoped-for or unconsummated love and on themes of personal, social, and seasonal renewal; among these poems were "It was Easter as I walked," "Doom is dark," "Sir, no man's enemy," and "This lunar beauty."
A recurrent theme in these early poems is the effect of "family ghosts", Auden's term for the powerful, unseen psychological effects of preceding generations on any individual life (and the title of a poem). A parallel theme, present throughout his work, is the contrast between biological evolution (unchosen and involuntary) and the psychological evolution of cultures and individuals (voluntary and deliberate even in its subconscious aspects).
1931–1935
Auden's next large-scale work was The Orators: An English Study (1932; revised editions, 1934, 1966), in verse and prose, largely about hero-worship in personal and political life. In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in The Orators reflect his new interest in Robert Burns. During the next few years, many of his poems took their form and style from traditional ballads and popular songs, and also from expansive classical forms like the Odes of Horace, which he seems to have discovered through the German poet Hölderlin. Around this time his main influences were Dante, William Langland, and Alexander Pope.
During these years, much of his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely known as a political poet although he was privately more ambivalent about revolutionary politics than many reviewers recognised, and Mendelson argues that he expounded political views partly out of a sense of moral duty and partly because it enhanced his reputation, and that he later regretted having done so. He generally wrote about revolutionary change in terms of a "change of heart", a transformation of a society from a closed-off psychology of fear to an open psychology of love.
His verse drama The Dance of Death (1933) was a political extravaganza in the style of a theatrical revue, which Auden later called "a nihilistic leg-pull." His next play The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), written in collaboration with Isherwood, was similarly a quasi-Marxist updating of Gilbert and Sullivan in which the general idea of social transformation was more prominent than any specific political action or structure.
The Ascent of F6 (1937), another play written with Isherwood, was partly an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an examination of Auden's own motives in taking on a public role as a political poet. This play included the first version of "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks"), written as a satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the poem as a "Cabaret Song" about lost love (written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson, for whom he wrote many lyrics in the 1930s). In 1935, he worked briefly on documentary films with the GPO Film Unit, writing his famous verse commentary for Night Mail and lyrics for other films that were among his attempts in the 1930s to create a widely accessible, socially conscious art.
1936–1939
In 1936, Auden's publisher chose the title Look, Stranger! for a collection of political odes, love poems, comic songs, meditative lyrics, and a variety of intellectually intense but emotionally accessible verse; Auden hated the title and retitled the collection for the 1937 US edition On This Island. Among the poems included in the book are "Hearing of harvests", "Out on the lawn I lie in bed", "O what is that sound", "Look, stranger, on this island now" (later revised versions change "on" to "at"), and "Our hunting fathers".
Auden was now arguing that an artist should be a kind of journalist, and he put this view into practice in Letters from Iceland (1937) a travel book in prose and verse written with Louis MacNeice, which included his long social, literary, and autobiographical commentary "Letter to Lord Byron". In 1937, after observing the Spanish Civil War he wrote a politically engaged pamphlet poem Spain (1937); he later discarded it from his collected works. Journey to a War (1939) a travel book in prose and verse, was written with Isherwood after their visit to the Sino-Japanese War. Auden's last collaboration with Isherwood was their third play, On the Frontier, an anti-war satire written in Broadway and West End styles.
Auden's shorter poems now engaged with the fragility and transience of personal love ("Danse Macabre", "The Dream", "Lay your sleeping head"), a subject he treated with ironic wit in his "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson" (which included "Tell Me the Truth About Love" and the revised version of "Funeral Blues"), and also the corrupting effect of public and official culture on individual lives ("Casino", "School Children", "Dover"). In 1938, he wrote a series of dark, ironic ballads about individual failure ("Miss Gee", "James Honeyman", "Victor"). All these appeared in Another Time (1940), together with poems including "Dover", "As He Is", and "Musée des Beaux Arts" (all of which were written before he moved to America in 1939), and "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "The Unknown Citizen", "Law Like Love", "September 1, 1939", and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (all written in America).
The elegies for Yeats and Freud are partly anti-heroic statements, in which great deeds are performed, not by unique geniuses whom others cannot hope to imitate, but by otherwise ordinary individuals who were "silly like us" (Yeats) or of whom it could be said "he wasn't clever at all" (Freud), and who became teachers of others, not awe-inspiring heroes.
Middle period, 1940–1957
1940–1946
In 1940, Auden wrote a long philosophical poem "New Year Letter", which appeared with miscellaneous notes and other poems in The Double Man (1941). At the time of his return to the Anglican Communion he began writing abstract verse on theological themes, such as "Canzone" and "Kairos and Logos". Around 1942, as he became more comfortable with religious themes, his verse became more open and relaxed, and he increasingly used the syllabic verse he had learned from the poetry of Marianne Moore.
Auden's work in this era addresses the artist's temptation to use other persons as material for his art rather than valuing them for themselves ("Prospero to Ariel") and the corresponding moral obligation to make and keep commitments while recognising the temptation to break them ("In Sickness and Health"). From 1942 through 1947 he worked mostly on three long poems in dramatic form, each differing from the others in form and content: "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest" (both published in For the Time Being, 1944), and The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (published separately in 1947). The first two, with Auden's other new poems from 1940 to 1944, were included in his first collected edition, The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (1945), with most of his earlier poems, many in revised versions.
1947–1957
After completing The Age of Anxiety in 1946 he focused again on shorter poems, notably "A Walk After Dark", "The Love Feast", and "The Fall of Rome". Many of these evoked the Italian village where he spent his summers between 1948 and 1957, and his next book, Nones (1951), had a Mediterranean atmosphere new to his work. A new theme was the "sacred importance" of the human body in its ordinary aspect (breathing, sleeping, eating) and the continuity with nature that the body made possible (in contrast to the division between humanity and nature that he had emphasised in the 1930s); his poems on these themes included "In Praise of Limestone" (1948) and "Memorial for the City" (1949). In 1949, Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and later collaborated on two libretti for operas by Hans Werner Henze.
Auden's first separate prose book was The Enchafèd Flood: The Romantic Iconography of the Sea (1950), based on a series of lectures on the image of the sea in romantic literature. Between 1949 and 1954 he worked on a sequence of seven Good Friday poems, titled "Horae Canonicae", an encyclopaedic survey of geological, biological, cultural, and personal history, focused on the irreversible act of murder; the poem was also a study in cyclical and linear ideas of time. While writing this, he also wrote "Bucolics," a sequence of seven poems about man's relation to nature. Both sequences appeared in his next book, The Shield of Achilles (1955), with other short poems, including the book's title poem, "Fleet Visit", and "Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier".
In 1955–56 Auden wrote a group of poems about "history", the term he used to mean the set of unique events made by human choices, as opposed to "nature", the set of involuntary events created by natural processes, statistics, and anonymous forces such as crowds. These poems included "T the Great", "The Maker", and the title poem of his next collection Homage to Clio (1960).
Later work, 1958–1973
In the late 1950s Auden's style became less rhetorical while its range of styles increased. In 1958, having moved his summer home from Italy to Austria, he wrote "Good-bye to the Mezzogiorno"; other poems from this period include "Dichtung und Wahrheit: An Unwritten Poem", a prose poem about the relation between love and personal and poetic language, and the contrasting "Dame Kind", about the anonymous impersonal reproductive instinct. These and other poems, including his 1955–66 poems about history, appeared in Homage to Clio (1960). His prose book The Dyer's Hand (1962) gathered many of the lectures he gave in Oxford as Professor of Poetry in 1956–61, together with revised versions of essays and notes written since the mid-1940s.
Among the new styles and forms in Auden's later work were the haiku and tanka that he began writing after translating the haiku and other verse in Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings. A sequence of fifteen poems about his house in Austria, "Thanksgiving for a Habitat" (written in various styles that included an imitation of William Carlos Williams) appeared in About the House (1965), together with other poems that included his reflection on his lecture tours, "On the Circuit". In the late 1960s he wrote some of his most vigorous poems, including "River Profile" and two poems that looked back over his life, "Prologue at Sixty" and "Forty Years On". All these appeared in City Without Walls (1969). His lifelong passion for Icelandic legend culminated in his verse translation of The Elder Edda (1969). Among his later themes was the "religionless Christianity" he learned partly from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the dedicatee of his poem "Friday's Child."
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970) was a kind of self-portrait made up of favourite quotations with commentary, arranged in alphabetical order by subject. His last prose book was a selection of essays and reviews, Forewords and Afterwords (1973). His last books of verse, Epistle to a Godson (1972) and the unfinished Thank You, Fog (published posthumously, 1974) include reflective poems about language ("Natural Linguistics", "Aubade"), philosophy and science ("No, Plato, No", "Unpredictable but Providential"), and his own aging ("A New Year Greeting", "Talking to Myself", "A Lullaby" ["The din of work is subdued"]). His last completed poem was "Archaeology", about ritual and timelessness, two recurring themes in his later years.
Reputation and influence
Auden's stature in modern literature has been contested. Probably the most common critical view from the 1930s onward ranked him as the last and least of the three major twentieth-century British and Irish poets—behind Yeats and Eliot—while a minority view, more prominent in recent years, ranks him as the highest of the three. Opinions have ranged from those of Hugh MacDiarmid, who called him "a complete wash-out"; F. R. Leavis, who wrote that Auden's ironic style was "self-defensive, self-indulgent or merely irresponsible"; and Harold Bloom, who wrote "Close thy Auden, open thy [Wallace] Stevens," to the obituarist in The Times, who wrote: "W.H. Auden, for long the enfant terrible of English poetry… emerges as its undisputed master." Joseph Brodsky wrote that Auden had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century".
Critical estimates were divided from the start. Reviewing Auden's first book, Poems (1930), Naomi Mitchison wrote "If this is really only the beginning, we have perhaps a master to look forward to." But John Sparrow, recalling Mitchison's comment in 1934, dismissed Auden's early work as "a monument to the misguided aims that prevail among contemporary poets, and the fact that… he is being hailed as 'a master' shows how criticism is helping poetry on the downward path."
Auden's clipped, satiric, and ironic style in the 1930s was widely imitated by younger poets such as Charles Madge, who wrote in a poem "there waited for me in the summer morning / Auden fiercely. I read, shuddered, and knew." He was widely described as the leader of an "Auden group" that comprised his friends Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. The four were mocked by the poet Roy Campbell as if they were a single undifferentiated poet named "Macspaunday." Auden's propagandistic poetic plays, including The Dog Beneath the Skin and The Ascent of F6, and his political poems such as "Spain" gave him the reputation as a political poet writing in a progressive and accessible voice, in contrast to Eliot; but this political stance provoked opposing opinions, such as that of Austin Clarke who called Auden's work "liberal, democratic, and humane", and John Drummond, who wrote that Auden misused a "characteristic and popularizing trick, the generalized image", to present ostensibly left-wing views that were in fact "confined to bourgeois experience."
Auden's departure for America in 1939 was debated in Britain (once even in Parliament), with some seeing his emigration as a betrayal. Defenders of Auden such as Geoffrey Grigson, in an introduction to a 1949 anthology of modern poetry, wrote that Auden "arches over all". His stature was suggested by book titles such as Auden and After by Francis Scarfe (1942) and The Auden Generation by Samuel Hynes (1977).
In the US, starting in the late 1930s, the detached, ironic tone of Auden's regular stanzas became influential; John Ashbery recalled that in the 1940s Auden "was the modern poet". Auden's formal influences were so pervasive in American poetry that the ecstatic style of the Beat Generation was partly a reaction against his influence. From the 1940s through the 1960s, many critics lamented that Auden's work had declined from its earlier promise; Randall Jarrell wrote a series of essays making a case against Auden's later work, and Philip Larkin's "What's Become of Wystan?" (1960) had a wide impact.
After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues", "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Refugee Blues", "The Unknown Citizen", and "September 1, 1939", became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
The first full-length study of Auden was Richard Hoggart's Auden: An Introductory Essay (1951), which concluded that "Auden's work, then, is a civilising force." It was followed by Joseph Warren Beach's The Making of the Auden Canon (1957), a disapproving account of Auden's revisions of his earlier work.
The first systematic critical account was Monroe K. Spears' The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island (1963), "written out of the conviction that Auden's poetry can offer the reader entertainment, instruction, intellectual excitement, and a prodigal variety of aesthetic pleasures, all in a generous abundance that is unique in our time."
Auden was one of three candidates recommended by the Nobel Committee to the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963 and 1965 and six recommended for the 1964 prize. By the time of his death in 1973 he had attained the status of a respected elder statesman, and a memorial stone for him was placed in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1974. The Encyclopædia Britannica writes that "by the time of Eliot's death in 1965… a convincing case could be made for the assertion that Auden was indeed Eliot's successor, as Eliot had inherited sole claim to supremacy when Yeats died in 1939." With some exceptions, British critics tended to treat his early work as his best, while American critics tended to favour his middle and later work.
Another group of critics and poets has maintained that unlike other modern poets, Auden's reputation did not decline after his death, and the influence of his later writing was especially strong on younger American poets including John Ashbery, James Merrill, Anthony Hecht, and Maxine Kumin. Typical later evaluations describe him as "arguably the [20th] century's greatest poet" (Peter Parker and Frank Kermode), who "now clearly seems the greatest poet in English since Tennyson" (Philip Hensher).
Public recognition of Auden's work sharply increased after his "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem "As I walked out one evening" was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995).
After 11 September 2001 his 1939 poem "September 1, 1939" was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.
Overall, Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.
Memorial stones and plaques commemorating Auden include those in Westminster Abbey; at his birthplace at 55 Bootham, York; near his home on Lordswood Road, Birmingham; in the chapel of Christ Church, Oxford; on the site of his apartment at 1 Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights; at his apartment in 77 St. Marks Place, New York (damaged and now removed); at the site of his death at Walfischgasse 5 in Vienna; and in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco. In his house in Kirchstetten, his study is open to the public upon request.
Published works
The following list includes only the books of poems and essays that Auden prepared during his lifetime; for a more complete list, including other works and posthumous editions, see W. H. Auden bibliography.
In the list below, works reprinted in the Complete Works of W. H. Auden are indicated by footnote references.
Books
Poems (London, 1930; second edn., seven poems substituted, London, 1933; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood).
The Orators: An English Study (London, 1932, verse and prose; slightly revised edn., London, 1934; revised edn. with new preface, London, 1966; New York 1967) (dedicated to Stephen Spender).
The Dance of Death (London, 1933, play) (dedicated to Robert Medley and Rupert Doone).
Poems (New York, 1934; contains Poems [1933 edition], The Orators [1932 edition], and The Dance of Death).
The Dog Beneath the Skin (London, New York, 1935; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Robert Moody).
The Ascent of F6 (London, 1936; 2nd edn., 1937; New York, 1937; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).
Look, Stranger! (London, 1936, poems; US edn., On This Island, New York, 1937) (dedicated to Erika Mann)
Letters from Iceland (London, New York, 1937; verse and prose, with Louis MacNeice) (dedicated to George Augustus Auden).
On the Frontier (London, 1938; New York 1939; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).
Journey to a War (London, New York, 1939; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to E. M. Forster).
Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
The Double Man (New York, 1941, poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, 1941) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).
For the Time Being (New York, 1944; London, 1945; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", in memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).
The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York, 1945; includes new poems) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman). Full text.
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New York, 1947; London, 1948; verse; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).
Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (London, 1950; similar to 1945 Collected Poetry) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
The Enchafèd Flood (New York, 1950; London, 1951; prose) (dedicated to Alan Ansen).
Nones (New York, 1951; London, 1952; poems) (dedicated to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)
The Shield of Achilles (New York, London, 1955; poems) (won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry) (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).
Homage to Clio (New York, London, 1960; poems) (dedicated to E. R. and A. E. Dodds).
The Dyer's Hand (New York, 1962; London, 1963; essays) (dedicated to Nevill Coghill).
About the House (New York, London, 1965; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).
Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London, 1966; New York, 1967) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
Collected Longer Poems (London, 1968; New York, 1969).
Secondary Worlds (London, New York, 1969; prose) (dedicated to Valerie Eliot).
City Without Walls and Other Poems (London, New York, 1969) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, 1970; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Grigson).
Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems (London, New York, 1972) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).
Forewords and Afterwords (New York, London, 1973; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).
Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, 1974) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).
Film scripts and opera libretti
Coal Face (1935, closing chorus for GPO Film Unit documentary).
Night Mail (1936, narrative for GPO Film Unit documentary, not published separately except as a programme note).
Paul Bunyan (1941, libretto for operetta by Benjamin Britten; not published until 1976).
The Rake's Progress (1951, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Igor Stravinsky).
Elegy for Young Lovers (1956, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze).
The Bassarids (1961, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze based on The Bacchae of Euripides).
Runner (1962, documentary film narrative for National Film Board of Canada)
Love's Labour's Lost (1973, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, based on Shakespeare's play).
Musical collaborations
Our Hunting Fathers (1936, song cycle written for Benjamin Britten)
An Evening of Elizabethan Verse and its Music (1954 recording with the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg; Auden spoke the verse texts)
The Play of Daniel (1958, verse narration for a production by the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg)
References
Sources
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1990) "The Map of All My Youth": early works, friends and influences (Auden Studies 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1994). "The Language of Learning and the Language of Love": uncollected writings, new interpretations (Auden Studies 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1995). "In Solitude, For Company": W. H. Auden after 1940: unpublished prose and recent criticism (Auden Studies 3). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Carpenter, Humphrey (1981). W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin. .
Clark, Thekla (1995). Wystan and Chester: A Personal Memoir of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. London: Faber and Faber. .
Davenport-Hines, Richard (1996). Auden. London: Heinemann. .
Farnan, Dorothy J. (1984). Auden in Love. New York: Simon & Schuster. .
Fuller, John (1998). W. H. Auden: A Commentary. London: Faber and Faber. .
Haffenden, John, ed. (1983). W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. .
Kirsch, Arthur (2005). Auden and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
Mendelson, Edward (1981). Early Auden. New York: Viking. .
Mendelson, Edward (1999). Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. .
Mendelson, Edward (2017). Early Auden, Later Auden: A Critical Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. .
Mitchell, Donald (1981), Britten and Auden in the Thirties: the year 1936. London: Faber and Faber. .
Myers, Alan and Forsythe, Robert (1999), W. H. Auden: Pennine Poet . Nenthead: North Pennines Heritage Trust. . Pamphlet with map and gazetteer.
Sharpe, Tony, ed. (2013). W. H. Auden in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Smith, Stan, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island. New York: Oxford University Press.
Further reading
Costello, Bonnie, and Rachel Galvin, eds. (2015). Auden at Work. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. .
Spender, Stephen, ed. (1975). W. H. Auden: A Tribute. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. .
Wright, George T. (1969; rev. ed. 1981). W. H. Auden. Boston: Twayne. .
External links
(book publication records and links to digital talking books editions)
W H Auden at the British Library
Papers at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Finding aid to W.H. Auden papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
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"This is a partial list of hobbies. A hobby is an activity, interest, or pastime that is undertaken for pleasure or relaxation, done during one's own leisure time.\n\nGeneral hobbies\n\nOutdoors and sports\n\nEducational hobbies\n\nCollection hobbies\n\nIndoors\n\nOutdoors\n\nCompetitive hobbies\n\nIndoors\n\nOutdoors\n\nObservation hobbies\n\nIndoors\n\nOutdoors\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nEntertainment lists",
"Silicon Chip is an Australian electronics magazine. It was started in November, 1987 by Leo Simpson. Following the demise of Electronics Australia, for many years it was the only hobbyist-related electronics magazine remaining in Australia. A new competitor, called Diyode launched in July 2017.\n\nMagazine\nThe magazine has features such as\nProjects to build\nServiceman's Log\nComputer Features\nVintage Radio\nProduct Showcase\nMailbag/Ask Silicon Chip\nCircuit Notebook (reader contributions)\n\nThe print version of Silicon Chip is produced and printed in Australia by Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd. The magazine is published monthly on the last Thursday of the month prior to the cover date.\n\nSome time after Electronics Australia closed its doors, Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd purchased the titles Electronics Australia, Electronics Today (International), Radio, TV & Hobbies, Radio & Hobbies and Wireless Weekly, along with the copyright to original (non-submitted) material published in those magazines. The copyright of some submitted projects and articles for those old magazines technically still remains with the original authors. This is why Silicon Chip have not released Electronics Australia back-issues on CD, as they did with the older Radio TV & Hobbies. However they can provide an electronic copy of any Electronics Australia article for a price, which invalidates the previous reasoning. Except that copies are not provided in cases of articles where there is a question over the ownership of copyright.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\n\n1987 establishments in Australia\nHobby magazines\nHobby electronics magazines\nMagazines established in 1987\nMagazines published in Sydney\nMonthly magazines published in Australia\nScience and technology magazines"
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Did W. H. Auden go to any churches?
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W. H. Auden
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Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (nee Bicknell; 1869-1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900-1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903-1991), became a geologist. Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work. In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do." CANNOTANSWER
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Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism
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Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".
He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys.
In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria.
He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand.
Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men. In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky.
Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
Life
Childhood
Auden was born on Bootham in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872–1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (née Bicknell; 1869–1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900–1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903–1991), became a geologist. The Audens were minor gentry with a strong clerical tradition, originally of Rowley Regis, later of Horninglow, Staffordshire.
Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism, with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work.
His family moved to Homer Road in Solihull, near Birmingham, in 1908, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do."
Education
Auden attended St Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, later famous in his own right as a novelist. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Norfolk; there, in 1922, when his friend Robert Medley asked him if he wrote poetry, Auden first realised his vocation was to be a poet. Soon after, he "discover(ed) that he (had) lost his faith" (through a gradual realisation that he had lost interest in religion, not through any decisive change of views). In school productions of Shakespeare, he played Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew in 1922, and Caliban in The Tempest in 1925, his last year at Gresham's. His first published poems appeared in the school magazine in 1923. Auden later wrote a chapter on Gresham's for Graham Greene's The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands (1934).
In 1925, he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, with a scholarship in biology; he switched to English by his second year, and was introduced to Old English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Tolkien. Friends he met at Oxford include Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender; these four were commonly though misleadingly identified in the 1930s as the "Auden Group" for their shared (but not identical) left-wing views. Auden left Oxford in 1928 with a third-class degree.
Auden was reintroduced to Christopher Isherwood in 1925 by his fellow student A. S. T. Fisher. For the next few years Auden sent poems to Isherwood for comments and criticism; the two maintained a sexual friendship in intervals between their relations with others. In 1935–39 they collaborated on three plays and a travel book.
From his Oxford years onward, Auden's friends uniformly described him as funny, extravagant, sympathetic, generous, and, partly by his own choice, lonely. In groups he was often dogmatic and overbearing in a comic way; in more private settings he was diffident and shy except when certain of his welcome. He was punctual in his habits, and obsessive about meeting deadlines, while choosing to live amidst physical disorder.
Britain and Europe, 1928–1938
In late 1928, Auden left Britain for nine months, going to Berlin, perhaps partly as an escape from English repressiveness. In Berlin, he first experienced the political and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects. Around the same time, Stephen Spender privately printed a small pamphlet of Auden's Poems in an edition of about 45 copies, distributed among Auden's and Spender's friends and family; this edition is usually referred to as Poems [1928] to avoid confusion with Auden's commercially published 1930 volume.
On returning to Britain in 1929, he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930, his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T. S. Eliot for Faber and Faber, and the same firm remained the British publisher of all the books he published thereafter. In 1930, he began five years as a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the Downs School in the Malvern Hills, where he was a much-loved teacher. At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape", while sitting with three fellow-teachers at the school, when he suddenly found that he loved them for themselves, that their existence had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940.
During these years, Auden's erotic interests focused, as he later said, on an idealised "Alter Ego" rather than on individual persons. His relationships (and his unsuccessful courtships) tended to be unequal either in age or intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved into long friendships. He contrasted these relationships with what he later regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that he began with Chester Kallman in 1939, based on the unique individuality of both partners.
In 1935, Auden married Erika Mann (1905–1969), the lesbian novelist daughter of Thomas Mann when it became apparent that the Nazis were intending to strip her of her German citizenship. Mann had asked Christopher Isherwood if he would marry her so she could become a British citizen. He declined but suggested she approach Auden, who readily agreed to a marriage of convenience. Mann and Auden never lived together, but remained on good terms throughout their lives and were still married when Mann died in 1969. She left him a small bequest in her will. In 1936, Auden introduced actress Therese Giehse, Mann's lover, to the writer John Hampson and they too married so that Giehse could leave Germany.
From 1935 until he left Britain early in 1939, Auden worked as freelance reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, first with the GPO Film Unit, a documentary film-making branch of the post office, headed by John Grierson. Through his work for the Film Unit in 1935 he met and collaborated with Benjamin Britten, with whom he also worked on plays, song cycles, and a libretto. Auden's plays in the 1930s were performed by the Group Theatre, in productions that he supervised to varying degrees.
His work now reflected his belief that any good artist must be "more than a bit of a reporting journalist". In 1936, Auden spent three months in Iceland where he gathered material for a travel book Letters from Iceland (1937), written in collaboration with Louis MacNeice. In 1937, he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, but was put to work writing propaganda at the Republican press and propaganda office, where he felt useless and left after a week. He returned to England after a brief visit to the front at Sarineña. His seven-week visit to Spain affected him deeply, and his social views grew more complex as he found political realities to be more ambiguous and troubling than he had imagined. Again attempting to combine reportage and art, he and Isherwood spent six months in 1938 visiting China amid the Sino-Japanese War, working on their book Journey to a War (1939). On their way back to England they stayed briefly in New York and decided to move to the United States. Auden spent late 1938 partly in England, partly in Brussels.
Many of Auden's poems during the 1930s and after were inspired by unconsummated love, and in the 1950s he summarised his emotional life in a famous couplet: "If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me" ("The More Loving One"). He had a gift for friendship and, starting in the late 1930s, a strong wish for the stability of marriage; in a letter to his friend James Stern he called marriage "the only subject." Throughout his life, Auden performed charitable acts, sometimes in public (as in his 1935 marriage of convenience to Erika Mann that provided her with a British passport to escape the Nazis), but, especially in later years, more often in private. He was embarrassed if they were publicly revealed, as when his gift to his friend Dorothy Day for the Catholic Worker movement was reported on the front page of The New York Times in 1956.
United States and Europe, 1939–1973
Auden and Isherwood sailed to New York City in January 1939, entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many as a betrayal, and Auden's reputation suffered. In April 1939, Isherwood moved to California, and he and Auden saw each other only intermittently in later years. Around this time, Auden met the poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for the next two years (Auden described their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey).
In 1941, Kallman ended their sexual relationship because he could not accept Auden's insistence on mutual fidelity, but he and Auden remained companions for the rest of Auden's life, sharing houses and apartments from 1953 until Auden's death. Auden dedicated both editions of his collected poetry (1945/50 and 1966) to Isherwood and Kallman.
In 1940–41, Auden lived in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights, that he shared with Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others, which became a famous centre of artistic life, nicknamed "February House". In 1940, Auden joined the Episcopal Church, returning to the Anglican Communion he had abandoned at fifteen. His reconversion was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" of Charles Williams, whom he had met in 1937, and partly by reading Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central element in his life.
After Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Auden told the British embassy in Washington that he would return to the UK if needed. He was told that, among those his age (32), only qualified personnel were needed. In 1941–42 he taught English at the University of Michigan. He was called for the draft in the United States Army in August 1942, but was rejected on medical grounds. He had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1942–43 but did not use it, choosing instead to teach at Swarthmore College in 1942–45.
In mid-1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, he was in Germany with the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, studying the effects of Allied bombing on German morale, an experience that affected his postwar work as his visit to Spain had affected him earlier. On his return, he settled in Manhattan, working as a freelance writer, a lecturer at The New School for Social Research, and a visiting professor at Bennington, Smith, and other American colleges. In 1946, he became a naturalised citizen of the US.
In 1948, Auden began spending his summers in Europe, together with Chester Kallman, first in Ischia, Italy, where he rented a house. Then, starting in 1958, he began spending his summers in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he bought a farmhouse from the prize money of the Premio Feltrinelli awarded to him in 1957. He said that he shed tears of joy at owning a home for the first time. In 1956–61, Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University where he was required to give three lectures each year. This fairly light workload allowed him to continue to spend winter in New York, where he lived at 77 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan's East Village, and to spend summer in Europe, spending only three weeks each year lecturing in Oxford. He earned his income mostly from readings and lecture tours, and by writing for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines.
In 1963, Kallman left the apartment he shared in New York with Auden, and lived during the winter in Athens while continuing to spend his summers with Auden in Austria. In 1972, Auden moved his winter home from New York to Oxford, where his old college, Christ Church, offered him a cottage, while he continued to spend summers in Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973, a few hours after giving a reading of his poems at the Austrian Society for Literature; his death occurred at the Hotel Altenburger Hof where he was staying overnight before his intended return to Oxford the next day. He was buried in Kirchstetten.
Work
Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). His poetry was encyclopaedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to the lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks, from doggerel through haiku and villanelles to a "Christmas Oratorio" and a baroque eclogue in Anglo-Saxon meters. The tone and content of his poems ranged from pop-song clichés to complex philosophical meditations, from the corns on his toes to atoms and stars, from contemporary crises to the evolution of society.
He also wrote more than four hundred essays and reviews about literature, history, politics, music, religion, and many other subjects. He collaborated on plays with Christopher Isherwood and on opera libretti with Chester Kallman, and worked with a group of artists and filmmakers on documentary films in the 1930s and with the New York Pro Musica early music group in the 1950s and 1960s. About collaboration he wrote in 1964: "collaboration has brought me greater erotic joy . . . than any sexual relations I have had."
Auden controversially rewrote or discarded some of his most famous poems when he prepared his later collected editions. He wrote that he rejected poems that he found "boring" or "dishonest" in the sense that they expressed views he had never held but had used only because he felt they would be rhetorically effective. His rejected poems include "Spain" and "September 1, 1939". His literary executor, Edward Mendelson, argues in his introduction to Selected Poems that Auden's practice reflected his sense of the persuasive power of poetry and his reluctance to misuse it. (Selected Poems includes some poems that Auden rejected and early texts of poems that he revised.)
Early work, 1922–1939
Up to 1930
Auden began writing poems in 1922, at fifteen, mostly in the styles of 19th-century romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, and later poets with rural interests, especially Thomas Hardy. At eighteen he discovered T. S. Eliot and adopted an extreme version of Eliot's style. He found his own voice at twenty when he wrote the first poem later included in his collected work, "From the very first coming down". This and other poems of the late 1920s tended to be in a clipped, elusive style that alluded to, but did not directly state, their themes of loneliness and loss. Twenty of these poems appeared in his first book Poems (1928), a pamphlet hand-printed by Stephen Spender.
In 1928, he wrote his first dramatic work, Paid on Both Sides, subtitled "A Charade", which combined style and content from the Icelandic sagas with jokes from English school life. This mixture of tragedy and farce, with a dream play-within-a-play, introduced the mixed styles and content of much of his later work. This drama and thirty short poems appeared in his first published book Poems (1930, 2nd edition with seven poems replaced, 1933); the poems in the book were mostly lyrical and gnomic meditations on hoped-for or unconsummated love and on themes of personal, social, and seasonal renewal; among these poems were "It was Easter as I walked," "Doom is dark," "Sir, no man's enemy," and "This lunar beauty."
A recurrent theme in these early poems is the effect of "family ghosts", Auden's term for the powerful, unseen psychological effects of preceding generations on any individual life (and the title of a poem). A parallel theme, present throughout his work, is the contrast between biological evolution (unchosen and involuntary) and the psychological evolution of cultures and individuals (voluntary and deliberate even in its subconscious aspects).
1931–1935
Auden's next large-scale work was The Orators: An English Study (1932; revised editions, 1934, 1966), in verse and prose, largely about hero-worship in personal and political life. In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in The Orators reflect his new interest in Robert Burns. During the next few years, many of his poems took their form and style from traditional ballads and popular songs, and also from expansive classical forms like the Odes of Horace, which he seems to have discovered through the German poet Hölderlin. Around this time his main influences were Dante, William Langland, and Alexander Pope.
During these years, much of his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely known as a political poet although he was privately more ambivalent about revolutionary politics than many reviewers recognised, and Mendelson argues that he expounded political views partly out of a sense of moral duty and partly because it enhanced his reputation, and that he later regretted having done so. He generally wrote about revolutionary change in terms of a "change of heart", a transformation of a society from a closed-off psychology of fear to an open psychology of love.
His verse drama The Dance of Death (1933) was a political extravaganza in the style of a theatrical revue, which Auden later called "a nihilistic leg-pull." His next play The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), written in collaboration with Isherwood, was similarly a quasi-Marxist updating of Gilbert and Sullivan in which the general idea of social transformation was more prominent than any specific political action or structure.
The Ascent of F6 (1937), another play written with Isherwood, was partly an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an examination of Auden's own motives in taking on a public role as a political poet. This play included the first version of "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks"), written as a satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the poem as a "Cabaret Song" about lost love (written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson, for whom he wrote many lyrics in the 1930s). In 1935, he worked briefly on documentary films with the GPO Film Unit, writing his famous verse commentary for Night Mail and lyrics for other films that were among his attempts in the 1930s to create a widely accessible, socially conscious art.
1936–1939
In 1936, Auden's publisher chose the title Look, Stranger! for a collection of political odes, love poems, comic songs, meditative lyrics, and a variety of intellectually intense but emotionally accessible verse; Auden hated the title and retitled the collection for the 1937 US edition On This Island. Among the poems included in the book are "Hearing of harvests", "Out on the lawn I lie in bed", "O what is that sound", "Look, stranger, on this island now" (later revised versions change "on" to "at"), and "Our hunting fathers".
Auden was now arguing that an artist should be a kind of journalist, and he put this view into practice in Letters from Iceland (1937) a travel book in prose and verse written with Louis MacNeice, which included his long social, literary, and autobiographical commentary "Letter to Lord Byron". In 1937, after observing the Spanish Civil War he wrote a politically engaged pamphlet poem Spain (1937); he later discarded it from his collected works. Journey to a War (1939) a travel book in prose and verse, was written with Isherwood after their visit to the Sino-Japanese War. Auden's last collaboration with Isherwood was their third play, On the Frontier, an anti-war satire written in Broadway and West End styles.
Auden's shorter poems now engaged with the fragility and transience of personal love ("Danse Macabre", "The Dream", "Lay your sleeping head"), a subject he treated with ironic wit in his "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson" (which included "Tell Me the Truth About Love" and the revised version of "Funeral Blues"), and also the corrupting effect of public and official culture on individual lives ("Casino", "School Children", "Dover"). In 1938, he wrote a series of dark, ironic ballads about individual failure ("Miss Gee", "James Honeyman", "Victor"). All these appeared in Another Time (1940), together with poems including "Dover", "As He Is", and "Musée des Beaux Arts" (all of which were written before he moved to America in 1939), and "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "The Unknown Citizen", "Law Like Love", "September 1, 1939", and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (all written in America).
The elegies for Yeats and Freud are partly anti-heroic statements, in which great deeds are performed, not by unique geniuses whom others cannot hope to imitate, but by otherwise ordinary individuals who were "silly like us" (Yeats) or of whom it could be said "he wasn't clever at all" (Freud), and who became teachers of others, not awe-inspiring heroes.
Middle period, 1940–1957
1940–1946
In 1940, Auden wrote a long philosophical poem "New Year Letter", which appeared with miscellaneous notes and other poems in The Double Man (1941). At the time of his return to the Anglican Communion he began writing abstract verse on theological themes, such as "Canzone" and "Kairos and Logos". Around 1942, as he became more comfortable with religious themes, his verse became more open and relaxed, and he increasingly used the syllabic verse he had learned from the poetry of Marianne Moore.
Auden's work in this era addresses the artist's temptation to use other persons as material for his art rather than valuing them for themselves ("Prospero to Ariel") and the corresponding moral obligation to make and keep commitments while recognising the temptation to break them ("In Sickness and Health"). From 1942 through 1947 he worked mostly on three long poems in dramatic form, each differing from the others in form and content: "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest" (both published in For the Time Being, 1944), and The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (published separately in 1947). The first two, with Auden's other new poems from 1940 to 1944, were included in his first collected edition, The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (1945), with most of his earlier poems, many in revised versions.
1947–1957
After completing The Age of Anxiety in 1946 he focused again on shorter poems, notably "A Walk After Dark", "The Love Feast", and "The Fall of Rome". Many of these evoked the Italian village where he spent his summers between 1948 and 1957, and his next book, Nones (1951), had a Mediterranean atmosphere new to his work. A new theme was the "sacred importance" of the human body in its ordinary aspect (breathing, sleeping, eating) and the continuity with nature that the body made possible (in contrast to the division between humanity and nature that he had emphasised in the 1930s); his poems on these themes included "In Praise of Limestone" (1948) and "Memorial for the City" (1949). In 1949, Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and later collaborated on two libretti for operas by Hans Werner Henze.
Auden's first separate prose book was The Enchafèd Flood: The Romantic Iconography of the Sea (1950), based on a series of lectures on the image of the sea in romantic literature. Between 1949 and 1954 he worked on a sequence of seven Good Friday poems, titled "Horae Canonicae", an encyclopaedic survey of geological, biological, cultural, and personal history, focused on the irreversible act of murder; the poem was also a study in cyclical and linear ideas of time. While writing this, he also wrote "Bucolics," a sequence of seven poems about man's relation to nature. Both sequences appeared in his next book, The Shield of Achilles (1955), with other short poems, including the book's title poem, "Fleet Visit", and "Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier".
In 1955–56 Auden wrote a group of poems about "history", the term he used to mean the set of unique events made by human choices, as opposed to "nature", the set of involuntary events created by natural processes, statistics, and anonymous forces such as crowds. These poems included "T the Great", "The Maker", and the title poem of his next collection Homage to Clio (1960).
Later work, 1958–1973
In the late 1950s Auden's style became less rhetorical while its range of styles increased. In 1958, having moved his summer home from Italy to Austria, he wrote "Good-bye to the Mezzogiorno"; other poems from this period include "Dichtung und Wahrheit: An Unwritten Poem", a prose poem about the relation between love and personal and poetic language, and the contrasting "Dame Kind", about the anonymous impersonal reproductive instinct. These and other poems, including his 1955–66 poems about history, appeared in Homage to Clio (1960). His prose book The Dyer's Hand (1962) gathered many of the lectures he gave in Oxford as Professor of Poetry in 1956–61, together with revised versions of essays and notes written since the mid-1940s.
Among the new styles and forms in Auden's later work were the haiku and tanka that he began writing after translating the haiku and other verse in Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings. A sequence of fifteen poems about his house in Austria, "Thanksgiving for a Habitat" (written in various styles that included an imitation of William Carlos Williams) appeared in About the House (1965), together with other poems that included his reflection on his lecture tours, "On the Circuit". In the late 1960s he wrote some of his most vigorous poems, including "River Profile" and two poems that looked back over his life, "Prologue at Sixty" and "Forty Years On". All these appeared in City Without Walls (1969). His lifelong passion for Icelandic legend culminated in his verse translation of The Elder Edda (1969). Among his later themes was the "religionless Christianity" he learned partly from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the dedicatee of his poem "Friday's Child."
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970) was a kind of self-portrait made up of favourite quotations with commentary, arranged in alphabetical order by subject. His last prose book was a selection of essays and reviews, Forewords and Afterwords (1973). His last books of verse, Epistle to a Godson (1972) and the unfinished Thank You, Fog (published posthumously, 1974) include reflective poems about language ("Natural Linguistics", "Aubade"), philosophy and science ("No, Plato, No", "Unpredictable but Providential"), and his own aging ("A New Year Greeting", "Talking to Myself", "A Lullaby" ["The din of work is subdued"]). His last completed poem was "Archaeology", about ritual and timelessness, two recurring themes in his later years.
Reputation and influence
Auden's stature in modern literature has been contested. Probably the most common critical view from the 1930s onward ranked him as the last and least of the three major twentieth-century British and Irish poets—behind Yeats and Eliot—while a minority view, more prominent in recent years, ranks him as the highest of the three. Opinions have ranged from those of Hugh MacDiarmid, who called him "a complete wash-out"; F. R. Leavis, who wrote that Auden's ironic style was "self-defensive, self-indulgent or merely irresponsible"; and Harold Bloom, who wrote "Close thy Auden, open thy [Wallace] Stevens," to the obituarist in The Times, who wrote: "W.H. Auden, for long the enfant terrible of English poetry… emerges as its undisputed master." Joseph Brodsky wrote that Auden had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century".
Critical estimates were divided from the start. Reviewing Auden's first book, Poems (1930), Naomi Mitchison wrote "If this is really only the beginning, we have perhaps a master to look forward to." But John Sparrow, recalling Mitchison's comment in 1934, dismissed Auden's early work as "a monument to the misguided aims that prevail among contemporary poets, and the fact that… he is being hailed as 'a master' shows how criticism is helping poetry on the downward path."
Auden's clipped, satiric, and ironic style in the 1930s was widely imitated by younger poets such as Charles Madge, who wrote in a poem "there waited for me in the summer morning / Auden fiercely. I read, shuddered, and knew." He was widely described as the leader of an "Auden group" that comprised his friends Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. The four were mocked by the poet Roy Campbell as if they were a single undifferentiated poet named "Macspaunday." Auden's propagandistic poetic plays, including The Dog Beneath the Skin and The Ascent of F6, and his political poems such as "Spain" gave him the reputation as a political poet writing in a progressive and accessible voice, in contrast to Eliot; but this political stance provoked opposing opinions, such as that of Austin Clarke who called Auden's work "liberal, democratic, and humane", and John Drummond, who wrote that Auden misused a "characteristic and popularizing trick, the generalized image", to present ostensibly left-wing views that were in fact "confined to bourgeois experience."
Auden's departure for America in 1939 was debated in Britain (once even in Parliament), with some seeing his emigration as a betrayal. Defenders of Auden such as Geoffrey Grigson, in an introduction to a 1949 anthology of modern poetry, wrote that Auden "arches over all". His stature was suggested by book titles such as Auden and After by Francis Scarfe (1942) and The Auden Generation by Samuel Hynes (1977).
In the US, starting in the late 1930s, the detached, ironic tone of Auden's regular stanzas became influential; John Ashbery recalled that in the 1940s Auden "was the modern poet". Auden's formal influences were so pervasive in American poetry that the ecstatic style of the Beat Generation was partly a reaction against his influence. From the 1940s through the 1960s, many critics lamented that Auden's work had declined from its earlier promise; Randall Jarrell wrote a series of essays making a case against Auden's later work, and Philip Larkin's "What's Become of Wystan?" (1960) had a wide impact.
After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues", "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Refugee Blues", "The Unknown Citizen", and "September 1, 1939", became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
The first full-length study of Auden was Richard Hoggart's Auden: An Introductory Essay (1951), which concluded that "Auden's work, then, is a civilising force." It was followed by Joseph Warren Beach's The Making of the Auden Canon (1957), a disapproving account of Auden's revisions of his earlier work.
The first systematic critical account was Monroe K. Spears' The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island (1963), "written out of the conviction that Auden's poetry can offer the reader entertainment, instruction, intellectual excitement, and a prodigal variety of aesthetic pleasures, all in a generous abundance that is unique in our time."
Auden was one of three candidates recommended by the Nobel Committee to the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963 and 1965 and six recommended for the 1964 prize. By the time of his death in 1973 he had attained the status of a respected elder statesman, and a memorial stone for him was placed in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1974. The Encyclopædia Britannica writes that "by the time of Eliot's death in 1965… a convincing case could be made for the assertion that Auden was indeed Eliot's successor, as Eliot had inherited sole claim to supremacy when Yeats died in 1939." With some exceptions, British critics tended to treat his early work as his best, while American critics tended to favour his middle and later work.
Another group of critics and poets has maintained that unlike other modern poets, Auden's reputation did not decline after his death, and the influence of his later writing was especially strong on younger American poets including John Ashbery, James Merrill, Anthony Hecht, and Maxine Kumin. Typical later evaluations describe him as "arguably the [20th] century's greatest poet" (Peter Parker and Frank Kermode), who "now clearly seems the greatest poet in English since Tennyson" (Philip Hensher).
Public recognition of Auden's work sharply increased after his "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem "As I walked out one evening" was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995).
After 11 September 2001 his 1939 poem "September 1, 1939" was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.
Overall, Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.
Memorial stones and plaques commemorating Auden include those in Westminster Abbey; at his birthplace at 55 Bootham, York; near his home on Lordswood Road, Birmingham; in the chapel of Christ Church, Oxford; on the site of his apartment at 1 Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights; at his apartment in 77 St. Marks Place, New York (damaged and now removed); at the site of his death at Walfischgasse 5 in Vienna; and in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco. In his house in Kirchstetten, his study is open to the public upon request.
Published works
The following list includes only the books of poems and essays that Auden prepared during his lifetime; for a more complete list, including other works and posthumous editions, see W. H. Auden bibliography.
In the list below, works reprinted in the Complete Works of W. H. Auden are indicated by footnote references.
Books
Poems (London, 1930; second edn., seven poems substituted, London, 1933; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood).
The Orators: An English Study (London, 1932, verse and prose; slightly revised edn., London, 1934; revised edn. with new preface, London, 1966; New York 1967) (dedicated to Stephen Spender).
The Dance of Death (London, 1933, play) (dedicated to Robert Medley and Rupert Doone).
Poems (New York, 1934; contains Poems [1933 edition], The Orators [1932 edition], and The Dance of Death).
The Dog Beneath the Skin (London, New York, 1935; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Robert Moody).
The Ascent of F6 (London, 1936; 2nd edn., 1937; New York, 1937; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).
Look, Stranger! (London, 1936, poems; US edn., On This Island, New York, 1937) (dedicated to Erika Mann)
Letters from Iceland (London, New York, 1937; verse and prose, with Louis MacNeice) (dedicated to George Augustus Auden).
On the Frontier (London, 1938; New York 1939; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).
Journey to a War (London, New York, 1939; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to E. M. Forster).
Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
The Double Man (New York, 1941, poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, 1941) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).
For the Time Being (New York, 1944; London, 1945; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", in memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).
The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York, 1945; includes new poems) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman). Full text.
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New York, 1947; London, 1948; verse; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).
Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (London, 1950; similar to 1945 Collected Poetry) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
The Enchafèd Flood (New York, 1950; London, 1951; prose) (dedicated to Alan Ansen).
Nones (New York, 1951; London, 1952; poems) (dedicated to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)
The Shield of Achilles (New York, London, 1955; poems) (won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry) (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).
Homage to Clio (New York, London, 1960; poems) (dedicated to E. R. and A. E. Dodds).
The Dyer's Hand (New York, 1962; London, 1963; essays) (dedicated to Nevill Coghill).
About the House (New York, London, 1965; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).
Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London, 1966; New York, 1967) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
Collected Longer Poems (London, 1968; New York, 1969).
Secondary Worlds (London, New York, 1969; prose) (dedicated to Valerie Eliot).
City Without Walls and Other Poems (London, New York, 1969) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, 1970; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Grigson).
Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems (London, New York, 1972) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).
Forewords and Afterwords (New York, London, 1973; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).
Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, 1974) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).
Film scripts and opera libretti
Coal Face (1935, closing chorus for GPO Film Unit documentary).
Night Mail (1936, narrative for GPO Film Unit documentary, not published separately except as a programme note).
Paul Bunyan (1941, libretto for operetta by Benjamin Britten; not published until 1976).
The Rake's Progress (1951, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Igor Stravinsky).
Elegy for Young Lovers (1956, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze).
The Bassarids (1961, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze based on The Bacchae of Euripides).
Runner (1962, documentary film narrative for National Film Board of Canada)
Love's Labour's Lost (1973, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, based on Shakespeare's play).
Musical collaborations
Our Hunting Fathers (1936, song cycle written for Benjamin Britten)
An Evening of Elizabethan Verse and its Music (1954 recording with the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg; Auden spoke the verse texts)
The Play of Daniel (1958, verse narration for a production by the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg)
References
Sources
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1990) "The Map of All My Youth": early works, friends and influences (Auden Studies 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1994). "The Language of Learning and the Language of Love": uncollected writings, new interpretations (Auden Studies 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1995). "In Solitude, For Company": W. H. Auden after 1940: unpublished prose and recent criticism (Auden Studies 3). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Carpenter, Humphrey (1981). W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin. .
Clark, Thekla (1995). Wystan and Chester: A Personal Memoir of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. London: Faber and Faber. .
Davenport-Hines, Richard (1996). Auden. London: Heinemann. .
Farnan, Dorothy J. (1984). Auden in Love. New York: Simon & Schuster. .
Fuller, John (1998). W. H. Auden: A Commentary. London: Faber and Faber. .
Haffenden, John, ed. (1983). W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. .
Kirsch, Arthur (2005). Auden and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
Mendelson, Edward (1981). Early Auden. New York: Viking. .
Mendelson, Edward (1999). Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. .
Mendelson, Edward (2017). Early Auden, Later Auden: A Critical Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. .
Mitchell, Donald (1981), Britten and Auden in the Thirties: the year 1936. London: Faber and Faber. .
Myers, Alan and Forsythe, Robert (1999), W. H. Auden: Pennine Poet . Nenthead: North Pennines Heritage Trust. . Pamphlet with map and gazetteer.
Sharpe, Tony, ed. (2013). W. H. Auden in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Smith, Stan, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island. New York: Oxford University Press.
Further reading
Costello, Bonnie, and Rachel Galvin, eds. (2015). Auden at Work. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. .
Spender, Stephen, ed. (1975). W. H. Auden: A Tribute. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. .
Wright, George T. (1969; rev. ed. 1981). W. H. Auden. Boston: Twayne. .
External links
(book publication records and links to digital talking books editions)
W H Auden at the British Library
Papers at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Finding aid to W.H. Auden papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1907 births
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[
"The Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic Churches (WCCAC; , CICAM) was a communion of independent Catholic churches connected to the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (ICAB). The Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic Churches was founded around 2008 in Guatemala. In spite of its ambitious aims, there is no independent evidence of any recent activity of this organization, which seems to have stalled.\n\nOrganization and beliefs\nThe Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic Churches adhered to a conventional Catholic Christian faith, though with openness to other beliefs that they perceive do not contradict the Catholic faith. Similarly, the WCCAC understanding of church structure and hierarchy, sacraments, and holy orders essentially did not differ from conventional Catholicism, but dissolution of marriage by a bishop was allowed. The founding bishops' statement added that \"We do not accept any ordination of women into the Holy Orders (...). We do not allow any homosexual clergy in any communion churches.\" The Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic Churches was intended to be governed by an International Bishops Council. For organizational purposes, the communion had a board of directors, an honorary advisory committee, and an executive secretariat. The International Bishops Council aimed to meet every two years. The council of the communion formed at San Lucas Sacatepéquez, Guatemala, August 12–18, 2008.\n\nMember churches were formed in different countries, presided over by bishops. WCCAC members are thought to have included, or may currently include:\n\nArgentina: Argentine Catholic Apostolic Church\nBrazil: Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church\nMexico: Mexican Catholic Apostolic Church\nVenezuela: Venezuelan Catholic Apostolic Church\n\nInactivity\nThere is no independently verifiable evidence of significant activity of WCCAC in recent years, and it could be presumed to have terminated: \"ICAB [WCCAC's mother church] has had difficulty in maintaining the unity and continuity of its worldwide communion of branches. (...) [The] priorities of each branch do not always seem to be in harmony (...) and it becomes difficult at times to see what the point of having an international communion is supposed to be. In ICAB’s defense, perhaps, it cannot be easy to hold breakaway groups in a communion, however loose a communion it may be – it is almost a direct contradiction in terms.\"\n\nReferences\n\nIndependent Catholic denominations\nChristian organizations established in 2008",
"The Community Church movement aims to bring together and support local community churches.\n\nCommunity churches have existed in the United States since the early nineteenth century. Small communities did not always have the population or finances to sustain churches of all Christian denominations, so community leaders would cross denominational lines and pool their resources to support a single church. By the early twentieth century, with the ecumenical movement in full swing, community churches were ready to cut formal ties with denominations and to demonstrate Christian unity through diversity. Community churches began to understand themselves as post-Protestant and postdenominational.\n\nOrigins of the movement\n\nCommunity Church Workers \n\nOne of the first organized efforts to unite the community churches of America began in the early 1920s. Orvis Jordan of Park Ridge Community Church became the secretary of the Community Church Workers of the United States (CCW-US) and its first newsletter editor. Jordan was later named the group's first president.\n\nInternational Council of Community Churches \nThe CCW was the forerunner of the white community-church group that merged with a similar African-American group in 1950 to form the International Council of Community Churches (ICCC). Peoples' Church of Chicago, First Community Church of Columbus, Ohio, and St. Paul Community Church of Shorewood, Illinois, joined the Park Ridge church and other churches in this effort.\n\nThe term \"community\" has also been adopted by those who, while holding strict Biblical doctrinal principles, shun ecumenism as compromise and simply wish to indicate that they are not a part of any particular denomination or what has become known in certain circles as the \"Emerging Church\" yet wish to indicate an openness and welcome to the community at large.\n\nToday the ICCC flourishes as a model of living ecumenism: it is a member of the World Council of Churches, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and the Council on Church Union.\n\nSee also \n Religious community\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n 1934 Time article on the CCW-US\n\nProtestantism in the United States\nChristian movements\nProtestant ecumenism\nChristian ecumenical organizations"
] |
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] |
C_2ec0c88681c74ea89029850ddad923d3_1
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did he ever make a family of his own
| 6 |
Did W. H. Auden ever make a family of his own?
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W. H. Auden
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Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (nee Bicknell; 1869-1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900-1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903-1991), became a geologist. Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work. In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do." CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".
He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys.
In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria.
He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand.
Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men. In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky.
Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
Life
Childhood
Auden was born on Bootham in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872–1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (née Bicknell; 1869–1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900–1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903–1991), became a geologist. The Audens were minor gentry with a strong clerical tradition, originally of Rowley Regis, later of Horninglow, Staffordshire.
Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism, with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work.
His family moved to Homer Road in Solihull, near Birmingham, in 1908, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do."
Education
Auden attended St Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, later famous in his own right as a novelist. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Norfolk; there, in 1922, when his friend Robert Medley asked him if he wrote poetry, Auden first realised his vocation was to be a poet. Soon after, he "discover(ed) that he (had) lost his faith" (through a gradual realisation that he had lost interest in religion, not through any decisive change of views). In school productions of Shakespeare, he played Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew in 1922, and Caliban in The Tempest in 1925, his last year at Gresham's. His first published poems appeared in the school magazine in 1923. Auden later wrote a chapter on Gresham's for Graham Greene's The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands (1934).
In 1925, he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, with a scholarship in biology; he switched to English by his second year, and was introduced to Old English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Tolkien. Friends he met at Oxford include Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender; these four were commonly though misleadingly identified in the 1930s as the "Auden Group" for their shared (but not identical) left-wing views. Auden left Oxford in 1928 with a third-class degree.
Auden was reintroduced to Christopher Isherwood in 1925 by his fellow student A. S. T. Fisher. For the next few years Auden sent poems to Isherwood for comments and criticism; the two maintained a sexual friendship in intervals between their relations with others. In 1935–39 they collaborated on three plays and a travel book.
From his Oxford years onward, Auden's friends uniformly described him as funny, extravagant, sympathetic, generous, and, partly by his own choice, lonely. In groups he was often dogmatic and overbearing in a comic way; in more private settings he was diffident and shy except when certain of his welcome. He was punctual in his habits, and obsessive about meeting deadlines, while choosing to live amidst physical disorder.
Britain and Europe, 1928–1938
In late 1928, Auden left Britain for nine months, going to Berlin, perhaps partly as an escape from English repressiveness. In Berlin, he first experienced the political and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects. Around the same time, Stephen Spender privately printed a small pamphlet of Auden's Poems in an edition of about 45 copies, distributed among Auden's and Spender's friends and family; this edition is usually referred to as Poems [1928] to avoid confusion with Auden's commercially published 1930 volume.
On returning to Britain in 1929, he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930, his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T. S. Eliot for Faber and Faber, and the same firm remained the British publisher of all the books he published thereafter. In 1930, he began five years as a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the Downs School in the Malvern Hills, where he was a much-loved teacher. At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape", while sitting with three fellow-teachers at the school, when he suddenly found that he loved them for themselves, that their existence had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940.
During these years, Auden's erotic interests focused, as he later said, on an idealised "Alter Ego" rather than on individual persons. His relationships (and his unsuccessful courtships) tended to be unequal either in age or intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved into long friendships. He contrasted these relationships with what he later regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that he began with Chester Kallman in 1939, based on the unique individuality of both partners.
In 1935, Auden married Erika Mann (1905–1969), the lesbian novelist daughter of Thomas Mann when it became apparent that the Nazis were intending to strip her of her German citizenship. Mann had asked Christopher Isherwood if he would marry her so she could become a British citizen. He declined but suggested she approach Auden, who readily agreed to a marriage of convenience. Mann and Auden never lived together, but remained on good terms throughout their lives and were still married when Mann died in 1969. She left him a small bequest in her will. In 1936, Auden introduced actress Therese Giehse, Mann's lover, to the writer John Hampson and they too married so that Giehse could leave Germany.
From 1935 until he left Britain early in 1939, Auden worked as freelance reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, first with the GPO Film Unit, a documentary film-making branch of the post office, headed by John Grierson. Through his work for the Film Unit in 1935 he met and collaborated with Benjamin Britten, with whom he also worked on plays, song cycles, and a libretto. Auden's plays in the 1930s were performed by the Group Theatre, in productions that he supervised to varying degrees.
His work now reflected his belief that any good artist must be "more than a bit of a reporting journalist". In 1936, Auden spent three months in Iceland where he gathered material for a travel book Letters from Iceland (1937), written in collaboration with Louis MacNeice. In 1937, he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, but was put to work writing propaganda at the Republican press and propaganda office, where he felt useless and left after a week. He returned to England after a brief visit to the front at Sarineña. His seven-week visit to Spain affected him deeply, and his social views grew more complex as he found political realities to be more ambiguous and troubling than he had imagined. Again attempting to combine reportage and art, he and Isherwood spent six months in 1938 visiting China amid the Sino-Japanese War, working on their book Journey to a War (1939). On their way back to England they stayed briefly in New York and decided to move to the United States. Auden spent late 1938 partly in England, partly in Brussels.
Many of Auden's poems during the 1930s and after were inspired by unconsummated love, and in the 1950s he summarised his emotional life in a famous couplet: "If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me" ("The More Loving One"). He had a gift for friendship and, starting in the late 1930s, a strong wish for the stability of marriage; in a letter to his friend James Stern he called marriage "the only subject." Throughout his life, Auden performed charitable acts, sometimes in public (as in his 1935 marriage of convenience to Erika Mann that provided her with a British passport to escape the Nazis), but, especially in later years, more often in private. He was embarrassed if they were publicly revealed, as when his gift to his friend Dorothy Day for the Catholic Worker movement was reported on the front page of The New York Times in 1956.
United States and Europe, 1939–1973
Auden and Isherwood sailed to New York City in January 1939, entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many as a betrayal, and Auden's reputation suffered. In April 1939, Isherwood moved to California, and he and Auden saw each other only intermittently in later years. Around this time, Auden met the poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for the next two years (Auden described their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey).
In 1941, Kallman ended their sexual relationship because he could not accept Auden's insistence on mutual fidelity, but he and Auden remained companions for the rest of Auden's life, sharing houses and apartments from 1953 until Auden's death. Auden dedicated both editions of his collected poetry (1945/50 and 1966) to Isherwood and Kallman.
In 1940–41, Auden lived in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights, that he shared with Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others, which became a famous centre of artistic life, nicknamed "February House". In 1940, Auden joined the Episcopal Church, returning to the Anglican Communion he had abandoned at fifteen. His reconversion was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" of Charles Williams, whom he had met in 1937, and partly by reading Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central element in his life.
After Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Auden told the British embassy in Washington that he would return to the UK if needed. He was told that, among those his age (32), only qualified personnel were needed. In 1941–42 he taught English at the University of Michigan. He was called for the draft in the United States Army in August 1942, but was rejected on medical grounds. He had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1942–43 but did not use it, choosing instead to teach at Swarthmore College in 1942–45.
In mid-1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, he was in Germany with the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, studying the effects of Allied bombing on German morale, an experience that affected his postwar work as his visit to Spain had affected him earlier. On his return, he settled in Manhattan, working as a freelance writer, a lecturer at The New School for Social Research, and a visiting professor at Bennington, Smith, and other American colleges. In 1946, he became a naturalised citizen of the US.
In 1948, Auden began spending his summers in Europe, together with Chester Kallman, first in Ischia, Italy, where he rented a house. Then, starting in 1958, he began spending his summers in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he bought a farmhouse from the prize money of the Premio Feltrinelli awarded to him in 1957. He said that he shed tears of joy at owning a home for the first time. In 1956–61, Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University where he was required to give three lectures each year. This fairly light workload allowed him to continue to spend winter in New York, where he lived at 77 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan's East Village, and to spend summer in Europe, spending only three weeks each year lecturing in Oxford. He earned his income mostly from readings and lecture tours, and by writing for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines.
In 1963, Kallman left the apartment he shared in New York with Auden, and lived during the winter in Athens while continuing to spend his summers with Auden in Austria. In 1972, Auden moved his winter home from New York to Oxford, where his old college, Christ Church, offered him a cottage, while he continued to spend summers in Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973, a few hours after giving a reading of his poems at the Austrian Society for Literature; his death occurred at the Hotel Altenburger Hof where he was staying overnight before his intended return to Oxford the next day. He was buried in Kirchstetten.
Work
Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). His poetry was encyclopaedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to the lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks, from doggerel through haiku and villanelles to a "Christmas Oratorio" and a baroque eclogue in Anglo-Saxon meters. The tone and content of his poems ranged from pop-song clichés to complex philosophical meditations, from the corns on his toes to atoms and stars, from contemporary crises to the evolution of society.
He also wrote more than four hundred essays and reviews about literature, history, politics, music, religion, and many other subjects. He collaborated on plays with Christopher Isherwood and on opera libretti with Chester Kallman, and worked with a group of artists and filmmakers on documentary films in the 1930s and with the New York Pro Musica early music group in the 1950s and 1960s. About collaboration he wrote in 1964: "collaboration has brought me greater erotic joy . . . than any sexual relations I have had."
Auden controversially rewrote or discarded some of his most famous poems when he prepared his later collected editions. He wrote that he rejected poems that he found "boring" or "dishonest" in the sense that they expressed views he had never held but had used only because he felt they would be rhetorically effective. His rejected poems include "Spain" and "September 1, 1939". His literary executor, Edward Mendelson, argues in his introduction to Selected Poems that Auden's practice reflected his sense of the persuasive power of poetry and his reluctance to misuse it. (Selected Poems includes some poems that Auden rejected and early texts of poems that he revised.)
Early work, 1922–1939
Up to 1930
Auden began writing poems in 1922, at fifteen, mostly in the styles of 19th-century romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, and later poets with rural interests, especially Thomas Hardy. At eighteen he discovered T. S. Eliot and adopted an extreme version of Eliot's style. He found his own voice at twenty when he wrote the first poem later included in his collected work, "From the very first coming down". This and other poems of the late 1920s tended to be in a clipped, elusive style that alluded to, but did not directly state, their themes of loneliness and loss. Twenty of these poems appeared in his first book Poems (1928), a pamphlet hand-printed by Stephen Spender.
In 1928, he wrote his first dramatic work, Paid on Both Sides, subtitled "A Charade", which combined style and content from the Icelandic sagas with jokes from English school life. This mixture of tragedy and farce, with a dream play-within-a-play, introduced the mixed styles and content of much of his later work. This drama and thirty short poems appeared in his first published book Poems (1930, 2nd edition with seven poems replaced, 1933); the poems in the book were mostly lyrical and gnomic meditations on hoped-for or unconsummated love and on themes of personal, social, and seasonal renewal; among these poems were "It was Easter as I walked," "Doom is dark," "Sir, no man's enemy," and "This lunar beauty."
A recurrent theme in these early poems is the effect of "family ghosts", Auden's term for the powerful, unseen psychological effects of preceding generations on any individual life (and the title of a poem). A parallel theme, present throughout his work, is the contrast between biological evolution (unchosen and involuntary) and the psychological evolution of cultures and individuals (voluntary and deliberate even in its subconscious aspects).
1931–1935
Auden's next large-scale work was The Orators: An English Study (1932; revised editions, 1934, 1966), in verse and prose, largely about hero-worship in personal and political life. In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in The Orators reflect his new interest in Robert Burns. During the next few years, many of his poems took their form and style from traditional ballads and popular songs, and also from expansive classical forms like the Odes of Horace, which he seems to have discovered through the German poet Hölderlin. Around this time his main influences were Dante, William Langland, and Alexander Pope.
During these years, much of his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely known as a political poet although he was privately more ambivalent about revolutionary politics than many reviewers recognised, and Mendelson argues that he expounded political views partly out of a sense of moral duty and partly because it enhanced his reputation, and that he later regretted having done so. He generally wrote about revolutionary change in terms of a "change of heart", a transformation of a society from a closed-off psychology of fear to an open psychology of love.
His verse drama The Dance of Death (1933) was a political extravaganza in the style of a theatrical revue, which Auden later called "a nihilistic leg-pull." His next play The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), written in collaboration with Isherwood, was similarly a quasi-Marxist updating of Gilbert and Sullivan in which the general idea of social transformation was more prominent than any specific political action or structure.
The Ascent of F6 (1937), another play written with Isherwood, was partly an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an examination of Auden's own motives in taking on a public role as a political poet. This play included the first version of "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks"), written as a satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the poem as a "Cabaret Song" about lost love (written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson, for whom he wrote many lyrics in the 1930s). In 1935, he worked briefly on documentary films with the GPO Film Unit, writing his famous verse commentary for Night Mail and lyrics for other films that were among his attempts in the 1930s to create a widely accessible, socially conscious art.
1936–1939
In 1936, Auden's publisher chose the title Look, Stranger! for a collection of political odes, love poems, comic songs, meditative lyrics, and a variety of intellectually intense but emotionally accessible verse; Auden hated the title and retitled the collection for the 1937 US edition On This Island. Among the poems included in the book are "Hearing of harvests", "Out on the lawn I lie in bed", "O what is that sound", "Look, stranger, on this island now" (later revised versions change "on" to "at"), and "Our hunting fathers".
Auden was now arguing that an artist should be a kind of journalist, and he put this view into practice in Letters from Iceland (1937) a travel book in prose and verse written with Louis MacNeice, which included his long social, literary, and autobiographical commentary "Letter to Lord Byron". In 1937, after observing the Spanish Civil War he wrote a politically engaged pamphlet poem Spain (1937); he later discarded it from his collected works. Journey to a War (1939) a travel book in prose and verse, was written with Isherwood after their visit to the Sino-Japanese War. Auden's last collaboration with Isherwood was their third play, On the Frontier, an anti-war satire written in Broadway and West End styles.
Auden's shorter poems now engaged with the fragility and transience of personal love ("Danse Macabre", "The Dream", "Lay your sleeping head"), a subject he treated with ironic wit in his "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson" (which included "Tell Me the Truth About Love" and the revised version of "Funeral Blues"), and also the corrupting effect of public and official culture on individual lives ("Casino", "School Children", "Dover"). In 1938, he wrote a series of dark, ironic ballads about individual failure ("Miss Gee", "James Honeyman", "Victor"). All these appeared in Another Time (1940), together with poems including "Dover", "As He Is", and "Musée des Beaux Arts" (all of which were written before he moved to America in 1939), and "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "The Unknown Citizen", "Law Like Love", "September 1, 1939", and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (all written in America).
The elegies for Yeats and Freud are partly anti-heroic statements, in which great deeds are performed, not by unique geniuses whom others cannot hope to imitate, but by otherwise ordinary individuals who were "silly like us" (Yeats) or of whom it could be said "he wasn't clever at all" (Freud), and who became teachers of others, not awe-inspiring heroes.
Middle period, 1940–1957
1940–1946
In 1940, Auden wrote a long philosophical poem "New Year Letter", which appeared with miscellaneous notes and other poems in The Double Man (1941). At the time of his return to the Anglican Communion he began writing abstract verse on theological themes, such as "Canzone" and "Kairos and Logos". Around 1942, as he became more comfortable with religious themes, his verse became more open and relaxed, and he increasingly used the syllabic verse he had learned from the poetry of Marianne Moore.
Auden's work in this era addresses the artist's temptation to use other persons as material for his art rather than valuing them for themselves ("Prospero to Ariel") and the corresponding moral obligation to make and keep commitments while recognising the temptation to break them ("In Sickness and Health"). From 1942 through 1947 he worked mostly on three long poems in dramatic form, each differing from the others in form and content: "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest" (both published in For the Time Being, 1944), and The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (published separately in 1947). The first two, with Auden's other new poems from 1940 to 1944, were included in his first collected edition, The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (1945), with most of his earlier poems, many in revised versions.
1947–1957
After completing The Age of Anxiety in 1946 he focused again on shorter poems, notably "A Walk After Dark", "The Love Feast", and "The Fall of Rome". Many of these evoked the Italian village where he spent his summers between 1948 and 1957, and his next book, Nones (1951), had a Mediterranean atmosphere new to his work. A new theme was the "sacred importance" of the human body in its ordinary aspect (breathing, sleeping, eating) and the continuity with nature that the body made possible (in contrast to the division between humanity and nature that he had emphasised in the 1930s); his poems on these themes included "In Praise of Limestone" (1948) and "Memorial for the City" (1949). In 1949, Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and later collaborated on two libretti for operas by Hans Werner Henze.
Auden's first separate prose book was The Enchafèd Flood: The Romantic Iconography of the Sea (1950), based on a series of lectures on the image of the sea in romantic literature. Between 1949 and 1954 he worked on a sequence of seven Good Friday poems, titled "Horae Canonicae", an encyclopaedic survey of geological, biological, cultural, and personal history, focused on the irreversible act of murder; the poem was also a study in cyclical and linear ideas of time. While writing this, he also wrote "Bucolics," a sequence of seven poems about man's relation to nature. Both sequences appeared in his next book, The Shield of Achilles (1955), with other short poems, including the book's title poem, "Fleet Visit", and "Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier".
In 1955–56 Auden wrote a group of poems about "history", the term he used to mean the set of unique events made by human choices, as opposed to "nature", the set of involuntary events created by natural processes, statistics, and anonymous forces such as crowds. These poems included "T the Great", "The Maker", and the title poem of his next collection Homage to Clio (1960).
Later work, 1958–1973
In the late 1950s Auden's style became less rhetorical while its range of styles increased. In 1958, having moved his summer home from Italy to Austria, he wrote "Good-bye to the Mezzogiorno"; other poems from this period include "Dichtung und Wahrheit: An Unwritten Poem", a prose poem about the relation between love and personal and poetic language, and the contrasting "Dame Kind", about the anonymous impersonal reproductive instinct. These and other poems, including his 1955–66 poems about history, appeared in Homage to Clio (1960). His prose book The Dyer's Hand (1962) gathered many of the lectures he gave in Oxford as Professor of Poetry in 1956–61, together with revised versions of essays and notes written since the mid-1940s.
Among the new styles and forms in Auden's later work were the haiku and tanka that he began writing after translating the haiku and other verse in Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings. A sequence of fifteen poems about his house in Austria, "Thanksgiving for a Habitat" (written in various styles that included an imitation of William Carlos Williams) appeared in About the House (1965), together with other poems that included his reflection on his lecture tours, "On the Circuit". In the late 1960s he wrote some of his most vigorous poems, including "River Profile" and two poems that looked back over his life, "Prologue at Sixty" and "Forty Years On". All these appeared in City Without Walls (1969). His lifelong passion for Icelandic legend culminated in his verse translation of The Elder Edda (1969). Among his later themes was the "religionless Christianity" he learned partly from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the dedicatee of his poem "Friday's Child."
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970) was a kind of self-portrait made up of favourite quotations with commentary, arranged in alphabetical order by subject. His last prose book was a selection of essays and reviews, Forewords and Afterwords (1973). His last books of verse, Epistle to a Godson (1972) and the unfinished Thank You, Fog (published posthumously, 1974) include reflective poems about language ("Natural Linguistics", "Aubade"), philosophy and science ("No, Plato, No", "Unpredictable but Providential"), and his own aging ("A New Year Greeting", "Talking to Myself", "A Lullaby" ["The din of work is subdued"]). His last completed poem was "Archaeology", about ritual and timelessness, two recurring themes in his later years.
Reputation and influence
Auden's stature in modern literature has been contested. Probably the most common critical view from the 1930s onward ranked him as the last and least of the three major twentieth-century British and Irish poets—behind Yeats and Eliot—while a minority view, more prominent in recent years, ranks him as the highest of the three. Opinions have ranged from those of Hugh MacDiarmid, who called him "a complete wash-out"; F. R. Leavis, who wrote that Auden's ironic style was "self-defensive, self-indulgent or merely irresponsible"; and Harold Bloom, who wrote "Close thy Auden, open thy [Wallace] Stevens," to the obituarist in The Times, who wrote: "W.H. Auden, for long the enfant terrible of English poetry… emerges as its undisputed master." Joseph Brodsky wrote that Auden had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century".
Critical estimates were divided from the start. Reviewing Auden's first book, Poems (1930), Naomi Mitchison wrote "If this is really only the beginning, we have perhaps a master to look forward to." But John Sparrow, recalling Mitchison's comment in 1934, dismissed Auden's early work as "a monument to the misguided aims that prevail among contemporary poets, and the fact that… he is being hailed as 'a master' shows how criticism is helping poetry on the downward path."
Auden's clipped, satiric, and ironic style in the 1930s was widely imitated by younger poets such as Charles Madge, who wrote in a poem "there waited for me in the summer morning / Auden fiercely. I read, shuddered, and knew." He was widely described as the leader of an "Auden group" that comprised his friends Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. The four were mocked by the poet Roy Campbell as if they were a single undifferentiated poet named "Macspaunday." Auden's propagandistic poetic plays, including The Dog Beneath the Skin and The Ascent of F6, and his political poems such as "Spain" gave him the reputation as a political poet writing in a progressive and accessible voice, in contrast to Eliot; but this political stance provoked opposing opinions, such as that of Austin Clarke who called Auden's work "liberal, democratic, and humane", and John Drummond, who wrote that Auden misused a "characteristic and popularizing trick, the generalized image", to present ostensibly left-wing views that were in fact "confined to bourgeois experience."
Auden's departure for America in 1939 was debated in Britain (once even in Parliament), with some seeing his emigration as a betrayal. Defenders of Auden such as Geoffrey Grigson, in an introduction to a 1949 anthology of modern poetry, wrote that Auden "arches over all". His stature was suggested by book titles such as Auden and After by Francis Scarfe (1942) and The Auden Generation by Samuel Hynes (1977).
In the US, starting in the late 1930s, the detached, ironic tone of Auden's regular stanzas became influential; John Ashbery recalled that in the 1940s Auden "was the modern poet". Auden's formal influences were so pervasive in American poetry that the ecstatic style of the Beat Generation was partly a reaction against his influence. From the 1940s through the 1960s, many critics lamented that Auden's work had declined from its earlier promise; Randall Jarrell wrote a series of essays making a case against Auden's later work, and Philip Larkin's "What's Become of Wystan?" (1960) had a wide impact.
After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues", "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Refugee Blues", "The Unknown Citizen", and "September 1, 1939", became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
The first full-length study of Auden was Richard Hoggart's Auden: An Introductory Essay (1951), which concluded that "Auden's work, then, is a civilising force." It was followed by Joseph Warren Beach's The Making of the Auden Canon (1957), a disapproving account of Auden's revisions of his earlier work.
The first systematic critical account was Monroe K. Spears' The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island (1963), "written out of the conviction that Auden's poetry can offer the reader entertainment, instruction, intellectual excitement, and a prodigal variety of aesthetic pleasures, all in a generous abundance that is unique in our time."
Auden was one of three candidates recommended by the Nobel Committee to the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963 and 1965 and six recommended for the 1964 prize. By the time of his death in 1973 he had attained the status of a respected elder statesman, and a memorial stone for him was placed in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1974. The Encyclopædia Britannica writes that "by the time of Eliot's death in 1965… a convincing case could be made for the assertion that Auden was indeed Eliot's successor, as Eliot had inherited sole claim to supremacy when Yeats died in 1939." With some exceptions, British critics tended to treat his early work as his best, while American critics tended to favour his middle and later work.
Another group of critics and poets has maintained that unlike other modern poets, Auden's reputation did not decline after his death, and the influence of his later writing was especially strong on younger American poets including John Ashbery, James Merrill, Anthony Hecht, and Maxine Kumin. Typical later evaluations describe him as "arguably the [20th] century's greatest poet" (Peter Parker and Frank Kermode), who "now clearly seems the greatest poet in English since Tennyson" (Philip Hensher).
Public recognition of Auden's work sharply increased after his "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem "As I walked out one evening" was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995).
After 11 September 2001 his 1939 poem "September 1, 1939" was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.
Overall, Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.
Memorial stones and plaques commemorating Auden include those in Westminster Abbey; at his birthplace at 55 Bootham, York; near his home on Lordswood Road, Birmingham; in the chapel of Christ Church, Oxford; on the site of his apartment at 1 Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights; at his apartment in 77 St. Marks Place, New York (damaged and now removed); at the site of his death at Walfischgasse 5 in Vienna; and in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco. In his house in Kirchstetten, his study is open to the public upon request.
Published works
The following list includes only the books of poems and essays that Auden prepared during his lifetime; for a more complete list, including other works and posthumous editions, see W. H. Auden bibliography.
In the list below, works reprinted in the Complete Works of W. H. Auden are indicated by footnote references.
Books
Poems (London, 1930; second edn., seven poems substituted, London, 1933; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood).
The Orators: An English Study (London, 1932, verse and prose; slightly revised edn., London, 1934; revised edn. with new preface, London, 1966; New York 1967) (dedicated to Stephen Spender).
The Dance of Death (London, 1933, play) (dedicated to Robert Medley and Rupert Doone).
Poems (New York, 1934; contains Poems [1933 edition], The Orators [1932 edition], and The Dance of Death).
The Dog Beneath the Skin (London, New York, 1935; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Robert Moody).
The Ascent of F6 (London, 1936; 2nd edn., 1937; New York, 1937; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).
Look, Stranger! (London, 1936, poems; US edn., On This Island, New York, 1937) (dedicated to Erika Mann)
Letters from Iceland (London, New York, 1937; verse and prose, with Louis MacNeice) (dedicated to George Augustus Auden).
On the Frontier (London, 1938; New York 1939; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).
Journey to a War (London, New York, 1939; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to E. M. Forster).
Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
The Double Man (New York, 1941, poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, 1941) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).
For the Time Being (New York, 1944; London, 1945; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", in memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).
The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York, 1945; includes new poems) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman). Full text.
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New York, 1947; London, 1948; verse; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).
Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (London, 1950; similar to 1945 Collected Poetry) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
The Enchafèd Flood (New York, 1950; London, 1951; prose) (dedicated to Alan Ansen).
Nones (New York, 1951; London, 1952; poems) (dedicated to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)
The Shield of Achilles (New York, London, 1955; poems) (won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry) (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).
Homage to Clio (New York, London, 1960; poems) (dedicated to E. R. and A. E. Dodds).
The Dyer's Hand (New York, 1962; London, 1963; essays) (dedicated to Nevill Coghill).
About the House (New York, London, 1965; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).
Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London, 1966; New York, 1967) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
Collected Longer Poems (London, 1968; New York, 1969).
Secondary Worlds (London, New York, 1969; prose) (dedicated to Valerie Eliot).
City Without Walls and Other Poems (London, New York, 1969) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, 1970; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Grigson).
Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems (London, New York, 1972) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).
Forewords and Afterwords (New York, London, 1973; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).
Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, 1974) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).
Film scripts and opera libretti
Coal Face (1935, closing chorus for GPO Film Unit documentary).
Night Mail (1936, narrative for GPO Film Unit documentary, not published separately except as a programme note).
Paul Bunyan (1941, libretto for operetta by Benjamin Britten; not published until 1976).
The Rake's Progress (1951, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Igor Stravinsky).
Elegy for Young Lovers (1956, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze).
The Bassarids (1961, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze based on The Bacchae of Euripides).
Runner (1962, documentary film narrative for National Film Board of Canada)
Love's Labour's Lost (1973, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, based on Shakespeare's play).
Musical collaborations
Our Hunting Fathers (1936, song cycle written for Benjamin Britten)
An Evening of Elizabethan Verse and its Music (1954 recording with the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg; Auden spoke the verse texts)
The Play of Daniel (1958, verse narration for a production by the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg)
References
Sources
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1990) "The Map of All My Youth": early works, friends and influences (Auden Studies 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1994). "The Language of Learning and the Language of Love": uncollected writings, new interpretations (Auden Studies 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1995). "In Solitude, For Company": W. H. Auden after 1940: unpublished prose and recent criticism (Auden Studies 3). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Carpenter, Humphrey (1981). W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin. .
Clark, Thekla (1995). Wystan and Chester: A Personal Memoir of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. London: Faber and Faber. .
Davenport-Hines, Richard (1996). Auden. London: Heinemann. .
Farnan, Dorothy J. (1984). Auden in Love. New York: Simon & Schuster. .
Fuller, John (1998). W. H. Auden: A Commentary. London: Faber and Faber. .
Haffenden, John, ed. (1983). W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. .
Kirsch, Arthur (2005). Auden and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
Mendelson, Edward (1981). Early Auden. New York: Viking. .
Mendelson, Edward (1999). Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. .
Mendelson, Edward (2017). Early Auden, Later Auden: A Critical Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. .
Mitchell, Donald (1981), Britten and Auden in the Thirties: the year 1936. London: Faber and Faber. .
Myers, Alan and Forsythe, Robert (1999), W. H. Auden: Pennine Poet . Nenthead: North Pennines Heritage Trust. . Pamphlet with map and gazetteer.
Sharpe, Tony, ed. (2013). W. H. Auden in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Smith, Stan, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island. New York: Oxford University Press.
Further reading
Costello, Bonnie, and Rachel Galvin, eds. (2015). Auden at Work. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. .
Spender, Stephen, ed. (1975). W. H. Auden: A Tribute. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. .
Wright, George T. (1969; rev. ed. 1981). W. H. Auden. Boston: Twayne. .
External links
(book publication records and links to digital talking books editions)
W H Auden at the British Library
Papers at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Finding aid to W.H. Auden papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1907 births
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British literary critics
British male essayists
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British people of the Spanish Civil War
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Formalist poets
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"Gromia dubia is a species of testate rhizarian animal in the family Gromiidae which is only known from one discovered specimen, which was discovered in 1884 by Gruber, and no other specimens of G. dubia have been found ever since.\n\nGruber did not actually make a proper description of the species itself.\n\nSee also\n Gromia\n Testate amoeba\n\nReferences\n\nGromiidea\nAmoeboids\nRhizaria species",
"\"Down by the Bay\" is a traditional children's song. A famous version was performed by Raffi and appears on his 1976 album Singable Songs for the Very Young. In an interview with the Vulture Newsletter, Raffi described it as being “An old, old song\", saying that \"It may have been a World War I song... It came from England.” \n\nIn recent years, it has gained popularity as a campfire song among the Scouting Movement in Britain. Another version of the song is \"Down by the Sea.\" The chorus from this was used by the folk band, Fiddler's Dram, in their song \"Johnny John.\"\n\nThe song lyrics are usually as follows:\n\nUsually the insertion lyrics follow some kind of variation of the question \"Did/(Have) you ever see(n) a _ _ing a _?\", with the first and last blank rhyming. For example:\n \"Did you ever see a moose kissing a goose?\" (or \"goose kissing a moose\")\n \"Did you ever see a whale with a polka dot tail?\"\n \"Did you ever see a fly wearing a tie?\"\n \"Did you ever see a bear combing his hair?\"\n \"Did you ever see a lion being a bean?\"\n\nThe song can be ended with the following line:\n \"Did you ever have a time when you couldn't make a rhyme?\"\n\nEach of the rhyming lines is followed by the ending line:\n \"Down by the bay\"\n\nReferences\n\nEnglish children's songs\n1910s songs\nSongwriter unknown\nYear of song unknown"
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"Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a \"High\" form of Anglicanism",
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C_2ec0c88681c74ea89029850ddad923d3_1
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what else did he do that makes him stand out
| 7 |
What else did W. H. Auden do that makes him stand out besides having a love of music and language?
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W. H. Auden
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Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (nee Bicknell; 1869-1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900-1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903-1991), became a geologist. Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work. In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do." CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".
He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys.
In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria.
He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand.
Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men. In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky.
Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
Life
Childhood
Auden was born on Bootham in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872–1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (née Bicknell; 1869–1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900–1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903–1991), became a geologist. The Audens were minor gentry with a strong clerical tradition, originally of Rowley Regis, later of Horninglow, Staffordshire.
Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism, with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work.
His family moved to Homer Road in Solihull, near Birmingham, in 1908, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do."
Education
Auden attended St Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, later famous in his own right as a novelist. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Norfolk; there, in 1922, when his friend Robert Medley asked him if he wrote poetry, Auden first realised his vocation was to be a poet. Soon after, he "discover(ed) that he (had) lost his faith" (through a gradual realisation that he had lost interest in religion, not through any decisive change of views). In school productions of Shakespeare, he played Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew in 1922, and Caliban in The Tempest in 1925, his last year at Gresham's. His first published poems appeared in the school magazine in 1923. Auden later wrote a chapter on Gresham's for Graham Greene's The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands (1934).
In 1925, he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, with a scholarship in biology; he switched to English by his second year, and was introduced to Old English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Tolkien. Friends he met at Oxford include Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender; these four were commonly though misleadingly identified in the 1930s as the "Auden Group" for their shared (but not identical) left-wing views. Auden left Oxford in 1928 with a third-class degree.
Auden was reintroduced to Christopher Isherwood in 1925 by his fellow student A. S. T. Fisher. For the next few years Auden sent poems to Isherwood for comments and criticism; the two maintained a sexual friendship in intervals between their relations with others. In 1935–39 they collaborated on three plays and a travel book.
From his Oxford years onward, Auden's friends uniformly described him as funny, extravagant, sympathetic, generous, and, partly by his own choice, lonely. In groups he was often dogmatic and overbearing in a comic way; in more private settings he was diffident and shy except when certain of his welcome. He was punctual in his habits, and obsessive about meeting deadlines, while choosing to live amidst physical disorder.
Britain and Europe, 1928–1938
In late 1928, Auden left Britain for nine months, going to Berlin, perhaps partly as an escape from English repressiveness. In Berlin, he first experienced the political and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects. Around the same time, Stephen Spender privately printed a small pamphlet of Auden's Poems in an edition of about 45 copies, distributed among Auden's and Spender's friends and family; this edition is usually referred to as Poems [1928] to avoid confusion with Auden's commercially published 1930 volume.
On returning to Britain in 1929, he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930, his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T. S. Eliot for Faber and Faber, and the same firm remained the British publisher of all the books he published thereafter. In 1930, he began five years as a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the Downs School in the Malvern Hills, where he was a much-loved teacher. At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape", while sitting with three fellow-teachers at the school, when he suddenly found that he loved them for themselves, that their existence had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940.
During these years, Auden's erotic interests focused, as he later said, on an idealised "Alter Ego" rather than on individual persons. His relationships (and his unsuccessful courtships) tended to be unequal either in age or intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved into long friendships. He contrasted these relationships with what he later regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that he began with Chester Kallman in 1939, based on the unique individuality of both partners.
In 1935, Auden married Erika Mann (1905–1969), the lesbian novelist daughter of Thomas Mann when it became apparent that the Nazis were intending to strip her of her German citizenship. Mann had asked Christopher Isherwood if he would marry her so she could become a British citizen. He declined but suggested she approach Auden, who readily agreed to a marriage of convenience. Mann and Auden never lived together, but remained on good terms throughout their lives and were still married when Mann died in 1969. She left him a small bequest in her will. In 1936, Auden introduced actress Therese Giehse, Mann's lover, to the writer John Hampson and they too married so that Giehse could leave Germany.
From 1935 until he left Britain early in 1939, Auden worked as freelance reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, first with the GPO Film Unit, a documentary film-making branch of the post office, headed by John Grierson. Through his work for the Film Unit in 1935 he met and collaborated with Benjamin Britten, with whom he also worked on plays, song cycles, and a libretto. Auden's plays in the 1930s were performed by the Group Theatre, in productions that he supervised to varying degrees.
His work now reflected his belief that any good artist must be "more than a bit of a reporting journalist". In 1936, Auden spent three months in Iceland where he gathered material for a travel book Letters from Iceland (1937), written in collaboration with Louis MacNeice. In 1937, he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, but was put to work writing propaganda at the Republican press and propaganda office, where he felt useless and left after a week. He returned to England after a brief visit to the front at Sarineña. His seven-week visit to Spain affected him deeply, and his social views grew more complex as he found political realities to be more ambiguous and troubling than he had imagined. Again attempting to combine reportage and art, he and Isherwood spent six months in 1938 visiting China amid the Sino-Japanese War, working on their book Journey to a War (1939). On their way back to England they stayed briefly in New York and decided to move to the United States. Auden spent late 1938 partly in England, partly in Brussels.
Many of Auden's poems during the 1930s and after were inspired by unconsummated love, and in the 1950s he summarised his emotional life in a famous couplet: "If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me" ("The More Loving One"). He had a gift for friendship and, starting in the late 1930s, a strong wish for the stability of marriage; in a letter to his friend James Stern he called marriage "the only subject." Throughout his life, Auden performed charitable acts, sometimes in public (as in his 1935 marriage of convenience to Erika Mann that provided her with a British passport to escape the Nazis), but, especially in later years, more often in private. He was embarrassed if they were publicly revealed, as when his gift to his friend Dorothy Day for the Catholic Worker movement was reported on the front page of The New York Times in 1956.
United States and Europe, 1939–1973
Auden and Isherwood sailed to New York City in January 1939, entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many as a betrayal, and Auden's reputation suffered. In April 1939, Isherwood moved to California, and he and Auden saw each other only intermittently in later years. Around this time, Auden met the poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for the next two years (Auden described their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey).
In 1941, Kallman ended their sexual relationship because he could not accept Auden's insistence on mutual fidelity, but he and Auden remained companions for the rest of Auden's life, sharing houses and apartments from 1953 until Auden's death. Auden dedicated both editions of his collected poetry (1945/50 and 1966) to Isherwood and Kallman.
In 1940–41, Auden lived in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights, that he shared with Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others, which became a famous centre of artistic life, nicknamed "February House". In 1940, Auden joined the Episcopal Church, returning to the Anglican Communion he had abandoned at fifteen. His reconversion was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" of Charles Williams, whom he had met in 1937, and partly by reading Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central element in his life.
After Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Auden told the British embassy in Washington that he would return to the UK if needed. He was told that, among those his age (32), only qualified personnel were needed. In 1941–42 he taught English at the University of Michigan. He was called for the draft in the United States Army in August 1942, but was rejected on medical grounds. He had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1942–43 but did not use it, choosing instead to teach at Swarthmore College in 1942–45.
In mid-1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, he was in Germany with the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, studying the effects of Allied bombing on German morale, an experience that affected his postwar work as his visit to Spain had affected him earlier. On his return, he settled in Manhattan, working as a freelance writer, a lecturer at The New School for Social Research, and a visiting professor at Bennington, Smith, and other American colleges. In 1946, he became a naturalised citizen of the US.
In 1948, Auden began spending his summers in Europe, together with Chester Kallman, first in Ischia, Italy, where he rented a house. Then, starting in 1958, he began spending his summers in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he bought a farmhouse from the prize money of the Premio Feltrinelli awarded to him in 1957. He said that he shed tears of joy at owning a home for the first time. In 1956–61, Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University where he was required to give three lectures each year. This fairly light workload allowed him to continue to spend winter in New York, where he lived at 77 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan's East Village, and to spend summer in Europe, spending only three weeks each year lecturing in Oxford. He earned his income mostly from readings and lecture tours, and by writing for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines.
In 1963, Kallman left the apartment he shared in New York with Auden, and lived during the winter in Athens while continuing to spend his summers with Auden in Austria. In 1972, Auden moved his winter home from New York to Oxford, where his old college, Christ Church, offered him a cottage, while he continued to spend summers in Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973, a few hours after giving a reading of his poems at the Austrian Society for Literature; his death occurred at the Hotel Altenburger Hof where he was staying overnight before his intended return to Oxford the next day. He was buried in Kirchstetten.
Work
Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). His poetry was encyclopaedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to the lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks, from doggerel through haiku and villanelles to a "Christmas Oratorio" and a baroque eclogue in Anglo-Saxon meters. The tone and content of his poems ranged from pop-song clichés to complex philosophical meditations, from the corns on his toes to atoms and stars, from contemporary crises to the evolution of society.
He also wrote more than four hundred essays and reviews about literature, history, politics, music, religion, and many other subjects. He collaborated on plays with Christopher Isherwood and on opera libretti with Chester Kallman, and worked with a group of artists and filmmakers on documentary films in the 1930s and with the New York Pro Musica early music group in the 1950s and 1960s. About collaboration he wrote in 1964: "collaboration has brought me greater erotic joy . . . than any sexual relations I have had."
Auden controversially rewrote or discarded some of his most famous poems when he prepared his later collected editions. He wrote that he rejected poems that he found "boring" or "dishonest" in the sense that they expressed views he had never held but had used only because he felt they would be rhetorically effective. His rejected poems include "Spain" and "September 1, 1939". His literary executor, Edward Mendelson, argues in his introduction to Selected Poems that Auden's practice reflected his sense of the persuasive power of poetry and his reluctance to misuse it. (Selected Poems includes some poems that Auden rejected and early texts of poems that he revised.)
Early work, 1922–1939
Up to 1930
Auden began writing poems in 1922, at fifteen, mostly in the styles of 19th-century romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, and later poets with rural interests, especially Thomas Hardy. At eighteen he discovered T. S. Eliot and adopted an extreme version of Eliot's style. He found his own voice at twenty when he wrote the first poem later included in his collected work, "From the very first coming down". This and other poems of the late 1920s tended to be in a clipped, elusive style that alluded to, but did not directly state, their themes of loneliness and loss. Twenty of these poems appeared in his first book Poems (1928), a pamphlet hand-printed by Stephen Spender.
In 1928, he wrote his first dramatic work, Paid on Both Sides, subtitled "A Charade", which combined style and content from the Icelandic sagas with jokes from English school life. This mixture of tragedy and farce, with a dream play-within-a-play, introduced the mixed styles and content of much of his later work. This drama and thirty short poems appeared in his first published book Poems (1930, 2nd edition with seven poems replaced, 1933); the poems in the book were mostly lyrical and gnomic meditations on hoped-for or unconsummated love and on themes of personal, social, and seasonal renewal; among these poems were "It was Easter as I walked," "Doom is dark," "Sir, no man's enemy," and "This lunar beauty."
A recurrent theme in these early poems is the effect of "family ghosts", Auden's term for the powerful, unseen psychological effects of preceding generations on any individual life (and the title of a poem). A parallel theme, present throughout his work, is the contrast between biological evolution (unchosen and involuntary) and the psychological evolution of cultures and individuals (voluntary and deliberate even in its subconscious aspects).
1931–1935
Auden's next large-scale work was The Orators: An English Study (1932; revised editions, 1934, 1966), in verse and prose, largely about hero-worship in personal and political life. In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in The Orators reflect his new interest in Robert Burns. During the next few years, many of his poems took their form and style from traditional ballads and popular songs, and also from expansive classical forms like the Odes of Horace, which he seems to have discovered through the German poet Hölderlin. Around this time his main influences were Dante, William Langland, and Alexander Pope.
During these years, much of his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely known as a political poet although he was privately more ambivalent about revolutionary politics than many reviewers recognised, and Mendelson argues that he expounded political views partly out of a sense of moral duty and partly because it enhanced his reputation, and that he later regretted having done so. He generally wrote about revolutionary change in terms of a "change of heart", a transformation of a society from a closed-off psychology of fear to an open psychology of love.
His verse drama The Dance of Death (1933) was a political extravaganza in the style of a theatrical revue, which Auden later called "a nihilistic leg-pull." His next play The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), written in collaboration with Isherwood, was similarly a quasi-Marxist updating of Gilbert and Sullivan in which the general idea of social transformation was more prominent than any specific political action or structure.
The Ascent of F6 (1937), another play written with Isherwood, was partly an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an examination of Auden's own motives in taking on a public role as a political poet. This play included the first version of "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks"), written as a satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the poem as a "Cabaret Song" about lost love (written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson, for whom he wrote many lyrics in the 1930s). In 1935, he worked briefly on documentary films with the GPO Film Unit, writing his famous verse commentary for Night Mail and lyrics for other films that were among his attempts in the 1930s to create a widely accessible, socially conscious art.
1936–1939
In 1936, Auden's publisher chose the title Look, Stranger! for a collection of political odes, love poems, comic songs, meditative lyrics, and a variety of intellectually intense but emotionally accessible verse; Auden hated the title and retitled the collection for the 1937 US edition On This Island. Among the poems included in the book are "Hearing of harvests", "Out on the lawn I lie in bed", "O what is that sound", "Look, stranger, on this island now" (later revised versions change "on" to "at"), and "Our hunting fathers".
Auden was now arguing that an artist should be a kind of journalist, and he put this view into practice in Letters from Iceland (1937) a travel book in prose and verse written with Louis MacNeice, which included his long social, literary, and autobiographical commentary "Letter to Lord Byron". In 1937, after observing the Spanish Civil War he wrote a politically engaged pamphlet poem Spain (1937); he later discarded it from his collected works. Journey to a War (1939) a travel book in prose and verse, was written with Isherwood after their visit to the Sino-Japanese War. Auden's last collaboration with Isherwood was their third play, On the Frontier, an anti-war satire written in Broadway and West End styles.
Auden's shorter poems now engaged with the fragility and transience of personal love ("Danse Macabre", "The Dream", "Lay your sleeping head"), a subject he treated with ironic wit in his "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson" (which included "Tell Me the Truth About Love" and the revised version of "Funeral Blues"), and also the corrupting effect of public and official culture on individual lives ("Casino", "School Children", "Dover"). In 1938, he wrote a series of dark, ironic ballads about individual failure ("Miss Gee", "James Honeyman", "Victor"). All these appeared in Another Time (1940), together with poems including "Dover", "As He Is", and "Musée des Beaux Arts" (all of which were written before he moved to America in 1939), and "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "The Unknown Citizen", "Law Like Love", "September 1, 1939", and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (all written in America).
The elegies for Yeats and Freud are partly anti-heroic statements, in which great deeds are performed, not by unique geniuses whom others cannot hope to imitate, but by otherwise ordinary individuals who were "silly like us" (Yeats) or of whom it could be said "he wasn't clever at all" (Freud), and who became teachers of others, not awe-inspiring heroes.
Middle period, 1940–1957
1940–1946
In 1940, Auden wrote a long philosophical poem "New Year Letter", which appeared with miscellaneous notes and other poems in The Double Man (1941). At the time of his return to the Anglican Communion he began writing abstract verse on theological themes, such as "Canzone" and "Kairos and Logos". Around 1942, as he became more comfortable with religious themes, his verse became more open and relaxed, and he increasingly used the syllabic verse he had learned from the poetry of Marianne Moore.
Auden's work in this era addresses the artist's temptation to use other persons as material for his art rather than valuing them for themselves ("Prospero to Ariel") and the corresponding moral obligation to make and keep commitments while recognising the temptation to break them ("In Sickness and Health"). From 1942 through 1947 he worked mostly on three long poems in dramatic form, each differing from the others in form and content: "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest" (both published in For the Time Being, 1944), and The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (published separately in 1947). The first two, with Auden's other new poems from 1940 to 1944, were included in his first collected edition, The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (1945), with most of his earlier poems, many in revised versions.
1947–1957
After completing The Age of Anxiety in 1946 he focused again on shorter poems, notably "A Walk After Dark", "The Love Feast", and "The Fall of Rome". Many of these evoked the Italian village where he spent his summers between 1948 and 1957, and his next book, Nones (1951), had a Mediterranean atmosphere new to his work. A new theme was the "sacred importance" of the human body in its ordinary aspect (breathing, sleeping, eating) and the continuity with nature that the body made possible (in contrast to the division between humanity and nature that he had emphasised in the 1930s); his poems on these themes included "In Praise of Limestone" (1948) and "Memorial for the City" (1949). In 1949, Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and later collaborated on two libretti for operas by Hans Werner Henze.
Auden's first separate prose book was The Enchafèd Flood: The Romantic Iconography of the Sea (1950), based on a series of lectures on the image of the sea in romantic literature. Between 1949 and 1954 he worked on a sequence of seven Good Friday poems, titled "Horae Canonicae", an encyclopaedic survey of geological, biological, cultural, and personal history, focused on the irreversible act of murder; the poem was also a study in cyclical and linear ideas of time. While writing this, he also wrote "Bucolics," a sequence of seven poems about man's relation to nature. Both sequences appeared in his next book, The Shield of Achilles (1955), with other short poems, including the book's title poem, "Fleet Visit", and "Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier".
In 1955–56 Auden wrote a group of poems about "history", the term he used to mean the set of unique events made by human choices, as opposed to "nature", the set of involuntary events created by natural processes, statistics, and anonymous forces such as crowds. These poems included "T the Great", "The Maker", and the title poem of his next collection Homage to Clio (1960).
Later work, 1958–1973
In the late 1950s Auden's style became less rhetorical while its range of styles increased. In 1958, having moved his summer home from Italy to Austria, he wrote "Good-bye to the Mezzogiorno"; other poems from this period include "Dichtung und Wahrheit: An Unwritten Poem", a prose poem about the relation between love and personal and poetic language, and the contrasting "Dame Kind", about the anonymous impersonal reproductive instinct. These and other poems, including his 1955–66 poems about history, appeared in Homage to Clio (1960). His prose book The Dyer's Hand (1962) gathered many of the lectures he gave in Oxford as Professor of Poetry in 1956–61, together with revised versions of essays and notes written since the mid-1940s.
Among the new styles and forms in Auden's later work were the haiku and tanka that he began writing after translating the haiku and other verse in Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings. A sequence of fifteen poems about his house in Austria, "Thanksgiving for a Habitat" (written in various styles that included an imitation of William Carlos Williams) appeared in About the House (1965), together with other poems that included his reflection on his lecture tours, "On the Circuit". In the late 1960s he wrote some of his most vigorous poems, including "River Profile" and two poems that looked back over his life, "Prologue at Sixty" and "Forty Years On". All these appeared in City Without Walls (1969). His lifelong passion for Icelandic legend culminated in his verse translation of The Elder Edda (1969). Among his later themes was the "religionless Christianity" he learned partly from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the dedicatee of his poem "Friday's Child."
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970) was a kind of self-portrait made up of favourite quotations with commentary, arranged in alphabetical order by subject. His last prose book was a selection of essays and reviews, Forewords and Afterwords (1973). His last books of verse, Epistle to a Godson (1972) and the unfinished Thank You, Fog (published posthumously, 1974) include reflective poems about language ("Natural Linguistics", "Aubade"), philosophy and science ("No, Plato, No", "Unpredictable but Providential"), and his own aging ("A New Year Greeting", "Talking to Myself", "A Lullaby" ["The din of work is subdued"]). His last completed poem was "Archaeology", about ritual and timelessness, two recurring themes in his later years.
Reputation and influence
Auden's stature in modern literature has been contested. Probably the most common critical view from the 1930s onward ranked him as the last and least of the three major twentieth-century British and Irish poets—behind Yeats and Eliot—while a minority view, more prominent in recent years, ranks him as the highest of the three. Opinions have ranged from those of Hugh MacDiarmid, who called him "a complete wash-out"; F. R. Leavis, who wrote that Auden's ironic style was "self-defensive, self-indulgent or merely irresponsible"; and Harold Bloom, who wrote "Close thy Auden, open thy [Wallace] Stevens," to the obituarist in The Times, who wrote: "W.H. Auden, for long the enfant terrible of English poetry… emerges as its undisputed master." Joseph Brodsky wrote that Auden had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century".
Critical estimates were divided from the start. Reviewing Auden's first book, Poems (1930), Naomi Mitchison wrote "If this is really only the beginning, we have perhaps a master to look forward to." But John Sparrow, recalling Mitchison's comment in 1934, dismissed Auden's early work as "a monument to the misguided aims that prevail among contemporary poets, and the fact that… he is being hailed as 'a master' shows how criticism is helping poetry on the downward path."
Auden's clipped, satiric, and ironic style in the 1930s was widely imitated by younger poets such as Charles Madge, who wrote in a poem "there waited for me in the summer morning / Auden fiercely. I read, shuddered, and knew." He was widely described as the leader of an "Auden group" that comprised his friends Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. The four were mocked by the poet Roy Campbell as if they were a single undifferentiated poet named "Macspaunday." Auden's propagandistic poetic plays, including The Dog Beneath the Skin and The Ascent of F6, and his political poems such as "Spain" gave him the reputation as a political poet writing in a progressive and accessible voice, in contrast to Eliot; but this political stance provoked opposing opinions, such as that of Austin Clarke who called Auden's work "liberal, democratic, and humane", and John Drummond, who wrote that Auden misused a "characteristic and popularizing trick, the generalized image", to present ostensibly left-wing views that were in fact "confined to bourgeois experience."
Auden's departure for America in 1939 was debated in Britain (once even in Parliament), with some seeing his emigration as a betrayal. Defenders of Auden such as Geoffrey Grigson, in an introduction to a 1949 anthology of modern poetry, wrote that Auden "arches over all". His stature was suggested by book titles such as Auden and After by Francis Scarfe (1942) and The Auden Generation by Samuel Hynes (1977).
In the US, starting in the late 1930s, the detached, ironic tone of Auden's regular stanzas became influential; John Ashbery recalled that in the 1940s Auden "was the modern poet". Auden's formal influences were so pervasive in American poetry that the ecstatic style of the Beat Generation was partly a reaction against his influence. From the 1940s through the 1960s, many critics lamented that Auden's work had declined from its earlier promise; Randall Jarrell wrote a series of essays making a case against Auden's later work, and Philip Larkin's "What's Become of Wystan?" (1960) had a wide impact.
After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues", "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Refugee Blues", "The Unknown Citizen", and "September 1, 1939", became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
The first full-length study of Auden was Richard Hoggart's Auden: An Introductory Essay (1951), which concluded that "Auden's work, then, is a civilising force." It was followed by Joseph Warren Beach's The Making of the Auden Canon (1957), a disapproving account of Auden's revisions of his earlier work.
The first systematic critical account was Monroe K. Spears' The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island (1963), "written out of the conviction that Auden's poetry can offer the reader entertainment, instruction, intellectual excitement, and a prodigal variety of aesthetic pleasures, all in a generous abundance that is unique in our time."
Auden was one of three candidates recommended by the Nobel Committee to the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963 and 1965 and six recommended for the 1964 prize. By the time of his death in 1973 he had attained the status of a respected elder statesman, and a memorial stone for him was placed in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1974. The Encyclopædia Britannica writes that "by the time of Eliot's death in 1965… a convincing case could be made for the assertion that Auden was indeed Eliot's successor, as Eliot had inherited sole claim to supremacy when Yeats died in 1939." With some exceptions, British critics tended to treat his early work as his best, while American critics tended to favour his middle and later work.
Another group of critics and poets has maintained that unlike other modern poets, Auden's reputation did not decline after his death, and the influence of his later writing was especially strong on younger American poets including John Ashbery, James Merrill, Anthony Hecht, and Maxine Kumin. Typical later evaluations describe him as "arguably the [20th] century's greatest poet" (Peter Parker and Frank Kermode), who "now clearly seems the greatest poet in English since Tennyson" (Philip Hensher).
Public recognition of Auden's work sharply increased after his "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem "As I walked out one evening" was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995).
After 11 September 2001 his 1939 poem "September 1, 1939" was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.
Overall, Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.
Memorial stones and plaques commemorating Auden include those in Westminster Abbey; at his birthplace at 55 Bootham, York; near his home on Lordswood Road, Birmingham; in the chapel of Christ Church, Oxford; on the site of his apartment at 1 Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights; at his apartment in 77 St. Marks Place, New York (damaged and now removed); at the site of his death at Walfischgasse 5 in Vienna; and in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco. In his house in Kirchstetten, his study is open to the public upon request.
Published works
The following list includes only the books of poems and essays that Auden prepared during his lifetime; for a more complete list, including other works and posthumous editions, see W. H. Auden bibliography.
In the list below, works reprinted in the Complete Works of W. H. Auden are indicated by footnote references.
Books
Poems (London, 1930; second edn., seven poems substituted, London, 1933; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood).
The Orators: An English Study (London, 1932, verse and prose; slightly revised edn., London, 1934; revised edn. with new preface, London, 1966; New York 1967) (dedicated to Stephen Spender).
The Dance of Death (London, 1933, play) (dedicated to Robert Medley and Rupert Doone).
Poems (New York, 1934; contains Poems [1933 edition], The Orators [1932 edition], and The Dance of Death).
The Dog Beneath the Skin (London, New York, 1935; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Robert Moody).
The Ascent of F6 (London, 1936; 2nd edn., 1937; New York, 1937; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).
Look, Stranger! (London, 1936, poems; US edn., On This Island, New York, 1937) (dedicated to Erika Mann)
Letters from Iceland (London, New York, 1937; verse and prose, with Louis MacNeice) (dedicated to George Augustus Auden).
On the Frontier (London, 1938; New York 1939; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).
Journey to a War (London, New York, 1939; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to E. M. Forster).
Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
The Double Man (New York, 1941, poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, 1941) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).
For the Time Being (New York, 1944; London, 1945; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", in memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).
The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York, 1945; includes new poems) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman). Full text.
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New York, 1947; London, 1948; verse; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).
Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (London, 1950; similar to 1945 Collected Poetry) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
The Enchafèd Flood (New York, 1950; London, 1951; prose) (dedicated to Alan Ansen).
Nones (New York, 1951; London, 1952; poems) (dedicated to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)
The Shield of Achilles (New York, London, 1955; poems) (won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry) (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).
Homage to Clio (New York, London, 1960; poems) (dedicated to E. R. and A. E. Dodds).
The Dyer's Hand (New York, 1962; London, 1963; essays) (dedicated to Nevill Coghill).
About the House (New York, London, 1965; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).
Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London, 1966; New York, 1967) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
Collected Longer Poems (London, 1968; New York, 1969).
Secondary Worlds (London, New York, 1969; prose) (dedicated to Valerie Eliot).
City Without Walls and Other Poems (London, New York, 1969) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, 1970; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Grigson).
Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems (London, New York, 1972) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).
Forewords and Afterwords (New York, London, 1973; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).
Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, 1974) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).
Film scripts and opera libretti
Coal Face (1935, closing chorus for GPO Film Unit documentary).
Night Mail (1936, narrative for GPO Film Unit documentary, not published separately except as a programme note).
Paul Bunyan (1941, libretto for operetta by Benjamin Britten; not published until 1976).
The Rake's Progress (1951, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Igor Stravinsky).
Elegy for Young Lovers (1956, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze).
The Bassarids (1961, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze based on The Bacchae of Euripides).
Runner (1962, documentary film narrative for National Film Board of Canada)
Love's Labour's Lost (1973, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, based on Shakespeare's play).
Musical collaborations
Our Hunting Fathers (1936, song cycle written for Benjamin Britten)
An Evening of Elizabethan Verse and its Music (1954 recording with the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg; Auden spoke the verse texts)
The Play of Daniel (1958, verse narration for a production by the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg)
References
Sources
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1990) "The Map of All My Youth": early works, friends and influences (Auden Studies 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1994). "The Language of Learning and the Language of Love": uncollected writings, new interpretations (Auden Studies 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1995). "In Solitude, For Company": W. H. Auden after 1940: unpublished prose and recent criticism (Auden Studies 3). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Carpenter, Humphrey (1981). W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin. .
Clark, Thekla (1995). Wystan and Chester: A Personal Memoir of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. London: Faber and Faber. .
Davenport-Hines, Richard (1996). Auden. London: Heinemann. .
Farnan, Dorothy J. (1984). Auden in Love. New York: Simon & Schuster. .
Fuller, John (1998). W. H. Auden: A Commentary. London: Faber and Faber. .
Haffenden, John, ed. (1983). W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. .
Kirsch, Arthur (2005). Auden and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
Mendelson, Edward (1981). Early Auden. New York: Viking. .
Mendelson, Edward (1999). Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. .
Mendelson, Edward (2017). Early Auden, Later Auden: A Critical Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. .
Mitchell, Donald (1981), Britten and Auden in the Thirties: the year 1936. London: Faber and Faber. .
Myers, Alan and Forsythe, Robert (1999), W. H. Auden: Pennine Poet . Nenthead: North Pennines Heritage Trust. . Pamphlet with map and gazetteer.
Sharpe, Tony, ed. (2013). W. H. Auden in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Smith, Stan, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island. New York: Oxford University Press.
Further reading
Costello, Bonnie, and Rachel Galvin, eds. (2015). Auden at Work. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. .
Spender, Stephen, ed. (1975). W. H. Auden: A Tribute. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. .
Wright, George T. (1969; rev. ed. 1981). W. H. Auden. Boston: Twayne. .
External links
(book publication records and links to digital talking books editions)
W H Auden at the British Library
Papers at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Finding aid to W.H. Auden papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1907 births
1973 deaths
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
American male dramatists and playwrights
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20th-century British male writers
20th-century British non-fiction writers
20th-century British poets
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20th-century English male writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English poets
Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
American literary critics
American male essayists
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American male poets
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Anthologists
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British dramatists and playwrights
British literary critics
British male essayists
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People from York
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners
Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath laureates
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Translators of the Poetic Edda
University of Michigan faculty
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"Arthur a Bland is, in English folklore, a member of Robin Hood's Merry Men, though his chief appearance is in the ballad in which he joins the band. Arthur a Bland is also the name of an ex British Waterways tug.\n\nPlays\nArthur a Bland appears in \"Robin Hood\" by Larry Blamire, where he is there with Robin and the other soon to be merrymen after the ransacking of the Blue Boar Inn.\n\nBallads\nArthur a Bland appears in one ballad in the Child collection, Robin Hood and the Tanner. He is going through Sherwood when Robin accuses him of poaching. When they fight and Arthur beats Robin, Robin invites him to join the band. In some versions, he is Little John's cousin.\n\nMummer's Plays\n\nIn English Mummer's Plays, Arthur a Bland's fight with Robin is incorporated into the general fight/death/healed setting. Most of the lines derive from the ballad, though there seems to be material from Robin Hood and the Shepherd mixed in. The lines of the Mummer's Play versions tend to be less refined than the Childe Ballads, perhaps indicating a more original type of language.\n\nFor instance, when Robin Hood has been beaten by Arthur, Little John comes over the hill and Robin tells him what has happened:\n\nChilde's version:\n\n\"O what is the matter?\" then said Little John,\n\"Master, I pray you tell;\nWhy do you stand with your staff in your hand?\nI fear all is not well.\"\n\n\"O man, I do stand, and he makes me to stand,\nThe tanner that stands thee beside;\nHe is a bonny blade, and master of his trade,\nFor soundly he hath tanned my hide.\"\n\nMummer's Play version:\n\n\"What is the matter master?\nPray unto me tell\nTo see you stand\nYour staff in hand\nI fear it's all not well.\"\n\n\"This tanner he stands he makes me to stand\nHe's the tanner-hood that stand by my side\nHe's a bonny blade o his master's trade\nSo well he a'tanned me hide.\"\n\nLater adaptations\nThe story reappeared in later versions. Howard Pyle in his The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood set the bout between Little John and Arthur a Bland, and had Arthur appear in various later adventures as a minor character.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAn example of a Robin Hood Mummer's play, from Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire, England\n\nEnglish outlaws\nMerry Men\nRobin Hood characters",
"\"Fatzcarraldo\" is the fourteenth episode of the twenty-eighth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons, and the 610th episode of the series overall. It aired in the United States on Fox on February 12, 2017. The title is a spoof of the 1982 film Fitzcarraldo.\n\nThis episode was dedicated in memory of animator Sooan Kim.\n\nPlot\nAfter Homer wins a button-counting contest and is allowed to leave, he goes home, wanting to celebrate his happy day with his family, but then he realizes that Patty and Selma's cars are parked in his driveway, much to his dismay. Patty and Selma make the family go to the 38th annual DMV awards, which is a car-related award show that they will be hosting. Homer leaves the place in rage and leaves his family behind. He tries going to Krusty Burger, but they have taken all the meat off the menu and replaced it with vegan food. Homer drives around town, seeing that all restaurants have done this too. He comes across a rusty old trailer, where everything is unhealthy and disgusting, to Homer's delight.\n\nThe next day, Homer tells his family about the hot dog stand. Grampa tells him that when Homer was a boy, he used to take him there all the time. When he and Mona argued with each other, they went to a marriage counselor, which was next to the hot dog stand. They left Homer there and the guy who worked there gave him hot dogs, which made Homer start eating away his misery. Back in the present, Patty and Selma have lost all their money in a bet at the DMV award show as well as their jobs by spending $100,000 on a $43 budget, so they are going to live with the Simpsons for a while. Homer returns to the hot dog stand and asks the owner if he remembers him, which he claims he does not, saddening Homer. Meanwhile, Springfield Elementary has a radio show, run by the 4th graders and Lisa is included. Everyone else on the show is acting ridiculous and Lisa is the only normal one.\n\nEventually, Homer's attendance at the hot dog stand brings popularity to the stand, meaning that the Krusty Burger is losing customers. Lisa does an interview at the detention and the radio station gets shut down by Principal Skinner. Lisa feels bad about it, so Homer brings her to the hot dog store to cheer her up. When they get there, Homer learns the stand has been shut down by the health department, due to Krusty ratting them out. Krusty then buys out the stand. Homer protests this and he ties the restaurant stand chain to his car and drives off, taking the hot dog store with him. Homer ends up on the news. When the fat people hear about this, they side with Homer and help him achieve his goal, when Krusty tells the other restaurant mascots about it, an army of mascots, led by Colonel Sanders goes against them. On their drive, the stand, with Homer in it, goes off a bridge and is dangling from the chain. The owner of the stand comes back to Homer and saves him, revealing that he does remember Homer after all. He tells him that he does not need the stand, and that the only reason why he thought it was so sacred is because it helped get him through some tough family times, not because of the content of the restaurant. Homer lets the stand fall to the ground, releasing the intoxicating aroma of the hot dogs into the air. Bart and Marge come to collect Homer, telling him he has become an overnight celebrity for his efforts to save the stand, and Chief Wiggum lets him leave instead of arresting him.\n\nReception\nDennis Perkins of The A.V. Club gave the episode a C+, stating \"The episode, credited to Michael Price, aims for the heart, but lacks the focus to hit it. Homer, mysteriously drawn to Deuce’s Caboose Chili Dogs in 'Seldom-Seen County,' bonds with the crusty 97-year-old owner for reasons he can’t quite recall. At least until Grandpa reminds Homer that the younger Deuce used to give him free chili dogs and call him H-Dog when young Homer waited out Abe and Mona’s fruitless attempts to save their marriage at a nearby counselor’s office. Flashing back to how Deuce’s kindness...were his only refuge from fear and loneliness, Homer has the breakthrough that that’s when he started eating his emotions. Fair enough. Sure, The Simpsons’ elastic reality makes groundbreaking revelations like these a matter of course, so we can forgive that we’ve never heard of Deuce before, and likely won’t again. (A shame, since the always-dependable Kevin Michael Richardson should be upgraded to regular supporting cast by this point.)\"\n\nTony Sokol of Den of Geek rated the episode 4.5 out of 5 stars, stating \"The episode is loaded with great lines and sight gags....This is what The Simpsons should be about, nothing, not Seinfeld nothing, which could be anything. But the kind of nothing that is the nutritional value of most of what we plan on eating this week, only with extra karo syrup. The simple closing of a hot dog stand is a chance to make a last stand and to do it in a cannibalistically comic fashion.\"\n\n\"Fatzcarraldo\" scored a 1.0 rating and was watched by 2.40 million people, making it Fox's highest rated show of the night.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2017 American television episodes\nThe Simpsons (season 28) episodes"
] |
[
"W. H. Auden",
"Childhood",
"when did this persons childhood begin",
"Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden",
"did he live anywhere else during his upbringing",
"In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer",
"did he have siblings",
"He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900-1978),",
"did he have any hobbies",
"He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood.",
"did he go to any churches",
"Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a \"High\" form of Anglicanism",
"did he ever make a family of his own",
"I don't know.",
"what else did he do that makes him stand out",
"I don't know."
] |
C_2ec0c88681c74ea89029850ddad923d3_1
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what else did this man do
| 8 |
What else did W. H. Auden man do besides have a love of music and language?
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W. H. Auden
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Auden was born in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872-1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (nee Bicknell; 1869-1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900-1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903-1991), became a geologist. Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work. In 1908 his family moved to Homer Road, Solihull, near Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do." CANNOTANSWER
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Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun.
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Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".
He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys.
In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria.
He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand.
Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men. In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky.
Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
Life
Childhood
Auden was born on Bootham in York, England, to George Augustus Auden (1872–1957), a physician, and Constance Rosalie Auden (née Bicknell; 1869–1941), who had trained (but never served) as a missionary nurse. He was the third of three sons; the eldest, George Bernard Auden (1900–1978), became a farmer, while the second, John Bicknell Auden (1903–1991), became a geologist. The Audens were minor gentry with a strong clerical tradition, originally of Rowley Regis, later of Horninglow, Staffordshire.
Auden, whose grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household that followed a "High" form of Anglicanism, with doctrine and ritual resembling those of Roman Catholicism. He traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and Old Norse sagas is evident in his work.
His family moved to Homer Road in Solihull, near Birmingham, in 1908, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his passion for words had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do."
Education
Auden attended St Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, later famous in his own right as a novelist. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Norfolk; there, in 1922, when his friend Robert Medley asked him if he wrote poetry, Auden first realised his vocation was to be a poet. Soon after, he "discover(ed) that he (had) lost his faith" (through a gradual realisation that he had lost interest in religion, not through any decisive change of views). In school productions of Shakespeare, he played Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew in 1922, and Caliban in The Tempest in 1925, his last year at Gresham's. His first published poems appeared in the school magazine in 1923. Auden later wrote a chapter on Gresham's for Graham Greene's The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands (1934).
In 1925, he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, with a scholarship in biology; he switched to English by his second year, and was introduced to Old English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Tolkien. Friends he met at Oxford include Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender; these four were commonly though misleadingly identified in the 1930s as the "Auden Group" for their shared (but not identical) left-wing views. Auden left Oxford in 1928 with a third-class degree.
Auden was reintroduced to Christopher Isherwood in 1925 by his fellow student A. S. T. Fisher. For the next few years Auden sent poems to Isherwood for comments and criticism; the two maintained a sexual friendship in intervals between their relations with others. In 1935–39 they collaborated on three plays and a travel book.
From his Oxford years onward, Auden's friends uniformly described him as funny, extravagant, sympathetic, generous, and, partly by his own choice, lonely. In groups he was often dogmatic and overbearing in a comic way; in more private settings he was diffident and shy except when certain of his welcome. He was punctual in his habits, and obsessive about meeting deadlines, while choosing to live amidst physical disorder.
Britain and Europe, 1928–1938
In late 1928, Auden left Britain for nine months, going to Berlin, perhaps partly as an escape from English repressiveness. In Berlin, he first experienced the political and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects. Around the same time, Stephen Spender privately printed a small pamphlet of Auden's Poems in an edition of about 45 copies, distributed among Auden's and Spender's friends and family; this edition is usually referred to as Poems [1928] to avoid confusion with Auden's commercially published 1930 volume.
On returning to Britain in 1929, he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930, his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T. S. Eliot for Faber and Faber, and the same firm remained the British publisher of all the books he published thereafter. In 1930, he began five years as a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the Downs School in the Malvern Hills, where he was a much-loved teacher. At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape", while sitting with three fellow-teachers at the school, when he suddenly found that he loved them for themselves, that their existence had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940.
During these years, Auden's erotic interests focused, as he later said, on an idealised "Alter Ego" rather than on individual persons. His relationships (and his unsuccessful courtships) tended to be unequal either in age or intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved into long friendships. He contrasted these relationships with what he later regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that he began with Chester Kallman in 1939, based on the unique individuality of both partners.
In 1935, Auden married Erika Mann (1905–1969), the lesbian novelist daughter of Thomas Mann when it became apparent that the Nazis were intending to strip her of her German citizenship. Mann had asked Christopher Isherwood if he would marry her so she could become a British citizen. He declined but suggested she approach Auden, who readily agreed to a marriage of convenience. Mann and Auden never lived together, but remained on good terms throughout their lives and were still married when Mann died in 1969. She left him a small bequest in her will. In 1936, Auden introduced actress Therese Giehse, Mann's lover, to the writer John Hampson and they too married so that Giehse could leave Germany.
From 1935 until he left Britain early in 1939, Auden worked as freelance reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, first with the GPO Film Unit, a documentary film-making branch of the post office, headed by John Grierson. Through his work for the Film Unit in 1935 he met and collaborated with Benjamin Britten, with whom he also worked on plays, song cycles, and a libretto. Auden's plays in the 1930s were performed by the Group Theatre, in productions that he supervised to varying degrees.
His work now reflected his belief that any good artist must be "more than a bit of a reporting journalist". In 1936, Auden spent three months in Iceland where he gathered material for a travel book Letters from Iceland (1937), written in collaboration with Louis MacNeice. In 1937, he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, but was put to work writing propaganda at the Republican press and propaganda office, where he felt useless and left after a week. He returned to England after a brief visit to the front at Sarineña. His seven-week visit to Spain affected him deeply, and his social views grew more complex as he found political realities to be more ambiguous and troubling than he had imagined. Again attempting to combine reportage and art, he and Isherwood spent six months in 1938 visiting China amid the Sino-Japanese War, working on their book Journey to a War (1939). On their way back to England they stayed briefly in New York and decided to move to the United States. Auden spent late 1938 partly in England, partly in Brussels.
Many of Auden's poems during the 1930s and after were inspired by unconsummated love, and in the 1950s he summarised his emotional life in a famous couplet: "If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me" ("The More Loving One"). He had a gift for friendship and, starting in the late 1930s, a strong wish for the stability of marriage; in a letter to his friend James Stern he called marriage "the only subject." Throughout his life, Auden performed charitable acts, sometimes in public (as in his 1935 marriage of convenience to Erika Mann that provided her with a British passport to escape the Nazis), but, especially in later years, more often in private. He was embarrassed if they were publicly revealed, as when his gift to his friend Dorothy Day for the Catholic Worker movement was reported on the front page of The New York Times in 1956.
United States and Europe, 1939–1973
Auden and Isherwood sailed to New York City in January 1939, entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many as a betrayal, and Auden's reputation suffered. In April 1939, Isherwood moved to California, and he and Auden saw each other only intermittently in later years. Around this time, Auden met the poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for the next two years (Auden described their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey).
In 1941, Kallman ended their sexual relationship because he could not accept Auden's insistence on mutual fidelity, but he and Auden remained companions for the rest of Auden's life, sharing houses and apartments from 1953 until Auden's death. Auden dedicated both editions of his collected poetry (1945/50 and 1966) to Isherwood and Kallman.
In 1940–41, Auden lived in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights, that he shared with Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others, which became a famous centre of artistic life, nicknamed "February House". In 1940, Auden joined the Episcopal Church, returning to the Anglican Communion he had abandoned at fifteen. His reconversion was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" of Charles Williams, whom he had met in 1937, and partly by reading Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central element in his life.
After Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Auden told the British embassy in Washington that he would return to the UK if needed. He was told that, among those his age (32), only qualified personnel were needed. In 1941–42 he taught English at the University of Michigan. He was called for the draft in the United States Army in August 1942, but was rejected on medical grounds. He had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1942–43 but did not use it, choosing instead to teach at Swarthmore College in 1942–45.
In mid-1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, he was in Germany with the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, studying the effects of Allied bombing on German morale, an experience that affected his postwar work as his visit to Spain had affected him earlier. On his return, he settled in Manhattan, working as a freelance writer, a lecturer at The New School for Social Research, and a visiting professor at Bennington, Smith, and other American colleges. In 1946, he became a naturalised citizen of the US.
In 1948, Auden began spending his summers in Europe, together with Chester Kallman, first in Ischia, Italy, where he rented a house. Then, starting in 1958, he began spending his summers in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he bought a farmhouse from the prize money of the Premio Feltrinelli awarded to him in 1957. He said that he shed tears of joy at owning a home for the first time. In 1956–61, Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University where he was required to give three lectures each year. This fairly light workload allowed him to continue to spend winter in New York, where he lived at 77 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan's East Village, and to spend summer in Europe, spending only three weeks each year lecturing in Oxford. He earned his income mostly from readings and lecture tours, and by writing for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines.
In 1963, Kallman left the apartment he shared in New York with Auden, and lived during the winter in Athens while continuing to spend his summers with Auden in Austria. In 1972, Auden moved his winter home from New York to Oxford, where his old college, Christ Church, offered him a cottage, while he continued to spend summers in Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973, a few hours after giving a reading of his poems at the Austrian Society for Literature; his death occurred at the Hotel Altenburger Hof where he was staying overnight before his intended return to Oxford the next day. He was buried in Kirchstetten.
Work
Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). His poetry was encyclopaedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to the lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks, from doggerel through haiku and villanelles to a "Christmas Oratorio" and a baroque eclogue in Anglo-Saxon meters. The tone and content of his poems ranged from pop-song clichés to complex philosophical meditations, from the corns on his toes to atoms and stars, from contemporary crises to the evolution of society.
He also wrote more than four hundred essays and reviews about literature, history, politics, music, religion, and many other subjects. He collaborated on plays with Christopher Isherwood and on opera libretti with Chester Kallman, and worked with a group of artists and filmmakers on documentary films in the 1930s and with the New York Pro Musica early music group in the 1950s and 1960s. About collaboration he wrote in 1964: "collaboration has brought me greater erotic joy . . . than any sexual relations I have had."
Auden controversially rewrote or discarded some of his most famous poems when he prepared his later collected editions. He wrote that he rejected poems that he found "boring" or "dishonest" in the sense that they expressed views he had never held but had used only because he felt they would be rhetorically effective. His rejected poems include "Spain" and "September 1, 1939". His literary executor, Edward Mendelson, argues in his introduction to Selected Poems that Auden's practice reflected his sense of the persuasive power of poetry and his reluctance to misuse it. (Selected Poems includes some poems that Auden rejected and early texts of poems that he revised.)
Early work, 1922–1939
Up to 1930
Auden began writing poems in 1922, at fifteen, mostly in the styles of 19th-century romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, and later poets with rural interests, especially Thomas Hardy. At eighteen he discovered T. S. Eliot and adopted an extreme version of Eliot's style. He found his own voice at twenty when he wrote the first poem later included in his collected work, "From the very first coming down". This and other poems of the late 1920s tended to be in a clipped, elusive style that alluded to, but did not directly state, their themes of loneliness and loss. Twenty of these poems appeared in his first book Poems (1928), a pamphlet hand-printed by Stephen Spender.
In 1928, he wrote his first dramatic work, Paid on Both Sides, subtitled "A Charade", which combined style and content from the Icelandic sagas with jokes from English school life. This mixture of tragedy and farce, with a dream play-within-a-play, introduced the mixed styles and content of much of his later work. This drama and thirty short poems appeared in his first published book Poems (1930, 2nd edition with seven poems replaced, 1933); the poems in the book were mostly lyrical and gnomic meditations on hoped-for or unconsummated love and on themes of personal, social, and seasonal renewal; among these poems were "It was Easter as I walked," "Doom is dark," "Sir, no man's enemy," and "This lunar beauty."
A recurrent theme in these early poems is the effect of "family ghosts", Auden's term for the powerful, unseen psychological effects of preceding generations on any individual life (and the title of a poem). A parallel theme, present throughout his work, is the contrast between biological evolution (unchosen and involuntary) and the psychological evolution of cultures and individuals (voluntary and deliberate even in its subconscious aspects).
1931–1935
Auden's next large-scale work was The Orators: An English Study (1932; revised editions, 1934, 1966), in verse and prose, largely about hero-worship in personal and political life. In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in The Orators reflect his new interest in Robert Burns. During the next few years, many of his poems took their form and style from traditional ballads and popular songs, and also from expansive classical forms like the Odes of Horace, which he seems to have discovered through the German poet Hölderlin. Around this time his main influences were Dante, William Langland, and Alexander Pope.
During these years, much of his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely known as a political poet although he was privately more ambivalent about revolutionary politics than many reviewers recognised, and Mendelson argues that he expounded political views partly out of a sense of moral duty and partly because it enhanced his reputation, and that he later regretted having done so. He generally wrote about revolutionary change in terms of a "change of heart", a transformation of a society from a closed-off psychology of fear to an open psychology of love.
His verse drama The Dance of Death (1933) was a political extravaganza in the style of a theatrical revue, which Auden later called "a nihilistic leg-pull." His next play The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), written in collaboration with Isherwood, was similarly a quasi-Marxist updating of Gilbert and Sullivan in which the general idea of social transformation was more prominent than any specific political action or structure.
The Ascent of F6 (1937), another play written with Isherwood, was partly an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an examination of Auden's own motives in taking on a public role as a political poet. This play included the first version of "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks"), written as a satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the poem as a "Cabaret Song" about lost love (written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson, for whom he wrote many lyrics in the 1930s). In 1935, he worked briefly on documentary films with the GPO Film Unit, writing his famous verse commentary for Night Mail and lyrics for other films that were among his attempts in the 1930s to create a widely accessible, socially conscious art.
1936–1939
In 1936, Auden's publisher chose the title Look, Stranger! for a collection of political odes, love poems, comic songs, meditative lyrics, and a variety of intellectually intense but emotionally accessible verse; Auden hated the title and retitled the collection for the 1937 US edition On This Island. Among the poems included in the book are "Hearing of harvests", "Out on the lawn I lie in bed", "O what is that sound", "Look, stranger, on this island now" (later revised versions change "on" to "at"), and "Our hunting fathers".
Auden was now arguing that an artist should be a kind of journalist, and he put this view into practice in Letters from Iceland (1937) a travel book in prose and verse written with Louis MacNeice, which included his long social, literary, and autobiographical commentary "Letter to Lord Byron". In 1937, after observing the Spanish Civil War he wrote a politically engaged pamphlet poem Spain (1937); he later discarded it from his collected works. Journey to a War (1939) a travel book in prose and verse, was written with Isherwood after their visit to the Sino-Japanese War. Auden's last collaboration with Isherwood was their third play, On the Frontier, an anti-war satire written in Broadway and West End styles.
Auden's shorter poems now engaged with the fragility and transience of personal love ("Danse Macabre", "The Dream", "Lay your sleeping head"), a subject he treated with ironic wit in his "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson" (which included "Tell Me the Truth About Love" and the revised version of "Funeral Blues"), and also the corrupting effect of public and official culture on individual lives ("Casino", "School Children", "Dover"). In 1938, he wrote a series of dark, ironic ballads about individual failure ("Miss Gee", "James Honeyman", "Victor"). All these appeared in Another Time (1940), together with poems including "Dover", "As He Is", and "Musée des Beaux Arts" (all of which were written before he moved to America in 1939), and "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "The Unknown Citizen", "Law Like Love", "September 1, 1939", and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (all written in America).
The elegies for Yeats and Freud are partly anti-heroic statements, in which great deeds are performed, not by unique geniuses whom others cannot hope to imitate, but by otherwise ordinary individuals who were "silly like us" (Yeats) or of whom it could be said "he wasn't clever at all" (Freud), and who became teachers of others, not awe-inspiring heroes.
Middle period, 1940–1957
1940–1946
In 1940, Auden wrote a long philosophical poem "New Year Letter", which appeared with miscellaneous notes and other poems in The Double Man (1941). At the time of his return to the Anglican Communion he began writing abstract verse on theological themes, such as "Canzone" and "Kairos and Logos". Around 1942, as he became more comfortable with religious themes, his verse became more open and relaxed, and he increasingly used the syllabic verse he had learned from the poetry of Marianne Moore.
Auden's work in this era addresses the artist's temptation to use other persons as material for his art rather than valuing them for themselves ("Prospero to Ariel") and the corresponding moral obligation to make and keep commitments while recognising the temptation to break them ("In Sickness and Health"). From 1942 through 1947 he worked mostly on three long poems in dramatic form, each differing from the others in form and content: "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest" (both published in For the Time Being, 1944), and The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (published separately in 1947). The first two, with Auden's other new poems from 1940 to 1944, were included in his first collected edition, The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (1945), with most of his earlier poems, many in revised versions.
1947–1957
After completing The Age of Anxiety in 1946 he focused again on shorter poems, notably "A Walk After Dark", "The Love Feast", and "The Fall of Rome". Many of these evoked the Italian village where he spent his summers between 1948 and 1957, and his next book, Nones (1951), had a Mediterranean atmosphere new to his work. A new theme was the "sacred importance" of the human body in its ordinary aspect (breathing, sleeping, eating) and the continuity with nature that the body made possible (in contrast to the division between humanity and nature that he had emphasised in the 1930s); his poems on these themes included "In Praise of Limestone" (1948) and "Memorial for the City" (1949). In 1949, Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and later collaborated on two libretti for operas by Hans Werner Henze.
Auden's first separate prose book was The Enchafèd Flood: The Romantic Iconography of the Sea (1950), based on a series of lectures on the image of the sea in romantic literature. Between 1949 and 1954 he worked on a sequence of seven Good Friday poems, titled "Horae Canonicae", an encyclopaedic survey of geological, biological, cultural, and personal history, focused on the irreversible act of murder; the poem was also a study in cyclical and linear ideas of time. While writing this, he also wrote "Bucolics," a sequence of seven poems about man's relation to nature. Both sequences appeared in his next book, The Shield of Achilles (1955), with other short poems, including the book's title poem, "Fleet Visit", and "Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier".
In 1955–56 Auden wrote a group of poems about "history", the term he used to mean the set of unique events made by human choices, as opposed to "nature", the set of involuntary events created by natural processes, statistics, and anonymous forces such as crowds. These poems included "T the Great", "The Maker", and the title poem of his next collection Homage to Clio (1960).
Later work, 1958–1973
In the late 1950s Auden's style became less rhetorical while its range of styles increased. In 1958, having moved his summer home from Italy to Austria, he wrote "Good-bye to the Mezzogiorno"; other poems from this period include "Dichtung und Wahrheit: An Unwritten Poem", a prose poem about the relation between love and personal and poetic language, and the contrasting "Dame Kind", about the anonymous impersonal reproductive instinct. These and other poems, including his 1955–66 poems about history, appeared in Homage to Clio (1960). His prose book The Dyer's Hand (1962) gathered many of the lectures he gave in Oxford as Professor of Poetry in 1956–61, together with revised versions of essays and notes written since the mid-1940s.
Among the new styles and forms in Auden's later work were the haiku and tanka that he began writing after translating the haiku and other verse in Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings. A sequence of fifteen poems about his house in Austria, "Thanksgiving for a Habitat" (written in various styles that included an imitation of William Carlos Williams) appeared in About the House (1965), together with other poems that included his reflection on his lecture tours, "On the Circuit". In the late 1960s he wrote some of his most vigorous poems, including "River Profile" and two poems that looked back over his life, "Prologue at Sixty" and "Forty Years On". All these appeared in City Without Walls (1969). His lifelong passion for Icelandic legend culminated in his verse translation of The Elder Edda (1969). Among his later themes was the "religionless Christianity" he learned partly from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the dedicatee of his poem "Friday's Child."
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970) was a kind of self-portrait made up of favourite quotations with commentary, arranged in alphabetical order by subject. His last prose book was a selection of essays and reviews, Forewords and Afterwords (1973). His last books of verse, Epistle to a Godson (1972) and the unfinished Thank You, Fog (published posthumously, 1974) include reflective poems about language ("Natural Linguistics", "Aubade"), philosophy and science ("No, Plato, No", "Unpredictable but Providential"), and his own aging ("A New Year Greeting", "Talking to Myself", "A Lullaby" ["The din of work is subdued"]). His last completed poem was "Archaeology", about ritual and timelessness, two recurring themes in his later years.
Reputation and influence
Auden's stature in modern literature has been contested. Probably the most common critical view from the 1930s onward ranked him as the last and least of the three major twentieth-century British and Irish poets—behind Yeats and Eliot—while a minority view, more prominent in recent years, ranks him as the highest of the three. Opinions have ranged from those of Hugh MacDiarmid, who called him "a complete wash-out"; F. R. Leavis, who wrote that Auden's ironic style was "self-defensive, self-indulgent or merely irresponsible"; and Harold Bloom, who wrote "Close thy Auden, open thy [Wallace] Stevens," to the obituarist in The Times, who wrote: "W.H. Auden, for long the enfant terrible of English poetry… emerges as its undisputed master." Joseph Brodsky wrote that Auden had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century".
Critical estimates were divided from the start. Reviewing Auden's first book, Poems (1930), Naomi Mitchison wrote "If this is really only the beginning, we have perhaps a master to look forward to." But John Sparrow, recalling Mitchison's comment in 1934, dismissed Auden's early work as "a monument to the misguided aims that prevail among contemporary poets, and the fact that… he is being hailed as 'a master' shows how criticism is helping poetry on the downward path."
Auden's clipped, satiric, and ironic style in the 1930s was widely imitated by younger poets such as Charles Madge, who wrote in a poem "there waited for me in the summer morning / Auden fiercely. I read, shuddered, and knew." He was widely described as the leader of an "Auden group" that comprised his friends Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. The four were mocked by the poet Roy Campbell as if they were a single undifferentiated poet named "Macspaunday." Auden's propagandistic poetic plays, including The Dog Beneath the Skin and The Ascent of F6, and his political poems such as "Spain" gave him the reputation as a political poet writing in a progressive and accessible voice, in contrast to Eliot; but this political stance provoked opposing opinions, such as that of Austin Clarke who called Auden's work "liberal, democratic, and humane", and John Drummond, who wrote that Auden misused a "characteristic and popularizing trick, the generalized image", to present ostensibly left-wing views that were in fact "confined to bourgeois experience."
Auden's departure for America in 1939 was debated in Britain (once even in Parliament), with some seeing his emigration as a betrayal. Defenders of Auden such as Geoffrey Grigson, in an introduction to a 1949 anthology of modern poetry, wrote that Auden "arches over all". His stature was suggested by book titles such as Auden and After by Francis Scarfe (1942) and The Auden Generation by Samuel Hynes (1977).
In the US, starting in the late 1930s, the detached, ironic tone of Auden's regular stanzas became influential; John Ashbery recalled that in the 1940s Auden "was the modern poet". Auden's formal influences were so pervasive in American poetry that the ecstatic style of the Beat Generation was partly a reaction against his influence. From the 1940s through the 1960s, many critics lamented that Auden's work had declined from its earlier promise; Randall Jarrell wrote a series of essays making a case against Auden's later work, and Philip Larkin's "What's Become of Wystan?" (1960) had a wide impact.
After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues", "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Refugee Blues", "The Unknown Citizen", and "September 1, 1939", became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
The first full-length study of Auden was Richard Hoggart's Auden: An Introductory Essay (1951), which concluded that "Auden's work, then, is a civilising force." It was followed by Joseph Warren Beach's The Making of the Auden Canon (1957), a disapproving account of Auden's revisions of his earlier work.
The first systematic critical account was Monroe K. Spears' The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island (1963), "written out of the conviction that Auden's poetry can offer the reader entertainment, instruction, intellectual excitement, and a prodigal variety of aesthetic pleasures, all in a generous abundance that is unique in our time."
Auden was one of three candidates recommended by the Nobel Committee to the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963 and 1965 and six recommended for the 1964 prize. By the time of his death in 1973 he had attained the status of a respected elder statesman, and a memorial stone for him was placed in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1974. The Encyclopædia Britannica writes that "by the time of Eliot's death in 1965… a convincing case could be made for the assertion that Auden was indeed Eliot's successor, as Eliot had inherited sole claim to supremacy when Yeats died in 1939." With some exceptions, British critics tended to treat his early work as his best, while American critics tended to favour his middle and later work.
Another group of critics and poets has maintained that unlike other modern poets, Auden's reputation did not decline after his death, and the influence of his later writing was especially strong on younger American poets including John Ashbery, James Merrill, Anthony Hecht, and Maxine Kumin. Typical later evaluations describe him as "arguably the [20th] century's greatest poet" (Peter Parker and Frank Kermode), who "now clearly seems the greatest poet in English since Tennyson" (Philip Hensher).
Public recognition of Auden's work sharply increased after his "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem "As I walked out one evening" was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995).
After 11 September 2001 his 1939 poem "September 1, 1939" was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.
Overall, Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.
Memorial stones and plaques commemorating Auden include those in Westminster Abbey; at his birthplace at 55 Bootham, York; near his home on Lordswood Road, Birmingham; in the chapel of Christ Church, Oxford; on the site of his apartment at 1 Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights; at his apartment in 77 St. Marks Place, New York (damaged and now removed); at the site of his death at Walfischgasse 5 in Vienna; and in the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco. In his house in Kirchstetten, his study is open to the public upon request.
Published works
The following list includes only the books of poems and essays that Auden prepared during his lifetime; for a more complete list, including other works and posthumous editions, see W. H. Auden bibliography.
In the list below, works reprinted in the Complete Works of W. H. Auden are indicated by footnote references.
Books
Poems (London, 1930; second edn., seven poems substituted, London, 1933; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood).
The Orators: An English Study (London, 1932, verse and prose; slightly revised edn., London, 1934; revised edn. with new preface, London, 1966; New York 1967) (dedicated to Stephen Spender).
The Dance of Death (London, 1933, play) (dedicated to Robert Medley and Rupert Doone).
Poems (New York, 1934; contains Poems [1933 edition], The Orators [1932 edition], and The Dance of Death).
The Dog Beneath the Skin (London, New York, 1935; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Robert Moody).
The Ascent of F6 (London, 1936; 2nd edn., 1937; New York, 1937; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).
Look, Stranger! (London, 1936, poems; US edn., On This Island, New York, 1937) (dedicated to Erika Mann)
Letters from Iceland (London, New York, 1937; verse and prose, with Louis MacNeice) (dedicated to George Augustus Auden).
On the Frontier (London, 1938; New York 1939; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).
Journey to a War (London, New York, 1939; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to E. M. Forster).
Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
The Double Man (New York, 1941, poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, 1941) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).
For the Time Being (New York, 1944; London, 1945; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", in memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).
The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York, 1945; includes new poems) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman). Full text.
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New York, 1947; London, 1948; verse; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).
Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (London, 1950; similar to 1945 Collected Poetry) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
The Enchafèd Flood (New York, 1950; London, 1951; prose) (dedicated to Alan Ansen).
Nones (New York, 1951; London, 1952; poems) (dedicated to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)
The Shield of Achilles (New York, London, 1955; poems) (won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry) (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).
Homage to Clio (New York, London, 1960; poems) (dedicated to E. R. and A. E. Dodds).
The Dyer's Hand (New York, 1962; London, 1963; essays) (dedicated to Nevill Coghill).
About the House (New York, London, 1965; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).
Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London, 1966; New York, 1967) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
Collected Longer Poems (London, 1968; New York, 1969).
Secondary Worlds (London, New York, 1969; prose) (dedicated to Valerie Eliot).
City Without Walls and Other Poems (London, New York, 1969) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, 1970; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Grigson).
Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems (London, New York, 1972) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).
Forewords and Afterwords (New York, London, 1973; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).
Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, 1974) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).
Film scripts and opera libretti
Coal Face (1935, closing chorus for GPO Film Unit documentary).
Night Mail (1936, narrative for GPO Film Unit documentary, not published separately except as a programme note).
Paul Bunyan (1941, libretto for operetta by Benjamin Britten; not published until 1976).
The Rake's Progress (1951, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Igor Stravinsky).
Elegy for Young Lovers (1956, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze).
The Bassarids (1961, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze based on The Bacchae of Euripides).
Runner (1962, documentary film narrative for National Film Board of Canada)
Love's Labour's Lost (1973, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, based on Shakespeare's play).
Musical collaborations
Our Hunting Fathers (1936, song cycle written for Benjamin Britten)
An Evening of Elizabethan Verse and its Music (1954 recording with the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg; Auden spoke the verse texts)
The Play of Daniel (1958, verse narration for a production by the New York Pro Musica Antiqua, director Noah Greenberg)
References
Sources
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1990) "The Map of All My Youth": early works, friends and influences (Auden Studies 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1994). "The Language of Learning and the Language of Love": uncollected writings, new interpretations (Auden Studies 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Auden, W. H.; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1995). "In Solitude, For Company": W. H. Auden after 1940: unpublished prose and recent criticism (Auden Studies 3). Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Carpenter, Humphrey (1981). W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin. .
Clark, Thekla (1995). Wystan and Chester: A Personal Memoir of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. London: Faber and Faber. .
Davenport-Hines, Richard (1996). Auden. London: Heinemann. .
Farnan, Dorothy J. (1984). Auden in Love. New York: Simon & Schuster. .
Fuller, John (1998). W. H. Auden: A Commentary. London: Faber and Faber. .
Haffenden, John, ed. (1983). W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. .
Kirsch, Arthur (2005). Auden and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
Mendelson, Edward (1981). Early Auden. New York: Viking. .
Mendelson, Edward (1999). Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. .
Mendelson, Edward (2017). Early Auden, Later Auden: A Critical Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. .
Mitchell, Donald (1981), Britten and Auden in the Thirties: the year 1936. London: Faber and Faber. .
Myers, Alan and Forsythe, Robert (1999), W. H. Auden: Pennine Poet . Nenthead: North Pennines Heritage Trust. . Pamphlet with map and gazetteer.
Sharpe, Tony, ed. (2013). W. H. Auden in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Smith, Stan, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Spears, Monroe K. (1963). The Poetry of W. H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island. New York: Oxford University Press.
Further reading
Costello, Bonnie, and Rachel Galvin, eds. (2015). Auden at Work. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. .
Spender, Stephen, ed. (1975). W. H. Auden: A Tribute. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. .
Wright, George T. (1969; rev. ed. 1981). W. H. Auden. Boston: Twayne. .
External links
(book publication records and links to digital talking books editions)
W H Auden at the British Library
Papers at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Finding aid to W.H. Auden papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
1907 births
1973 deaths
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
American male dramatists and playwrights
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American poets
20th-century British male writers
20th-century British non-fiction writers
20th-century British poets
20th-century English dramatists and playwrights
20th-century English male writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
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Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
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Anglican poets
Anthologists
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British dramatists and playwrights
British literary critics
British male essayists
British opera librettists
British people of the Spanish Civil War
English emigrants to the United States
English essayists
English literary critics
English male dramatists and playwrights
English male non-fiction writers
English male poets
English opera librettists
Formalist poets
Gay academics
British gay writers
LGBT Anglicans
LGBT dramatists and playwrights
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Literary theorists
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Modernist poets
Modernist theatre
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Naturalized citizens of the United States
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People educated at St Edmund's School, Hindhead
People from Brooklyn Heights
People from York
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners
Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath laureates
Translators of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Translators of the Poetic Edda
University of Michigan faculty
| true |
[
"What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) is a various artists compilation album, released in 1990 by Shimmy Disc.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \nAdapted from the What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) liner notes.\n Kramer – production, engineering\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1990 compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Kramer (musician)\nShimmy Disc compilation albums",
"Oil and Vinegar is a screenplay that was written but never filmed. It is a screenplay that John Hughes wrote and that Howard Deutch planned to direct. It would have starred Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick.\n\nPlot\nA soon-to-be-married man and a hitchhiking girl end up talking about their lives during the length of the car ride.\n\nProduction\n\nCasting\nThe film was set to have Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick as the two main characters.\n\nDevelopment\nThe screenplay was written by Hughes, with Howard Deutch set to direct. Its style was said to be similar to The Breakfast Club (1985) but instead of taking place in detention, it would have taken place in a car with Ringwald's and Broderick's characters both discussing their lives to each other.\n\nFuture\nWhen asked about Oil and Vinegar Howard Deutch said,\n\nYes. That was John's favorite script and he was saving it for himself, and I convinced him to let me do it. It was the story of a traveling salesman that Matthew Broderick was going to play, and a rock-and-roll girl, a real rocker. Polar opposites. Molly [Ringwald] was going to play that. And I had to make a personal decision about whether to go forward or not. We had rehearsals in a couple weeks, and I was exhausted, and my girlfriend Lea Thompson, who became my wife, said, \"You're going to die. You can't do this. I'm not going to stick around and watch that.\" And I think it was also sprinkled with the fact that I wanted to do one movie that was my movie, not necessarily in service to John, even though I loved John. So between the two things, I didn't... It could still happen. I would do it. Not with Matthew and Molly anymore, but the script is still there. It doesn't need anything. It's one of his great scripts. He had so many great scripts. For instance, he would stay up all night, music blasting, and at like 5:30 or 6 a.m., he'd hand me what was supposed to be a rewrite on Some Kind of Wonderful. We needed five pages, and it was 50 pages. I said, \"What did you do?! What is this?\" and he said, \"Oh, I didn't do that. I did something else. Tell me what you think?\" And it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He wrote the first half of the movie in, like, eight hours, and then finished it a couple days later. That was John. I never knew a writer who could do that. No one else had that ability. Even the stuff I fished out of the garbage was gold.\n\nReferences\n\nUnproduced screenplays\nFilms with screenplays by John Hughes (filmmaker)"
] |
[
"Women in Finland",
"Women's suffrage"
] |
C_9b6fad8313f74900bf2fb6c40c2e7caa_1
|
Are men and women treated equal in Finland?
| 1 |
Are men and women treated equal in Finland?
|
Women in Finland
|
The area that in 1809 became Finland was a group of integral provinces of the Kingdom of Sweden for over 600 years, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718-1772), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpaa, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926. Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42,5%. In 2003 Anneli Jaatteenmaki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8). CANNOTANSWER
|
The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election.
|
Women in Finland enjoy a "high degree of equality" and "traditional courtesy" among men. In 1906, the women of Finland became the first women in Europe to be granted the right to vote. There are many women in Finland who hold prominent positions in Finnish society, in the academics, in the field of business, and in the government of Finland. An example of powerful women in Finnish politics is Tarja Halonen, who became the first female president of the country (she was Foreign Minister of Finland before becoming president). In religion, where most of the Finnish people are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (the other major Christian denomination in Finland is the Eastern Orthodox Church), women can be ordained as priests. In terms of finance, Finnish women have been described as "usually independent financially". Married women, by custom, introduce themselves by mentioning their forename first, then their maiden name, and then the surname of their husbands. The Telegraph wrote in 2006:
Location
Finland is bordered on the east by Russia, on the south by the Gulf of Finland and Estonia, and on the west by the Gulf of Bothnia and Sweden, and on the north/north west by Norway. One quarter of the territory is north of the Arctic Circle.
Population
By gender (2020)
Total population: 5,533,793
Men population: 2,733,808
Women population: 2,799,985
Life expectancy (2020)
Life expectancy in years for total population: 81.82
Male: 79.03 years
Female: 84.62 years
Women's suffrage
The area that in 1809 became Finland was a group of integral provinces of the Kingdom of Sweden for over 600 years, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718–1772), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds.
The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities.
The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpää, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926.
Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42.5%. In 2003 Anneli Jäätteenmäki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8).
Women's rights movement
In 1970 there was a brief but strong women's movement. Rape in marriage was not considered a crime at the time, and victims of domestic violence had few places to go. Feminists also fought for a day-care system that would be open to the public, and for the right for not only paid maternity leave but also paternity leave. Today there is a 263-day parental leave in Finland. It is illegal to discriminate against women in the workforce. Two feminist groups were created to help the movement: The Marxist-Feminists () and The Red Women (, ). The feminists in Finland were inspired by other European countries such as Sweden and Switzerland. Other important groups for the Finnish women in the 1970s include Unioni and The Feminists ().
Women's rights
Finland became one of the first countries to grant women the right to vote, and still today they are among the top countries for women equality. Finland was voted second in the Global Gender Gap Index in women's rights. Finland made marital rape illegal in 1994. In 2003 the government of Finland proposed addressing issues with gender inequality. They planned to promote gender equality over the entire public administration, reform the Act on Equality () that the men and women in Finland share, promote equal pay for work of equal value, increase the number of women in political and economic roles, assessing gender equality from the male point of view, prevent domestic violence and intimate partner violence, protect victims of trafficking and the possibility of criminalizing buying sex. This act is called the Government Action Plan for Gender Equality () and it included more than 100 issues that needed discussion.
Education
In history
In the late 18th century and early 19th century private schools for girls were established in Finland, among the more known being those of Christina Krook, Anna Salmberg and Sara Wacklin. These schools were criticized for its shallow education of accomplishments, which resulted in the decision that girls should be included in the school reform of 1843, and the following year, two Swedish-language state schools for girls was founded in Turku and Helsinki, Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Åbo and Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Helsingfors. This led to the establishment of a net of girl schools of a similar kind in Finland. At first the schools were reserved for girls from upper-class families.
At this time it was not possible for the girls to pass the baccalaureate and move on to university studies. In 1865 a grammar school made it clear that only girls whose upbringing and manners were impeccable and whose company cannot be considered detrimental to others, and who were from "respectable" families could be in the school.
After the first woman in Finland, Maria Tschetschulin, was accepted as a university student by dispensation in 1870, advanced classes and colleges classes were included in many girl schools to prepare students for university (by means of dispensation), and in 1872, the demand that all students must be members of the Swedish language upper classes was dropped. Women were given the right to teach in grammar schools for girls in 1882.
When the dispensation for female university students was dropped and women were accepted at the same terms as men in 1915, girls and boys started to receive the same education in the school system, and the girl schools in Finland started to be changed to same sex education, a development which was completed in the 1970s.
Today
Finland students start their schooling a year after a lot of other countries. In spite of this, Finland is now one of the top-performing countries in mathematical skills, but also one of the few whose boys performed as well as girls. While in most countries the most able girls lag behind the most able boys in mathematics performance, according to the PISA 2012 Results Overview, the OECD gender score difference in mathematics, reading, and science was a result of -6 (boys - girls) in Finland. Additionally, while the highest-performing students of problem solving in the world are largely males, Finland makes an exception where the proportion of top-performing females is about the same as the proportion of top-performing males. This is also true among the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) where the top-performers in problem solving are predominantly men, except for in Finland, Australia and Canada.
As for Finland's educational benefits for students, Finnish schools offer state-funded schooling which makes it easier for women and men to go to work after being on parental leave. Women represent 32% of students studying in mathematics and computer science.
Women in the workforce
According to the Finnish Labor Force Survey around 32% of the 301,000 people who are self-employed are women. Women first became involved in labor markets through agrarian societies. Even before the public daycare systems, the number of women in the workforce was still very high, over 50%. The number of workers in the labor force that makes up the females (ages 15–74) is 51%, where men is 49%. 32% of the women are involved in entrepreneurship.
Equality in the workforce
Employers who have at least 30 employees must have a gender equality plan that includes a women's and men's pay comparison. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and other important labor market organizations set guidelines for gender equality planning.
Women in the military
Military service is required for men in Finland, but is voluntary for women. Women who enlist are allowed to train for combat roles. Finland is one of 16 other countries in the world that permit women in front-line combat positions.
Recreation
In using the sauna, women bathe separately from men, except if they are with family members or friends.
See also
Demographics of Finland
References
External links
Finland, everyculture.com
Finland, Cultural Etiquette, eDiplomat
Finnish women
Finland
| true |
[
"Basketball Finland (, ) is the governing body of basketball in Finland. It was founded and became members of FIBA in 1939. \n\nBasketball Finland operates the Finland men's national team and Finland women's national team. They organize national competitions in Finland, for both the men's and women's senior teams and also the youth national basketball teams.\n\nThe top professional league in Finland is Korisliiga.\n\nSee also\nFinland men's national basketball team\nFinland men's national under-20 basketball team\nFinland men's national under-19 basketball team\nFinland men's national under-17 basketball team\nFinland women's national basketball team\nFinland women's national under-18 basketball team\nFinland women's national under-16 basketball team\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nFinland at FIBA site\n\n1939 establishments in Finland\nSports organizations established in 1939\nBasketball\nBasketball in Finland\nBasketball governing bodies in Europe",
"2014 Finland-Sweden Athletics International is the 74th edition of Finland-Sweden Athletics International competition between Sweden and Finland. It was held 30–31 August 2014 in the Helsinki Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland. The women's pole vault was exceptionally competed on 29 August at the Narinkkatori square in downtown Helsinki. Sweden won both the men's and women's events, while Finland won the smaller boy's, girl's and walking events.\n\nResults \nPoints given in each event are, from 1st to 6th place: 7-5-4-3-2-1, in relays 1st and 2nd place are awarded with 5 and 2 points.\n\nPoints:\n\nMen \nFinland's points are shown first\n\nWomen \nFinland's points are shown first\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nFinland-Sweden Athletics International Official Homepage (in Finnish and Swedish)\n\nFinland-Sweden Athletics International\nInternational athletics competitions hosted by Finland\nFinland-Sweden Athletics International\nFinland-Sweden Athletics International\nInternational athletics competitions hosted by Sweden\nInternational sports competitions in Helsinki\n2010s in Helsinki\nFinland-Sweden Athletics International"
] |
[
"Women in Finland",
"Women's suffrage",
"Are men and women treated equal in Finland?",
"The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election."
] |
C_9b6fad8313f74900bf2fb6c40c2e7caa_1
|
Can a female hold official public office in Finland?
| 2 |
Can a female hold official public office in Finland?
|
Women in Finland
|
The area that in 1809 became Finland was a group of integral provinces of the Kingdom of Sweden for over 600 years, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718-1772), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpaa, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926. Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42,5%. In 2003 Anneli Jaatteenmaki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8). CANNOTANSWER
|
election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament.
|
Women in Finland enjoy a "high degree of equality" and "traditional courtesy" among men. In 1906, the women of Finland became the first women in Europe to be granted the right to vote. There are many women in Finland who hold prominent positions in Finnish society, in the academics, in the field of business, and in the government of Finland. An example of powerful women in Finnish politics is Tarja Halonen, who became the first female president of the country (she was Foreign Minister of Finland before becoming president). In religion, where most of the Finnish people are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (the other major Christian denomination in Finland is the Eastern Orthodox Church), women can be ordained as priests. In terms of finance, Finnish women have been described as "usually independent financially". Married women, by custom, introduce themselves by mentioning their forename first, then their maiden name, and then the surname of their husbands. The Telegraph wrote in 2006:
Location
Finland is bordered on the east by Russia, on the south by the Gulf of Finland and Estonia, and on the west by the Gulf of Bothnia and Sweden, and on the north/north west by Norway. One quarter of the territory is north of the Arctic Circle.
Population
By gender (2020)
Total population: 5,533,793
Men population: 2,733,808
Women population: 2,799,985
Life expectancy (2020)
Life expectancy in years for total population: 81.82
Male: 79.03 years
Female: 84.62 years
Women's suffrage
The area that in 1809 became Finland was a group of integral provinces of the Kingdom of Sweden for over 600 years, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718–1772), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds.
The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities.
The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpää, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926.
Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42.5%. In 2003 Anneli Jäätteenmäki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8).
Women's rights movement
In 1970 there was a brief but strong women's movement. Rape in marriage was not considered a crime at the time, and victims of domestic violence had few places to go. Feminists also fought for a day-care system that would be open to the public, and for the right for not only paid maternity leave but also paternity leave. Today there is a 263-day parental leave in Finland. It is illegal to discriminate against women in the workforce. Two feminist groups were created to help the movement: The Marxist-Feminists () and The Red Women (, ). The feminists in Finland were inspired by other European countries such as Sweden and Switzerland. Other important groups for the Finnish women in the 1970s include Unioni and The Feminists ().
Women's rights
Finland became one of the first countries to grant women the right to vote, and still today they are among the top countries for women equality. Finland was voted second in the Global Gender Gap Index in women's rights. Finland made marital rape illegal in 1994. In 2003 the government of Finland proposed addressing issues with gender inequality. They planned to promote gender equality over the entire public administration, reform the Act on Equality () that the men and women in Finland share, promote equal pay for work of equal value, increase the number of women in political and economic roles, assessing gender equality from the male point of view, prevent domestic violence and intimate partner violence, protect victims of trafficking and the possibility of criminalizing buying sex. This act is called the Government Action Plan for Gender Equality () and it included more than 100 issues that needed discussion.
Education
In history
In the late 18th century and early 19th century private schools for girls were established in Finland, among the more known being those of Christina Krook, Anna Salmberg and Sara Wacklin. These schools were criticized for its shallow education of accomplishments, which resulted in the decision that girls should be included in the school reform of 1843, and the following year, two Swedish-language state schools for girls was founded in Turku and Helsinki, Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Åbo and Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Helsingfors. This led to the establishment of a net of girl schools of a similar kind in Finland. At first the schools were reserved for girls from upper-class families.
At this time it was not possible for the girls to pass the baccalaureate and move on to university studies. In 1865 a grammar school made it clear that only girls whose upbringing and manners were impeccable and whose company cannot be considered detrimental to others, and who were from "respectable" families could be in the school.
After the first woman in Finland, Maria Tschetschulin, was accepted as a university student by dispensation in 1870, advanced classes and colleges classes were included in many girl schools to prepare students for university (by means of dispensation), and in 1872, the demand that all students must be members of the Swedish language upper classes was dropped. Women were given the right to teach in grammar schools for girls in 1882.
When the dispensation for female university students was dropped and women were accepted at the same terms as men in 1915, girls and boys started to receive the same education in the school system, and the girl schools in Finland started to be changed to same sex education, a development which was completed in the 1970s.
Today
Finland students start their schooling a year after a lot of other countries. In spite of this, Finland is now one of the top-performing countries in mathematical skills, but also one of the few whose boys performed as well as girls. While in most countries the most able girls lag behind the most able boys in mathematics performance, according to the PISA 2012 Results Overview, the OECD gender score difference in mathematics, reading, and science was a result of -6 (boys - girls) in Finland. Additionally, while the highest-performing students of problem solving in the world are largely males, Finland makes an exception where the proportion of top-performing females is about the same as the proportion of top-performing males. This is also true among the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) where the top-performers in problem solving are predominantly men, except for in Finland, Australia and Canada.
As for Finland's educational benefits for students, Finnish schools offer state-funded schooling which makes it easier for women and men to go to work after being on parental leave. Women represent 32% of students studying in mathematics and computer science.
Women in the workforce
According to the Finnish Labor Force Survey around 32% of the 301,000 people who are self-employed are women. Women first became involved in labor markets through agrarian societies. Even before the public daycare systems, the number of women in the workforce was still very high, over 50%. The number of workers in the labor force that makes up the females (ages 15–74) is 51%, where men is 49%. 32% of the women are involved in entrepreneurship.
Equality in the workforce
Employers who have at least 30 employees must have a gender equality plan that includes a women's and men's pay comparison. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and other important labor market organizations set guidelines for gender equality planning.
Women in the military
Military service is required for men in Finland, but is voluntary for women. Women who enlist are allowed to train for combat roles. Finland is one of 16 other countries in the world that permit women in front-line combat positions.
Recreation
In using the sauna, women bathe separately from men, except if they are with family members or friends.
See also
Demographics of Finland
References
External links
Finland, everyculture.com
Finland, Cultural Etiquette, eDiplomat
Finnish women
Finland
| true |
[
"The Embassy of Finland in Stockholm is Finland's diplomatic mission in Sweden. It is located at Gärdesgatan 11 in the district of Gärdet. The current ambassador of Finland to Sweden, since 2018, is Liisa Talonpoika who is also the first female ever to hold this position.\n\nAmbassadors\n\nSee also\n Foreign relations of Finland\n Finland–Sweden relations\n List of Ambassadors of Finland to Sweden\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Embassy of Finland in Stockholm\n\nBuildings and structures in Stockholm\nSweden\nStockholm\nFinland–Sweden relations",
"Karl Gustaf Idman (1 December 1885 in Tampere – 13 April 1961 in Helsinki) \nwas a Finnish diplomat and a non-partisan Minister of Foreign Affairs in Antti Tulenheimo's cabinet in 1925.\n\nIdman completed a law doctorate in 1914 and worked in Helsinki University as a professor of international law from 1915 to 1917.\n\nIdman became an official in the Finnish Foreign Office in January 1918 after Finland gained independence. Idman belonged to the delegation which visited St. Petersburg in 1917 and acquired Lenin's approval for Finnish Declaration of Independence.\n\nIdman hold several foreign service positions during his career. He was special envoy in Copenhagen 1919–1927, in Budapest 1922–1927, in Riga and Kaunas 1927–1928, in Prague from 1927 to 1935, in Warsaw 1928-1938 and in Bucharest 1928–1938. During World War II, Idman hold a similar position of a special envoy since October 1939 in Tokyo and also since August 1941 in Mukden (Manchukuo). Idman was put into disponibility on 5 April 1945 and he resigned from the ministry in 1947.\n\nIdman owned Hatanpää Manor in Tampere region. He left in his will money for a foundation that distributes annually grants for approximate million euros to students in Tampere.\n\nReferences\n\n1885 births\n1961 deaths\nPeople from Tampere\nPeople from Häme Province (Grand Duchy of Finland)\nMinisters for Foreign Affairs of Finland\nFinnish diplomats\nUniversity of Helsinki alumni\nAcademics of the University of Helsinki"
] |
[
"Women in Finland",
"Women's suffrage",
"Are men and women treated equal in Finland?",
"The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election.",
"Can a female hold official public office in Finland?",
"election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament."
] |
C_9b6fad8313f74900bf2fb6c40c2e7caa_1
|
What other offices did she hold?
| 3 |
Aside from parliament, What other offices did Finnish women hold?
|
Women in Finland
|
The area that in 1809 became Finland was a group of integral provinces of the Kingdom of Sweden for over 600 years, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718-1772), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpaa, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926. Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42,5%. In 2003 Anneli Jaatteenmaki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8). CANNOTANSWER
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In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected
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Women in Finland enjoy a "high degree of equality" and "traditional courtesy" among men. In 1906, the women of Finland became the first women in Europe to be granted the right to vote. There are many women in Finland who hold prominent positions in Finnish society, in the academics, in the field of business, and in the government of Finland. An example of powerful women in Finnish politics is Tarja Halonen, who became the first female president of the country (she was Foreign Minister of Finland before becoming president). In religion, where most of the Finnish people are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (the other major Christian denomination in Finland is the Eastern Orthodox Church), women can be ordained as priests. In terms of finance, Finnish women have been described as "usually independent financially". Married women, by custom, introduce themselves by mentioning their forename first, then their maiden name, and then the surname of their husbands. The Telegraph wrote in 2006:
Location
Finland is bordered on the east by Russia, on the south by the Gulf of Finland and Estonia, and on the west by the Gulf of Bothnia and Sweden, and on the north/north west by Norway. One quarter of the territory is north of the Arctic Circle.
Population
By gender (2020)
Total population: 5,533,793
Men population: 2,733,808
Women population: 2,799,985
Life expectancy (2020)
Life expectancy in years for total population: 81.82
Male: 79.03 years
Female: 84.62 years
Women's suffrage
The area that in 1809 became Finland was a group of integral provinces of the Kingdom of Sweden for over 600 years, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718–1772), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds.
The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities.
The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpää, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926.
Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42.5%. In 2003 Anneli Jäätteenmäki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8).
Women's rights movement
In 1970 there was a brief but strong women's movement. Rape in marriage was not considered a crime at the time, and victims of domestic violence had few places to go. Feminists also fought for a day-care system that would be open to the public, and for the right for not only paid maternity leave but also paternity leave. Today there is a 263-day parental leave in Finland. It is illegal to discriminate against women in the workforce. Two feminist groups were created to help the movement: The Marxist-Feminists () and The Red Women (, ). The feminists in Finland were inspired by other European countries such as Sweden and Switzerland. Other important groups for the Finnish women in the 1970s include Unioni and The Feminists ().
Women's rights
Finland became one of the first countries to grant women the right to vote, and still today they are among the top countries for women equality. Finland was voted second in the Global Gender Gap Index in women's rights. Finland made marital rape illegal in 1994. In 2003 the government of Finland proposed addressing issues with gender inequality. They planned to promote gender equality over the entire public administration, reform the Act on Equality () that the men and women in Finland share, promote equal pay for work of equal value, increase the number of women in political and economic roles, assessing gender equality from the male point of view, prevent domestic violence and intimate partner violence, protect victims of trafficking and the possibility of criminalizing buying sex. This act is called the Government Action Plan for Gender Equality () and it included more than 100 issues that needed discussion.
Education
In history
In the late 18th century and early 19th century private schools for girls were established in Finland, among the more known being those of Christina Krook, Anna Salmberg and Sara Wacklin. These schools were criticized for its shallow education of accomplishments, which resulted in the decision that girls should be included in the school reform of 1843, and the following year, two Swedish-language state schools for girls was founded in Turku and Helsinki, Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Åbo and Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Helsingfors. This led to the establishment of a net of girl schools of a similar kind in Finland. At first the schools were reserved for girls from upper-class families.
At this time it was not possible for the girls to pass the baccalaureate and move on to university studies. In 1865 a grammar school made it clear that only girls whose upbringing and manners were impeccable and whose company cannot be considered detrimental to others, and who were from "respectable" families could be in the school.
After the first woman in Finland, Maria Tschetschulin, was accepted as a university student by dispensation in 1870, advanced classes and colleges classes were included in many girl schools to prepare students for university (by means of dispensation), and in 1872, the demand that all students must be members of the Swedish language upper classes was dropped. Women were given the right to teach in grammar schools for girls in 1882.
When the dispensation for female university students was dropped and women were accepted at the same terms as men in 1915, girls and boys started to receive the same education in the school system, and the girl schools in Finland started to be changed to same sex education, a development which was completed in the 1970s.
Today
Finland students start their schooling a year after a lot of other countries. In spite of this, Finland is now one of the top-performing countries in mathematical skills, but also one of the few whose boys performed as well as girls. While in most countries the most able girls lag behind the most able boys in mathematics performance, according to the PISA 2012 Results Overview, the OECD gender score difference in mathematics, reading, and science was a result of -6 (boys - girls) in Finland. Additionally, while the highest-performing students of problem solving in the world are largely males, Finland makes an exception where the proportion of top-performing females is about the same as the proportion of top-performing males. This is also true among the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) where the top-performers in problem solving are predominantly men, except for in Finland, Australia and Canada.
As for Finland's educational benefits for students, Finnish schools offer state-funded schooling which makes it easier for women and men to go to work after being on parental leave. Women represent 32% of students studying in mathematics and computer science.
Women in the workforce
According to the Finnish Labor Force Survey around 32% of the 301,000 people who are self-employed are women. Women first became involved in labor markets through agrarian societies. Even before the public daycare systems, the number of women in the workforce was still very high, over 50%. The number of workers in the labor force that makes up the females (ages 15–74) is 51%, where men is 49%. 32% of the women are involved in entrepreneurship.
Equality in the workforce
Employers who have at least 30 employees must have a gender equality plan that includes a women's and men's pay comparison. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and other important labor market organizations set guidelines for gender equality planning.
Women in the military
Military service is required for men in Finland, but is voluntary for women. Women who enlist are allowed to train for combat roles. Finland is one of 16 other countries in the world that permit women in front-line combat positions.
Recreation
In using the sauna, women bathe separately from men, except if they are with family members or friends.
See also
Demographics of Finland
References
External links
Finland, everyculture.com
Finland, Cultural Etiquette, eDiplomat
Finnish women
Finland
| true |
[
"The Great Offices of State are senior offices in the UK government. They are the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary, respectively. or, alternatively, three of those offices excluding the Prime Minister.\n\nCurrent\n\nHistory\n\nThe Great Offices of State are derived from the most senior positions in the Royal Household – the Great Officers of State. These eventually became hereditary and honorary titles, while the substantive duties of the Officers passed to individuals who were appointed on behalf of the Crown. The medieval origins of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer make it the oldest surviving Great Office of State, while the position of Secretary of State came into being in the late 16th century and the office of Prime Minister evolved gradually in the 18th and 19th centuries.\n\nJames Callaghan is the first and to date only person to have served in all four positions. In the past hundred years, several other people have come close to achieving this distinction: H. H. Asquith and Winston Churchill both served as Prime Minister, Chancellor and Home Secretary while Harold Macmillan and John Major served as Prime Minister, Chancellor and Foreign Secretary; Rab Butler and Sir John Simon served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary. Two of the Great Offices of State have often been held simultaneously by one person, most recently by Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary in 1924; the Duke of Wellington is the only person to have held three of the Great Offices simultaneously, serving as Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary in the Wellington caretaker ministry.\n\nCommons-only nature in modern times\n\nOwing to the political constitution of the United Kingdom, in which the House of Commons retains most of the power, it is accepted that it is no longer practical for holders of the Great Offices of State to be members of the House of Lords. The House of Lords has traditionally been restrained in the passage of financial bills, meaning that the office of Chancellor is effectively limited to the House of Commons. The last holders of the other positions to have been peers were:\n\nPrime Minister: Conservative The Earl of Home (20–23 October 1963): The Earl of Home renounced his peerage and was elected as an MP after his appointment as Prime Minister. The last holder to remain a peer throughout his term as Prime Minister was the Conservative The Marquess of Salisbury (25 June 1895 – 11 July 1902).\nChancellor of the Exchequer: Whig Lord Denman (14 November – 15 December 1834): Denman only held the post on an acting basis as an ex officio duty of his role as Lord Chief Justice, as did the peer before him, Tory Lord Tenterden (8 August–3 September 1827); the last member of the House of Lords to hold the office substantively was Whig Viscount Stanhope (15 April 1717 – 20 March 1718).\nForeign Secretary: Conservative Lord Carrington (5 May 1979 – 5 April 1982): The Lord Carrington is the most recent peer to hold one of the Great Offices of State.\nHome Secretary: Conservative Viscount Cave (14 November 1918 – 14 January 1919): Sir George Cave was ennobled as The Viscount Cave while serving as Home Secretary in 1918. The last holder to remain a peer throughout his term as Home Secretary was the Whig Viscount Palmerston (28 December 1852 – 6 February 1855). However, he was an Irish peer, meaning that he was not entitled to a seat in the Lords; the last holder to remain a member of the Lords was the Whig The Marquess of Normanby (30 August 1839 – 30 August 1841).\n\nIt is most exceptional that a holder of a Great Office of State should not hold a seat in Parliament at all, neither in the Commons nor in the Lords. It occurred briefly in 1963, when Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister: he disclaimed his peerage on 23 October, and was not returned to the Commons until a by-election on 7 November. More substantially, Patrick Gordon Walker was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1964 despite not holding a Parliamentary seat, having been defeated in his Smethwick constituency seat in the 1964 general election; he held the post for three months until his resignation in January 1965.\n\nWomen\n\nMargaret Thatcher became the first woman to hold one of the Great Offices of State when she was elected Prime Minister in 1979. Eight women have held one or more Great Offices of State since then, with six of them being members of the Conservative Party. Due to her ascension to the office of Prime Minister in 2016, Theresa May became the first female to serve on two different Great Offices; while the appointment of her successor Amber Rudd as Home Secretary resulting in the first period in which more than one of the Offices were held by women simultaneously. Priti Patel became the first woman of ethnic minority serving in any of Great Offices of State when appointed in position of Home Secretary in 2019.\n\nOut of the four Offices, three have been held by women; Chancellor of the Exchequer is the only position that has not. The Home Office has had the most female officeholders with four.\n\nPrime Minister:\n\nMargaret Thatcher (1979–1990) (Conservative)\nTheresa May (2016–2019) (Conservative)\n\nChancellor of the Exchequer:\n\nNo woman has yet served as Chancellor of the Exchequer.\n\nForeign Secretary:\n\nMargaret Beckett (2006–2007) (Labour)\nLiz Truss (2021–present) (Conservative)\n\nHome Secretary:\n\nJacqui Smith (2007–2009) (Labour)\nTheresa May (2010–2016) (Conservative)\nAmber Rudd (2016–2018) (Conservative)\nPriti Patel (2019–present) (Conservative)\n\nEthnic minorities\n\nBenjamin Disraeli became the first person of an ethnic minority to attain one of the Great Offices of State when he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1852. Following the resignation of The Earl of Derby in 1868, he also became the first ethnic minority to hold two different Great Offices; as well as the first and to date the only person of Jewish heritage to become Prime Minister. Eleven ethnic minority individuals have held one or more Great Offices of State since then, with nine of them being members of the Conservative Party.\n\nSajid Javid became the first person of Pakistani descent to hold a Great Office of State as Home Secretary in 2018 and Chancellor of the Exchequer the next year. Priti Patel became the first person of Indian descent and first female of any ethnic minority to take the position within Great Offices when she has been appointed Home Secretary in 2019.\n\nPrime Minister:\n\n Benjamin Disraeli (1868, 1874–1880; Jewish heritage) (Conservative)\n\nChancellor of the Exchequer:\n\n Benjamin Disraeli (1852, 1858–1859, 1866–1868; Jewish heritage) (Conservative)\n Nigel Lawson (1983–1989; Jewish heritage) (Conservative)\n Sajid Javid (2019–2020; Pakistani heritage) (Conservative)\n Rishi Sunak (2020–present; Indian heritage) (Conservative)\n\nForeign Secretary:\n\n Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading (1931; Jewish heritage) (Liberal)\n Malcolm Rifkind (1995–1997; Jewish heritage) (Conservative)\n David Miliband (2007–2010; Jewish heritage) (Labour)\n Dominic Raab (2019–21; Jewish heritage) (Conservative)\n\nHome Secretary:\n\n Frank Soskice (1964–1965; Jewish heritage) (Labour)\n Leon Brittan (1983–1985; Jewish heritage) (Conservative)\n Michael Howard (1993–1997; Jewish heritage) (Conservative)\n Sajid Javid (2018–2019; Pakistani heritage) (Conservative)\n Priti Patel (2019–present; Indian heritage) (Conservative)\n\nSee also\n Cabinet of the United Kingdom\n List of shadow holders of the Great Offices of State\n\nReferences \n\nMinisterial offices in the United Kingdom",
"Siv Tørudbakken (born 25 May 1968) is a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party.\n\nFollowing the 2007 Norwegian local elections she became the new leader (fylkesrådsleder) of Hedmark county cabinet, making her the first woman to hold this office. Tørudbakken has since 1995 held a variety of full-time political offices in the Hedmark county council.\n\nReferences\n\n1968 births\nLiving people\nLabour Party (Norway) politicians\nHedmark politicians\nNorwegian women in politics"
] |
[
"Women in Finland",
"Women's suffrage",
"Are men and women treated equal in Finland?",
"The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election.",
"Can a female hold official public office in Finland?",
"election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament.",
"What other offices did she hold?",
"In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected"
] |
C_9b6fad8313f74900bf2fb6c40c2e7caa_1
|
Before women's suffrage could any girl go to university?
| 4 |
Before women's suffrage, could any girl go to university in Finland?
|
Women in Finland
|
The area that in 1809 became Finland was a group of integral provinces of the Kingdom of Sweden for over 600 years, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718-1772), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpaa, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926. Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42,5%. In 2003 Anneli Jaatteenmaki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8). CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Women in Finland enjoy a "high degree of equality" and "traditional courtesy" among men. In 1906, the women of Finland became the first women in Europe to be granted the right to vote. There are many women in Finland who hold prominent positions in Finnish society, in the academics, in the field of business, and in the government of Finland. An example of powerful women in Finnish politics is Tarja Halonen, who became the first female president of the country (she was Foreign Minister of Finland before becoming president). In religion, where most of the Finnish people are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (the other major Christian denomination in Finland is the Eastern Orthodox Church), women can be ordained as priests. In terms of finance, Finnish women have been described as "usually independent financially". Married women, by custom, introduce themselves by mentioning their forename first, then their maiden name, and then the surname of their husbands. The Telegraph wrote in 2006:
Location
Finland is bordered on the east by Russia, on the south by the Gulf of Finland and Estonia, and on the west by the Gulf of Bothnia and Sweden, and on the north/north west by Norway. One quarter of the territory is north of the Arctic Circle.
Population
By gender (2020)
Total population: 5,533,793
Men population: 2,733,808
Women population: 2,799,985
Life expectancy (2020)
Life expectancy in years for total population: 81.82
Male: 79.03 years
Female: 84.62 years
Women's suffrage
The area that in 1809 became Finland was a group of integral provinces of the Kingdom of Sweden for over 600 years, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718–1772), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds.
The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities.
The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpää, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926.
Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42.5%. In 2003 Anneli Jäätteenmäki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8).
Women's rights movement
In 1970 there was a brief but strong women's movement. Rape in marriage was not considered a crime at the time, and victims of domestic violence had few places to go. Feminists also fought for a day-care system that would be open to the public, and for the right for not only paid maternity leave but also paternity leave. Today there is a 263-day parental leave in Finland. It is illegal to discriminate against women in the workforce. Two feminist groups were created to help the movement: The Marxist-Feminists () and The Red Women (, ). The feminists in Finland were inspired by other European countries such as Sweden and Switzerland. Other important groups for the Finnish women in the 1970s include Unioni and The Feminists ().
Women's rights
Finland became one of the first countries to grant women the right to vote, and still today they are among the top countries for women equality. Finland was voted second in the Global Gender Gap Index in women's rights. Finland made marital rape illegal in 1994. In 2003 the government of Finland proposed addressing issues with gender inequality. They planned to promote gender equality over the entire public administration, reform the Act on Equality () that the men and women in Finland share, promote equal pay for work of equal value, increase the number of women in political and economic roles, assessing gender equality from the male point of view, prevent domestic violence and intimate partner violence, protect victims of trafficking and the possibility of criminalizing buying sex. This act is called the Government Action Plan for Gender Equality () and it included more than 100 issues that needed discussion.
Education
In history
In the late 18th century and early 19th century private schools for girls were established in Finland, among the more known being those of Christina Krook, Anna Salmberg and Sara Wacklin. These schools were criticized for its shallow education of accomplishments, which resulted in the decision that girls should be included in the school reform of 1843, and the following year, two Swedish-language state schools for girls was founded in Turku and Helsinki, Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Åbo and Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Helsingfors. This led to the establishment of a net of girl schools of a similar kind in Finland. At first the schools were reserved for girls from upper-class families.
At this time it was not possible for the girls to pass the baccalaureate and move on to university studies. In 1865 a grammar school made it clear that only girls whose upbringing and manners were impeccable and whose company cannot be considered detrimental to others, and who were from "respectable" families could be in the school.
After the first woman in Finland, Maria Tschetschulin, was accepted as a university student by dispensation in 1870, advanced classes and colleges classes were included in many girl schools to prepare students for university (by means of dispensation), and in 1872, the demand that all students must be members of the Swedish language upper classes was dropped. Women were given the right to teach in grammar schools for girls in 1882.
When the dispensation for female university students was dropped and women were accepted at the same terms as men in 1915, girls and boys started to receive the same education in the school system, and the girl schools in Finland started to be changed to same sex education, a development which was completed in the 1970s.
Today
Finland students start their schooling a year after a lot of other countries. In spite of this, Finland is now one of the top-performing countries in mathematical skills, but also one of the few whose boys performed as well as girls. While in most countries the most able girls lag behind the most able boys in mathematics performance, according to the PISA 2012 Results Overview, the OECD gender score difference in mathematics, reading, and science was a result of -6 (boys - girls) in Finland. Additionally, while the highest-performing students of problem solving in the world are largely males, Finland makes an exception where the proportion of top-performing females is about the same as the proportion of top-performing males. This is also true among the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) where the top-performers in problem solving are predominantly men, except for in Finland, Australia and Canada.
As for Finland's educational benefits for students, Finnish schools offer state-funded schooling which makes it easier for women and men to go to work after being on parental leave. Women represent 32% of students studying in mathematics and computer science.
Women in the workforce
According to the Finnish Labor Force Survey around 32% of the 301,000 people who are self-employed are women. Women first became involved in labor markets through agrarian societies. Even before the public daycare systems, the number of women in the workforce was still very high, over 50%. The number of workers in the labor force that makes up the females (ages 15–74) is 51%, where men is 49%. 32% of the women are involved in entrepreneurship.
Equality in the workforce
Employers who have at least 30 employees must have a gender equality plan that includes a women's and men's pay comparison. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and other important labor market organizations set guidelines for gender equality planning.
Women in the military
Military service is required for men in Finland, but is voluntary for women. Women who enlist are allowed to train for combat roles. Finland is one of 16 other countries in the world that permit women in front-line combat positions.
Recreation
In using the sauna, women bathe separately from men, except if they are with family members or friends.
See also
Demographics of Finland
References
External links
Finland, everyculture.com
Finland, Cultural Etiquette, eDiplomat
Finnish women
Finland
| false |
[
"Helen Brewster Owens (April 2, 1881 – June 6, 1968) was an American suffragist and mathematician.\n\nEarly life and education \nHelen Brewster Owens was born April 2, 1881 in Pleasanton, Kansas to Clara (née Linton) and Robert Edward Brewster. Her mother, who was a teacher and president of the Lincoln County Women's Suffrage Association, prompted Brewster's interest in the movement from a young age. As a girl, she attended the 1893 County Fair with her mother where she helped distribute flyers of Frances Willard.\n\nBrewster Owens received a B.A. degree in mathematics from the University of Kansas in 1900 and her master's degree one year later from the same institution. Her master's thesis was titled \"Collineations of Space which Leave Invariant a Quadric Surface,\" and it built off of the work of Ruth G. Wood, a groundbreaking woman in mathematics in her own right. She continued her graduate studies at the University of Chicago, but she and her family moved to Ithaca, New York before she could complete a PhD. She finally received her doctorate in mathematics in 1910 at the age of 29 from Cornell University, advised by Virgil Snyder.\n\nMathematical career \nBrewster Owens taught math at the University Preparatory School in Ithaca, New York from 1910 to 1912. In 1914, she was hired as an assistant professor of mathematics at Wells College in Aurora, New York. Next, she served as a mathematics instructor at Cornell University from 1917–1920. After several more interruptions to her profession due to moves for her husband's career, she reached the next stepping stone in her career when she was appointed an associate editor of the American Mathematical Monthly. In 1936, Brewster Owens began a major research project on the history of women in mathematics. From 1941–1949, she taught at Penn State University as an assistant professor.\n\nSuffrage activism \nBrewster Owens kept up her suffrage career from that first visit to the 1893 County Fair with her mother throughout her life. In 1910, she was elected to the board of the Resolutions Committee of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association. In 1911, she returned to Kansas for a spell to continue the fight for suffrage there. Soon after, Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association asked Brewster Owens to return to Kansas as her personal representative. Working there throughout 1912, Brewster Owens bore witness to the state's ratification of the suffrage amendment - by 16,000 votes, the greatest majority of any state up until that point. She then returned to New York to fight for suffrage there.\n\nPersonal life\nBrewster Owens married her classmate, Frederick William Owens, in 1904. She gave birth to her first daughter, Helen, upon their move to Chicago one year later. She died on June 6, 1968, in Martinsburg, West Virginia\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nPapers of Helen Brewster Owens, 1867-1948. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.\n \n Biography on p. 475-479 of the Supplementary Material at AMS\n :File:Woman s Who s who of America.pdf, 1914, p. 615 (= p. 606 in Pdf file)\n\n1881 births\n1968 deaths\nAmerican suffragists\nCornell University alumni\nCornell University faculty\nUniversity of Kansas alumni\nUniversity of Chicago alumni\n20th-century American mathematicians\nAmerican women mathematicians\n20th-century American women scientists\nPeople from Pleasanton, Kansas\n20th-century women mathematicians",
"This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Wisconsin. Women's suffrage efforts began before the Civil War. The first Wisconsin state constitutional convention in 1846 discussed both women's suffrage and African-American suffrage. In the end, a more conservative constitution was adopted by Wisconsin. In the 1850s, a German language women's rights newspaper was founded in Milwaukee and many suffragists spoke throughout the state. The first state suffrage convention was held in Janesville in 1867. The 1870s, several women's suffrage groups were founded in the state. In 1884, a women's suffrage bill, allowing women to vote for school-related issues is passed. In 1886, voters approve the school-related suffrage bill in a referendum. The first year women vote, 1887, there are challenges to the law that go on until Wisconsin women are allowed to vote again for school issues in 1902 using separate ballots. In the 1900s, women's suffrage conventions continue to take place throughout the state. Women collect petitions and continue to lobby the state legislature. In 1911 Wisconsin legislature passes a bill for women's suffrage that will go out to the voters in 1912. On November 4, 1912 voters disapprove of women's suffrage. Women's suffrage efforts continue, including sponsoring a suffrage school and with the inclusion of a National Woman's Party (NWP) chapter formed in 1915. When the Nineteenth Amendment goes out to the states, Wisconsin ratifies on June 10 and turns in the ratification paperwork first, on June 13, 1919.\n\n19th century\n\n1840s \n1846\n\n October 5: Delegates of the 1846 Wisconsin Constitutional Convention start meeting in Madison. The final draft of the constitution had women's rights provisions and considered suffrage for African Americans.\n April: This version of the Wisconsin Constitution is rejected by voters.\n\n1850s \n1852\n\n Woman's rights newspaper, Die Deutsche Frauen-Zeitung, is founded in Milwaukee by Mathilde Franziska Anneke.\n\n1853\n\n Clarina I. H. Nichols and Lydia Folger Fowler tour Wisconsin and speak on temperance and women's suffrage.\n\n1855\n\n November: Lucy Stone speaks about women's suffrage in Madison and Kenosha.\n\n1856\n\n Women's suffrage club started in Richland Center.\nThree women's suffrage petitions are brought to the state legislature by Senator C. C. Sholes of Kenosha County.\n\n1860s \n1867\n\n October 9-10: First state suffrage convention is held in Janesville.\n\n1868\n\n The Woman Suffrage Association of Wisconsin (WSAW) is founded.\n\n1869\n\n February 24-25: State suffrage convention is held in Milwaukee and arranged by Lila Peckham and Laura Ross Wolcott.\n\n1870s \n1870\n\n State suffrage convention is held.\n\n1878\n\n The Madison Equal Suffrage Association (MESA) is founded.\n1879\n\n Organization of the Marathon County Woman Suffrage Association.\n\n1880s \n1880\n\n May: Mukwonago Woman Suffrage Club is organized.\nA women's suffrage referendum passes both houses and waits to be passed again the next year.\n1881\n\n The women's suffrage bill, passed in 1880, fails during the second vote.\n\n1882\n\n September 7: State suffrage convention is held in Madison. The WSAW changes their name to the Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association (WWSA).\n Centralia Equal Suffrage Association, Grand Rapids Equal Suffrage Association, Milwaukee Olympic Club, Milwaukee South Side Woman Suffrage Association, Whitewater Woman Suffrage Club, and Woman Suffrage Association at Mosinee are founded.\n\n1884\n\n A bill passes the state legislature, giving women the right to vote for candidates relating to education. \nSeptember: State suffrage club is held in Richland Center.\n1885\n\n State suffrage meeting held in Whitewater.\nThe suffrage bill passed in 1884 is passed again and will go out to a voter referendum.\n\n1886\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Racine.\nFall: Voters approve the women's suffrage referendum, giving women the right to vote in education-related elections.\n\n1887\n\n April: Attorney General of Wisconsin, Charles E. Estabrook instructs inspectors at polling places to throw out women's votes.\nOlympia Brown is turned away from voting in municipal elections.\nState suffrage meeting is held in Madison.\nSuffrage newspaper, the Woman Citizen begins publication.\n\n1888\n\n January 31: The Wisconsin Supreme Court decides that the new education suffrage law means that women can vote for any candidate on ballots that contain school-related issues.\nState suffrage meeting is held in Stevens' Point.\nThe Supreme Court of the United States reverses the Wisconsin Court, clarifying that women in the state can only vote on school issues, not other candidates.\n1889\n\n Another case challenges the school-election law and women are effectively barred from voting for several years.\n\n1890s \n\n1890\n\n Theodora W. Youmans uses the Waukesha Freeman as a platform to encourage women's clubs to form in Waukesha.\nState suffrage meeting is held in Berlin.\n1891\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Menominee.\n\n1892\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Richland Center.\n\n1893\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Mukwonago.\n\n1894\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Racine.\n\n1895\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Evansville.\n\n1896\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Waukesha.\nTen day suffrage open house is held at Manona Lake Assembly where Anna Howard Shaw speaks to a group of around 4,000 people.\n\n1897\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Monroe.\n\n1898\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Spring Green.\nNational suffrage convention held in Madison.\n\n1899\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Platteville.\n\n20th century\n\n1900s \n\n1900\n\n State suffrage meeting is held in Brodhead.\n\n1901\n\n Belle Case La Follette lobbies the state legislature to reinstate women's right to vote for school-related candidates and issues.\nWomen are again allowed to vote on education-related issues because separate school ballot boxes are provided by law.\nState women's suffrage convention is held in Brodhead.\n1902\n\n Headquarters for women's suffrage are opened in Madison.\nState women's suffrage convention is held in Madison.\nApril 1: Women in Wisconsin vote again for school related issues on a separate ballot.\n1903\n\n A municipal suffrage bill is introduced in the state legislature, but only gets a small vote.\nA full women's suffrage bill passes the state assembly, but not the state senate.\nState women's suffrage convention is held in Platteville.\n\n1904\n\n State women's suffrage convention is held in Janesville.\n\n1905\n\n The state assembly passes a municipal suffrage bill, but it fails in the state senate.\nState women's suffrage convention is held in Milwaukee.\n\n1906\n\n State women's suffrage convention is held in Madison.\n\n1907\n\n State women's suffrage convention is held in Madison.\n\n1908\n\n State women's suffrage convention is held in Madison.\nMaud Wood Park tours several Wisconsin colleges and helps set up suffrage groups for college students.\n\n1909\n\n State women's suffrage convention is held in Madison.\nWWSA circulates petitions for a federal women's suffrage amendment and collect more than 18,000 signatures.\nA bill for a referendum on women's suffrage passes in the state senate, but fails in the state assembly.\n\n1910s \n\n1910\n\n State women's suffrage convention is held in Madison.\n\n1911\n\n March 31: A suffrage bill passes the state senate.\nApril 26: The suffrage bill passes the state assembly and will go to the voters as a political referendum in 1912.\n The Political Equality League (PEL) is organized.\nWisconsin Men's League for Women's Suffrage formed.\nState women's suffrage convention is held in Racine.\nSummer: Campaign headquarters for the vote are set up in Milwaukee.\nAugust 2: State women's suffrage auto tour begins in Milwaukee.\n\n1912\n\n November 4: The vote for women's suffrage fails in the referendum.\n\n1913\n\n January: Zona Gale calls for a joint conference of PEL and WWSA.\nFebruary 4-5: The joint convention is held in Madison.\nA women's suffrage referendum passes in the state legislature, but is voted by the governor.\nPEL and WWSA merge and keep the name WWSA.\nApril 26: La Follett testifies in front of the United States Senate Select Committee on Woman Suffrage.\n\n1914\n\n June 18-24: A suffrage school is held in Madison.\n December: State suffrage convention is held.\n1915\n\n Several women's suffrage bills are introduced in the state legislature, but are unsuccessful.\n\n1916\n\n March: A Congressional Conference is held in Milwaukee with Carrie Chapman Catt as featured speaker.\nJune: Suffragists from Wisconsin march in the Chicago parade.\n\n1917\n\n A National Woman's Party chapter is founded in Wisconsin.\nMarch 4: Olympia Brown from Wisconsin is one of the suffragists picketing the White House.\nA voter referendum bill is introduced in the state senate, but loses in the state assembly.\n\n1919\n\n February: A bill to allow women to vote in the Presidential elections passes.\nJune 10: Wisconsin ratifies the 19th Amendment.\nJune 13: Wisconsin is the first state to complete the ratification process, turning in the papers to the Secretary of State.\n\n1920s \n1920\n\n March: WWSA dissolves.\nThe League of Women Voters (LWV) Wisconsin is formed.\n\nSee also \n\n List of Wisconsin suffragists\n Women's suffrage in Wisconsin\n Women's suffrage in states of the United States\n Women's suffrage in the United States\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nExternal links \n Campaign for Women's Suffrage\nBrief Legislative History of the Woman's Suffrage Movement in Wisconsin by J. W. McMullin (September 1915)\n\nWisconsin suffrage\nPolitics of Wisconsin\nTimelines of states of the United States\nSuffrage referendums\nAmerican suffragists\nHistory of women's rights in the United States\nHistory of women in Wisconsin\nWomen's suffrage in the United States"
] |
[
"Women in Finland",
"Women's suffrage",
"Are men and women treated equal in Finland?",
"The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election.",
"Can a female hold official public office in Finland?",
"election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament.",
"What other offices did she hold?",
"In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected",
"Before women's suffrage could any girl go to university?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_9b6fad8313f74900bf2fb6c40c2e7caa_1
|
What requirements were made for a women to attend school?
| 5 |
What requirements were made for a women to attend school in Finland?
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Women in Finland
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The area that in 1809 became Finland was a group of integral provinces of the Kingdom of Sweden for over 600 years, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718-1772), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpaa, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926. Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42,5%. In 2003 Anneli Jaatteenmaki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8). CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Women in Finland enjoy a "high degree of equality" and "traditional courtesy" among men. In 1906, the women of Finland became the first women in Europe to be granted the right to vote. There are many women in Finland who hold prominent positions in Finnish society, in the academics, in the field of business, and in the government of Finland. An example of powerful women in Finnish politics is Tarja Halonen, who became the first female president of the country (she was Foreign Minister of Finland before becoming president). In religion, where most of the Finnish people are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (the other major Christian denomination in Finland is the Eastern Orthodox Church), women can be ordained as priests. In terms of finance, Finnish women have been described as "usually independent financially". Married women, by custom, introduce themselves by mentioning their forename first, then their maiden name, and then the surname of their husbands. The Telegraph wrote in 2006:
Location
Finland is bordered on the east by Russia, on the south by the Gulf of Finland and Estonia, and on the west by the Gulf of Bothnia and Sweden, and on the north/north west by Norway. One quarter of the territory is north of the Arctic Circle.
Population
By gender (2020)
Total population: 5,533,793
Men population: 2,733,808
Women population: 2,799,985
Life expectancy (2020)
Life expectancy in years for total population: 81.82
Male: 79.03 years
Female: 84.62 years
Women's suffrage
The area that in 1809 became Finland was a group of integral provinces of the Kingdom of Sweden for over 600 years, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718–1772), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds.
The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities.
The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpää, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926.
Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42.5%. In 2003 Anneli Jäätteenmäki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8).
Women's rights movement
In 1970 there was a brief but strong women's movement. Rape in marriage was not considered a crime at the time, and victims of domestic violence had few places to go. Feminists also fought for a day-care system that would be open to the public, and for the right for not only paid maternity leave but also paternity leave. Today there is a 263-day parental leave in Finland. It is illegal to discriminate against women in the workforce. Two feminist groups were created to help the movement: The Marxist-Feminists () and The Red Women (, ). The feminists in Finland were inspired by other European countries such as Sweden and Switzerland. Other important groups for the Finnish women in the 1970s include Unioni and The Feminists ().
Women's rights
Finland became one of the first countries to grant women the right to vote, and still today they are among the top countries for women equality. Finland was voted second in the Global Gender Gap Index in women's rights. Finland made marital rape illegal in 1994. In 2003 the government of Finland proposed addressing issues with gender inequality. They planned to promote gender equality over the entire public administration, reform the Act on Equality () that the men and women in Finland share, promote equal pay for work of equal value, increase the number of women in political and economic roles, assessing gender equality from the male point of view, prevent domestic violence and intimate partner violence, protect victims of trafficking and the possibility of criminalizing buying sex. This act is called the Government Action Plan for Gender Equality () and it included more than 100 issues that needed discussion.
Education
In history
In the late 18th century and early 19th century private schools for girls were established in Finland, among the more known being those of Christina Krook, Anna Salmberg and Sara Wacklin. These schools were criticized for its shallow education of accomplishments, which resulted in the decision that girls should be included in the school reform of 1843, and the following year, two Swedish-language state schools for girls was founded in Turku and Helsinki, Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Åbo and Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Helsingfors. This led to the establishment of a net of girl schools of a similar kind in Finland. At first the schools were reserved for girls from upper-class families.
At this time it was not possible for the girls to pass the baccalaureate and move on to university studies. In 1865 a grammar school made it clear that only girls whose upbringing and manners were impeccable and whose company cannot be considered detrimental to others, and who were from "respectable" families could be in the school.
After the first woman in Finland, Maria Tschetschulin, was accepted as a university student by dispensation in 1870, advanced classes and colleges classes were included in many girl schools to prepare students for university (by means of dispensation), and in 1872, the demand that all students must be members of the Swedish language upper classes was dropped. Women were given the right to teach in grammar schools for girls in 1882.
When the dispensation for female university students was dropped and women were accepted at the same terms as men in 1915, girls and boys started to receive the same education in the school system, and the girl schools in Finland started to be changed to same sex education, a development which was completed in the 1970s.
Today
Finland students start their schooling a year after a lot of other countries. In spite of this, Finland is now one of the top-performing countries in mathematical skills, but also one of the few whose boys performed as well as girls. While in most countries the most able girls lag behind the most able boys in mathematics performance, according to the PISA 2012 Results Overview, the OECD gender score difference in mathematics, reading, and science was a result of -6 (boys - girls) in Finland. Additionally, while the highest-performing students of problem solving in the world are largely males, Finland makes an exception where the proportion of top-performing females is about the same as the proportion of top-performing males. This is also true among the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) where the top-performers in problem solving are predominantly men, except for in Finland, Australia and Canada.
As for Finland's educational benefits for students, Finnish schools offer state-funded schooling which makes it easier for women and men to go to work after being on parental leave. Women represent 32% of students studying in mathematics and computer science.
Women in the workforce
According to the Finnish Labor Force Survey around 32% of the 301,000 people who are self-employed are women. Women first became involved in labor markets through agrarian societies. Even before the public daycare systems, the number of women in the workforce was still very high, over 50%. The number of workers in the labor force that makes up the females (ages 15–74) is 51%, where men is 49%. 32% of the women are involved in entrepreneurship.
Equality in the workforce
Employers who have at least 30 employees must have a gender equality plan that includes a women's and men's pay comparison. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and other important labor market organizations set guidelines for gender equality planning.
Women in the military
Military service is required for men in Finland, but is voluntary for women. Women who enlist are allowed to train for combat roles. Finland is one of 16 other countries in the world that permit women in front-line combat positions.
Recreation
In using the sauna, women bathe separately from men, except if they are with family members or friends.
See also
Demographics of Finland
References
External links
Finland, everyculture.com
Finland, Cultural Etiquette, eDiplomat
Finnish women
Finland
| false |
[
"Antonia Tarrago was a feminist, activist and educator who is known for her efforts to expand women's access to education in Chile.\n\nEarly life and death \nAntonia Tarrago was born in Chile in the year 1832. She was an educator and feminist activist most known for her efforts to expand education for women giving them the right to attend college. She died in 1916.\n\nCareer \nAntonia Tarrago founded the Santa Teresa school in Santiago de Chile in 1864 to give women the opportunity to attend high school and continue their education. Tarrago wanted women to further develop their intelligence and their psychological skills. Tarrago was motivated by her feeling that the level of education for women was scarce mainly because the Chilean government did not provide sufficient funds, as the Chilean society did not see women's education as important. In 1872, Tarrago attempted to gain the government’s approval for the recognition of high school exams in order for girl's to apply to the University of Chile. Her pursuits were unsuccessful at this time. There was mass controversy inside the government as to whether they wanted women to pursue higher education and to remain in the role of homemakers. However, in 1877 with the joint efforts of Isabel Le Brun another educator, they founded the “Colegio de la Recoleta,” a school for women and with the change of government, the efforts of Antonia Tarrago were victorious. On February 5, 1877, the Secretary of Justice and Public Education, Miguel Luis Amunátegui signed the decree that allowed women to attend college. The Amunátegui Decree declared that women should be allowed to present tests to be admitted for college, following the same dispositions established for men.\n\nSee also \nAntonia Tarrago\n\nThe Amunátegui Decree\n\nReferences\n\nChilean women\nChilean educators\nChilean feminists",
"The Hochbegabtenstudium (, \"College for the talented\") is a programme in Germany that allows students of prerequisite intellectual ability (as shown on IQ tests) to attend college even if they do not hold the Abitur. The Hochbegabtenstudium is also called Schülerstudium (\"college for school-students\") because many of the students, who benefit from it are still enrolled in school, while they attend college.\n\nRequirements\nA person wishing to do the Hochbegabtenstudium must be of above average intellectual ability and must as a rule have completed at least 10th grade. However some exceptions from that rule are made for very young students of superior intellectual ability, who are in a lower grade. In most cases a student wishing to participate in the programme must be at least 16 years old, however again exceptions from this rule are made for students of superior intellectual ability some of whom are only 13 or 14 when they enter college.\n\nNotable examples\nIn 2009 the case of Felix Dietlein made news. The young student of superior intellectual ability received his master's degree in mathematics (from the University of Cologne) one month before he graduated from his high school. He was only 18 at this time.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\n Stefanie Pohl: \"Schülerstudium. Was ist das?\"\n\nEducation in Germany\nAcademic terminology"
] |
[
"Stephen Hillenburg",
"Personal life"
] |
C_6201d5b174b24dec99fc9ee08806de24_0
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Is he married?
| 1 |
Is Stephen Hillenburg married?
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Stephen Hillenburg
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen,
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Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
1961 births
2018 deaths
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"Laird of Burnbrae was a hereditary title in Scotland that was held by several generations in the Primrose family. The Lands of Burnbrae was situated near Kincardine, and has since been joined with Kincardine.\n\nThe book, Culross and Tulliallan, states that the Lands of Burnbrae were previously held by the Blaw family until it was passed on to the Primrose family when Margaret Blaw married Archibald Primrose, who then became the first proprietor of that name to hold the lands of Burnbrae. The Primrose family held the title to the Lands of Burnbrae for over two hundred years until it became incorporated with the Tulliallan estate.\n\nThe Lairds of Burnbrae resided in Tulliallan, formerly in Perthshire, Scotland although in some early sources Tulliallan is cited as part of Fife, where it currently lies. The family is related to the Lord Dalmeny (a subordinate title of the Earl of Rosebery), whose family surname is also Primrose.\n\nLairds of Burnbrae \nArchibald Primrose was the first Laird of Burnbrae. He was born about 1538 in Culross to Duncan Primrose and Helen Smyth. Archibald married Margaret Blaw about 1564 in Culross.\n\nPeter Primrose is the second known Laird of Burnbrae and uncle of the first Laird. He was born about 1512 and died in July 1584.\n\nHenry Primrose is the third known Laird of Burnbrae. He was born in 1536 to Peter Primrose. Henry married Margaret Beveridge in about 1558 and died in 1576.\n\nPeter Primrose is the fourth known Laird of Burnbrae. He was born in 1560 to Henry Primrose and Margaret Beverage. Peter married Margaret Callender and died in 1609.\n\nJohn Primrose is the fifth known Laird of Burnbrae. He was born about 1590 to Peter Primrose and Margaret Callender. It is unknown who the mother(s) of his children are but it is recorded that he married Elizabeth Sands on 20 September 1665 in Culross, Fife, Scotland. John died in December 1669.\n\nJohn Primrose is the sixth known Laird of Burnbrae. He was born about 1617 to John Primrose, and married Margaret Reiddock.\n\nJohn Primrose is the seventh known Laird of Burnbrae. He was christened on 26 December 1648 in Culross, Fife, Scotland to John Primrose and Margaret Reiddock. John married Christian Wannan on 24 October 1680.\n\nWilliam Primrose is the eighth known Laird of Burnbrae. He was born on 16 May 1685 to John Primrose and Christian Wannan. William married Janet Drysdale on 6 April 1716. Janet was born on 3 February 1689 to John Drysdale and Margaret Love.\n\nJohn Primrose is the ninth known Laird of Burnbrae. He was christened on 3 May 1719 to William Primrose and Janet Drysdale. John married Janet Primrose about 1745.\n\nJames Primrose is the tenth and last known Laird of Burnbrae. He was born about 1746 to John Primrose and Janet Primrose. He was also known by the title \"esquire\". James married Jane Lawrie about 1784 and died November 1827; his wife died in April 1832.\n\nReferences\n\nBurnbrae\nPeople from Kincardine, Fife",
"The following is a list of characters from the Polish TV series M jak miłość.\n\nFor biographies of members of Mostowiak family, see: List of M jak miłość characters (Mostowiak family)\n\nBanach family \nBanach family is related to Mostowiak family through the 2020 wedding of Mateusz Mostowiak and Liliana Banach.\n\n Krzysztof Banach (January Brunov) is a patriarch of Banach family.\n\n Krystyna Banach (Dorota Chotecka-Pazura) is a wife of Krzysztof Banach.\n\n Liliana Mostowiak, born Banach (Monika Mielnicka) is a daughter of Jacek Kotowski and Krystyna Banach and legal daughter of Krzysztof Banach. She was a classmate of Mateusz Mostowiak and lived with her family in Lipnica. Her father used a domestic violence. In late 2019 she was raped by Daniel and fell pregnant. Mateusz Mostowiak decided to take care of her and raise her child as his own. In March 2020 Liliana miscarried. She married Mostowiak on April 21, 2020. In January 2021 she learnt that her biologcal father was Jacek Kotowski. Liliana had a romance with Australian Ethan Anderson, who is fifteen years senior and has a daughter. She left Mateusz and decided to divorce him and to marry her new partner.\n\n Mateusz Mostowiak is a husband of Liliana Mostowiak. They married on April 21, 2020.\n\n Kamil Banach is a second child and first son of Krzysztof Banach and his wife, Krystyna Banach. He lives in Lipnica.\n\nBudzyński family \nBudzyński family is related to Mostowiak family through the 2012 wedding of Andrzej Budzyński and Marta Mostowiak.\n\n Tadeusz Budzyński is a brother of Wanda Budzyńska. He was born in 1929 and died in 2012. She met Irena Malanowska, a woman whom he loved in his youth, and moved with her to Cracow.\n\n Wanda Budzyńska (Maria Rybarczyk) is a senior of Budzyński family. She was born in 1956. Wanda has one brother, Tadeusz Budzyński. She is a lawyer and a judge. She was dating Jerzy Kolęda (2014-2015).\n\n Andrzej Budzyński (Krystian Wieczorek) is an only child of Wanda Budzyńska and her unnamed husband. He was born on November 17, 1973. In 2003 he had a son, Piotr Bielak, with his married lover, Edyta Bielak. He hasn't known about him and met him later. Piotr was raised as a son of Edyta's husband. Andrzej married Marta Wojciechowska on January 16, 2012 and became a stepfather to her two children. They divorced in May 2017 after Marta moved to Colombia. He then started dating Magdalena Marszałek and they married on January 7, 2020. Andrzej is a stepfather to Magdalena's son, Maciej Chodakowski.\n\n Marta Budzyńska, born Mostowiak is a first wife of Andrzej Budzyński. They married on January 16, 2012 and divorced on May 15, 2017.\n\n Magdalena Budzyńska, born Marszałek is a second wife of Andrzej Budzyński. They married on January 7, 2020.\n\n Piotr Bielak is a first child of Andrzej Budzyński and his then lover, Edyta Bielak. His legal father is Janusz Bielak. He was born in 2003.\n\nChodakowski family \nChodakowski family is related to Mostowiak family through the 2009 wedding of Tomasz Chodakowski and Małgorzata Mostowiak.\n\n Grzegorz Chodakowski (Wojciech Majchrzak) is a first child of Mr. and Mrs. Chodakowski and older brother of Tomasz Chodakowski. He was born on May 6, 1967. \n\n Aleksandra Chodakowska (Małgorzata Pieczyńska) is a wife of Grzegorz Chodakowski. She was born on May 12, 1965. Aleksandra has one sister, a nun named Łucja (born July 9, 1967, died March 14, 2008).\n\n Aleksander Chodakowski (Maurycy Popiel) is a first child of Grzegorz Chodakowski and his wife, Aleksandra Chodakowska. He was born on June 6, 1987. He civilly married Aneta Kryńska on April 28, 2020 in a prison in Warsaw.\n\n Magdalena Chodakowska, born Marszałek is a first wife of Aleksander Chodakowski. They married on December 22, 2015 and divorced on September 19, 2017.\n\n Aneta Chodakowska, born Kryńska (Ilona Janyst) is a second wife of Aleksander Chodakowski. They married on April 28, 2020.\n\n Maciej Chodakowski, born Romanowski (Franciszek Przanowski) is a first child of Aleksander Chodakowski and his first wife, Magdalena Chodakowska. He was born in 2006. His biological father, Krzysztof Romanowski, died because of heart attack on January 18, 2016. On March 14, 2016 he was adopted by Aleksander and Magdalena\n\n Marcin Chodakowski (Mikołaj Roznerski) is a second child and second son of Grzegorz Chodakowski and his wife, Aleksandra Chodakowska. He was born on August 18, 1990. Marcin was raised in Germany by his father, because his mother left the family and moved abroad. He was a boxer. He came to Warsaw because he had a conflict with boxer club's chef. Marcin had romances with Weronika Zawada (who was married to Ryszard Zawada, 2013), Agnieszka Olszewska (2012), Eryka Bufford (2013-2014) and Jane Bufford (2013). In 2014 he met Katarzyna Mularczyk. They started dating and she fell pregnant. Marcin got engaged to Katarzyna on December 29, 2014. On March 9, 2015 their son Szymon Chodakowski was born in Warsaw, but Katarzyna died as a result of severe blooding. Marcin, who raised his son alone, met Izabela Lewińska. She worked as a curator and controlled Marcin's family. They fell in love and has a daughter, Maja Chodakowska, on November 14, 2017. In the meantime, Izabela married her former boyfriend, Artur Skalski and didn't say Marcin that she was expecting their child. Artur was killed in October 2019 by Aleksander Chodakowski. Marcin and Izabela engaged on January 28, 2020 and married in a church ceremony on March 24, 2020. Chodakowski owns a company.\n\n Izabela Chodakowska, born Lewińska (Adriana Kalska) is a wife of Marcin Chodakowski. They married on March 24, 2020.\n\n Szymon Chodakowski is a first child of Marcin Chodakowski and his fiancee, Katarzyna Mularczyk. He was born on March 9, 2015. His mother died hours after his birth and he was raised by his father.\n\n Maja Chodakowska is a first child of Marcin Chodakowski and his then girlfriend, Izabela Lewińska. She was born on November 14, 2017.\n\n Tomasz Chodakowski (Andrzej Młynarczyk) was a second child of Mr. and Mrs. Chodakowski and younger brother of Grzegorz Chodakowski. He was born on July 7, 1978. He lived in Szczecin and worked as a policeman. He decided to change his work and become a driver after the death of his close friend. He took care of his daughter, Zofia Warakomska. Tomasz met Małgorzata Mostowiak and saved her life when a man tried to rape her. They married on November 10, 2009 and their son was born on November 23, 2009. In the past, Tomasz was engaged to Agnieszka Olszewska, who escaped from the church minutes before their wedding. Agnieszka came to Warsaw from Szczecin and they renewed their relationship. Tomasz's relationship with Agnieszka and Małgorzata's work abroad was bad for their marriage. In 2014 Małgorzata left her family and moved to United States where she got engaged to her first husband, Michał Łagoda, and fell pregnant. Tomasz divorced her on May 12, 2014. Chodakowski had another one night stand with Olszewska. It resulted in a birth of their daughter, Helena Chodakowska, on February 23, 2016. Tomasz started dating Joanna Tarnowska, a nanny of Wojciech. Tomasz and Joanna married on March 28, 2017. Chodakowski was attacked with a knife and died in a Warsaw hospital on September 11, 2017.\n\n Małgorzata Chodakowska, born Mostowiak is a first wife of Tomasz Chodakowski. They married on November 10, 2009 and divorced on May 12, 2014.\n\n Joanna Chodakowska, born Tarnowska is a second wife of Tomasz Chodakowski. They married on March 28, 2017 and she widowed on September 11, 2017.\n\n Zofia Warakomska is a stepchild of Tomasz Chodakowski and his first wife, Małgorzata Chodakowska. She was born on June 15, 1999 in Szczecin.\n\n Wojciech Chodakowski is a first child of Tomasz Chodakowski and his first wife, Małgorzata Chodakowska. He was born on November 23, 2009 in Warsaw.\n\n Helena Chodakowska is a first child of Tomasz Chodakowski and his former fiancee, Agnieszka Olszewska. She was born on February 23, 2016. She spent her first years in Warsaw. In September 2017 her father died. In April 2020 she moved to home town of her mother, Szczecin.\n\nDomański family \n Stefan Domański (Zbigniew Waleryś) is a patriarch of Domański family. He was born in 1955. He has a daughter, Alicja Domańska. For many years Stefan had been a tramp. He met his granddaughter Barbara Domańska and they become friends.\n\n Jerzy Domański (Michał Czernecki) is a son of Stefan Domański and biological father of Barbara Zduńska. He was married to Alicja but they later divorced and he didn't have a contact with his child. Barbara is now raised as a child of Paweł Zduński. He was born in 1979.\n\n Alicja Zduńska, primo voto Domańska, secundo voto Zduńska was a wife of Jerzy Domański. She was born on October 18, 1985. Alicja has one sister, Olga. Alicja was married to Jerzy Domański with whom she has a daughter, Barbara. Secondly she married Paweł Zduński and they raised Barbara as her parents. Alicja left her family and moved to London with her new boyfriend. She soon fell pregnant and divorced Zduński. She gave birth to another son.\n\n Barbara Zduńska, born Domańska (Gabriela Raczyńska) is a daughter of Jerzy Domański and his then wife, Alicja Zduńska and also stepdaughter of Paweł Zduński. She was born on July 15, 2006.\n\nFilarski family \nFilarski family is related to Mostowiak family through the 2002 wedding of Piotr Zduński and Kinga Filarska.\n\n Zbigniew Filarski is a senior of Filarski family. He is divorced from Krystyna Filarska since May 16, 2006.\n\n Krystyna Filarska-Marszałek is a first wife of Zbigniew Filarski. They divorced on May 16, 2006.\n\n Kinga Filarska-Zduńska, born Filarska (Katarzyna Cichopek-Hakiel) is a first child of Zbigniew Filarski and his wife, Krystyna Filarska. She was born on May 22, 1984. Status: present, living in Warsaw since 2002. Occupation: psychologist. Marital status: married to Piotr Zduński since 2002.\n\nLisiecki family \nLisiecki family is related to Mostowiak family through the 2019 wedding of Bartosz Lisiecki and Urszula Mostowiak.\n\n Andrzej Lisiecki (Tomasz Oświeciński) is an older brother of Bartosz Lisiecki. In the past he was married to Elżbieta but his marriage lasted only a few months. On January 31, 2017 he married his friend, Marzena Laskowska and they're expecting their first child. Status: present, living in Grabina. Marital status: married to Marzena Lisiecka since 2017.\n\n Elżbieta Lisiecka (Anna Sarna) is a divorced first wife of Andrzej Lisiecki. She came to Grabina to stop Andrzej's wedding with Marzena Laskowska, saying that they're not divorced. Status: non-present since 2017. Marital status: divorced from Andrzej Lisiecki.\n\n Marzena Lisiecka, born Laskowska (Olga Szomańska) is a second wife of Andrzej Lisiecki. She worked at Siedlisko with Urszula Lisiecka. Marzena gave birth to her daughter Kalina on March 17, 2020.\n\n Kalina Lisiecka is a first child of Andrzej Lisiecki and his wife, Marzena Lisiecka. She was born on March 17, 2020 in Warsaw.\n\n Bartosz Lisiecki (Arkadiusz Smoleński) is a younger brother of Andrzej Lisiecki. Before he came to Grabina, he was in jail. Bartosz was previously married to Jolanta Lisiecka but they divorced after she betrayed him and gave birth to a daughter whose father was her lover. Lisiecki met Urszula Mostowiak and she split with her fiance to be with Bartosz. They married on June 4, 2019. Status: present, living in Grabina. Occupation: car mechanic. Marital status: married to Urszula Lisiecka since 2019.\n\n Jolanta Lisiecka is a first wife of Bartosz Lisiecki. They are divorced.\n\n Urszula Lisiecka, born Jakubczyk is a second wife of Bartosz Lisiecki. They married on June 4, 2019.\n\nŁagoda family \nŁagoda family is related to Mostowiak family through the 1960 adoption of Maria Mostowiak by Lucjan Mostowiak and through the 2002 wedding of Michał Łagoda and Małgorzata Mostowiak.\n\n Feliks Łagoda (never seen on screen) was a senior of Łagoda family. He was born in 1896 and died on June 28, 1960.\n\n Zofia Łagoda (never seen on screen) was a wife of Feliks Łagoda.\n\n Zenon Łagoda (Emil Karewicz) was a first child of Feliks Łagoda and his wife, Zofia Łagoda. He was born on June 14, 1936. He died on November 17, 2001.\n\n Maria Rogowska, born Mostowiak, primo voto Zduńska, secundo voto Rogowska is a first child of Zenon Łagoda and his then fiancee, Barbara Wrzodak. She is a legal daughter of Lucjan Mostowiak. She was born on December 24, 1960. Status: present, living in Grabina since 2018. Occupation: nurse. Marital status: married to Artur Rogowski since 2018.\n\n Piotr Zduński is a first child of Krzysztof Zduński and his wife, Maria Zduńska. He was born on February 18, 1984. Status: present, living in Warsaw since 2002. Occupation: lawyer. Marital status: married to Kinga Filarska-Zduńska since 2002.\n\n Magdalena Zduńska (Maja Wudkiewicz) is a first child of Piotr Zduński and his wife, Kinga Filarska-Zduńska. She was born on March 9, 2009. \n\n Mikołaj Zduński is a second child and first son of Piotr Zduński and his wife, Kinga Filarska-Zduńska. He was born on May 6, 2014.\n\n Emilia Zduńska is a third child and second daughter of Piotr Zduński and his wife, Kinga Filarska-Zduńska. She was born on February 25, 2019.\n\n Zuzanna Zduńska is a fourth child and third daughter of Piotr Zduński and his wife, Kinga Filarska-Zduńska. She was born on February 25, 2019.\n\n Paweł Zduński is a second child and second son of Krzysztof Zduński and his wife, Maria Zduńska. He was born on February 18, 1984. Status: present, living in Warsaw since 2002. Occupation: businessman. Marital status: divorced from Katia Zduńska since 2018. \n\n Barbara Zduńska is a first child of Paweł Zduński and his second wife, Alicja Zduńska. She was born on July 15, 2006. \n\n Maria Zduńska was a third child and first daughter of Krzysztof Zduński and his wife, Maria Zduńska. She was born on June 2, 2001 and died on June 2, 2001.\n\n Michał Łagoda (Paweł Okraska) was a first child of Zenon Łagoda and his unnamed wife. He was born on August 18, 1974 and died on April 3, 2014.\n\n Marian Łagoda was a second child and second son of Feliks Łagoda and his wife, Zofia Łagoda. He died in 2003.\n\n Unnamed Starski, born Łagoda was a brother of Feliks Łagoda. He moved to United States and changed his surname to Starski.\n\n Unnamed Starski II is a son of Unnamed Starski and his wife and nephew of Feliks Łagoda.\n\n Kamil Starski (Radosław Krzyżowski) was a son of Unnamed Starski II and his wife. He died in 2019.\n\n Maciej Kalicki (Aleksander Kaleta) is a son of Kamil Starski and his former partner, Miss Kalicka. Status: present, living in Gródek since 2019. Occupation: doctor.\n\nMarszałek family \n Wojciech Marszałek (Emilian Kamiński) is a senior of Marszałek family. \n\n Halina Marszałek (Marta Klubowicz) was a first wife of Wojciech Marszałek. She was born on April 9, 1960. Halina died on November 21, 2009 after a long illness.\n\n Krystyna Filarska-Marszałek (Hanna Mikuć) is a second wife of Wojciech Marszałek. She was born in 1956. She lived in Gródek with her wealthy husband Zbigniew Filarski and daughter Kinga. She didn't accept that her daughter was dating Piotr Zduński whose family was poor. Krystyna and Zbigniew divorced on May 16, 2006. Krystyna met Wojciech Marszałek and married him on May 3, 2011, making best friends Kinga Zduńska and Magdalena Marszałek stepsisters.\n\n Magdalena Budzyńska, born Marszałek, primo voto Maksymowicz, secundo voto Chodakowska, tertio voto Budzyńska (Anna Mucha) is an only child of Wojciech Marszałek and his first wife, Halina Marszałek. She was born on September 14, 1982. She studied psychology at Warsaw University where she met Kinga Zduńska, Piotr Zduński and Kamil Gryc. She married her first husband, Sasza Maksymowicz, to let him applicate for a Polish citizenship.\n\n Sasza Maksymowicz (Iwan Komarenko) is a first husband of Magdalena Marszałek. They married in a civil ceremony and divorced.\n\n Aleksander Chodakowski is a second husband of Magdalena Marszałek. They married in 2015 and divorced in 2017.\n\n Andrzej Budzyński is a third husband of Magdalena Marszałek. They married on January 7, 2020.\n\n Zuzanna Marszałek (Jolanta Fraszyńska) is a cousin of Wojciech Marszałek. She worked as a nanny of Magdalena Zduńska and Mikołaj Zduński. She was dating Zbigniew Filarski and Wiktor Żak (whom she met in a secondary school and then again in Warsaw in 2016).\n\n Michał Marszałek is a brother of Zuzanna Marszałek.\n\nMostowiak family \nMostowiak family is a main family of the series.\n\nLudwik Mostowiak (died)\n\nTeodor Mostowiak (died)\nMaria Mostowiak (married)\n\nHanna Smine (Mostowiak, born 1922, died 1978)\nhusband Smine\n\ndaughter Bufford (Smine)\nhusband Bufford (married)\n\nJane Bufford (born 1990)\n\nLucjan Mostowiak (born 1931, died 2017)\nBarbara Mostowiak (Wrzodak, married 1960)\n\n Maria Rogowska (Mostowiak, born 1960)\n Krzysztof Zduński (married 1984, widowed 2006)\n Artur Rogowski (married 2008, divorced 2015; married 2018)\n\n Piotr Zduński (born 1984)\n Kinga Filarska-Zduńska (Filarska, married 2002)\n\n Magdalena Zduńska (born 2009)\n\n Mikołaj Zduński (born 2014)\n\n Emilia Zduńska (born 2019)\n\n Zuzanna Zduńska (born 2019)\n\n Paweł Zduński (born 1984)\n Joanna Zduńska (Liberadzka, married 2011, divorced 2012)\n Alicja Zduńska (Domańska, married 2014, divorced 2017)\n Katia Zduńska (Tatiszwili, married 2018, divorced 2018)\n\n Barbara Zduńska (born 2006, adopted 2018)\n\n Maria Zduńska (born 2001, died 2001)\n\n Barbara Rogowska (born 2009)\n\n Marta Budzyńska (Mostowiak, born 1972)\n Jacek Milecki (married 2003, divorced 2004)\n Norbert Wojciechowski (married 2005, widowed 2007)\n Andrzej Budzyński (married 2012, divorced 2017)\n\n Łukasz Wojciechowski (Mostowiak, born 1993)\n\n Natalia Wojciechowska (born 2020)\n\n Anna Wojciechowska (born 2006)\n\n Marek Mostowiak (born 1978)\n Hanna Mostowiak (married 2001, widowed 2011)\n Ewa Kolęda (married 2015)\n\n Natalia Zarzycka (Mostowiak, born 1996, adopted 2005)\n Franciszek Zarzycki (married 2017)\n\n Hanna Zarzycka (Mostowiak, born 2015)\n\n Urszula Lisiecka (Mostowiak, born 1996, adopted 2008)\n Bartosz Lisiecki (married 2019)\n\n Mateusz Mostowiak (born 2002)\n Liliana Mostowiak (Banach, married 2020)\n\n Małgorzata Chodakowska (Mostowiak, born 1980)\n Michał Łagoda (married 2002, divorced 2004, engaged 2014, died 2014)\n Stefan Miller (married 2004, divorced 2005)\n Tomasz Chodakowski (married 2009, divorced 2014, died 2017)\n\n Zofia Warakomska (born 1999, adopted)\n\n Wojciech Chodakowski (born 2009)\n\nOlszewski family \n Agnieszka Olszewska (Magdalena Walach) is a public prosecutor and former fiancee of Tomasz Chodakowski. She was born in 1978 in Szczecin. She met Chodakowski at a secondary school in Szczecin. They were even engaged but she decided to split with him. Agnieszka came to Warsaw as a widowed woman and met Chodakowski again. She was in love triangle with his wife, Małgorzata Chodakowska. In 2011 she fell pregnant after a one night stand with Andrzej Budzyński, but later miscarried. On February 23, 2016 her daughter Helena Chodakowska was born. In September 2017 Tomasz Chodakowski died. In April 2020 Agnieszka and her daughter moved to Szczecin.\n\n Helena Chodakowska is a first child of Agnieszka Olszewska and her former partner, Tomasz Chodakowski. She was born on February 23, 2016.\n\nRogowski family \n Artur Rogowski (Robert Moskwa) is a senior of Rogowski family. He was born in 1969. He is a doctor. Rogowski has been in love with Maria Zduńska for many years and started dating her after the death of her first husband. They married in 2008 during their long stay in Oslo, Norway. On November 3, 2009 their daughter Barbara was born. Rogowski had a romance with Teresa Drawicz and it let to his divorce from Maria in 2015. They later reconciled and married for a second time on November 26, 2018. Since then they live in Grabina.\n\n Maria Rogowska, born Mostowiak is a wife of Artur Rogowski. They married in 2008 and divorced in 2015. They married for a second time on November 26, 2018.\n\n Barbara Rogowska is a first child of Artur Rogowski and his wife, Maria Rogowska. She was born on November 3, 2009.\n\n Agata Rogowska (Katarzyna Kwiatowska) is a sister of Artur Rogowski. She is a doctor. She was married and lived in Norway for many years. Then she divorced her husband and came back to Poland. She started her work in Lipnica with her brother and sister-in-law. She is dating Artur Werner as of 2020.\n\nTarnowski family \nAdam Tarnowski (born 1958)\nDorota Tarnowska (widowed 2015)\n\n Joanna Chodakowska (Tarnowska born 1987)\n Tomasz Chodakowski (married 2017, widowed 2017)\n Leszek Krajewski (engaged 2021)\n\nAdam Tarnowski (Juliusz Krzysztof Warunek) is a senior of Tarnowski family. He was born in 1958.\n\nDorota Tarnowska (Katarzyna Żak) was a wife of Adam Tarnowski. In a past she was diagnosed with a cancer and recovered after her daughter stole money from the casino she worked. Later, she was diagnosed with a pancreatic cancer and died on June 1, 2015.\n\nJoanna Chodakowska, born Tarnowska (Barbara Kurdej-Szatan) is a first child of Adam Tarnowski and his wife, Dorota Tarnowska. She was born on March 15, 1987. She worked in United States as a nanny of Wojciech Chodakowski. After his mother, Małgorzata Chodakowska, and her fiance, Michał Łagoda, had a car accident, she took care of Wojciech and later took him to Poland. Joanna fell in love with Tomasz Chodakowski and they married on March 28, 2017. Tomasz unfortunately died on September 11, 2017. Joanna lives in Warsaw and raises Wojciech Chodakowski. On December 6, 2021 she got engaged to Leszek Krajewski.\n\nTomasz Chodakowski was a first husband of Joanna Tarnowska. They married on March 28, 2017 and he died on September 11, 2017.\n\nTatiszwili family \nTatiszwili family is of Georgian origin.\n\n Otar Tatiszwili (David Gamtsemlidze) is a senior of Tatiszwili family. He is Georgian. Otar lives in Warsaw and owns a restaurant.\n\n Katia Zduńska, born Tatiszwili (Joanna Jarmołowicz) is a daughter of Otar Tatiszwili and his wife. On May 21, 2018 she married Paweł Zduński in order to have a Polish citizenship. They eventually fell in love with each other but divorced on November 20, 2018. Katia had a romance with Łukasz Wojciechowski and fell pregnant. Her father didn't accept that she was expecting a child out of wedlock. On March 9, 2020 she gave birth to her daughter, Natalia.\n\n Paweł Zduński is a first husband of Katia Tatiszwili. They married on May 21, 2018 and divorced on November 20, 2018.\n\n Natalia Wojciechowska is a first child of Katia Zduńska and her former boyfriend, Łukasz Wojciechowski. She was born on March 9, 2020.\n\nWalisiak family \n Władysław Walisiak was a senior of Walisiak family. He was born in 1947. In his youth Władysław was dating Wanda Kalicka but married her younger sister, Maria Kalicka. They had one child, Hanna, born in 1975. In 1980 Walisiak family came home from a party in a car driven by Waldemar Jaroszy. Jaroszy had no driving license and caused an accident with Lucjan and Barbara Mostowiak. Władysław and Maria died as a result and Hanna had to live in an orphanage. In 1978 Władysław had a child out of wedlock, Anna Gruszyńska.\n\n Maria Walisiak, born Kalicka was a wife of Władysław Walisiak. She was born in 1949 and died in a car accident in 1980. She had one daughter, Hanna, and has never learnt that her husband had also a daughter out of wedlock.\n\n Hanna Mostowiak, born Walisiak (Małgorzata Kożuchowska) was a daughter of Władysław Walisiak and his wife, Maria Walisiak. Hanna took part in a car accident in 1980 where her parents were killed. She later lived in an orphanage in Józefowo and was temporary adopted by Irena Gałązka and her husband. In 2001 she married Marek Mostowiak and they had son, Mateusz Mostowiak, in 2002. They later adopted two girls from Józefowo, Natalia and Urszula. Hanna died of brain aneurysm in 2011. Her granddaughter, Hanna Zarzycka, is named after her.\n\n Marek Mostowiak was a husband of Hanna Mostowiak. They married in 2001 and he widowed in 2011.\n\n Anna Gruszyńska (Tamara Arciuch) is a daughter of Władysław Walisiak. For some time she lived in Grabina before moving to France. She was previously married and divorced. She was later engaged to Adam Werner.\n\n Wanda Kalicka (Grażyna Marzec) was an older sister of Maria Walisiak and maternal aunt of Hanna Mostowiak. She was born in 1945. Wanda dated Władysław Kalisiak but he chose to marry her sister. In 1980 her sister and brother-in-law died in a car accident and Wanda refused to take care of their daughter resulting in Hanna living in an orphanage. She moved to Germany and was thought to be dead. In 2004 Hanna learnt that her aunt was still living and sick. Mostowiak went to Germany and took her aunt to Grabina. It was later revealed that Kalicka had much money but posed that she was poor. She came back to Germany to take care of one of her former wards, Erika.\n\nWojciechowski family \nWojciechowski family is related to Mostowiak family through the 1993 birth of Łukasz Mostowiak and through the 2006 wedding of Norbert Wojciechowski and Marta Mostowiak.\n\n Kazimierz Wojciechowski (never seen on screen) was a senior of Wojciechowski family.\n\n Henryk Wojciechowski (Tadeusz Chudecki) was a first child of Kazimierz Wojciechowski and his first wife. He was born in 1961. He lived with his widowed sister-in-law, Marta Wojciechowska and her two children. Henryk was dating Matylda Górska. He married his girlfriend Nina.\n\n Nina Wojciechowska is a wife of Henryk Wojciechowski. \n\n Norbert Wojciechowski (Mariusz Sabiniewicz) was a second child of Kazimierz Wojciechowski. He was born in 1967. In the early 1990s he was dating Marta Mostowiak. In 1993 their son Łukasz was born. He was fighting for his life. Norbert refuse to give his blood to Łukasz and left his family. As a result, Marta raised Łukasz as a single mother and told him that his father was dead. Wojciechowski worked abroad and he came back in 2001 as a famous politician. When a press reported that he had a child born out of wedlock, Łukasz learnt that he was Wojciechowski's son and they met. Norbert saved Łukasz's live after they had a car crash in United States. Norbert married Marta Mostowiak on October 11, 2005. They daughter Anna Wojciechowska was born on February 14, 2006. In the meantime, Wojciechowski was dating his student, Klara Sobieszczańska and Magdalena Rudnik. Norbert died in a plane crash on December 3, 2007.\n\n Marta Wojciechowska, born Mostowiak was a wife of Norbert Wojciechowski. They married on October 11, 2005 and she widowed on December 3, 2007.\n\n Łukasz Wojciechowski, born Mostowiak is a first child of Norbert Wojciechowski and his then girlfriend, Marta Mostowiak. He was born on October 9, 1993.\n\n Natalia Wojciechowska is a first child of Łukasz Wojciechowski and his former girlfriend, Katia Tatiszwili. She was born on March 9, 2020.\n\n Anna Wojciechowska is a second child and only daughter of Norbert Wojciechowski and his wife, Marta Wojciechowska. She was born on February 14, 2006.\n\nZduński family \nZduński family is related to Mostowiak family through 1984 marriage of Krzysztof Zduński and Maria Mostowiak.\n\n Jadwiga Zduńska-Jabłońska, primo voto Zduńska, secundo voto Jabłońska (Barbara Horowianka) is a senior of Zduński family. Her first husband, Mr. Zduński, was a dentist. Jadwiga had two children with him: Krzysztof (born in 1958) and Renata. Her daughter Renata died as an infant because of SIDS. Zduńska wanted Krzysztof to become a doctor like his father. She was angry when he stopped his studies to marry his pregnant daughter Maria Mostowiak and they ended their contact. Jadwiga didn't like her daughter-in-law. On March 17, 2001 Jadwiga was diagnosed with stroke and hospitalized. She renewed contact with her son and met her grandchildren. Zduńska later moved to Krzysztof's and Maria's flat where Maria took care of her. She met Karol Jabłoński and married him in March 2004. Status: non-present since 2004. Marital status: married to Karol Jabłoński since March 2004.\n\n Krzysztof Zduński (Cezary Morawski) is a first child of Jadwiga Zduńska and her first husband, Mr. Zduński. He was born on February 13, 1953. His father was a dentist and Krzysztof studied medicine to become a doctor. When his girlfriend, Maria Mostowiak, fell pregnant, he quit his studies and married her. They had twin sons in February 1984, Piotr and Paweł. Their third child, daughter Maria, died a few hours after her birth in June 2001. She suffered from a heart disease. Krzysztof worked as a businessman but had no successes. In 2002 he had a romance with his secretary, Ewa Nowicka. She later gave birth to her daughter Aleksandra and Krzysztof was suspected of being Aleksandra's father. Zduński reconciled with Maria and bought a plot in Grabina to build them new home. On March 6, 2006 he suffered from a heart attack and died in Grabina, building their house. He was a godfather to Łukasz Wojciechowski and Aleksandra Skalska. Status: deceased since 2006. Occupation: businessman. Marital status: married to Maria Zduńska from 1984 to 2006. \n\n Maria Zduńska, born Mostowiak is a first wife of Krzysztof Zduński. They married in 1984 and she widowed on March 6, 2006.\n\n Renata Zduńska (never seen on screen) was a second child of Jadwiga Zduńska and her first husband, Mr. Zduński. She died as an infant. Status: deceased.\n\nOther characters\n\nG \n Irena Gałązka (Joanna Kasperska) is a former adoptive mother of Hanna Walisiak. She and her husband adopted Hanna, whose parents died in a car accident but they took her back to the orphanage in Józefowo when Irena fell pregnant. Irena's child later died and she had a mental disorder ever since. She met her former daughter again in 2001 when Hanna was married to Marek Mostowiak and expecting their child. Irena kidnapped Hanna's son, Mateusz Mostowiak and wanted to kill him and herself. Mateusz was saved by his parents and Irena was arrested.\n\nO \n Agnieszka Olszewska (Magdalena Walach) is a former fiance of Tomasz Chodakowski. She was born in 1978 in Szczecin.\n\nW \n Anna Waszkiewicz (Weronika Rosati) is a classmate of Piotr Zduński, Paweł Zduński and Kinga Filarska. In the past, she had a romance with Andrzej Budzyński. She is a godmother to Emilia Zduńska and Zuzanna Zduńska. Occupation: painter.\n\nList of main characters' departures\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n M jak miłość – official site\n M jak miłośc – TVP site\n M jak miłość – Filmweb\n\nPolish television soap operas"
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[
"Stephen Hillenburg",
"Personal life",
"Is he married?",
"Hillenburg's wife, Karen,"
] |
C_6201d5b174b24dec99fc9ee08806de24_0
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What does she do?
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What does Stephen Hillenburg's wife Karen do?
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Stephen Hillenburg
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
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a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California.
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Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
1961 births
2018 deaths
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American painters
20th-century American educators
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American animated film directors
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"Marcia Blank, better known as Marcie Blane (born May 21, 1944), is an American pop singer.\n\nLife and career\nBlane was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States.\n\nAs a favor to a friend, Blane recorded a demo for Seville Records. The song was \"Bobby's Girl\". Released in the fall of 1962, \"Bobby's Girl\" made No. 2 on the Cash Box chart and No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was later recorded for the German market in their language. It sold over one million copies by 1963, and was awarded a gold disc. In the United Kingdom the song was covered by Susan Maughan who had the hit. \"What Does A Girl Do?\", the follow-up single, rose to No. 82 on the Hot 100 list in early 1963, and was Blane's only other appearance on any Billboard chart.\n\nDiscography\n\nSingles\n\nCompilation album\nBobby's Girl: The Complete Seville Recordings (2004, President Records)\n \"Bobby's Girl\" (Mono) 2:18 \n \"A Time to Dream\" 2:03 \n \"What Does a Girl Do?\" 2:18\t \n \"How Can I Tell Him?\" 2:59 \n \"Little Miss Fool\" 2:23 \n \"Ragtime Sound\" 2:18 \n \"You Gave My Number to Billy\" 2:08 \n \"Told You So\" 2:00 \n \"Why Can't I Get a Guy\" 2:08 \n \"Who's Going to Take My Daddy's Place?\" 2:26 \n \"Bobby Did\" 2:17 \n \"After the Laughter\" 2:19\n \"The Hurtin' Kind\" 2:42\n \"She'll Break the String\" 2:22\n \"Wer Einmal 'A' Gesagt (What Does a Girl Do?)\" 2:16\t \n \"So Ist Das Leben (How Can I Tell Him?)\" 3:01 \n \"Guessin' Games\" (Previously Unreleased Demo) 2:00\n \"Thank You\" (Previously Unreleased Demo) 2:14\t \n \"Suddenly It's Over\" (Previously Unreleased Demo) 2:08\t \n \"I'm Just a Cute Little Girl\" (Previously Unreleased Demo) 1:51\t \n \"A Time to Dream\" (Previously Unreleased Demo) 2:08\t \n \"Bobby's Girl\" (Previously Unreleased Demo - Stereo) 2:23\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe Marcie Blane Story\n\n1944 births\nLiving people\nAmerican women pop singers\nMusicians from Brooklyn\nSingers from New York (state)\n21st-century American women",
"Guess What? is a picture book for children, written by Mem Fox and illustrated by Vivienne Goodman, about an old woman, with various witchlike qualities. It was published in Australia in 1988 by Omnibus Books, and an American edition was published in 1990 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.\n\nThe book has a steady phrasing, along the lines of:\n\nShe looks like she has a _! Guess what? She does! \nShe looks like she likes to _! Guess what? She does!\n\nThe book's final twist reveals the old woman as a witch. Guess What? is on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number 66. The challenges to the book are generated because of the supposed occult connection since the book is leading the reader to develop a positive impression of a witch.\n\nReferences\n\n1988 children's books\nPicture books by Mem Fox\nAustralian children's books"
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"a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California."
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Do they have children?
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Do Stephen Hillenburg and Hillenburg's wife Karen have children?
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Stephen Hillenburg
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
|
He would jam with his son who is a drummer
|
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
1961 births
2018 deaths
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American painters
20th-century American educators
20th-century American biologists
21st-century American male actors
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American marine biologists
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Animators from California
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Burials at sea
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Male actors from California
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Nickelodeon people
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Patrons of schools
People from Anaheim, California
People from Fort Sill, Oklahoma
People from Hollywood, Los Angeles
People from Lawton, Oklahoma
People from Pasadena, California
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Philanthropists from California
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"Best of Friends was a British children's game show that ran from 7 March 2004 to 13 August 2008. It first aired on CBBC for series 1, then on BBC One from series 2-3 and then back on CBBC from series 4–5.\n\nFormat\n\nTasks and Treats\nIn the show, five friends with a strong friendship must complete a series of three unpleasant tasks in order to win a final treat. The tasks include mucking out pigs, cleaning bins, picking up ice with the bare feet, getting your feet tickled without laughing or smiling and so on, for the test of friendship. While some members of the group are doing the task, their friends do treats such as visiting animals at the RSPCA, getting a manicure, shopping, going to a football game, going to a theme park etc. They must make decisions deciding on who will do the task and who will do the treat or they can use the \"Unlucky Dip\".\n\n\"The Unlucky Dip\"\nThe unlucky dip contains three, two or one blue sweet(s) in a bag. The friends choose a sweet each (without looking) from the bag, and then suck it. The number of children to do the next task, and therefore the number of blue sweets in the bag, will depend on the success of the previous task. The people or person with the blue sweet(s) will have a blue tongue and will be forced to do the task, while the others will do the treat. The first task requires three people and, each time the children pass a task, the number needed to do the next task will reduce. For the final task they have three options: the unlucky dip, volunteer or the whole team can do the task as it is the hardest.\n\nThe presenters also have an option of volunteering to do the task. If they do not volunteer, the presenters also do a compulsory Unlucky Dip with each task. The presenter with a blue tongue will be forced to do the task.\n\nTransmissions\n\nOriginal series\n\nAfrica\n\nSpecials\n\nEpisodes\n\nSeries 1 (2004)\n\nSeries 2 (2005)\n\nSeries 3 (2007)\n\nSeries 4 (2008)\n\nSeries 5 (2008)\n\nAfrica (2005)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n2004 British television series debuts\n2008 British television series endings\n2000s British children's television series\n2000s British game shows\nBBC children's television shows\nBritish children's game shows\nEnglish-language television shows",
"Summary relatives are people in a state of relationship that occurs between the biological children of a couple and the biological children of only one parent of the couple. In other words, half-brothers or half-sisters do not share their parents, sharing a family relationship, but not a biological relationship. A family in which one or both spouses have children from a previous marriage, is called the pivot family.\n\nIt is wrong to call half siblings with a common father (that's right — \"half\", or half) or mother (that's right — \"half -\")\n\nLegal norms \n\nIn the legislation of many countries, including Russia, stepfathers or stepmothers, do not possess individual rights and responsibilities towards stepchildren if they were not adopted or foster children. All rights and obligations, if they have not been limited by court order, to preserve the biological parents of the child.\n\nReferences \n\nFamily"
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What did Stephen Hillenburg do with his free time?
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Stephen Hillenburg
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
|
He also enjoys birdwatching at home,
|
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
1961 births
2018 deaths
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American painters
20th-century American educators
20th-century American biologists
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American painters
21st-century male artists
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American art directors
American cartoonists
American comics artists
American experimental filmmakers
American male painters
American male screenwriters
American male voice actors
American marine biologists
American storyboard artists
American surrealist artists
American television directors
American television writers
American voice directors
American patrons of the arts
American animated film directors
American animated film producers
Animators from California
Animators from Oklahoma
Annie Award winners
Burials at sea
California Institute of the Arts alumni
Creative directors
Deaths from motor neuron disease
Neurological disease deaths in California
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California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt alumni
Male actors from California
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Patrons of schools
People from Anaheim, California
People from Fort Sill, Oklahoma
People from Hollywood, Los Angeles
People from Lawton, Oklahoma
People from Pasadena, California
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Philanthropists from California
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Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from Oklahoma
Showrunners
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Television show creators
American people of Belgian descent
American people of German descent
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[
"Daniel S. Burt is an American author and literary critic.\n\nCareer\n\nDaniel S. Burt, Ph.D. received his doctorate in English and American Literature with a specialization in Victorian fiction from New York University. He taught undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in writing and literature at New York University, Wesleyan University, Trinity College, Northeastern University, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Cape Cod Community College. At Wentworth Institute of Technology, he served as a dean for almost a decade. During his time at New York University, he was director of the NYU in London program, wherein he traveled with students to Russia, Spain, Britain and Ireland. \n\nSince 2003, Burt has served as the Academic Director for the Irish Academic Enrichment Workshops, which are held in Ireland every summer.\n\nBibliography\n\nThe Literary 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, And Poets Of All Time. Checkmark Books. October 1, 1999.\nThe Biography Book: A Reader's Guide To Nonfiction, Fictional, And Film Biographies Of More Than 500 Of The Most Fascinating Individuals Of All Time. Oryx Press. February 1, 2001.\nThe Novel 100: A Ranking Of The Greatest Novels Of All Time. Checkmark Books. November 1, 2003.\nThe Chronology of American Literature: America's Literary Achievements from the Colonial Era to Modern Times. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. February 10, 2004.\nThe Drama 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Plays of All Time. Checkmark Books. December 1, 2007.\nThe Handy Literature Answer Book: An Engaging Guide to Unraveling Symbols, Signs and Meanings in Great Works with Deborah G. Felder. Visible Ink Press. July 1, 2018.\n\nWhat Do I Read Next? Series \n\n What Historical Novel Do I Read Next? Gale Cengage.1997.\nWhat Do I Read Next? 2000, Volume 1 with Neil Barron. Gale Cengage. June 1, 2000.\nWhat Fantastic Fiction Do I Read Next? 2001, Volume 1 with Neil Barron and Tom Barton. Gale Cengage. June 1, 2001. \nWhat Do I Read Next? 2003, Volume 2 with Neil Barron and Tom Barton. Gale Cengage. October 17, 20013.\nWhat Do I Read Next? 2005, Volume 1 with Neil Barron and Tom Barton. Thomson Gale. May 27, 2005.\nWhat Do I Read Next? 2005, Volume 2 with Neil Barron. Gale. October 21, 2005. \nWhat Do I Read Next? 2006, Volume 1 with Neil Barron and Tom Barton. Thomson Gale. May 25, 2006.\n What Do I Read Next? 2007, Volume 1 with Natalie Danford and Don D'Ammassa. Gale Cengage. June 8, 2007.\nWhat Do I Read Next? 2007, Volume 2: A Reader's Guide to Current Genre Fiction with Don D'Ammassa, Natalie Danford, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Jim Huang, and Melissa Hudak. Gale Cengage. October 19, 2007. \nWhat Do I Read Next? 2008, Volume 1 with Natalie Danford and Don D'Ammassa. Gale. May 23, 2008. \n What Do I Read Next? 2009. Volume 1 with Michelle Kazensky, Marie Toft, and Hazel Rumney. Gale Cengage. June 12, 2009.\nWhat Do I Read Next? 2010, Volume 1 with Neil Barron. Gale. 2010.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nBibliography on GoodReads\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nAmerican male non-fiction writers\nAmerican literary critics\nNew York University alumni\nWesleyan University faculty",
"Robert Paul Smith (April 16, 1915 – January 30, 1977) was an American author, most famous for his classic evocation of childhood, Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing.\n\nBiography\nRobert Paul Smith was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Mount Vernon, NY, and graduated from Columbia College in 1936. He worked as a writer for CBS Radio and wrote four novels: So It Doesn't Whistle (1946) (1941, according to Avon Publishing Co., Inc., reprint edition ... Plus Blood in Their Veins copyright 1952); The Journey, (1943); Because of My Love (1946); The Time and the Place (1951).\n\nThe Tender Trap, a play by Smith and Dobie Gillis creator Max Shulman, opened in 1954 with Robert Preston in the leading role. It was later made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds. A classic example of the \"battle-of-the-sexes\" comedy, it revolves around the mutual envy of a bachelor living in New York City and a settled family man living in the New York suburbs.\n\nWhere Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing is a nostalgic evocation of the inner life of childhood. It advocates the value of privacy to children; the importance of unstructured time; the joys of boredom; and the virtues of freedom from adult supervision. He opens by saying \"The thing is, I don't understand what kids do with themselves any more.\" He contrasts the overstructured, overscheduled, oversupervised suburban life of the child in the suburban 1950's with reminiscences of his own childhood. He concludes \"I guess what I am saying is that people who don't have nightmares don't have dreams. If you will excuse me, I have an appointment with myself to sit on the front steps and watch some grass growing.\"\n\nTranslations from the English (1958) collects a series of articles originally published in Good Housekeeping magazine. The first, \"Translations from the Children,\" may be the earliest known example of the genre of humor that consists of a series of translations from what is said (e.g. \"I don't know why. He just hit me\") into what is meant (e.g. \"He hit his brother.\")\n\nHow to Do Nothing With Nobody All Alone By Yourself (1958) is a how-to book, illustrated by Robert Paul Smith's wife Elinor Goulding Smith. It gives step-by-step directions on how to: play mumbly-peg; build a spool tank; make polly-noses; construct an indoor boomerang, etc. It was republished in 2010 by Tin House Books.\n\nList of works\n\nEssays and humor\nWhere Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing (1957)\nTranslations from the English (1958) \nCrank: A Book of Lamentations, Exhortations, Mixed Memories and Desires, All Hard Or Chewy Centers, No Creams(1962)\nHow to Grow Up in One Piece (1963)\nGot to Stop Draggin’ that Little Red Wagon Around (1969)\nRobert Paul Smith’s Lost & Found (1973)\n\nFor children\nJack Mack, illus. Erik Blegvad (1960)\nWhen I Am Big, illus. Lillian Hoban (1965)\nNothingatall, Nothingatall, Nothingatall, illus. Allan E. Cober (1965)\nHow To Do Nothing With No One All Alone By Yourself, illus Elinor Goulding Smith (1958) Republished by Tin House Books (2010)\n\nNovels\nSo It Doesn't Whistle (1941) \nThe Journey (1943) \nBecause of My Love (1946) \nThe Time and the Place (1952)\nWhere He Went: Three Novels (1958)\n\nTheatre\nThe Tender Trap, by Max Shulman and Robert Paul Smith (first Broadway performance, 1954; Random House edition, 1955)\n\nVerse\nThe Man with the Gold-headed Cane (1943)\n…and Another Thing (1959)\n\nExternal links\n\n1915 births\n1977 deaths\n20th-century American novelists\nAmerican children's writers\nAmerican humorists\nAmerican instructional writers\nAmerican male novelists\n20th-century American dramatists and playwrights\nAmerican male dramatists and playwrights\n20th-century American male writers\n20th-century American non-fiction writers\nAmerican male non-fiction writers\nColumbia College (New York) alumni"
] |
[
"Stephen Hillenburg",
"Personal life",
"Is he married?",
"Hillenburg's wife, Karen,",
"What does she do?",
"a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California.",
"Do they have children?",
"He would jam with his son who is a drummer",
"What did he do with his free time?",
"He also enjoys birdwatching at home,"
] |
C_6201d5b174b24dec99fc9ee08806de24_0
|
anything else?
| 5 |
Does Stephen Hillenburg do anything else with his free time besides birdwatching?
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Stephen Hillenburg
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
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known for his private nature.
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Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
1961 births
2018 deaths
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[
"Say Anything may refer to:\n\nFilm and television\n Say Anything..., a 1989 American film by Cameron Crowe\n \"Say Anything\" (BoJack Horseman), a television episode\n\nMusic\n Say Anything (band), an American rock band\n Say Anything (album), a 2009 album by the band\n \"Say Anything\", a 2012 song by Say Anything from Anarchy, My Dear\n \"Say Anything\" (Marianas Trench song), 2006\n \"Say Anything\" (X Japan song), 1991\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Aimee Mann from Whatever, 1993\n \"Say Anything\", a song by the Bouncing Souls from The Bouncing Souls, 1997\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Good Charlotte from The Young and the Hopeless, 2002\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Girl in Red, 2018\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Will Young from Lexicon, 2019\n \"Say Anything (Else)\", a song by Cartel from Chroma, 2005\n\nOther uses\n Say Anything (party game), a 2008 board game published by North Star Games\n \"Say Anything\", a column in YM magazine\n\nSee also\n Say Something (disambiguation)",
"In baseball, a fair ball is a batted ball that entitles the batter to attempt to reach first base. By contrast, a foul ball is a batted ball that does not entitle the batter to attempt to reach first base. Whether a batted ball is fair or foul is determined by the location of the ball at the appropriate reference point, as follows:\n\n if the ball leaves the playing field without touching anything, the point where the ball leaves the field;\n else, if the ball first lands past first or third base without touching anything, the point where the ball lands;\n else, if the ball rolls or bounces past first or third base without touching anything other than the ground, the point where the ball passes the base;\n else, if the ball touches anything other than the ground (such as an umpire, a player, or any equipment left on the field) before any of the above happens, the point of such touching;\n else (the ball comes to a rest before reaching first or third base), the point where the ball comes to a rest.\n\nIf any part of the ball is on or above fair territory at the appropriate reference point, it is fair; else it is foul. Fair territory or fair ground is defined as the area of the playing field between the two foul lines, and includes the foul lines themselves and the foul poles. However, certain exceptions exist:\n\n A ball that touches first, second, or third base is always fair.\n Under Rule 5.09(a)(7)-(8), if a batted ball touches the batter or his bat while the batter is in the batter's box and not intentionally interfering with the course of the ball, the ball is foul.\n A ball that hits the foul pole without first having touched anything else off the bat is fair.\n Ground rules may provide whether a ball hitting specific objects (e.g. roof, overhead speaker) is fair or foul.\n\nOn a fair ball, the batter attempts to reach first base or any subsequent base, runners attempt to advance and fielders try to record outs. A fair ball is considered a live ball until the ball becomes dead by leaving the field or any other method.\n\nReferences\n\nBaseball rules"
] |
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"Stephen Hillenburg",
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"Is he married?",
"Hillenburg's wife, Karen,",
"What does she do?",
"a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California.",
"Do they have children?",
"He would jam with his son who is a drummer",
"What did he do with his free time?",
"He also enjoys birdwatching at home,",
"anything else?",
"known for his private nature."
] |
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Did he stick to himself mostly?
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Did Stephen Hillenburg stick to himself mostly?
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Stephen Hillenburg
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
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He doesn't want people to know about his life or family.
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Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
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Nickelodeon people
Painters from California
Painters from Oklahoma
Patrons of schools
People from Anaheim, California
People from Fort Sill, Oklahoma
People from Hollywood, Los Angeles
People from Lawton, Oklahoma
People from Pasadena, California
People from San Marino, California
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Oklahoma
Princess Grace Awards winners
Scientists from California
Scientists from Oklahoma
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from Oklahoma
Showrunners
Television producers from California
Television show creators
American people of Belgian descent
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[
"Choobazi is one of the Lorry dances and mostly common among \"Bakhtiari lorr\" and some common among villagers' and nomadic of Lorestan and is often implemented accompanied by dancing at weddings.\nThe number of Choobazi players is two and the game includes two timber means a timber approximately one and a half meters and a little shorter than that. One player takes longer wood stick and others shorter and attack and defense against each other. The players try to dance with music of drum during the game, a person who has obtained a shorter stick attacks to the holder of the long stick and at first, dances a few laps before entering his stick and suddenly attacks to long stick holder. Long stick holder must defends himself. Attacker screams loud during his attack and try to undermine opponent's morale.\"Choobbaz\" should only play by swinging the bat and yelling and threatening the opponent (no blow to the opponent). Attacker holds the stick in front of his face during attack and spins while beating on opponent's stick and then beats on his stick by contemplating his legs. The attacker is allowed to beat one time (it's not important to heat the opponent's stick), then the player who has the longer stick, grabs the shorter stick and another person takes the longer one. Game continues the same until the end.\n\nSometimes it may be a woman or a man to play. Someone who is skillful in the game and can rotate the playing field a few rounds without fatigue, is called stunting doer (\"Shirin kar\").\n\nExternal links\n http://www.loor.ir/\n\nReferences\n\nIranian dances\nIranian games",
"John Francis Bushelman (August 29, 1885 – October 26, 1955) was a Major League Baseball pitcher who played for the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox. He batted and threw right-handed.\n\nBushelman attended the University of Cincinnati. He started his professional baseball career in 1906 in Winnipeg and made his major league debut late in the 1909 season. He pitched a complete game but lost.\n\nFrom 1910 to 1914, Bushelman pitched mostly in the New England League. He played in six games for the Red Sox as well, but he did not distinguish himself enough to stick in the majors. In total, Bushelman posted a 1–2 record in 26.2 innings pitched in the major leagues. In 1913, he led the NENL in wins, with 26. He retired after the 1915 season.\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\n1885 births\n1955 deaths\nMajor League Baseball pitchers\nBoston Red Sox players\nCincinnati Bearcats baseball players\nCincinnati Reds players\nWinnipeg Maroons (baseball) players\nNew Bedford Whalers (baseball) players\nWorcester Busters players\nBaseball players from Cincinnati\nNashville Vols players"
] |
[
"Stephen Hillenburg",
"Personal life",
"Is he married?",
"Hillenburg's wife, Karen,",
"What does she do?",
"a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California.",
"Do they have children?",
"He would jam with his son who is a drummer",
"What did he do with his free time?",
"He also enjoys birdwatching at home,",
"anything else?",
"known for his private nature.",
"Did he stick to himself mostly?",
"He doesn't want people to know about his life or family."
] |
C_6201d5b174b24dec99fc9ee08806de24_0
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Any references to spongebob in the article?
| 7 |
Any references to spongebob in the article?
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Stephen Hillenburg
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
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after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants
|
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
1961 births
2018 deaths
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American painters
20th-century American educators
20th-century American biologists
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
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American cartoonists
American comics artists
American experimental filmmakers
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American male voice actors
American marine biologists
American storyboard artists
American surrealist artists
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American television writers
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California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt alumni
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Television show creators
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[
"\"SpongeBob, You're Fired\" is a television special of the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, serving as the 11th episode of the ninth season and the 189th overall episode. It was written by Marc Ceccarelli, Luke Brookshier, and Mr. Lawrence (the former two also serving as storyboard directors), with supervising director Alan Smart and Tom Yasumi serving as animation directors. Originally premiering in Greece on July 3, 2013, it premiered on Nickelodeon in the United States that same year on November 11. In this episode, SpongeBob gets fired from the Krusty Krab after Mr. Krabs discovers he can save a nickel by letting him go. Subsequently, SpongeBob's attempts to apply at other restaurants end in humiliating failure.\n\n\"SpongeBob, You're Fired\" was first screened at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con International. Prior to broadcast on television, the episode created a level of controversy for its depiction of unemployment. It eventually sparked a political debate when Media Matters for America and Al Sharpton of MSNBC accused both the New York Post and Fox News of using the episode \"to slam poor people who use social services\". The premiere of \"SpongeBob, You're Fired\" drew 5.19 million viewers, the biggest audience viewership for a SpongeBob SquarePants episode in two years since \"Frozen Face-Off\" in July 2011.\n\nPlot\nAt the Krusty Krab, owner Mr. Krabs, to save a nickel, takes over SpongeBob's fry cook position, thus leaving SpongeBob jobless. SpongeBob's best friend and neighbor Patrick, tells him that being unemployed is \"the best gig I know\". The two have a day of \"glorious unemployment\", or \"Fun Employment\" as Patrick calls it, but it ends with SpongeBob realizing that he needs a job. Over the next few days, SpongeBob tries getting a job at a hot dog joint, a pizzeria, a taqueria, and even an Asian noodle house. He is fired every time for making a type of patty (\"weenie patties,\" a \"pizza patty,\" a \"burrito patty\" and a \"noodle patty\" respectively) instead of what each respective restaurant itself specializes in. However, when the patty items are a hit with the customers at these restaurants, the desperate restaurant managers fight with each other to get him back.\n\nA mysterious person in a Krabby Patty costume (only referred to as the \"Killer Patty\") arrives, defeats all four of the restaurant managers using a unique style of martial arts, saves SpongeBob, and takes him back to the Krusty Krab, which has faltered ever since Mr. Krabs fired SpongeBob and took over as the fry cook. The person in the Krabby Patty costume is none other than Squidward, who explains that, as much as he hates SpongeBob (which SpongeBob himself acknowledges), he hates the smell of burning Krabby Patties even more, and both he and Mr. Krabs ask SpongeBob to be the fry cook again. Mr. Krabs admits that he made a huge mistake in firing SpongeBob in the first place, as the Krusty Krab is even worse without him. With his confidence restored, SpongeBob gladly accepts his old job as the fry cook and puts the restaurant back on track, which brings back all the customers, even the four restaurant managers who fought over SpongeBob. At the end of the episode, Mr. Krabs installs a pay toilet that only costs a nickel to use, thus making up the nickel that he previously lost by rehiring SpongeBob.\n\nPromotion\nOn July 21, 2013, Tom Kenny presented an event called \"SpongeCon 2013: The Year of the Fan\" at the San Diego Comic-Con International 2013. The event hosted the official and exclusive sneak preview of \"SpongeBob, You're Fired\" and the screening of the SpongeBob SquareShorts global short film competition finalists. Prior to the official preview, a sneak peek of the episode was featured on Nick Studio 10, hosted by Noah Grossman and Gabrielle \"Gabby\" Senn, on June 10, 2013. A \"SpongeBob expert\" named Sophia said that \"the unthinkable [will] happen to SpongeBob [in this episode]\". She remarked that the episode is \"pretty top secret\".\n\nIn an October 30, 2013 article of the New York Post, it was first reported that \"SpongeBob, You're Fired\" would air on Nickelodeon in the United States on November 11, 2013.\n\nAs part of the marketing campaign for the episode, Nickelodeon debuted an online game of the same name. Beginning November 6, players could visit \"nick.com/spongebob\" to play the game. In the gameplay, players must accurately cook the orders of the diners while juggling each server's impatience level in order to keep them \"happy as possible\". Furthermore, Nickelodeon published a collection called SpongeBob SquarePants: Get to Work! on iTunes. On November 6, Nickelodeon debuted the full-length trailer of the episode to garner more exposure. Earlier that day, The Hollywood Reporter exclusively debuted the 45-second teaser. The source also released in advance an exclusive 90-second trailer of the episode, featuring SpongeBob getting the ax from Mr. Krabs, on November 4.\n\nRatings\n\"SpongeBob, You're Fired\" first aired on Nickelodeon (Greece) on July 3, 2013. In the United States, it premiered on November 11. The original U.S. airing of the episode on Nickelodeon brought in the biggest audience viewership for a SpongeBob SquarePants episode in two years, with 5.186 million households tuning in overall. The episode tied with CBS' Hostages, the \"poorest performer\", from the \"Big Four\" of the night. However, across cable, the show outperformed The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (0.8 adults), Teen Mom (0.7 adults) and The Daily Show (0.6 adults). The broadcast was the second most viewed show among all the day's cable programs (a Monday Night Football contest between the Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers on ESPN came first). The episode topped the 2–11, 6–11 and 9–14 in the kids demographics.\n\nReception and controversy\n\n\"SpongeBob, You're Fired\" was lambasted by critics and fans alike. Since its initial broadcast, the episode was infamous for dialogue referencing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food Stamps benefit). In a scene from the episode, Patrick tries to show SpongeBob \"the benefits of being unemployed\", to which SpongeBob replies, \"Unemployment may be fun for you, but I need to get a job.\" The scene was meant to demonstrate the title character's \"eternal optimism and willingness to get back to work...in a way that's still funny and relatable\". However, some political activists claimed the \"notorious line\" was a \"slam\" to the Food Stamps benefit. A report by The Hollywood Reporter alleged that the episode may have had a political agenda about the social safety net. It added that \"It's not the first time SpongeBob has waded into social commentary, though usually when it does, it bugs the right and supports the left.\" The Hollywood Reporter cited the previous episodes \"SpongeBob's Last Stand\" and \"Selling Out\" for where \"environmentalism is glorified\" and \"large businesses are demonized\".\n\nAccording to various sources, the story line is said to be \"symbolic of a harsh economic climate\". The plot eventually sparked a political debate for its depiction of unemployment. Prior to the premiere, the New York Post published an article on the episode. Critics accused the author, Andrea Morabito, of attacking \"poor people\" who rely on government assistance, referring to individuals who rely on food stamps as \"mooching off the social services\" and applauding SpongeBob for instead quickly returning to \"gainful employment\". Fox News's Heather Nauert of Fox & Friends stated that \"the harsh economic climate has hit the underwater community\", but \"instead of mooching off social services at Bikini Bottom...SpongeBob sets out to return to the work force\".\n\nAfter the New York Post and Fox News commented on the episode, Media Matters for America, a politically progressive media watchdog group, responded. The group accused the media sources, both owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, of using the episode \"to slam poor people who use social services\". In response to Fox News, Media Matters immediately posted an item online titled \"Right-Wing Media Use SpongeBob SquarePants' Firing To Attack Social Safety Net\", arguing that the two \"are using the firing of fictional cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants to attack the social safety net and those who rely on it\". Media Matters was \"also particularly bothered by [a] line from The Post story: 'Lest he sit around idly, mooching off the social services of Bikini Bottom, a depressed SpongeBob sets out to return to gainful employment wherever he can find it', reporter Andrea Morabito wrote. 'No spoilers—but it's safe to say that our hero doesn't end up on food stamps, as his patty-making skills turn out to be in high demand.'\"\n\nCivil rights activist and talk show host Al Sharpton of MSNBC remarked in the October 31 episode of PoliticsNation that \"The right-wingers found a new hero in its war against the poor [...] SpongeBob SquarePants. That's right. SpongeBob SquarePants [...] So a sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea doesn't need government help. That means no one does?\"\n\nNickelodeon declined to comment on the issue caused by the message of the episode. However, Russell Hicks of Nickelodeon said the show is \"tapping into the news of the moment, but did not specifically address any political leanings or ideologies within the episode.\" In a statement, Hicks said \"Like all really great cartoons, part of SpongeBob's long-running success has been its ability to tap into the zeitgeist while still being really funny for our audience. As always, despite this momentary setback, SpongeBob's eternal optimism prevails, which is always a great message for everyone.\"\n\nMerchandising\nNickelodeon and Random House released a book based on the episode called You're Fired!. The book is illustrated by David Aikins and was released on January 7, 2014. \"SpongeBob, You're Fired!\" was released on a DVD compilation of the same name on April 29, 2014, by Nickelodeon and Paramount Home Entertainment. The DVD includes the episode itself, \"Neptune's Spatula\", \"Welcome to the Chum Bucket\", \"The Original Fry Cook\", \"Le Big Switch\", \"Model Sponge\", \"Employee of the Month\", \"Bossy Boots\", \"Krusty Dogs\", \"License to Milkshake\", \"Help Wanted\", \"Wet Painters\", \"Krusty Krab Training Video\", and \"Pizza Delivery\". On October 10, 2017, \"SpongeBob, You're Fired!\" was released on the SpongeBob SquarePants: The Complete Ninth Season DVD, alongside all episodes of the ninth season. On June 4, 2019, \"SpongeBob, You're Fired!\" was released on the SpongeBob SquarePants: The Next 100 Episodes DVD, alongside all the episodes of seasons six through nine.\n\nReferences\nGeneral\n \n\nSpecific\n\nExternal links\n\n \n Episode's TV.com\n\nSpongeBob SquarePants episodes\n2010s American television specials\n2013 controversies\n2013 controversies in the United States\n2013 American television episodes\n2013 television specials\nAnimated television specials\nAnimation controversies in television\nPolitical controversies in the United States\nMass media-related controversies in the United States\nWorks about labor and the labor movement\nTelevision controversies in the United States\nTelevision episodes about termination of employment\n2010s controversies in the United States\n2010s animated television specials",
"SpongeBob's Runaway Roadtrip is an anthology series of five episodes in the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, as part of its eighth season. As the name suggests, the miniseries consisted of five vacation themed episodes, the first four leading up to the premiere of the fifth. It is the second miniseries in the SpongeBob franchise, which was originally released direct-to-DVD on September 20, 2011.\n\nEpisodes\n\nVideo Game\n\nOn November 8, 2011, Nickelodeon released \"SpongeBob's Surf & Skate Roadtrip\" for the Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS.\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\n SpongeBob SquarePants (season 8)\n SpongeBob SquarePants\n\nSpongeBob SquarePants\n2010s American animated television miniseries\n2010s American anthology television series\nAmerican children's animated anthology television series\n2010s Nickelodeon original programming\nAnimated television specials\nSpongeBob SquarePants episodes\nTelevision episodes about vacationing"
] |
[
"Stephen Hillenburg",
"Personal life",
"Is he married?",
"Hillenburg's wife, Karen,",
"What does she do?",
"a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California.",
"Do they have children?",
"He would jam with his son who is a drummer",
"What did he do with his free time?",
"He also enjoys birdwatching at home,",
"anything else?",
"known for his private nature.",
"Did he stick to himself mostly?",
"He doesn't want people to know about his life or family.",
"Any references to spongebob in the article?",
"after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants"
] |
C_6201d5b174b24dec99fc9ee08806de24_0
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what was he diagnosed with
| 8 |
what was Stephen Hillenburg diagnosed with?
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Stephen Hillenburg
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
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he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS
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Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
1961 births
2018 deaths
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Animators from California
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| true |
[
"Deborah Hutton (7 September 1955 – 15 July 2005) was an English magazine writer who was the health editor for Vogue. After being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2004, which she attributed to smoking as a teenager, she became an anti-smoking activist and wrote a book of advice for companions of people who have cancer, What Can I Do To Help?.\n\nEarly life\nHutton was one of twin sisters and grew up on a farm near Langley, Norfolk. She attended Benenden School and graduated from the University of York with a First in English. She married Charlie Stebbings, whom she met at university. They had four children, Archie, Romilly, Eleanor and Frederick, whom was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.\n\nWriting career\nWhile working for the British Council in 1979, Hutton won a job with Vogue through a talent contest, and became its first Health editor as the subject piqued her interest. She was credited with pioneering health journalism. She wrote several Vogue books on the subject. After nearly 20 years at the magazine, she left to spend more time with her children and did freelance work. She contributed to The Sunday Times, The Guardian and the Evening Standard.\n\nCancer diagnosis\nHutton first smoked at age 12 and smoked habitually from her mid-teens to her early 20s, before quitting and becoming what she described as a \"fanatically intolerant antismoking ex-smoker\". On 26 November 2004, at the age of 49, she was diagnosed with stage 4 adenocarcinoma, a lung cancer which had metastasised to her bones and lymph nodes; she later wrote \"there is no stage five\". Several of her family members had previously died of lung cancer.\n\nHutton said that there was evidence that low tar cigarettes like the Silk Cut she had smoked were more dangerous as they are inhaled deeper, in contrast to the safe and feminine image with which they are regarded. She pointed out that more teenage girls than boys smoke although their lungs are less resistant to carcinogens, and that lung cancer had overtaken breast cancer as the biggest killer of women. She urged the British government to take note of smoking among teenage girls.\n\nHutton wrote a book titled What Can I Do To Help? with advice for companions of people with cancer, including contributions from public figures such as Tony Benn and Cherie Blair. It was published the day before her death, with all proceeds going to Macmillan Cancer Support. Macmillan offered a volunteering award in Hutton's memory. Her widower Charlie Stebbings set up Cut Films, which makes films encouraging teenagers not to smoke.\n\nReferences\n\n1955 births\n2005 deaths\nPeople from South Norfolk (district)\nAlumni of the University of York\nBritish Vogue\nBritish women writers\nEnglish magazine editors\nDeaths from adenoid cystic carcinoma\nDeaths from cancer in England\nAnti-smoking activists\nPeople educated at Benenden School\nEnglish health activists\nWomen magazine editors",
"Liam Fairhurst (26 February 1995 – 30 June 2009) was a British charity fundraiser who had been diagnosed with synovial sarcoma. He was diagnosed with the disease in his leg in 2005, and large portions of his leg muscles had to be removed. The cancer eventually spread to his lungs. By the time of his death, he had collected almost £320,000, mainly for children's cancer charity CLIC Sargent.\n\nBorn in Soham, Cambridgeshire, Fairhurst began charity work after his friend, Jack Wilkinson, died of cancer in 2006, aged 12. He decided to raise money for a holiday home in Yorkshire for families living with childhood cancer. Barely able to walk, he began fundraising with a one-mile swim in 2006.\n\nFairhurst's courage impressed and inspired people such as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah Brown. After Fairhurst's death, Brown said: \"Liam was a courageous young man who showed immense bravery in the face of his illness. It was a privilege to meet him - his dedication as a fundraiser was an encouragement to us all and I am very proud of what Liam achieved. His courage will be a continuing inspiration to all those that knew him. My thoughts are with his family at this sad time.\"\n\nAwards\n Voted Britain's Kindest Kid in a Five News/Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) competition \n Diana Award, June 2007 \n Child of Courage awards, 2008, presented by Sir Richard Branson and Rebecca Adlington, at the Daily Mirror's \"Pride of Britain\" Awards in London\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nLiam Fairhurst Official site\n\n1995 births\n2009 deaths\nDeaths from cancer in England\nNeurological disease deaths in England\nDeaths from synovial sarcoma\nPeople from Soham\nCharity fundraisers (people)\n20th-century philanthropists"
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] |
C_6201d5b174b24dec99fc9ee08806de24_0
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Did he recover?
| 9 |
Did Stephen Hillenburg recover from ALS?
|
Stephen Hillenburg
|
Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
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Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him.
|
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
1961 births
2018 deaths
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American painters
20th-century American educators
20th-century American biologists
21st-century American male actors
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American cartoonists
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American male screenwriters
American male voice actors
American marine biologists
American storyboard artists
American surrealist artists
American television directors
American television writers
American voice directors
American patrons of the arts
American animated film directors
American animated film producers
Animators from California
Animators from Oklahoma
Annie Award winners
Burials at sea
California Institute of the Arts alumni
Creative directors
Deaths from motor neuron disease
Neurological disease deaths in California
Educators from California
Educators from Oklahoma
Film directors from California
Film directors from Oklahoma
Film producers from California
Film producers from Oklahoma
California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt alumni
Male actors from California
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American male chefs
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Nickelodeon people
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Patrons of schools
People from Anaheim, California
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Showrunners
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| false |
[
"Never Recover may refer to:\n\nSongs\n \"Never Recover\", 1996 song by The Cardigans from their 1996 album First Band on the Moon\n \"Never Recover\", 2002 song by Dave Pirner from his 2002 album Faces & Names\n \"Never Recover\", 2018 song by Lil Baby and Gunna from their 2018 album Drip Harder\n\nSee also\n Recovery (disambiguation)",
"Morrisson v Robertson (1908 SC 332) is a case establishing the common law principles that govern unilateral error in Scots law.\n\nFacts\nA man claiming to be the son of Wilson of Bonnyrigg approached Morrisson and offered to buy two cows from him. Although Morrisson did not know the man, he knew of Wilson, who was a neighbouring farmer of good financial standing. Accordingly, he let the man have the two cows on credit. In fact, the man was not the son of Wilson but a rogue called Telford. Telford sold the two cows to Robertson. When Morrisson found this out he sought to recover the cows from Robertson.\n\nJudgment\nThe action was successful. It was held that there had been no contract between Morrisson and Telford. The purported transaction was a complete nullity. Accordingly, Telford had no rights which he could pass on to Robertson, so Morrisson was entitled to recover his cows.\n\nSee also\n Cundy v Lindsay (1878) 3 App Cas 459, a similar case in English law\n Shogun Finance Ltd v Hudson, a 2003 case\n\nReferences \n\n Contract, Third Edition, Greens Concise Scots Law, Stephen Woolman & Jonathan Lake.\n\nScottish case law\n1908 in case law\n1908 in Scotland\nScots law articles needing infoboxes\n1908 in British law"
] |
[
"Stephen Hillenburg",
"Personal life",
"Is he married?",
"Hillenburg's wife, Karen,",
"What does she do?",
"a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California.",
"Do they have children?",
"He would jam with his son who is a drummer",
"What did he do with his free time?",
"He also enjoys birdwatching at home,",
"anything else?",
"known for his private nature.",
"Did he stick to himself mostly?",
"He doesn't want people to know about his life or family.",
"Any references to spongebob in the article?",
"after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants",
"what was he diagnosed with",
"he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS",
"Did he recover?",
"Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him."
] |
C_6201d5b174b24dec99fc9ee08806de24_0
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anything else?
| 10 |
Was Stephen Hillenburg diagnosed with anything else besides ALS?
|
Stephen Hillenburg
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
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known for his private nature.
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Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
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2018 deaths
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People from San Marino, California
Philanthropists from California
Philanthropists from Oklahoma
Princess Grace Awards winners
Scientists from California
Scientists from Oklahoma
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from Oklahoma
Showrunners
Television producers from California
Television show creators
American people of Belgian descent
American people of German descent
American people of English descent
American people of Irish descent
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[
"Say Anything may refer to:\n\nFilm and television\n Say Anything..., a 1989 American film by Cameron Crowe\n \"Say Anything\" (BoJack Horseman), a television episode\n\nMusic\n Say Anything (band), an American rock band\n Say Anything (album), a 2009 album by the band\n \"Say Anything\", a 2012 song by Say Anything from Anarchy, My Dear\n \"Say Anything\" (Marianas Trench song), 2006\n \"Say Anything\" (X Japan song), 1991\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Aimee Mann from Whatever, 1993\n \"Say Anything\", a song by the Bouncing Souls from The Bouncing Souls, 1997\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Good Charlotte from The Young and the Hopeless, 2002\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Girl in Red, 2018\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Will Young from Lexicon, 2019\n \"Say Anything (Else)\", a song by Cartel from Chroma, 2005\n\nOther uses\n Say Anything (party game), a 2008 board game published by North Star Games\n \"Say Anything\", a column in YM magazine\n\nSee also\n Say Something (disambiguation)",
"In baseball, a fair ball is a batted ball that entitles the batter to attempt to reach first base. By contrast, a foul ball is a batted ball that does not entitle the batter to attempt to reach first base. Whether a batted ball is fair or foul is determined by the location of the ball at the appropriate reference point, as follows:\n\n if the ball leaves the playing field without touching anything, the point where the ball leaves the field;\n else, if the ball first lands past first or third base without touching anything, the point where the ball lands;\n else, if the ball rolls or bounces past first or third base without touching anything other than the ground, the point where the ball passes the base;\n else, if the ball touches anything other than the ground (such as an umpire, a player, or any equipment left on the field) before any of the above happens, the point of such touching;\n else (the ball comes to a rest before reaching first or third base), the point where the ball comes to a rest.\n\nIf any part of the ball is on or above fair territory at the appropriate reference point, it is fair; else it is foul. Fair territory or fair ground is defined as the area of the playing field between the two foul lines, and includes the foul lines themselves and the foul poles. However, certain exceptions exist:\n\n A ball that touches first, second, or third base is always fair.\n Under Rule 5.09(a)(7)-(8), if a batted ball touches the batter or his bat while the batter is in the batter's box and not intentionally interfering with the course of the ball, the ball is foul.\n A ball that hits the foul pole without first having touched anything else off the bat is fair.\n Ground rules may provide whether a ball hitting specific objects (e.g. roof, overhead speaker) is fair or foul.\n\nOn a fair ball, the batter attempts to reach first base or any subsequent base, runners attempt to advance and fielders try to record outs. A fair ball is considered a live ball until the ball becomes dead by leaving the field or any other method.\n\nReferences\n\nBaseball rules"
] |
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"Stephen Hillenburg",
"Personal life",
"Is he married?",
"Hillenburg's wife, Karen,",
"What does she do?",
"a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California.",
"Do they have children?",
"He would jam with his son who is a drummer",
"What did he do with his free time?",
"He also enjoys birdwatching at home,",
"anything else?",
"known for his private nature.",
"Did he stick to himself mostly?",
"He doesn't want people to know about his life or family.",
"Any references to spongebob in the article?",
"after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants",
"what was he diagnosed with",
"he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS",
"Did he recover?",
"Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him.",
"anything else?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_6201d5b174b24dec99fc9ee08806de24_0
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Did he have any friends?
| 11 |
Did Stephen Hillenburg have any friends?
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Stephen Hillenburg
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Hillenburg's wife, Karen, is a chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, California. Hillenburg deems her to be the funniest person that he knows. The couple have a son named Clay (born c. 1998). Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and now lives with his family in San Marino, California. His hobbies include surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He would jam with his son who is a drummer which, according to Hillenburg, is "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoys birdwatching at home, but says that he was always "an ocean freak". According to his colleagues, Hillenburg is "a perfectionist workaholic". He is also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg is "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy." In March 2017, Hillenburg disclosed that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a terminal illness that affects and causes the death of neurons that control the brain and the spinal cord. He released a statement to the Variety magazine after his diagnosis, in which he affirmed that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He stated further, "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg is currently in the early stages of the disease, according to a source close to him. CANNOTANSWER
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puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity.
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Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, and marine science educator. Hillenburg created the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, on which he served as the showrunner for the first three seasons of the show, and has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.
Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (19931996) after his success with The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), short films that he made while studying animation.
In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has aired continuously since its premiere in 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, but Nickelodeon continued to produce more episodes after he departed the series. He resumed making short films, with Hollywood Blvd., USA in 2013, but continued to be credited as an executive producer for SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, which was released in 2015.
Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognition, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts on elevating marine life awareness, and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.
Early life and education
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr., worked for the U.S. military. His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students. When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry. His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.
When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids." His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau made a strong impression on him. Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed. He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."
Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age. His first drawing was of an orange slice. An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it. "Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War]. She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated. It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill". He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter". In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977). "That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.
He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet. At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna. This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist." Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish." However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings". During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine. (This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994.)
Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California as a marine-science major. He minored in art, and claimed that "[he] blossomed as a painter in Humboldt." In 1984, he earned his bachelor's degree in natural-resource planning and interpretation, with an emphasis on marine resources. He intended to take a master's degree, but said it would be in art: "Initially I think I assumed that if I went to school for art I would never have any way of making a living, so I thought it might be smarter to keep art my passion and hobby and study something else. But by the time I got to the end of my undergrad work, I realized I should be in art."
Early career
After graduating from college, Hillenburg held various jobs in 1984, including as a park service attendant in Utah and an art director in San Francisco, before landing the job he wanted: teaching children. He hoped to work in a national park on the coast, and eventually found a job at the Orange County Marine Institute (now known as the Ocean Institute), an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history. Hillenburg was a marine-biology teacher there for three years: "We taught tide-pool ecology, nautical history, diversity and adaptation. Working there, I saw how enamored kids are with undersea life, especially with tide-pool creatures." He stayed at the Dana Point Marina and was also a staff artist. Although "[i]t was a great experience" for him, during this period, Hillenburg realized he was more interested in art than his chosen profession.
While working there, one of the educational directors asked him if he would be interested in creating an educational comic book about the animal life of tidal pools. He created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, which he used to teach his students. It featured anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters—including "Bob the Sponge", the comic's co-host, who resembled an actual sea sponge, as opposed to his later SpongeBob SquarePants character, who resembles a kitchen sponge. He tried to get the comic published, but the publishers he approached turned him down.
During this time, Hillenburg also started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation where films made by students from the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts) were shown. He determined that he wanted to pursue a career in that field. Hillenburg had planned to take a master's degree in art, but instead of "going back to school for painting", he left his job in 1987 to become an animator.
Hillenburg enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program in 1989. About this decision, he said: "Changing careers like that is scary, but the irony is that animation is a pretty healthy career right now and science education is more of a struggle." He studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his "Art Dad" and mentor. Engel accepted him into the program impressed by The Intertidal Zone. Hillenburg said, "[Engel] also was a painter, so I think he saw my paintings and could easily say, 'Oh, this guy could fit in to this program.' I don't have any [prior experience in] animation really." Hillenburg graduated in 1992, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. During his time at CalArts, he briefly drew comics for the surfing magazine KEMA in 1990.
Animation career
Early works
Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992), while at CalArts. The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film, about the theory of relativity. He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation, which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film. The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship. "It meant a lot. They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs," he said in 2003. Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals, including: the Annecy International Animated Film Festival; the Hiroshima International Animation Festival; the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration; the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it won Best Concept. LA Weekly labeled the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical", while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times opined that it was inventive.
Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "out of sand by filming piles of sand changing". Hillenburg had at least one other short film that he made as an animation student but its title is unspecified.
Rocko's Modern Life
Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko's Modern Life (19931996), Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production. He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it. He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it backI had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.
Hillenburg worked closely with Murray on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. In 1995, during the show's fourth and final season, he was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production. Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans. He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.
SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation
Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute. He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (19871988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (19861991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."
During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series: "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own." However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach: "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002. He claimed that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.
As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges. It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays." It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable." He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (19911995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge: "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one." In 1994, Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge.
Bob the Sponge is the comic's "announcer". He resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first Hillenburg continued this design because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher." In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge, and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly: "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking fora somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball." To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.
While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing". Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.
Broadcast
SpongeBob SquarePants was Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon. It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year. Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevailswhich I don't think it always does in real life." It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to matchconscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. ...Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."
SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit. Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series. By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television. Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly. By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49. Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience." SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that. ...I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary. Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks. , it has generated $12 billion in merchandising revenue.
Departure
In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004: "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted. He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill. The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface. In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94. Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory. He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."
After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark." "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002. However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed. Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality." Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role. Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode. Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004. While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording. During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty, while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.
In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold. As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series, which was first reported in 2011 and officially announced the following year, with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg, who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]." Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced. He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ...it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material." Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015 to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10. It earned $323.4 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Other pursuits
In 1998, Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon. Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me." Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.
According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release. He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon. Hillenburg stated in 2009 that he was developing two other television projects that he did not want to discuss.
In 2010, he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA, a new short film for animation festivals. In making the two-minute film, he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles. Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall. In 2013, three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals. Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."
Personal life
Hillenburg married Karen Umland, a Southern Californian chef who teaches at the New School of Cooking in Culver City, in 1998. Hillenburg deemed her to be the funniest person that he knew, and the character of Karen Plankton was named after her. Also in 1998, the couple's first and only child, son Clay, was born. Hillenburg formerly resided in Hollywood and in Pasadena, and he lived with his family in San Marino, California, until his death. His hobbies included surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and performing "noisy rock music" on his guitar. He jammed with his son, who is a drummer, which Hillenburg called "a great way to bond with each other." He also enjoyed birdwatching at home, but said that he was always "an ocean freak".
He was known informally as "Steve" among his family, friends, and fans. According to his colleagues, Hillenburg was "a perfectionist workaholic". He was also known for his private nature. Julia Pistor, co-producer of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, noted that Hillenburg was "very shy". She went on to say, "He doesn't want people to know about his life or family. He's just a really funny, down-to-earth guy with a dry sense of humor who puts his family first and keeps us on our toes in keeping our corporate integrity." Hillenburg said about himself, "I make animation because I like to draw and create things. I have no real interest to be on camera or to be a celebrity. It's not that I don't like people, but I like having my privacy."
Philanthropy
Hillenburg, with his wife Karen, had endowed numerous projects and organizations through the United Plankton Charitable Trust, which the couple established in 2005. The foundation, the name of which was adopted from Hillenburg's United Plankton Pictures, supports areas of the two's personal interest, giving under $500,000 annually . Grantees include large, established arts-related organizations such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound, in which Karen is co-chair. Health accounts for most of their grantmaking; they had gifted to Planned Parenthood (where Karen is member of the board of directors ) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, among other national health organizations.
In education, they donated to schools, including the Polytechnic School in Pasadena (which their son attended), CalArts, and Humboldt State University. Donations to the latter helped fund the HSU Marine Lab and the Stephen Hillenburg Marine Science Research Award Endowment, which the couple created in 2018 to support the university's marine-science research students. The previous year, the Princess Grace Foundation introduced the Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship, an annual grant from the Hillenburgs to emerging animators.
Illness, death and legacy
Hillenburg disclosed to Variety magazine in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. He released a statement to the publication, in which he said that he would continue to work on SpongeBob SquarePants "for as long as [he is] able." He added: "My family and I are grateful for the outpouring of love and support. We ask that our sincere request for privacy be honored during this time." Hillenburg was in the early stages of the disease at the time, according to a source close to him. During his last days as executive producer, he had difficulty speaking, and it came to the point where he eventually stopped coming to the office.
Hillenburg died at his home on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, due to the complications. According to his death certificate, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at least off the coast of California the next day.
During the halftime show for Super Bowl LIII, the performing band Maroon 5 arranged to use a clip from the SpongeBob episode "Band Geeks" (which uses the song "Sweet Victory" as part of a spoof of a football halftime show) during their show as a means to pay tribute to Hillenburg. A full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but not during the game, which angered many fans. The song was later included in a promo for ViacomCBS' Paramount+ streaming service during Super Bowl LV.
The TV special SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout and the theatrical film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run are dedicated to him and his career.
In 2019, a spin-off of SpongeBob SquarePants began production, featuring younger versions of the characters attending summer camp. Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt stated that Hillenburg would have disliked the idea; he commented, "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here.'" Tibbitt also released a statement stating, "I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show ... [but] they all know full well Steve would have hated this." The concept of Kamp Koral came from a season 12 meeting in October 2018, a month before Hillenburg died. Hillenburg is credited as the creator of Kamp Koral, and is credited on other spin-offs as the characters' creator.
Awards and honors
In 1992, one of Hillenburg's early works, Wormholes, won for Best Concept at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. For SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards, winning in the categories of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Sound Editing – Animation in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The show has also received several other awards and nominations, including 17 Annie Award nominations, winning six times, as well as winning two British Academy Children's Awards, out of four nominations. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants won its first TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming nomination.
In 2001, Heal the Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization, honored Hillenburg with its Walk the Talk award. He was recognized for raising public awareness of marine life through SpongeBob SquarePants. The following year, Hillenburg was given the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society, and the Princess Grace Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation. In 2018, Hillenburg received the Winsor McCay Award at the 45th Annie Awards, and a special recognition at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards "for his contribution and impact made in the animation field and within the broadcast industry."
The marine demosponge species Clathria hillenburgi, known from mangrove habitats off the coast of Paraíba, Brazil, was named in honor of Stephen Hillenburg.
On November 18, 2021, Hillenburg was honored with a bench and historical plaque at his alma mater Savannah High School in Anaheim, California. The project was a collaboration between the Hillenburg family, Anaheim Historical Society, and YouTube personality Griffin Hansen. Karen Hillenburg specifically chose a bright yellow bench that "she thought perfectly captured her husband's warmth and goofiness". The memorial was dedicated one day before Savanna High School's 60th anniversary at a school-wide assembly hosted by Hansen and principal Michael Pooley. The event was attended by Karen and Clay Hillenburg, as well as members of Spongebob Squarepants' cast and crew including Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Marc Ceccarelli, and Derek Drymon.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Further reading
External links
Stephen Hillenburg at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio website
1961 births
2018 deaths
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American painters
20th-century American educators
20th-century American biologists
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
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Burials at sea
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Neurological disease deaths in California
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California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt alumni
Male actors from California
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| true |
[
"To All My Friends On Shore is a 1972 television film drama starring Bill Cosby, and co-starring Gloria Foster. Cosby not only starred in the film, but produced it and worked on the film's music.\n\nPlot\nBlue (Cosby) works as a skycap for an airport. At the same time he works a second job as a junk scavenger. His wife Serena (Foster) works as a maid and is going to school trying to become a nurse. Blue is busy working trying to save money to buy his family a house so they can leave the projects. His young son, Vandy (Hines), resents him because he won't let him have any fun like his friends. It is eventually discovered that Vandy has sickle cell anemia. It is then that Blue realizes what he should spend his time on - being with his family.\n\nCast\nBill Cosby....Blue\nGloria Foster....Serena Blue\nDennis Hines....Evander \"Vandy\" Blue Jr.\n\nProduction\nThis was one of a string of film/TV productions Bill Cosby did in the 1970s. After he did The Bill Cosby Show (1969-1971), Cosby did other works. He did this film plus Man and Boy and Hickey & Boggs, the latter of which paired him with his I Spy co star Robert Culp. In addition he produced the Saturday morning series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids which ran on CBS until the 1980s. Although Cosby did drama, he stayed with it in brief and concentrated on comedy; during this time, he worked with Gloria Foster, who appeared in other Cosby shows and films. As the 1970s closed, Cosby stayed with Fat Albert and worked on variety shows for Prime Time that ultimately bombed and were cancelled, including Cos.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nTo All My Friends on Shore at URBTPlus\n\nAmerican drama films\n1970s drama films\nAmerican television films\nAmerican films",
"A Recorded Minister was originally a male or female Quaker who was acknowledged to have a gift of spoken ministry.\n\nThe practice of recording in a Monthly Meeting Minute the acknowledgment that a Friend had a gift of spoken ministry began in the 1730s in London Yearly Meeting, according to Milligan's Biographical dictionary of British Quakers in commerce and industry. The acknowledgment did not involve anything like ordination or any payment, in view of early Friends' testimony against \"Hireling Priests\". Acknowledgment did permit the Recorded Minister to attend at Yearly Meeting and Meeting for Sufferings.\n\nIn London Yearly Meeting the practice of recording Ministers was discontinued in 1924. \n\nWhile many Yearly Meetings have discontinued the practice of recording ministers, it is maintained by many others. Today, Friends are recorded as ministers as an acknowledgment of a variety of ministries, including teaching, chaplaincy, and evangelical and pastoral ministry.\n\nSee also\nDaughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700-1775\n:Category:Quaker ministers\n\nReferences\n\nQuaker ministers\nQuaker practices"
] |
[
"Divinyls",
"1990s: Divinyls duo"
] |
C_4c40c51419fe4098bbac6c4c80e21438_0
|
Who was in the band in the 90s?
| 1 |
Who was in Divinyls in the 90s?
|
Divinyls
|
In 1991 Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the US and No. 10 in the UK. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects. A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993). The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers. This song is also mentioned in The Guide to Getting it On by Paul Joannides. It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US. As with What A Life! they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls. CANNOTANSWER
|
The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999,
|
Divinyls () were an Australian rock band that were formed in Sydney in 1980. The band primarily consisted of vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. Amphlett garnered widespread attention for performing on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience.
Originally a five-piece, the band underwent numerous line-up changes, with Amphlett and McEntee remaining as core members, before its dissolution in 1996.
In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations, named "Science Fiction" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time. The band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006 and in late 2007 Amphlett and McEntee reconvened to record a new single and begin working on a new album. The band played a short series of live gigs in Australia in late 2007 and early 2008. Divinyls broke up in 2009 and Amphlett died in 2013.
Divinyls released five studio albums—four placed in the Top 10 Australian chart, while one (Divinyls) reached No. 15 in the United States (US) and No. 33 for 3 weeks in Canada. Their biggest-selling single "I Touch Myself" (1990) achieved a No. 1 ranking in Australia, No. 4 in the United States, No. 10 in the United Kingdom (UK), and No. 13 in Canada.
Career
1980s: Formation, Desperate, What a Life! & Temperamental
Amphlett was the cousin of 1960s Australian pop icon Patricia "Little Pattie" Amphlett, who had been married to Keith Jacobsen—younger brother of pioneer rocker Col Joye and leading promoter Kevin Jacobsen. In her autobiography Pleasure and Pain (2005), Amphlett described breaking into the music scene from the age of fourteen, being arrested for busking when seventeen and travelling in Spain, and how her performances drew upon childhood pain.
Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee were introduced by Jeremy Paul (ex-Air Supply) in the car park of a small music venue in Collaroy, Sydney, after Amphlett and Paul had finished a gig with their then band, Batonrouge. Amphlett and McEntee met again at the Sydney Opera House where Amphlett and Paul were singing in a choral concert in 1980. They recruited keyboardist Bjarne Ohlin later in 1980 and drummer Richard Harvey in 1981, respectively, and for almost two years they performed in pubs and clubs in Sydney's Kings Cross. During this time, Paul negotiated publishing and recording agreements that led to the band signing with WEA. Australian film director Ken Cameron saw Divinyls performing in a club. This led to them providing the soundtrack for his 1982 film Monkey Grip and also gave Amphlett, Paul and McEntee supporting roles in the movie. The group released two singles from the soundtrack, Music from Monkey Grip EP, "Boys in Town", which reached No. 8 on the national singles chart, and "Only Lonely". The band was the opening act at the 1983 US Festival.
After the band's initial success, original manager and bassist Jeremy Paul left. He was replaced on bass, briefly by Ken Firth (ex-The Ferrets) and more permanently by Rick Grossman (ex-Matt Finish). Grossman left in 1987 to replace Clyde Bramley in Hoodoo Gurus. By early 1988, Divinyls consisted of Amphlett and McEntee with augmentation by additional musicians when recording or touring.
Over the decade Divinyls released four albums, Music from Monkey Grip EP on WEA in 1982, Desperate on Chrysalis Records in 1983, What a Life! in 1985 and Temperamental in 1988. The latter two albums were also released by Chrysalis in the United States. They had hit singles in Australia with, "Science Fiction" No. 13 in 1983, "Good Die Young" No. 32 in 1984 and "Pleasure and Pain" which was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman and went No. 11 in 1985. Their later manager Vince Lovegrove organised Divinyls' transfer from WEA to Chrysalis and their first tours of the United States. They established a fan base there, without achieving major commercial success. Divinyls also had Australian hits with cover versions of The Easybeats' "I'll Make You Happy", and Syndicate of Sound's "Hey Little Boy" ("Hey Little Girl" with the gender switched) which reached No. 25 in 1988. Amphlett became a controversial and highly visible celebrity for her brash, overtly sexual persona and subversive humour in lyrics, performances and media interviews.
Image transformation
At the start of their popularity, Divinyls were considered to be a hard rock band. At some point, many fans referred to Amphlett as the female Angus Young, as both had similar mannerisms on stage and wore black-and-white school uniforms while performing in the early 1980s. The band's image gradually changed after the release of the album What a Life! when the band began wearing elaborate clothing and producing more songs in the pop music genre. By the time of the release of their album Temperamental, Divinyls' image had changed to a glamour fashion style where they produced modern pop music.
1990s: diVINYLS & Underworld
In 1991, Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the United States and No. 10 in the United Kingdom. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects.
A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s, they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993).
The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers.
It wasn't until 1996 that their fifth studio album, Underworld, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS, Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the United States. As with What a Life!, they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls.
1998–2005: After the separation
Following Underworld, Amphlett pursued a stage career. In 1998, she played the role of Judy Garland in the Australian stage production of the life story of entertainer Peter Allen, titled The Boy from Oz. The production was a success and Amphlett's interpretation of Garland, during her final troubled years, brought her critical acclaim: she was nominated for the Helpmann Award for 'Best Female Actor in a Musical'.
Amphlett and McEntee concentrated on solo projects and collaborations with other artists. Amphlett and Drayton lived in New York City from 2000, while McEntee ran a clothing label, Wheels and Doll Baby, in Perth with his partner, Melanie Greensmith. In November 2005 Amphlett published her autobiography Pleasure and Pain: My Life co-written with Larry Writer; she detailed her achievements, drug and alcohol abuse, love affairs and triumphs while a member of Divinyls.
2006–2012: Hall of Fame and reformation
On 16 August 2006, Divinyls were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and made their first performance for 10 years at the award ceremony. They reformed shortly afterwards and a compilation, Greatest Hits, was released by EMI Music Australia in August 2006. The band recorded four new songs via a satellite link: Amphlett and Drayton at Palm Studios in Las Vegas and McEntee in Perth. A single and B-side, "Don't Wanna Do This"/"Asphyxiated", was released in November 2007, with a third track, "All Pretty Things", released on a compilation album for the Homebake Festival. Amphlett stated that the band would return to the studio to record a full album provided they "survived" their Homebake headline gig and national tour.
They performed during the Australian Idol grand final at the Sydney Opera House, on 25 November 2007, although their performance of "Boys in Town" (also performed by Idol winner Natalie Gauci) had to be repeated after Network Ten's transmission feed was interrupted. A national tour of Australia followed in December 2007 with a touring band featuring Drayton on drums, Jerome Smith on bass, Charlie Owen on guitar and newest member Clayton Doley on keyboards. Amphlett revealed on 7 December 2007 that she had multiple sclerosis in an interview with Richard Wilkins on Network Nine's A Current Affair—nevertheless, she was looking forward to touring with Divinyls. The next day, Divinyls headlined the Homebake music festival where Amphlett displayed an emotional fragility when attempting to get the crowd to sing along with her. In August 2009, Amphlett announced that Divinyls were finished and she had a new band in New York.
2013–present: Death of Amphlett, McLean and abortive reformation
Aged 53 years, Amphlett died on 21 April 2013 at her home in New York City after a protracted battle with breast cancer since 2010. Amphlett stated that she had been unable to receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy as treatment for the cancer due to her multiple sclerosis. Amphlett's cousin Patricia Thompson announced the news in an official public statement: "Our beloved Chrissy peacefully made her transition this morning. Christine Joy Amphlett succumbed to the effects of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, diseases she vigorously fought with exceptional bravery and dignity." In 2014, some of Australia's leading female artists came together to cover "I Touch Myself" to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
In 2017, the band performed a one-off show in Perth with The Preatures' Isabella Manfredi and Jack Moffit joining as guests on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, respectively. McEntee, Grossman and Harvey completed the line-up.
In December 2018, McEntee announced he would be reforming the group with new singer Lauren Ruth Ward, ex-Divinyls guitarist Frank Infante and a new rhythm section for an Australian tour, to begin in 2019. However, this announcement was criticised by Drayton and several fans as an "ultimate disrespect", with Drayton stating that anyone other than Amphlett who fronted the Divinyls should "seek some trustworthy advice". On 6 February 2019, the Australian tour was cancelled.
In early January 2021, former band drummer Warren McLean died.
Band members
Former members
Chrissy Amphlett — lead vocals (1980–1996, 2006–2009; died 2013)
Mark McEntee — guitar, occasional keyboards (1980–1996, 2006–2009)
Charlie Owen — guitar (2006–2009; touring member in 1991)
Jeremy Paul – bass (1980–1982)
Rick Grossman — bass (1982–1987)
Tim Millikan – bass (1988–1989)
Randy Jackson — bass (1990–1991)
Jerome Smith – bass (1991–1996, 2006–2009)
Richard Harvey – drums (1980—1985)
J. J. Harris — drums (1985–1986)
Tommy "Mugs" Cain — drums (1987)
Warren McLean – drums (1988; died 2021)
Tim Powles – drums (1989)
Charley Drayton — drums (1990–1996, 2006–2009)
Bjarne Ohlin – keyboards (1980–1986)
Kenny Lyon — keyboards (1987)
Roger Mason – keyboards (1988–1990)
Benmont Tench — keyboards (1990–1991)
Clayton Doley — keyboards (2006–2009)
Touring/substitute musicians
Ken Firth — bass guitar (1982)
Matthew Hughes – keyboards, bass guitar (1987–1988)
Frank Infante — guitar (1987)
Jim Hilbun – bass (1991)
Lee Borkman – keyboards, guitar (1991)
Mark Meyer – drums (1991)
Duane Jarvis – guitar (1988)
Randy Wiggins – guitar (1993–1995)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums:
1983: Desperate
1985: What a Life!
1988: Temperamental
1991: Divinyls
1996: Underworld
Awards and nominations
ARIA Music Awards
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. Divinyls were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.
|-
| 1991
| "I Touch Myself"
| Single of the Year
|
|-
| 2006
| Divinyls
| ARIA Hall of Fame
|
Countdown Australian Music Awards
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974–1987, it presented music awards from 1979–1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week. The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards.
|-
| rowspan="3" |1981
| rowspan="2" | "Boys in Town"
| Best Australian Single
|
|-
| Best Debut Single
|
|-
| Themselves
| Best New Talent
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1982
| Monkey Grip
| Best Debut Album
|
|-
| Chrissy Amphlett (Divinyls)
| Most Popular Female
|
|-
|1983
| Desperate
| Best Australian Album
|
|-
| 1984
| Christina Amphlett - "In My Life" (Divinyls)
| Best Female Performance in a Video
|
|-
MTV Video Music Awards
Originally beginning as an alternative to the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards were established in the end of the summer of 1984 by MTV to celebrate the top music videos of the year.
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=3|1991
| rowspan=3|"I Touch Myself"
| Video of the Year
|
| rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Group Video
|
|-
| Viewer's Choice
|
See also
Tony Mott
References
Further reading
Amphlett, Christina; Larry Writer, (November 2005). Pleasure and Pain: My Life. Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia. .
Stieven-Taylor, Alison, (15 October 2007). Rock chicks : the hottest female rockers from the 1960s to now. Sydney : Rockpool Publishing. .
External links
Official MySpace page
1980 establishments in Australia
2009 disestablishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Australian new wave musical groups
Australian rock music groups
ARIA Award winners
Chrysalis Records artists
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Musical groups disestablished in 2009
Musical groups from Sydney
New South Wales musical groups
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
Pub rock musical groups
Female-fronted musical groups
| true |
[
"The Clan MacRae Society Pipe Band was a pipe band based in Glasgow.\n\nHistory\nThe civilian City of Glasgow Pipe Band was established by Farquhar MacRae in January 1914, who had previously led the pipe band of the 7th (Blythswood) Battalion Highland Light Infantry, a reserve battalion. The pipe band of the 7th Battalion won the World Pipe Band Championships in 1913, and MacRae resigned along with much of his band after the annual camp of 1913. The first time the City of Glasgow Pipe Band entered the World Championships in 1914 it won second place.\n\nWhen World War I broke out the band was disbanded, but was reformed under the leadership of William Fergusson in 1920. MacRae died in 1916, and the name of the band was changed to the Clan MacRae Society Pipe Band at some point in the 1920s. At one point under Ferguson's leadership, the band contained six qualified Pipe majors.\n\nWilliam Fergusson led the band to victory at the World Championships in 1921, 1922, 1923 and 1925. Ferguson was a prolific composer, and wrote tunes such as the 2/4 marches \"Clan MacRae Society Pipe Band\" and \"The Atholl and Breadalbane Gathering.\"\n\nAfter Ferguson was injured in an accident, Hamish McColl, a longstanding member of the band, took over as pipe major. After 18 months, McColl was succeeded by John Findlay Nicoll, who led the band to first place at the Worlds in 1932, 1933 and 1934.\n\nNicoll resigned due to ill-health in 1950 and was succeeded by Alexander Macleod, a pupil of Ferguson. The band under Macleod won the World Championships again in 1953.\n\nThe band was downgraded to Grade 2, but won the Grade 2 World Championships under Pipe Major John Finlay.\n\nReferences\n\n1914 establishments in Scotland\nGrade 1 pipe bands\nScottish pipe bands",
"The HMCS Carleton Band from Ottawa was a military band in the Royal Canadian Navy. and the Canadian Forces. It was founded by Gerald Heatley sometime after the Second World War. It was dubbed the \"Pride of the Navy\" due to its connection to the national capital and often performed at public events throughout in Ontario and Quebec during the 1950s. It was also the biggest military band in the capital, consisting of 48 members who were organized 8 members deep and 6 across. It often took part in the national commemorative events in honor of the Battle of the Atlantic and Remembrance Day. This effectively made it the Central Band of the RCN. It often provided instruction to the cadets at RCSCS Falkland.\n\nThe band has won many awards in its his history. In 1960, the band won the Carling Trophy and in June 1963, the band under the direction of Petty Officer Hank LeClair won the L. L. Coulter Trophy at the Central Canada Exhibition in Ottawa. On 31 August 1967, the band performed during the first \"Ceremony of the Flags\" on Parliament Hill. That same year a big band was created within the band's ranks.\n\nChris Daly, who was a member of the band in the 60s as well as was a member of the Governor General's Foot Guards Bugle Band, was a founding member of the Swampwater Jazz Band. German-born Lieutenant Henry Bonnenberg also served as the director of music in the 1950s while concurrently serving as director of music at Laurentian High School. During his term as director of music, Bonnenberg was assisted by Drum Major John Renaud, former Salvation Army Brass Band member C. Linklater and former member of the Guards Band L. Tanner.\n\nThe band was dissolved in 1993 as a result of the federal budget that was presented by Finance Minister Don Mazankowski in the House of Commons.\n\nSee also \n\n United States Navy Band\n National Band of the Naval Reserve\n Naden Band of Maritime Forces Pacific\n Stadacona Band of Maritime Forces Atlantic\n Navy bands in Canada\n\nReferences \n\nBands of the Royal Canadian Navy"
] |
[
"Divinyls",
"1990s: Divinyls duo",
"Who was in the band in the 90s?",
"The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999,"
] |
C_4c40c51419fe4098bbac6c4c80e21438_0
|
were they the only ones in the band?
| 2 |
Were Charley Drayton and Amphlett the only ones in the band?
|
Divinyls
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In 1991 Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the US and No. 10 in the UK. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects. A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993). The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers. This song is also mentioned in The Guide to Getting it On by Paul Joannides. It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US. As with What A Life! they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls. CANNOTANSWER
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Amphlett and McEntee
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Divinyls () were an Australian rock band that were formed in Sydney in 1980. The band primarily consisted of vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. Amphlett garnered widespread attention for performing on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience.
Originally a five-piece, the band underwent numerous line-up changes, with Amphlett and McEntee remaining as core members, before its dissolution in 1996.
In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations, named "Science Fiction" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time. The band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006 and in late 2007 Amphlett and McEntee reconvened to record a new single and begin working on a new album. The band played a short series of live gigs in Australia in late 2007 and early 2008. Divinyls broke up in 2009 and Amphlett died in 2013.
Divinyls released five studio albums—four placed in the Top 10 Australian chart, while one (Divinyls) reached No. 15 in the United States (US) and No. 33 for 3 weeks in Canada. Their biggest-selling single "I Touch Myself" (1990) achieved a No. 1 ranking in Australia, No. 4 in the United States, No. 10 in the United Kingdom (UK), and No. 13 in Canada.
Career
1980s: Formation, Desperate, What a Life! & Temperamental
Amphlett was the cousin of 1960s Australian pop icon Patricia "Little Pattie" Amphlett, who had been married to Keith Jacobsen—younger brother of pioneer rocker Col Joye and leading promoter Kevin Jacobsen. In her autobiography Pleasure and Pain (2005), Amphlett described breaking into the music scene from the age of fourteen, being arrested for busking when seventeen and travelling in Spain, and how her performances drew upon childhood pain.
Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee were introduced by Jeremy Paul (ex-Air Supply) in the car park of a small music venue in Collaroy, Sydney, after Amphlett and Paul had finished a gig with their then band, Batonrouge. Amphlett and McEntee met again at the Sydney Opera House where Amphlett and Paul were singing in a choral concert in 1980. They recruited keyboardist Bjarne Ohlin later in 1980 and drummer Richard Harvey in 1981, respectively, and for almost two years they performed in pubs and clubs in Sydney's Kings Cross. During this time, Paul negotiated publishing and recording agreements that led to the band signing with WEA. Australian film director Ken Cameron saw Divinyls performing in a club. This led to them providing the soundtrack for his 1982 film Monkey Grip and also gave Amphlett, Paul and McEntee supporting roles in the movie. The group released two singles from the soundtrack, Music from Monkey Grip EP, "Boys in Town", which reached No. 8 on the national singles chart, and "Only Lonely". The band was the opening act at the 1983 US Festival.
After the band's initial success, original manager and bassist Jeremy Paul left. He was replaced on bass, briefly by Ken Firth (ex-The Ferrets) and more permanently by Rick Grossman (ex-Matt Finish). Grossman left in 1987 to replace Clyde Bramley in Hoodoo Gurus. By early 1988, Divinyls consisted of Amphlett and McEntee with augmentation by additional musicians when recording or touring.
Over the decade Divinyls released four albums, Music from Monkey Grip EP on WEA in 1982, Desperate on Chrysalis Records in 1983, What a Life! in 1985 and Temperamental in 1988. The latter two albums were also released by Chrysalis in the United States. They had hit singles in Australia with, "Science Fiction" No. 13 in 1983, "Good Die Young" No. 32 in 1984 and "Pleasure and Pain" which was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman and went No. 11 in 1985. Their later manager Vince Lovegrove organised Divinyls' transfer from WEA to Chrysalis and their first tours of the United States. They established a fan base there, without achieving major commercial success. Divinyls also had Australian hits with cover versions of The Easybeats' "I'll Make You Happy", and Syndicate of Sound's "Hey Little Boy" ("Hey Little Girl" with the gender switched) which reached No. 25 in 1988. Amphlett became a controversial and highly visible celebrity for her brash, overtly sexual persona and subversive humour in lyrics, performances and media interviews.
Image transformation
At the start of their popularity, Divinyls were considered to be a hard rock band. At some point, many fans referred to Amphlett as the female Angus Young, as both had similar mannerisms on stage and wore black-and-white school uniforms while performing in the early 1980s. The band's image gradually changed after the release of the album What a Life! when the band began wearing elaborate clothing and producing more songs in the pop music genre. By the time of the release of their album Temperamental, Divinyls' image had changed to a glamour fashion style where they produced modern pop music.
1990s: diVINYLS & Underworld
In 1991, Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the United States and No. 10 in the United Kingdom. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects.
A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s, they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993).
The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers.
It wasn't until 1996 that their fifth studio album, Underworld, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS, Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the United States. As with What a Life!, they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls.
1998–2005: After the separation
Following Underworld, Amphlett pursued a stage career. In 1998, she played the role of Judy Garland in the Australian stage production of the life story of entertainer Peter Allen, titled The Boy from Oz. The production was a success and Amphlett's interpretation of Garland, during her final troubled years, brought her critical acclaim: she was nominated for the Helpmann Award for 'Best Female Actor in a Musical'.
Amphlett and McEntee concentrated on solo projects and collaborations with other artists. Amphlett and Drayton lived in New York City from 2000, while McEntee ran a clothing label, Wheels and Doll Baby, in Perth with his partner, Melanie Greensmith. In November 2005 Amphlett published her autobiography Pleasure and Pain: My Life co-written with Larry Writer; she detailed her achievements, drug and alcohol abuse, love affairs and triumphs while a member of Divinyls.
2006–2012: Hall of Fame and reformation
On 16 August 2006, Divinyls were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and made their first performance for 10 years at the award ceremony. They reformed shortly afterwards and a compilation, Greatest Hits, was released by EMI Music Australia in August 2006. The band recorded four new songs via a satellite link: Amphlett and Drayton at Palm Studios in Las Vegas and McEntee in Perth. A single and B-side, "Don't Wanna Do This"/"Asphyxiated", was released in November 2007, with a third track, "All Pretty Things", released on a compilation album for the Homebake Festival. Amphlett stated that the band would return to the studio to record a full album provided they "survived" their Homebake headline gig and national tour.
They performed during the Australian Idol grand final at the Sydney Opera House, on 25 November 2007, although their performance of "Boys in Town" (also performed by Idol winner Natalie Gauci) had to be repeated after Network Ten's transmission feed was interrupted. A national tour of Australia followed in December 2007 with a touring band featuring Drayton on drums, Jerome Smith on bass, Charlie Owen on guitar and newest member Clayton Doley on keyboards. Amphlett revealed on 7 December 2007 that she had multiple sclerosis in an interview with Richard Wilkins on Network Nine's A Current Affair—nevertheless, she was looking forward to touring with Divinyls. The next day, Divinyls headlined the Homebake music festival where Amphlett displayed an emotional fragility when attempting to get the crowd to sing along with her. In August 2009, Amphlett announced that Divinyls were finished and she had a new band in New York.
2013–present: Death of Amphlett, McLean and abortive reformation
Aged 53 years, Amphlett died on 21 April 2013 at her home in New York City after a protracted battle with breast cancer since 2010. Amphlett stated that she had been unable to receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy as treatment for the cancer due to her multiple sclerosis. Amphlett's cousin Patricia Thompson announced the news in an official public statement: "Our beloved Chrissy peacefully made her transition this morning. Christine Joy Amphlett succumbed to the effects of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, diseases she vigorously fought with exceptional bravery and dignity." In 2014, some of Australia's leading female artists came together to cover "I Touch Myself" to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
In 2017, the band performed a one-off show in Perth with The Preatures' Isabella Manfredi and Jack Moffit joining as guests on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, respectively. McEntee, Grossman and Harvey completed the line-up.
In December 2018, McEntee announced he would be reforming the group with new singer Lauren Ruth Ward, ex-Divinyls guitarist Frank Infante and a new rhythm section for an Australian tour, to begin in 2019. However, this announcement was criticised by Drayton and several fans as an "ultimate disrespect", with Drayton stating that anyone other than Amphlett who fronted the Divinyls should "seek some trustworthy advice". On 6 February 2019, the Australian tour was cancelled.
In early January 2021, former band drummer Warren McLean died.
Band members
Former members
Chrissy Amphlett — lead vocals (1980–1996, 2006–2009; died 2013)
Mark McEntee — guitar, occasional keyboards (1980–1996, 2006–2009)
Charlie Owen — guitar (2006–2009; touring member in 1991)
Jeremy Paul – bass (1980–1982)
Rick Grossman — bass (1982–1987)
Tim Millikan – bass (1988–1989)
Randy Jackson — bass (1990–1991)
Jerome Smith – bass (1991–1996, 2006–2009)
Richard Harvey – drums (1980—1985)
J. J. Harris — drums (1985–1986)
Tommy "Mugs" Cain — drums (1987)
Warren McLean – drums (1988; died 2021)
Tim Powles – drums (1989)
Charley Drayton — drums (1990–1996, 2006–2009)
Bjarne Ohlin – keyboards (1980–1986)
Kenny Lyon — keyboards (1987)
Roger Mason – keyboards (1988–1990)
Benmont Tench — keyboards (1990–1991)
Clayton Doley — keyboards (2006–2009)
Touring/substitute musicians
Ken Firth — bass guitar (1982)
Matthew Hughes – keyboards, bass guitar (1987–1988)
Frank Infante — guitar (1987)
Jim Hilbun – bass (1991)
Lee Borkman – keyboards, guitar (1991)
Mark Meyer – drums (1991)
Duane Jarvis – guitar (1988)
Randy Wiggins – guitar (1993–1995)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums:
1983: Desperate
1985: What a Life!
1988: Temperamental
1991: Divinyls
1996: Underworld
Awards and nominations
ARIA Music Awards
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. Divinyls were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.
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| 1991
| "I Touch Myself"
| Single of the Year
|
|-
| 2006
| Divinyls
| ARIA Hall of Fame
|
Countdown Australian Music Awards
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974–1987, it presented music awards from 1979–1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week. The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards.
|-
| rowspan="3" |1981
| rowspan="2" | "Boys in Town"
| Best Australian Single
|
|-
| Best Debut Single
|
|-
| Themselves
| Best New Talent
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|-
| rowspan="2" | 1982
| Monkey Grip
| Best Debut Album
|
|-
| Chrissy Amphlett (Divinyls)
| Most Popular Female
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|-
|1983
| Desperate
| Best Australian Album
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|-
| 1984
| Christina Amphlett - "In My Life" (Divinyls)
| Best Female Performance in a Video
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|-
MTV Video Music Awards
Originally beginning as an alternative to the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards were established in the end of the summer of 1984 by MTV to celebrate the top music videos of the year.
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=3|1991
| rowspan=3|"I Touch Myself"
| Video of the Year
|
| rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Group Video
|
|-
| Viewer's Choice
|
See also
Tony Mott
References
Further reading
Amphlett, Christina; Larry Writer, (November 2005). Pleasure and Pain: My Life. Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia. .
Stieven-Taylor, Alison, (15 October 2007). Rock chicks : the hottest female rockers from the 1960s to now. Sydney : Rockpool Publishing. .
External links
Official MySpace page
1980 establishments in Australia
2009 disestablishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Australian new wave musical groups
Australian rock music groups
ARIA Award winners
Chrysalis Records artists
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Musical groups disestablished in 2009
Musical groups from Sydney
New South Wales musical groups
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
Pub rock musical groups
Female-fronted musical groups
| true |
[
"Peter Albert Neil Perrett (born 8 April 1952) is an English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. He is the singer, rhythm guitarist and principal songwriter for the rock band the Only Ones.\n\nPrior to forming the Only Ones, who were initially active between 1976 and 1982, Perrett formed England's Glory whose recordings were finally released in 1987. Following the break-up of the Only Ones, Perrett retreated from public life before forming the One in 1994. The Only Ones reformed in 2007, and Perrett released a solo album, How the West Was Won, in 2017. Humanworld, his second solo album was released on 7 June 2019.\n\nEarly years\nPeter Albert Neil Perrett was born on 8 April 1952 in Camberwell, south London, Perrett's father was first a police officer in post-war Palestine and then a builder, and his mother was an Austrian Jew. Perrett boarded at Bancroft's School, from where he was expelled at the age of 15 for rebellious behaviour. He was again expelled from his next school, Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College, at age 16. He left home after that and learned how to support himself within the London drug scene.\n\nPrior to forming the Only Ones, Perrett had recorded material with England's Glory in 1973. At that time, his singing style was so similar to Lou Reed's that it nearly led NME journalist Nick Kent to believe that he was listening to unreleased Velvet Underground material. Although the band did not officially release any material at the time, an album of demos was released in 1987 due to interest in Perrett's next band, the Only Ones.\n\nCareer\nPerrett formed the Only Ones in 1976 with his wife Zena as manager. After self-releasing their debut single \"Lovers of Today\", the band signed a recording contract with CBS Records and released three studio albums: The Only Ones (1978), Even Serpents Shine (1979), and Baby's Got a Gun (1980), before breaking-up in 1982.\n\nPerrett re-emerged in 1994 with a new band called the One. The band released their debut EP Cultured Palate via their manager's record label Dwarf Records, before signing to Demon Records and releasing their debut album Woke up Sticky in 1996. The band split up that same year, with Perrett disappearing again until April 2004 when he made an appearance on stage with the Libertines. He also appeared on stage with his sons Jamie and Peter Jr.'s band Love Minus Zero. Long hiatuses in his music career have been ascribed to his enduring struggles with heroin and crack cocaine addictions.\n\nThe Only Ones reunited in 2007, following the use of \"Another Girl, Another Planet\" in a Vodafone advertising campaign and a subsequent request to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Minehead. The band first played a brief UK tour in April and June of that year, and then continued performing as far afield as Japan through 2009. Despite reports that the band was working on a new album and performing new songs live, including \"Dreamt She Could Fly\" and \"Black Operations\" (which the band played on Later... with Jools Holland), the band went on hiatus again without releasing any new material.\n\nAfter the Only Ones performed in Japan in 2014 without their drummer Mike Kellie, a press release announced that Perrett would play a one-off solo date at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire in January 2015. Perrett played the gig to good reviews with his two sons performing as the backing band.\n\nIn April 2017, Perrett announced his debut solo album, How the West Was Won, which was released on 30 June by the Domino label. Also on Domino, a second solo album was released on 7 June 2019, titled Humanworld. The album was preceded by two official videos, \"Once is Enough\" and \"I Want Your Dreams\" in April 2019 and an audio only track titled, \"Heavenly Day\" in May the same year.\n\nThe release of Humanworld was accompanied by a UK tour, which included a reunion of the three remaining members of The Only Ones when Perrett appeared at Somers Town Festival in July 2019.\n\nPersonal life\nAt age 16, Perrett ran away with his girlfriend, Xenoulla \"Zena\" Kakoulli. They married in 1970. Zena is a clothing designer and was the manager of The Only Ones from 1977–1981. Both suffer from COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) as a result of drug abuse.\n\nPerrett now lives in North London.\n\nDiscography\nSolo\n How the West Was Won (2017)\n Humanworld (2019)\n\nThe Only Ones\n\n The Only Ones (1978)\n Even Serpents Shine (1979)\n Baby's Got a Gun (1980)\n\nThe One\n Woke Up Sticky (1996)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nPeter Perrett Official Website\nThe Only Ones Official Website\n\n1952 births\nLiving people\nEnglish male singers\nEnglish male singer-songwriters\nEnglish rock guitarists\nPeople from Camberwell\nThe Only Ones members\nSingers from London\nMusicians from London\nBritish alternative rock musicians\nEnglish punk rock singers\nEnglish punk rock guitarists\nEnglish new wave musicians\nMale new wave singers\nPeople educated at Bancroft's School\nEnglish male guitarists",
"The Only Ones were an English rock band formed in London in 1976, whose original band members are Peter Perrett, Alan Mair, John Perry and Mike Kellie, they first disbanded in 1982. They were associated with punk rock, yet straddled the musical territory in between punk, power pop and hard rock, with noticeable influences from psychedelia.\n\nThe Only Ones reformed in 2007 after their biggest hit \"Another Girl, Another Planet\" experienced a resurgence of public interest. The band completed a comeback UK tour in June 2007, and continued touring throughout 2008 and 2009. New material was recorded in 2009 and played live, but was never released.\n\nHistory\nThe Only Ones were originally formed in August 1976 in South London by Peter Perrett. Perrett had been recording demos since 1972, and in late 1975 he was looking for a bass player. He was introduced to John Perry as a possible candidate, but Perry wanted to concentrate on playing guitar instead. By August 1976, Perry and Perrett had found drummer Mike Kellie (ex-Spooky Tooth) and bass guitarist Alan Mair, who previously had huge success with the Scottish band The Beatstalkers. Their first single, \"Lovers of Today\", self-released on the Vengeance record label, was immediately made \"record of the week\" by three of the four main music papers. A year later they signed to CBS. Their next single \"Another Girl, Another Planet\" became a popular and influential song, and remains the band's best-known song. It is often featured on various musical box-sets featuring a punk rock or new wave theme. After its inclusion on the 1991 compilation album The Sound of the Suburbs, it was re-released as a single and reached no. 57 in the UK singles chart.\n\nThe band released their debut studio album The Only Ones in 1978, which was well received by both reviewers and fans. The band's follow-up album, Even Serpents Shine, was released the following year. A year later, they released their final studio album, Baby's Got a Gun. In the summer of 1980, they supported the Who on their tour of the United States, and in 1982 the band officially disbanded. In subsequent years, the Only Ones retained a following and their posthumously released records – live performances, BBC Television and radio shows, and compilation albums – now outnumber their studio albums. Unusually, The Only Ones' discs were never deleted from the CBS catalogue and remain in-print.\n\nReunions\nIn an interview published in the 10 November 2006 issue of the tabloid newspaper, The Daily Record, Alan Mair commented that he was set to reform The Only Ones after \"Another Girl, Another Planet\" was used in a Vodafone ad campaign in 2006, and picked up as the introduction theme to Irish DJ Dave Fanning's radio show. On 21 February 2007, Perry confirmed via his MySpace page that the band would reform for a five-date UK tour in June. Besides these dates, they played a number of festivals, debuting at All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Minehead, England, on 27 April. During the summer, they also played at the two-part Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, London, Harewood House, (near Leeds), and the Connect Music Festival at Inveraray Castle in Scotland on 1 September.\n\nNews of the tour prompted coverage in several UK national newspapers and the dates were met with positive reviews. During these gigs, the band played a new song called \"Dreamt She Could Fly\".\n\nThe press also reported that three of the band were keen to record a new studio album following the tour, but that Perrett seemed hesitant. In April 2008, the band were seen on Later... with Jools Holland performing their song, \"Another Girl, Another Planet\", and a new song entitled \"Black Operations\". The band also played other new songs including \"Is This How Much You Care\" and \"Magic Tablet\" live on a Canal+ TV special in Paris and an acoustic/unplugged session for Radio 6 Queens of Noize. A live DVD of the Shepherd's Bush Empire show was released in March 2008. Other rumoured releases included DVDs from a show on the band's last US tour, and a re-release of Faster Than Lightning, which was released on VHS in 1991 and on DVD in 2012.\n\nAll three CBS studio albums, remastered by Alan Mair, were re-released with bonus tracks in February 2009. \"Another Girl, Another Planet\" was used in the film D.E.B.S. (2004), as well as in the 2010 hit film Paul. Sony BMG announced a January 2012 release date for an Only Ones box set in the \"Original Album Classics\" series. The set comprised the three remastered studio albums, plus various B-sides and out-takes. The Only Ones topped the bill at the 2012 Rebellion Festival in Blackpool on 4 August of that year.\n\nIn late 2014, the Only Ones (minus Mike Kellie) played some gigs in Tokyo, co-headlining with the Flamin' Groovies. In August 2014, Perrett began playing solo shows (Felipop festival, Spain) using his sons' band Strangefruit, followed by more dates in 2015 (Hebden Bridge, Bristol, London etc.) with the same formation. The band ceased activity after the death of drummer Mike Kellie, but Perrett, Mair and Perry reunited to play a three-song set in summer 2019\n\nInfluence\nThe band members' musical proficiency distinguished them from most of their peers. Their dominant drug-related lyrical themes on songs such as \"Another Girl, Another Planet,\" and \"The Big Sleep,\" also fit in with the Zeitgeist of the era on both sides of the Atlantic. Perrett and Kellie caught the eye of Johnny Thunders, founding member of the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers, and worked as sidemen on Thunders' solo debut album, So Alone, notably appearing together on the classic \"You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory\". However, drug addiction, particularly heroin use, derailed their career, and singer/guitarist/songwriter Perrett has only sporadically been heard from since the band split in 1982. He briefly resurfaced in the mid 1990s with the album, Woke Up Sticky, and released his debut solo album, How The West Was Won in 2017.\n\nLead guitarist Perry went on to play as a session guitarist for artists including The Sisters of Mercy, Evan Dando and Marianne Faithfull. More recently, he has written several well received music biographies on the Who's seminal hits compilation Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, the Rolling Stones' double album Exile on Main Street and in 2004, Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland. During 2005–2006, he played and recorded with singer-songwriter Freddie Stevenson.\n\nThe Only Ones have been influential on the indie rock and alternative rock scenes ever since their initial success, on bands such as The Replacements, Blur, Nirvana, and more recently The Libertines. Several bands have covered their song \"Another Girl, Another Planet\", including The Libertines (at London Forum with Perrett guesting), The Replacements and Blink 182. Their song \"The Whole of the Law\" was covered by Yo La Tengo on their album, Painful.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n The Only Ones (1978)\n Even Serpents Shine (1979)\n Baby's Got a Gun (1980)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nEnglish punk rock groups\nEnglish new wave musical groups\nMusical groups established in 1976\nMusical groups disestablished in 1982\n1976 establishments in England\n1982 disestablishments in England\nMusical groups from London\nEnglish power pop groups\nEnglish indie rock groups\nMusical groups reestablished in 2007\nColumbia Records artists\nEpic Records artists"
] |
[
"Divinyls",
"1990s: Divinyls duo",
"Who was in the band in the 90s?",
"The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999,",
"were they the only ones in the band?",
"Amphlett and McEntee"
] |
C_4c40c51419fe4098bbac6c4c80e21438_0
|
How many albums were released in the 90s?
| 3 |
How many albums did the Divinyls release in the 90's?
|
Divinyls
|
In 1991 Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the US and No. 10 in the UK. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects. A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993). The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers. This song is also mentioned in The Guide to Getting it On by Paul Joannides. It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US. As with What A Life! they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls. CANNOTANSWER
|
It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG.
|
Divinyls () were an Australian rock band that were formed in Sydney in 1980. The band primarily consisted of vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. Amphlett garnered widespread attention for performing on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience.
Originally a five-piece, the band underwent numerous line-up changes, with Amphlett and McEntee remaining as core members, before its dissolution in 1996.
In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations, named "Science Fiction" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time. The band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006 and in late 2007 Amphlett and McEntee reconvened to record a new single and begin working on a new album. The band played a short series of live gigs in Australia in late 2007 and early 2008. Divinyls broke up in 2009 and Amphlett died in 2013.
Divinyls released five studio albums—four placed in the Top 10 Australian chart, while one (Divinyls) reached No. 15 in the United States (US) and No. 33 for 3 weeks in Canada. Their biggest-selling single "I Touch Myself" (1990) achieved a No. 1 ranking in Australia, No. 4 in the United States, No. 10 in the United Kingdom (UK), and No. 13 in Canada.
Career
1980s: Formation, Desperate, What a Life! & Temperamental
Amphlett was the cousin of 1960s Australian pop icon Patricia "Little Pattie" Amphlett, who had been married to Keith Jacobsen—younger brother of pioneer rocker Col Joye and leading promoter Kevin Jacobsen. In her autobiography Pleasure and Pain (2005), Amphlett described breaking into the music scene from the age of fourteen, being arrested for busking when seventeen and travelling in Spain, and how her performances drew upon childhood pain.
Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee were introduced by Jeremy Paul (ex-Air Supply) in the car park of a small music venue in Collaroy, Sydney, after Amphlett and Paul had finished a gig with their then band, Batonrouge. Amphlett and McEntee met again at the Sydney Opera House where Amphlett and Paul were singing in a choral concert in 1980. They recruited keyboardist Bjarne Ohlin later in 1980 and drummer Richard Harvey in 1981, respectively, and for almost two years they performed in pubs and clubs in Sydney's Kings Cross. During this time, Paul negotiated publishing and recording agreements that led to the band signing with WEA. Australian film director Ken Cameron saw Divinyls performing in a club. This led to them providing the soundtrack for his 1982 film Monkey Grip and also gave Amphlett, Paul and McEntee supporting roles in the movie. The group released two singles from the soundtrack, Music from Monkey Grip EP, "Boys in Town", which reached No. 8 on the national singles chart, and "Only Lonely". The band was the opening act at the 1983 US Festival.
After the band's initial success, original manager and bassist Jeremy Paul left. He was replaced on bass, briefly by Ken Firth (ex-The Ferrets) and more permanently by Rick Grossman (ex-Matt Finish). Grossman left in 1987 to replace Clyde Bramley in Hoodoo Gurus. By early 1988, Divinyls consisted of Amphlett and McEntee with augmentation by additional musicians when recording or touring.
Over the decade Divinyls released four albums, Music from Monkey Grip EP on WEA in 1982, Desperate on Chrysalis Records in 1983, What a Life! in 1985 and Temperamental in 1988. The latter two albums were also released by Chrysalis in the United States. They had hit singles in Australia with, "Science Fiction" No. 13 in 1983, "Good Die Young" No. 32 in 1984 and "Pleasure and Pain" which was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman and went No. 11 in 1985. Their later manager Vince Lovegrove organised Divinyls' transfer from WEA to Chrysalis and their first tours of the United States. They established a fan base there, without achieving major commercial success. Divinyls also had Australian hits with cover versions of The Easybeats' "I'll Make You Happy", and Syndicate of Sound's "Hey Little Boy" ("Hey Little Girl" with the gender switched) which reached No. 25 in 1988. Amphlett became a controversial and highly visible celebrity for her brash, overtly sexual persona and subversive humour in lyrics, performances and media interviews.
Image transformation
At the start of their popularity, Divinyls were considered to be a hard rock band. At some point, many fans referred to Amphlett as the female Angus Young, as both had similar mannerisms on stage and wore black-and-white school uniforms while performing in the early 1980s. The band's image gradually changed after the release of the album What a Life! when the band began wearing elaborate clothing and producing more songs in the pop music genre. By the time of the release of their album Temperamental, Divinyls' image had changed to a glamour fashion style where they produced modern pop music.
1990s: diVINYLS & Underworld
In 1991, Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the United States and No. 10 in the United Kingdom. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects.
A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s, they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993).
The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers.
It wasn't until 1996 that their fifth studio album, Underworld, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS, Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the United States. As with What a Life!, they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls.
1998–2005: After the separation
Following Underworld, Amphlett pursued a stage career. In 1998, she played the role of Judy Garland in the Australian stage production of the life story of entertainer Peter Allen, titled The Boy from Oz. The production was a success and Amphlett's interpretation of Garland, during her final troubled years, brought her critical acclaim: she was nominated for the Helpmann Award for 'Best Female Actor in a Musical'.
Amphlett and McEntee concentrated on solo projects and collaborations with other artists. Amphlett and Drayton lived in New York City from 2000, while McEntee ran a clothing label, Wheels and Doll Baby, in Perth with his partner, Melanie Greensmith. In November 2005 Amphlett published her autobiography Pleasure and Pain: My Life co-written with Larry Writer; she detailed her achievements, drug and alcohol abuse, love affairs and triumphs while a member of Divinyls.
2006–2012: Hall of Fame and reformation
On 16 August 2006, Divinyls were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and made their first performance for 10 years at the award ceremony. They reformed shortly afterwards and a compilation, Greatest Hits, was released by EMI Music Australia in August 2006. The band recorded four new songs via a satellite link: Amphlett and Drayton at Palm Studios in Las Vegas and McEntee in Perth. A single and B-side, "Don't Wanna Do This"/"Asphyxiated", was released in November 2007, with a third track, "All Pretty Things", released on a compilation album for the Homebake Festival. Amphlett stated that the band would return to the studio to record a full album provided they "survived" their Homebake headline gig and national tour.
They performed during the Australian Idol grand final at the Sydney Opera House, on 25 November 2007, although their performance of "Boys in Town" (also performed by Idol winner Natalie Gauci) had to be repeated after Network Ten's transmission feed was interrupted. A national tour of Australia followed in December 2007 with a touring band featuring Drayton on drums, Jerome Smith on bass, Charlie Owen on guitar and newest member Clayton Doley on keyboards. Amphlett revealed on 7 December 2007 that she had multiple sclerosis in an interview with Richard Wilkins on Network Nine's A Current Affair—nevertheless, she was looking forward to touring with Divinyls. The next day, Divinyls headlined the Homebake music festival where Amphlett displayed an emotional fragility when attempting to get the crowd to sing along with her. In August 2009, Amphlett announced that Divinyls were finished and she had a new band in New York.
2013–present: Death of Amphlett, McLean and abortive reformation
Aged 53 years, Amphlett died on 21 April 2013 at her home in New York City after a protracted battle with breast cancer since 2010. Amphlett stated that she had been unable to receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy as treatment for the cancer due to her multiple sclerosis. Amphlett's cousin Patricia Thompson announced the news in an official public statement: "Our beloved Chrissy peacefully made her transition this morning. Christine Joy Amphlett succumbed to the effects of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, diseases she vigorously fought with exceptional bravery and dignity." In 2014, some of Australia's leading female artists came together to cover "I Touch Myself" to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
In 2017, the band performed a one-off show in Perth with The Preatures' Isabella Manfredi and Jack Moffit joining as guests on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, respectively. McEntee, Grossman and Harvey completed the line-up.
In December 2018, McEntee announced he would be reforming the group with new singer Lauren Ruth Ward, ex-Divinyls guitarist Frank Infante and a new rhythm section for an Australian tour, to begin in 2019. However, this announcement was criticised by Drayton and several fans as an "ultimate disrespect", with Drayton stating that anyone other than Amphlett who fronted the Divinyls should "seek some trustworthy advice". On 6 February 2019, the Australian tour was cancelled.
In early January 2021, former band drummer Warren McLean died.
Band members
Former members
Chrissy Amphlett — lead vocals (1980–1996, 2006–2009; died 2013)
Mark McEntee — guitar, occasional keyboards (1980–1996, 2006–2009)
Charlie Owen — guitar (2006–2009; touring member in 1991)
Jeremy Paul – bass (1980–1982)
Rick Grossman — bass (1982–1987)
Tim Millikan – bass (1988–1989)
Randy Jackson — bass (1990–1991)
Jerome Smith – bass (1991–1996, 2006–2009)
Richard Harvey – drums (1980—1985)
J. J. Harris — drums (1985–1986)
Tommy "Mugs" Cain — drums (1987)
Warren McLean – drums (1988; died 2021)
Tim Powles – drums (1989)
Charley Drayton — drums (1990–1996, 2006–2009)
Bjarne Ohlin – keyboards (1980–1986)
Kenny Lyon — keyboards (1987)
Roger Mason – keyboards (1988–1990)
Benmont Tench — keyboards (1990–1991)
Clayton Doley — keyboards (2006–2009)
Touring/substitute musicians
Ken Firth — bass guitar (1982)
Matthew Hughes – keyboards, bass guitar (1987–1988)
Frank Infante — guitar (1987)
Jim Hilbun – bass (1991)
Lee Borkman – keyboards, guitar (1991)
Mark Meyer – drums (1991)
Duane Jarvis – guitar (1988)
Randy Wiggins – guitar (1993–1995)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums:
1983: Desperate
1985: What a Life!
1988: Temperamental
1991: Divinyls
1996: Underworld
Awards and nominations
ARIA Music Awards
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. Divinyls were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.
|-
| 1991
| "I Touch Myself"
| Single of the Year
|
|-
| 2006
| Divinyls
| ARIA Hall of Fame
|
Countdown Australian Music Awards
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974–1987, it presented music awards from 1979–1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week. The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards.
|-
| rowspan="3" |1981
| rowspan="2" | "Boys in Town"
| Best Australian Single
|
|-
| Best Debut Single
|
|-
| Themselves
| Best New Talent
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1982
| Monkey Grip
| Best Debut Album
|
|-
| Chrissy Amphlett (Divinyls)
| Most Popular Female
|
|-
|1983
| Desperate
| Best Australian Album
|
|-
| 1984
| Christina Amphlett - "In My Life" (Divinyls)
| Best Female Performance in a Video
|
|-
MTV Video Music Awards
Originally beginning as an alternative to the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards were established in the end of the summer of 1984 by MTV to celebrate the top music videos of the year.
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=3|1991
| rowspan=3|"I Touch Myself"
| Video of the Year
|
| rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Group Video
|
|-
| Viewer's Choice
|
See also
Tony Mott
References
Further reading
Amphlett, Christina; Larry Writer, (November 2005). Pleasure and Pain: My Life. Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia. .
Stieven-Taylor, Alison, (15 October 2007). Rock chicks : the hottest female rockers from the 1960s to now. Sydney : Rockpool Publishing. .
External links
Official MySpace page
1980 establishments in Australia
2009 disestablishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Australian new wave musical groups
Australian rock music groups
ARIA Award winners
Chrysalis Records artists
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Musical groups disestablished in 2009
Musical groups from Sydney
New South Wales musical groups
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
Pub rock musical groups
Female-fronted musical groups
| false |
[
"Moanin' in the Moonlight is the first album by American blues artist Howlin' Wolf, released by Chess Records in 1959. It contains songs previously issued as singles, including one of his best-known, \"Smokestack Lightning\". Rolling Stone ranked it number 477 on its 2020 list of \"the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time\".\n\nRecording and production \nThe two earliest songs on Moanin' in the Moonlight were \"Moanin' at Midnight\" and \"How Many More Years\". These two songs and 'All Night Boogie', were recorded in Memphis, the first two at Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service in Memphis, Tennessee in July 1951, and, 'All Night Boogie', the last track on side one, in Memphis in 1953. These songs were sold to the Chess brothers, Leonard and Phil, who released them on two singles (Chess 1479 and Chess 1557), the first two titles being released on August 15, 1951. The rest of the songs on the album were recorded in Chicago, Illinois and were produced by either the Chess brothers and/or Willie Dixon.\n\nArtwork, packaging, and promotion \nThe original version of Moanin' in the Moonlight featured cover artwork by Don S. Bronstein and sleeve notes by Billboard editor Paul Ackerman. The label pressings from the original series have different colors on it because several pressing plants were used.\n\nThe album was featured on an advertisement in Billboard magazine on August 10, 1959, which misprinted the album's title as Howlin' at Midnite.\n\nAccolades \nIn 1987 Moanin' in the Moonlight was given a W.C. Handy Award in the \"Vintage/Reissue Album (US)\" category. Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album number 477 on its 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Robert Palmer has cited \"How Many More Years\" (recorded May 1951) as the first record to feature a distorted power chord, played by Willie Johnson on the electric guitar.\n\nTrack listing \n\nAll songs written by Chester Burnett, except when noted. (Although the original 1959 LP, and the UK Chess 1965 issue credited all compositions to 'C. Burnett' [Howlin' Wolf].)\n\nSide one\n \"Moanin' at Midnight\" – 2:58\n \"How Many More Years\" – 2:42\n \"Smokestack Lightnin'\" – 3:07\n \"Baby How Long\" – 2:56\n \"No Place to Go\" – 2:59\n \"All Night Boogie\" – 2:12\n\nSide two\n \"Evil\" – 2:55 (Willie Dixon)\n \"I'm Leavin' You\" – 3:01\n \"Moanin' for My Baby\" – 2:47\n \"I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)\" – 2:53\n \"Forty-Four\" – 2:51 (Roosevelt Sykes, credited to Burnett)\n \"Somebody in My Home\" – 2:27\n\nPersonnel \nThe following people contributed to Moanin' in the Moonlight:\n Howlin' Wolfvocals, harmonica\n Willie Johnsonguitar\n Willie Steeledrums\n Ike Turnerpiano on \"Moanin' at Midnight\" and \"How Many More Years\"\n Hubert Sumlin – guitar\n Hosea Lee Kennard – piano\n Willie Dixon – double bass, producer\n Earl Phillips – drums\n Jody Williams – guitar\n Otis Spann – piano\n Lee Cooper – guitar on \"No Place to Go\"\n Fred Below – drums on \"All Night Boogie\"\n S. P. Leary – drums on \"I'm leaving You\"\n Adolph \"Billy\" Dockins – tenor saxophone on \"Moanin' for My Baby\"\n Otis \"Smokey\" Smothers – guitar on \"I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)\"\n Sam Phillips – producer on \"Moanin' at Midnight\" and \"How Many More Years\"\n Leonard Chess – producer\n Phil Chess – producer\n\nReferences \n\n1959 compilation albums\nChess Records compilation albums\nHowlin' Wolf albums\nAlbums produced by Leonard Chess\nAlbums produced by Phil Chess\nAlbums produced by Willie Dixon\nAlbums produced by Sam Phillips\nAlbums recorded at Sun Studio",
"Vitamin Enhanced is a 6-disc box set by English psychedelic rock band Ozric Tentacles. It compiles the band's six first recordings, originally released in the 1980s.\n\nThe first six albums were originally released on cassette, handmade by the band, and only sold at festivals and concerts. In 1993, the albums were transferred to CD, and the compiling box set was first released in November 1993 through the band's independent record label, Dovetail Records. The original pressing was limited to 5,000 copies. Not much later, the box set was withdrawn due to complaints from food company Kellogg’s, since they alleged the design of the box was too similar to their Corn Flakes one. It remains unknown how many box sets were sold before the withdrawal, but since then, the original 1994 box set has become a rare collectors' object.\n\nAll six albums were re-released as independent CD copies in 2000 by Snapper Music, going quickly out of print. In 2013, to celebrate the band's 30th anniversary, the original six albums were remastered for the reissue of the Vitamin Enhanced box set, released through Snapper Music in January 2014. In 2021, the six albums were once again remastered and released as a deluxe box set with a 48-page book.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCD 1: Erpsongs (1985)\n\nCD 2: Tantric Obstacles (1985)\n\nCD 3: Ethereal Cereal (1986)\n\nCD 4: There Is Nothing (1987)\n\nCD 5: Sliding Gliding Worlds (1988)\n\nCD 6: Bits Between the Bits (1989)\n\nReferences\n\n1994 compilation albums\nOzric Tentacles albums"
] |
[
"Divinyls",
"1990s: Divinyls duo",
"Who was in the band in the 90s?",
"The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999,",
"were they the only ones in the band?",
"Amphlett and McEntee",
"How many albums were released in the 90s?",
"It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG."
] |
C_4c40c51419fe4098bbac6c4c80e21438_0
|
Was there another after that?
| 4 |
Besides Underworld, was there another album released?
|
Divinyls
|
In 1991 Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the US and No. 10 in the UK. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects. A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993). The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers. This song is also mentioned in The Guide to Getting it On by Paul Joannides. It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US. As with What A Life! they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls. CANNOTANSWER
|
Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US.
|
Divinyls () were an Australian rock band that were formed in Sydney in 1980. The band primarily consisted of vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. Amphlett garnered widespread attention for performing on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience.
Originally a five-piece, the band underwent numerous line-up changes, with Amphlett and McEntee remaining as core members, before its dissolution in 1996.
In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations, named "Science Fiction" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time. The band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006 and in late 2007 Amphlett and McEntee reconvened to record a new single and begin working on a new album. The band played a short series of live gigs in Australia in late 2007 and early 2008. Divinyls broke up in 2009 and Amphlett died in 2013.
Divinyls released five studio albums—four placed in the Top 10 Australian chart, while one (Divinyls) reached No. 15 in the United States (US) and No. 33 for 3 weeks in Canada. Their biggest-selling single "I Touch Myself" (1990) achieved a No. 1 ranking in Australia, No. 4 in the United States, No. 10 in the United Kingdom (UK), and No. 13 in Canada.
Career
1980s: Formation, Desperate, What a Life! & Temperamental
Amphlett was the cousin of 1960s Australian pop icon Patricia "Little Pattie" Amphlett, who had been married to Keith Jacobsen—younger brother of pioneer rocker Col Joye and leading promoter Kevin Jacobsen. In her autobiography Pleasure and Pain (2005), Amphlett described breaking into the music scene from the age of fourteen, being arrested for busking when seventeen and travelling in Spain, and how her performances drew upon childhood pain.
Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee were introduced by Jeremy Paul (ex-Air Supply) in the car park of a small music venue in Collaroy, Sydney, after Amphlett and Paul had finished a gig with their then band, Batonrouge. Amphlett and McEntee met again at the Sydney Opera House where Amphlett and Paul were singing in a choral concert in 1980. They recruited keyboardist Bjarne Ohlin later in 1980 and drummer Richard Harvey in 1981, respectively, and for almost two years they performed in pubs and clubs in Sydney's Kings Cross. During this time, Paul negotiated publishing and recording agreements that led to the band signing with WEA. Australian film director Ken Cameron saw Divinyls performing in a club. This led to them providing the soundtrack for his 1982 film Monkey Grip and also gave Amphlett, Paul and McEntee supporting roles in the movie. The group released two singles from the soundtrack, Music from Monkey Grip EP, "Boys in Town", which reached No. 8 on the national singles chart, and "Only Lonely". The band was the opening act at the 1983 US Festival.
After the band's initial success, original manager and bassist Jeremy Paul left. He was replaced on bass, briefly by Ken Firth (ex-The Ferrets) and more permanently by Rick Grossman (ex-Matt Finish). Grossman left in 1987 to replace Clyde Bramley in Hoodoo Gurus. By early 1988, Divinyls consisted of Amphlett and McEntee with augmentation by additional musicians when recording or touring.
Over the decade Divinyls released four albums, Music from Monkey Grip EP on WEA in 1982, Desperate on Chrysalis Records in 1983, What a Life! in 1985 and Temperamental in 1988. The latter two albums were also released by Chrysalis in the United States. They had hit singles in Australia with, "Science Fiction" No. 13 in 1983, "Good Die Young" No. 32 in 1984 and "Pleasure and Pain" which was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman and went No. 11 in 1985. Their later manager Vince Lovegrove organised Divinyls' transfer from WEA to Chrysalis and their first tours of the United States. They established a fan base there, without achieving major commercial success. Divinyls also had Australian hits with cover versions of The Easybeats' "I'll Make You Happy", and Syndicate of Sound's "Hey Little Boy" ("Hey Little Girl" with the gender switched) which reached No. 25 in 1988. Amphlett became a controversial and highly visible celebrity for her brash, overtly sexual persona and subversive humour in lyrics, performances and media interviews.
Image transformation
At the start of their popularity, Divinyls were considered to be a hard rock band. At some point, many fans referred to Amphlett as the female Angus Young, as both had similar mannerisms on stage and wore black-and-white school uniforms while performing in the early 1980s. The band's image gradually changed after the release of the album What a Life! when the band began wearing elaborate clothing and producing more songs in the pop music genre. By the time of the release of their album Temperamental, Divinyls' image had changed to a glamour fashion style where they produced modern pop music.
1990s: diVINYLS & Underworld
In 1991, Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the United States and No. 10 in the United Kingdom. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects.
A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s, they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993).
The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers.
It wasn't until 1996 that their fifth studio album, Underworld, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS, Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the United States. As with What a Life!, they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls.
1998–2005: After the separation
Following Underworld, Amphlett pursued a stage career. In 1998, she played the role of Judy Garland in the Australian stage production of the life story of entertainer Peter Allen, titled The Boy from Oz. The production was a success and Amphlett's interpretation of Garland, during her final troubled years, brought her critical acclaim: she was nominated for the Helpmann Award for 'Best Female Actor in a Musical'.
Amphlett and McEntee concentrated on solo projects and collaborations with other artists. Amphlett and Drayton lived in New York City from 2000, while McEntee ran a clothing label, Wheels and Doll Baby, in Perth with his partner, Melanie Greensmith. In November 2005 Amphlett published her autobiography Pleasure and Pain: My Life co-written with Larry Writer; she detailed her achievements, drug and alcohol abuse, love affairs and triumphs while a member of Divinyls.
2006–2012: Hall of Fame and reformation
On 16 August 2006, Divinyls were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and made their first performance for 10 years at the award ceremony. They reformed shortly afterwards and a compilation, Greatest Hits, was released by EMI Music Australia in August 2006. The band recorded four new songs via a satellite link: Amphlett and Drayton at Palm Studios in Las Vegas and McEntee in Perth. A single and B-side, "Don't Wanna Do This"/"Asphyxiated", was released in November 2007, with a third track, "All Pretty Things", released on a compilation album for the Homebake Festival. Amphlett stated that the band would return to the studio to record a full album provided they "survived" their Homebake headline gig and national tour.
They performed during the Australian Idol grand final at the Sydney Opera House, on 25 November 2007, although their performance of "Boys in Town" (also performed by Idol winner Natalie Gauci) had to be repeated after Network Ten's transmission feed was interrupted. A national tour of Australia followed in December 2007 with a touring band featuring Drayton on drums, Jerome Smith on bass, Charlie Owen on guitar and newest member Clayton Doley on keyboards. Amphlett revealed on 7 December 2007 that she had multiple sclerosis in an interview with Richard Wilkins on Network Nine's A Current Affair—nevertheless, she was looking forward to touring with Divinyls. The next day, Divinyls headlined the Homebake music festival where Amphlett displayed an emotional fragility when attempting to get the crowd to sing along with her. In August 2009, Amphlett announced that Divinyls were finished and she had a new band in New York.
2013–present: Death of Amphlett, McLean and abortive reformation
Aged 53 years, Amphlett died on 21 April 2013 at her home in New York City after a protracted battle with breast cancer since 2010. Amphlett stated that she had been unable to receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy as treatment for the cancer due to her multiple sclerosis. Amphlett's cousin Patricia Thompson announced the news in an official public statement: "Our beloved Chrissy peacefully made her transition this morning. Christine Joy Amphlett succumbed to the effects of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, diseases she vigorously fought with exceptional bravery and dignity." In 2014, some of Australia's leading female artists came together to cover "I Touch Myself" to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
In 2017, the band performed a one-off show in Perth with The Preatures' Isabella Manfredi and Jack Moffit joining as guests on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, respectively. McEntee, Grossman and Harvey completed the line-up.
In December 2018, McEntee announced he would be reforming the group with new singer Lauren Ruth Ward, ex-Divinyls guitarist Frank Infante and a new rhythm section for an Australian tour, to begin in 2019. However, this announcement was criticised by Drayton and several fans as an "ultimate disrespect", with Drayton stating that anyone other than Amphlett who fronted the Divinyls should "seek some trustworthy advice". On 6 February 2019, the Australian tour was cancelled.
In early January 2021, former band drummer Warren McLean died.
Band members
Former members
Chrissy Amphlett — lead vocals (1980–1996, 2006–2009; died 2013)
Mark McEntee — guitar, occasional keyboards (1980–1996, 2006–2009)
Charlie Owen — guitar (2006–2009; touring member in 1991)
Jeremy Paul – bass (1980–1982)
Rick Grossman — bass (1982–1987)
Tim Millikan – bass (1988–1989)
Randy Jackson — bass (1990–1991)
Jerome Smith – bass (1991–1996, 2006–2009)
Richard Harvey – drums (1980—1985)
J. J. Harris — drums (1985–1986)
Tommy "Mugs" Cain — drums (1987)
Warren McLean – drums (1988; died 2021)
Tim Powles – drums (1989)
Charley Drayton — drums (1990–1996, 2006–2009)
Bjarne Ohlin – keyboards (1980–1986)
Kenny Lyon — keyboards (1987)
Roger Mason – keyboards (1988–1990)
Benmont Tench — keyboards (1990–1991)
Clayton Doley — keyboards (2006–2009)
Touring/substitute musicians
Ken Firth — bass guitar (1982)
Matthew Hughes – keyboards, bass guitar (1987–1988)
Frank Infante — guitar (1987)
Jim Hilbun – bass (1991)
Lee Borkman – keyboards, guitar (1991)
Mark Meyer – drums (1991)
Duane Jarvis – guitar (1988)
Randy Wiggins – guitar (1993–1995)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums:
1983: Desperate
1985: What a Life!
1988: Temperamental
1991: Divinyls
1996: Underworld
Awards and nominations
ARIA Music Awards
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. Divinyls were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.
|-
| 1991
| "I Touch Myself"
| Single of the Year
|
|-
| 2006
| Divinyls
| ARIA Hall of Fame
|
Countdown Australian Music Awards
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974–1987, it presented music awards from 1979–1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week. The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards.
|-
| rowspan="3" |1981
| rowspan="2" | "Boys in Town"
| Best Australian Single
|
|-
| Best Debut Single
|
|-
| Themselves
| Best New Talent
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1982
| Monkey Grip
| Best Debut Album
|
|-
| Chrissy Amphlett (Divinyls)
| Most Popular Female
|
|-
|1983
| Desperate
| Best Australian Album
|
|-
| 1984
| Christina Amphlett - "In My Life" (Divinyls)
| Best Female Performance in a Video
|
|-
MTV Video Music Awards
Originally beginning as an alternative to the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards were established in the end of the summer of 1984 by MTV to celebrate the top music videos of the year.
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=3|1991
| rowspan=3|"I Touch Myself"
| Video of the Year
|
| rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Group Video
|
|-
| Viewer's Choice
|
See also
Tony Mott
References
Further reading
Amphlett, Christina; Larry Writer, (November 2005). Pleasure and Pain: My Life. Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia. .
Stieven-Taylor, Alison, (15 October 2007). Rock chicks : the hottest female rockers from the 1960s to now. Sydney : Rockpool Publishing. .
External links
Official MySpace page
1980 establishments in Australia
2009 disestablishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Australian new wave musical groups
Australian rock music groups
ARIA Award winners
Chrysalis Records artists
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Musical groups disestablished in 2009
Musical groups from Sydney
New South Wales musical groups
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
Pub rock musical groups
Female-fronted musical groups
| false |
[
"Elizabeth Throckmorton whose religious name was Elizabeth Teresa Pulcheria (1694 – April 4, 1760) was an English prioress of the Convent of Our Blessed Lady of Syon in Paris\n\nLife\nThrockmorton was born in 1694. She was one of the eleven children of Lady Mary (born Yate) and Sir Robert Throckmorton (1662–1721), third baronet, of Coughton Court in Warwickshire.\n\nShe suffered from \"the King's Evil\" or scrofula (Mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis). This was believed to be treatable by touching the King. She chose to meet and touch the Old Pretender at St Germain en Laye in the hope of relief in 1704.\n\nIn 1708 she was sent to school at the Sion convent in Paris, but that was where most of her family were. Her six sisters were there, her aunt Anne Throckmorton was a nun, and there grandmother, another Anne Throckmorton, had taken rooms at the convent. She and her sister Catherine were \"clothed\" at the convent on 29 August 1713 and Elizaneth professed the following year. She was given an annuity by the Throckmorton family to become a nun. Her family's influence ensured that she did not have to carry out all of the tasks expected of a nun.\n\nShe was elected for the first time as prioress in 1736 and served for the usual eight year term. After that she served as procuratrix until 1752 when she was reelected. Her second term ended when she died on 4 April 1760 at the convent. She was buried in the nun's chapel there under a black marble cover.\n\nLegacy\nHer psalter is at Coughton Court and it includes annotations containing mnemonics. In 1729 her brother Sir Robert Throckmorton, 4th bart, commissioned four paintings from Nicolas de Largillière. One was of Elizabeth, another was of Anne Throckmorton, another of his cousin Frances Woollascot and the last was of himself. All the portraits would have been together, but Elizabeth's portrait is in the collection of the American National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.\n\nReferences\n\n1694 births\n1760 deaths\nNuns from Paris",
"Sun..! was the debut release from the British band Silver Sun. At the time of release Sun was also the name of the band, though after finding out there was a German band with the same name the band were forced to change their name.\n\nTrack listing\n\"There Will Never be Another Me\" – 2:23\n\"Thickshake\" – 3:06\n\"Captain\" – 2:28\n\"Top Trumps\" – 2:26\n\nSilver Sun albums\n1996 debut EPs"
] |
[
"Divinyls",
"1990s: Divinyls duo",
"Who was in the band in the 90s?",
"The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999,",
"were they the only ones in the band?",
"Amphlett and McEntee",
"How many albums were released in the 90s?",
"It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG.",
"Was there another after that?",
"Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US."
] |
C_4c40c51419fe4098bbac6c4c80e21438_0
|
Did they go on tour?
| 5 |
Did the Divinyls go on tour?
|
Divinyls
|
In 1991 Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the US and No. 10 in the UK. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects. A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993). The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers. This song is also mentioned in The Guide to Getting it On by Paul Joannides. It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US. As with What A Life! they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls. CANNOTANSWER
|
Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us"
|
Divinyls () were an Australian rock band that were formed in Sydney in 1980. The band primarily consisted of vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. Amphlett garnered widespread attention for performing on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience.
Originally a five-piece, the band underwent numerous line-up changes, with Amphlett and McEntee remaining as core members, before its dissolution in 1996.
In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations, named "Science Fiction" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time. The band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006 and in late 2007 Amphlett and McEntee reconvened to record a new single and begin working on a new album. The band played a short series of live gigs in Australia in late 2007 and early 2008. Divinyls broke up in 2009 and Amphlett died in 2013.
Divinyls released five studio albums—four placed in the Top 10 Australian chart, while one (Divinyls) reached No. 15 in the United States (US) and No. 33 for 3 weeks in Canada. Their biggest-selling single "I Touch Myself" (1990) achieved a No. 1 ranking in Australia, No. 4 in the United States, No. 10 in the United Kingdom (UK), and No. 13 in Canada.
Career
1980s: Formation, Desperate, What a Life! & Temperamental
Amphlett was the cousin of 1960s Australian pop icon Patricia "Little Pattie" Amphlett, who had been married to Keith Jacobsen—younger brother of pioneer rocker Col Joye and leading promoter Kevin Jacobsen. In her autobiography Pleasure and Pain (2005), Amphlett described breaking into the music scene from the age of fourteen, being arrested for busking when seventeen and travelling in Spain, and how her performances drew upon childhood pain.
Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee were introduced by Jeremy Paul (ex-Air Supply) in the car park of a small music venue in Collaroy, Sydney, after Amphlett and Paul had finished a gig with their then band, Batonrouge. Amphlett and McEntee met again at the Sydney Opera House where Amphlett and Paul were singing in a choral concert in 1980. They recruited keyboardist Bjarne Ohlin later in 1980 and drummer Richard Harvey in 1981, respectively, and for almost two years they performed in pubs and clubs in Sydney's Kings Cross. During this time, Paul negotiated publishing and recording agreements that led to the band signing with WEA. Australian film director Ken Cameron saw Divinyls performing in a club. This led to them providing the soundtrack for his 1982 film Monkey Grip and also gave Amphlett, Paul and McEntee supporting roles in the movie. The group released two singles from the soundtrack, Music from Monkey Grip EP, "Boys in Town", which reached No. 8 on the national singles chart, and "Only Lonely". The band was the opening act at the 1983 US Festival.
After the band's initial success, original manager and bassist Jeremy Paul left. He was replaced on bass, briefly by Ken Firth (ex-The Ferrets) and more permanently by Rick Grossman (ex-Matt Finish). Grossman left in 1987 to replace Clyde Bramley in Hoodoo Gurus. By early 1988, Divinyls consisted of Amphlett and McEntee with augmentation by additional musicians when recording or touring.
Over the decade Divinyls released four albums, Music from Monkey Grip EP on WEA in 1982, Desperate on Chrysalis Records in 1983, What a Life! in 1985 and Temperamental in 1988. The latter two albums were also released by Chrysalis in the United States. They had hit singles in Australia with, "Science Fiction" No. 13 in 1983, "Good Die Young" No. 32 in 1984 and "Pleasure and Pain" which was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman and went No. 11 in 1985. Their later manager Vince Lovegrove organised Divinyls' transfer from WEA to Chrysalis and their first tours of the United States. They established a fan base there, without achieving major commercial success. Divinyls also had Australian hits with cover versions of The Easybeats' "I'll Make You Happy", and Syndicate of Sound's "Hey Little Boy" ("Hey Little Girl" with the gender switched) which reached No. 25 in 1988. Amphlett became a controversial and highly visible celebrity for her brash, overtly sexual persona and subversive humour in lyrics, performances and media interviews.
Image transformation
At the start of their popularity, Divinyls were considered to be a hard rock band. At some point, many fans referred to Amphlett as the female Angus Young, as both had similar mannerisms on stage and wore black-and-white school uniforms while performing in the early 1980s. The band's image gradually changed after the release of the album What a Life! when the band began wearing elaborate clothing and producing more songs in the pop music genre. By the time of the release of their album Temperamental, Divinyls' image had changed to a glamour fashion style where they produced modern pop music.
1990s: diVINYLS & Underworld
In 1991, Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the United States and No. 10 in the United Kingdom. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects.
A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s, they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993).
The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers.
It wasn't until 1996 that their fifth studio album, Underworld, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS, Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the United States. As with What a Life!, they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls.
1998–2005: After the separation
Following Underworld, Amphlett pursued a stage career. In 1998, she played the role of Judy Garland in the Australian stage production of the life story of entertainer Peter Allen, titled The Boy from Oz. The production was a success and Amphlett's interpretation of Garland, during her final troubled years, brought her critical acclaim: she was nominated for the Helpmann Award for 'Best Female Actor in a Musical'.
Amphlett and McEntee concentrated on solo projects and collaborations with other artists. Amphlett and Drayton lived in New York City from 2000, while McEntee ran a clothing label, Wheels and Doll Baby, in Perth with his partner, Melanie Greensmith. In November 2005 Amphlett published her autobiography Pleasure and Pain: My Life co-written with Larry Writer; she detailed her achievements, drug and alcohol abuse, love affairs and triumphs while a member of Divinyls.
2006–2012: Hall of Fame and reformation
On 16 August 2006, Divinyls were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and made their first performance for 10 years at the award ceremony. They reformed shortly afterwards and a compilation, Greatest Hits, was released by EMI Music Australia in August 2006. The band recorded four new songs via a satellite link: Amphlett and Drayton at Palm Studios in Las Vegas and McEntee in Perth. A single and B-side, "Don't Wanna Do This"/"Asphyxiated", was released in November 2007, with a third track, "All Pretty Things", released on a compilation album for the Homebake Festival. Amphlett stated that the band would return to the studio to record a full album provided they "survived" their Homebake headline gig and national tour.
They performed during the Australian Idol grand final at the Sydney Opera House, on 25 November 2007, although their performance of "Boys in Town" (also performed by Idol winner Natalie Gauci) had to be repeated after Network Ten's transmission feed was interrupted. A national tour of Australia followed in December 2007 with a touring band featuring Drayton on drums, Jerome Smith on bass, Charlie Owen on guitar and newest member Clayton Doley on keyboards. Amphlett revealed on 7 December 2007 that she had multiple sclerosis in an interview with Richard Wilkins on Network Nine's A Current Affair—nevertheless, she was looking forward to touring with Divinyls. The next day, Divinyls headlined the Homebake music festival where Amphlett displayed an emotional fragility when attempting to get the crowd to sing along with her. In August 2009, Amphlett announced that Divinyls were finished and she had a new band in New York.
2013–present: Death of Amphlett, McLean and abortive reformation
Aged 53 years, Amphlett died on 21 April 2013 at her home in New York City after a protracted battle with breast cancer since 2010. Amphlett stated that she had been unable to receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy as treatment for the cancer due to her multiple sclerosis. Amphlett's cousin Patricia Thompson announced the news in an official public statement: "Our beloved Chrissy peacefully made her transition this morning. Christine Joy Amphlett succumbed to the effects of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, diseases she vigorously fought with exceptional bravery and dignity." In 2014, some of Australia's leading female artists came together to cover "I Touch Myself" to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
In 2017, the band performed a one-off show in Perth with The Preatures' Isabella Manfredi and Jack Moffit joining as guests on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, respectively. McEntee, Grossman and Harvey completed the line-up.
In December 2018, McEntee announced he would be reforming the group with new singer Lauren Ruth Ward, ex-Divinyls guitarist Frank Infante and a new rhythm section for an Australian tour, to begin in 2019. However, this announcement was criticised by Drayton and several fans as an "ultimate disrespect", with Drayton stating that anyone other than Amphlett who fronted the Divinyls should "seek some trustworthy advice". On 6 February 2019, the Australian tour was cancelled.
In early January 2021, former band drummer Warren McLean died.
Band members
Former members
Chrissy Amphlett — lead vocals (1980–1996, 2006–2009; died 2013)
Mark McEntee — guitar, occasional keyboards (1980–1996, 2006–2009)
Charlie Owen — guitar (2006–2009; touring member in 1991)
Jeremy Paul – bass (1980–1982)
Rick Grossman — bass (1982–1987)
Tim Millikan – bass (1988–1989)
Randy Jackson — bass (1990–1991)
Jerome Smith – bass (1991–1996, 2006–2009)
Richard Harvey – drums (1980—1985)
J. J. Harris — drums (1985–1986)
Tommy "Mugs" Cain — drums (1987)
Warren McLean – drums (1988; died 2021)
Tim Powles – drums (1989)
Charley Drayton — drums (1990–1996, 2006–2009)
Bjarne Ohlin – keyboards (1980–1986)
Kenny Lyon — keyboards (1987)
Roger Mason – keyboards (1988–1990)
Benmont Tench — keyboards (1990–1991)
Clayton Doley — keyboards (2006–2009)
Touring/substitute musicians
Ken Firth — bass guitar (1982)
Matthew Hughes – keyboards, bass guitar (1987–1988)
Frank Infante — guitar (1987)
Jim Hilbun – bass (1991)
Lee Borkman – keyboards, guitar (1991)
Mark Meyer – drums (1991)
Duane Jarvis – guitar (1988)
Randy Wiggins – guitar (1993–1995)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums:
1983: Desperate
1985: What a Life!
1988: Temperamental
1991: Divinyls
1996: Underworld
Awards and nominations
ARIA Music Awards
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. Divinyls were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.
|-
| 1991
| "I Touch Myself"
| Single of the Year
|
|-
| 2006
| Divinyls
| ARIA Hall of Fame
|
Countdown Australian Music Awards
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974–1987, it presented music awards from 1979–1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week. The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards.
|-
| rowspan="3" |1981
| rowspan="2" | "Boys in Town"
| Best Australian Single
|
|-
| Best Debut Single
|
|-
| Themselves
| Best New Talent
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1982
| Monkey Grip
| Best Debut Album
|
|-
| Chrissy Amphlett (Divinyls)
| Most Popular Female
|
|-
|1983
| Desperate
| Best Australian Album
|
|-
| 1984
| Christina Amphlett - "In My Life" (Divinyls)
| Best Female Performance in a Video
|
|-
MTV Video Music Awards
Originally beginning as an alternative to the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards were established in the end of the summer of 1984 by MTV to celebrate the top music videos of the year.
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=3|1991
| rowspan=3|"I Touch Myself"
| Video of the Year
|
| rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Group Video
|
|-
| Viewer's Choice
|
See also
Tony Mott
References
Further reading
Amphlett, Christina; Larry Writer, (November 2005). Pleasure and Pain: My Life. Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia. .
Stieven-Taylor, Alison, (15 October 2007). Rock chicks : the hottest female rockers from the 1960s to now. Sydney : Rockpool Publishing. .
External links
Official MySpace page
1980 establishments in Australia
2009 disestablishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Australian new wave musical groups
Australian rock music groups
ARIA Award winners
Chrysalis Records artists
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Musical groups disestablished in 2009
Musical groups from Sydney
New South Wales musical groups
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
Pub rock musical groups
Female-fronted musical groups
| true |
[
"Andrew Butterfield (born 7 January 1972) is an English professional golfer who plays on the Challenge Tour.\n\nCareer\nButterfield was born in London, England. He turned professional in 1993 and joined the Challenge Tour in 1996. He played on the Challenge Tour until qualifying for the European Tour through Q-School in 1999. Butterfield did not perform well enough on tour in 2000 to retain his card and had to go back to the Challenge Tour in 2001. He got his European Tour card back through Q-School again in 2001 and played on the European Tour in 2002 but did not find any success on tour. He returned to the Challenge Tour and played there until 2005 when he finished 4th on the Challenge Tour's Order of Merit which earned him his European Tour card for 2006. He did not play well enough in 2006 to retain his tour card but was able to get temporary status on tour for 2007 by finishing 129th on the Order of Merit. He played on the European Tour and the Challenge Tour in 2007 and has played only on the Challenge Tour since 2008. He picked up his first win on the Challenge Tour in Sweden at The Princess in June 2009. He also won an event on the PGA EuroPro Tour in 2004.\n\nProfessional wins (2)\n\nChallenge Tour wins (1)\n\nChallenge Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nPGA EuroPro Tour wins (1)\n2004 Matchroom Golf Management International at Owston Hall\n\nPlayoff record\nEuropean Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nResults in major championships\n\nNote: Butterfield only played in The Open Championship.\nCUT = missed the half-way cut\n\nSee also\n2005 Challenge Tour graduates\n2009 Challenge Tour graduates\n\nExternal links\n\nEnglish male golfers\nEuropean Tour golfers\nSportspeople from London\nPeople from the London Borough of Bromley\n1972 births\nLiving people",
"The Bob Dylan England Tour 1965 was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan during late April and early May 1965. The tour was widely documented by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, who used the footage of the tour in his documentary Dont Look Back.\n\nTour dates\n\nSet lists \nAs Dylan was still playing exclusively folk music live, much of the material performed during this tour was written pre-1965. Each show was divided into two halves, with seven songs performed during the first, and eight during the second. The set consisted of two songs from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, three from The Times They Are a-Changin', three from Another Side of Bob Dylan, a comic-relief concert staple; \"If You Gotta Go, Go Now\", issued as a single in Europe, and six songs off his then-recent album, Bringing It All Back Home, including the second side in its entirety.\n\n First half\n\"The Times They Are a-Changin'\"\n\"To Ramona\"\n\"Gates of Eden\"\n\"If You Gotta Go, Go Now (or Else You Got to Stay All Night)\"\n\"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)\"\n\"Love Minus Zero/No Limit\"\n\"Mr. Tambourine Man\"\n\nSecond Half\n\"Talkin' World War III Blues\"\n\"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right\"\n\"With God on Our Side\"\n\"She Belongs to Me\"\n\"It Ain't Me Babe\"\n\"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll\"\n\"All I Really Want to Do\"\n\"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\"\n\nSet list per Olof Bjorner.\n\nAftermath \nJoan Baez accompanied him on the tour, but she was never invited to play with him in concert. In fact, they did not tour together again until 1975. After this tour, Dylan was hailed as a hero of folk music, but two months later, at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he would alienate his fans and go electric. Dylan was the only artist apart from the Beatles to sell out the De Montfort Hall in the 1960s. Even the Rolling Stones did not sell out this venue.\n\nReferences \n\nHoward Sounes: Down the Highway. The Life of Bob Dylan.. 2001.\n\nExternal links \n Bjorner's Still on the Road 1965: Tour dates & set lists\n\nBob Dylan concert tours\n1965 concert tours\nConcert tours of the United Kingdom\n1965 in England"
] |
[
"Divinyls",
"1990s: Divinyls duo",
"Who was in the band in the 90s?",
"The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999,",
"were they the only ones in the band?",
"Amphlett and McEntee",
"How many albums were released in the 90s?",
"It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG.",
"Was there another after that?",
"Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US.",
"Did they go on tour?",
"Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett \"he was a bit too 'pop' for us\""
] |
C_4c40c51419fe4098bbac6c4c80e21438_0
|
What type of music are they?
| 6 |
What type of music are the Divinyls?
|
Divinyls
|
In 1991 Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the US and No. 10 in the UK. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects. A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993). The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers. This song is also mentioned in The Guide to Getting it On by Paul Joannides. It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US. As with What A Life! they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls. CANNOTANSWER
|
In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore"
|
Divinyls () were an Australian rock band that were formed in Sydney in 1980. The band primarily consisted of vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. Amphlett garnered widespread attention for performing on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience.
Originally a five-piece, the band underwent numerous line-up changes, with Amphlett and McEntee remaining as core members, before its dissolution in 1996.
In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations, named "Science Fiction" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time. The band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006 and in late 2007 Amphlett and McEntee reconvened to record a new single and begin working on a new album. The band played a short series of live gigs in Australia in late 2007 and early 2008. Divinyls broke up in 2009 and Amphlett died in 2013.
Divinyls released five studio albums—four placed in the Top 10 Australian chart, while one (Divinyls) reached No. 15 in the United States (US) and No. 33 for 3 weeks in Canada. Their biggest-selling single "I Touch Myself" (1990) achieved a No. 1 ranking in Australia, No. 4 in the United States, No. 10 in the United Kingdom (UK), and No. 13 in Canada.
Career
1980s: Formation, Desperate, What a Life! & Temperamental
Amphlett was the cousin of 1960s Australian pop icon Patricia "Little Pattie" Amphlett, who had been married to Keith Jacobsen—younger brother of pioneer rocker Col Joye and leading promoter Kevin Jacobsen. In her autobiography Pleasure and Pain (2005), Amphlett described breaking into the music scene from the age of fourteen, being arrested for busking when seventeen and travelling in Spain, and how her performances drew upon childhood pain.
Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee were introduced by Jeremy Paul (ex-Air Supply) in the car park of a small music venue in Collaroy, Sydney, after Amphlett and Paul had finished a gig with their then band, Batonrouge. Amphlett and McEntee met again at the Sydney Opera House where Amphlett and Paul were singing in a choral concert in 1980. They recruited keyboardist Bjarne Ohlin later in 1980 and drummer Richard Harvey in 1981, respectively, and for almost two years they performed in pubs and clubs in Sydney's Kings Cross. During this time, Paul negotiated publishing and recording agreements that led to the band signing with WEA. Australian film director Ken Cameron saw Divinyls performing in a club. This led to them providing the soundtrack for his 1982 film Monkey Grip and also gave Amphlett, Paul and McEntee supporting roles in the movie. The group released two singles from the soundtrack, Music from Monkey Grip EP, "Boys in Town", which reached No. 8 on the national singles chart, and "Only Lonely". The band was the opening act at the 1983 US Festival.
After the band's initial success, original manager and bassist Jeremy Paul left. He was replaced on bass, briefly by Ken Firth (ex-The Ferrets) and more permanently by Rick Grossman (ex-Matt Finish). Grossman left in 1987 to replace Clyde Bramley in Hoodoo Gurus. By early 1988, Divinyls consisted of Amphlett and McEntee with augmentation by additional musicians when recording or touring.
Over the decade Divinyls released four albums, Music from Monkey Grip EP on WEA in 1982, Desperate on Chrysalis Records in 1983, What a Life! in 1985 and Temperamental in 1988. The latter two albums were also released by Chrysalis in the United States. They had hit singles in Australia with, "Science Fiction" No. 13 in 1983, "Good Die Young" No. 32 in 1984 and "Pleasure and Pain" which was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman and went No. 11 in 1985. Their later manager Vince Lovegrove organised Divinyls' transfer from WEA to Chrysalis and their first tours of the United States. They established a fan base there, without achieving major commercial success. Divinyls also had Australian hits with cover versions of The Easybeats' "I'll Make You Happy", and Syndicate of Sound's "Hey Little Boy" ("Hey Little Girl" with the gender switched) which reached No. 25 in 1988. Amphlett became a controversial and highly visible celebrity for her brash, overtly sexual persona and subversive humour in lyrics, performances and media interviews.
Image transformation
At the start of their popularity, Divinyls were considered to be a hard rock band. At some point, many fans referred to Amphlett as the female Angus Young, as both had similar mannerisms on stage and wore black-and-white school uniforms while performing in the early 1980s. The band's image gradually changed after the release of the album What a Life! when the band began wearing elaborate clothing and producing more songs in the pop music genre. By the time of the release of their album Temperamental, Divinyls' image had changed to a glamour fashion style where they produced modern pop music.
1990s: diVINYLS & Underworld
In 1991, Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the United States and No. 10 in the United Kingdom. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects.
A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s, they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993).
The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers.
It wasn't until 1996 that their fifth studio album, Underworld, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS, Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the United States. As with What a Life!, they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls.
1998–2005: After the separation
Following Underworld, Amphlett pursued a stage career. In 1998, she played the role of Judy Garland in the Australian stage production of the life story of entertainer Peter Allen, titled The Boy from Oz. The production was a success and Amphlett's interpretation of Garland, during her final troubled years, brought her critical acclaim: she was nominated for the Helpmann Award for 'Best Female Actor in a Musical'.
Amphlett and McEntee concentrated on solo projects and collaborations with other artists. Amphlett and Drayton lived in New York City from 2000, while McEntee ran a clothing label, Wheels and Doll Baby, in Perth with his partner, Melanie Greensmith. In November 2005 Amphlett published her autobiography Pleasure and Pain: My Life co-written with Larry Writer; she detailed her achievements, drug and alcohol abuse, love affairs and triumphs while a member of Divinyls.
2006–2012: Hall of Fame and reformation
On 16 August 2006, Divinyls were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and made their first performance for 10 years at the award ceremony. They reformed shortly afterwards and a compilation, Greatest Hits, was released by EMI Music Australia in August 2006. The band recorded four new songs via a satellite link: Amphlett and Drayton at Palm Studios in Las Vegas and McEntee in Perth. A single and B-side, "Don't Wanna Do This"/"Asphyxiated", was released in November 2007, with a third track, "All Pretty Things", released on a compilation album for the Homebake Festival. Amphlett stated that the band would return to the studio to record a full album provided they "survived" their Homebake headline gig and national tour.
They performed during the Australian Idol grand final at the Sydney Opera House, on 25 November 2007, although their performance of "Boys in Town" (also performed by Idol winner Natalie Gauci) had to be repeated after Network Ten's transmission feed was interrupted. A national tour of Australia followed in December 2007 with a touring band featuring Drayton on drums, Jerome Smith on bass, Charlie Owen on guitar and newest member Clayton Doley on keyboards. Amphlett revealed on 7 December 2007 that she had multiple sclerosis in an interview with Richard Wilkins on Network Nine's A Current Affair—nevertheless, she was looking forward to touring with Divinyls. The next day, Divinyls headlined the Homebake music festival where Amphlett displayed an emotional fragility when attempting to get the crowd to sing along with her. In August 2009, Amphlett announced that Divinyls were finished and she had a new band in New York.
2013–present: Death of Amphlett, McLean and abortive reformation
Aged 53 years, Amphlett died on 21 April 2013 at her home in New York City after a protracted battle with breast cancer since 2010. Amphlett stated that she had been unable to receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy as treatment for the cancer due to her multiple sclerosis. Amphlett's cousin Patricia Thompson announced the news in an official public statement: "Our beloved Chrissy peacefully made her transition this morning. Christine Joy Amphlett succumbed to the effects of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, diseases she vigorously fought with exceptional bravery and dignity." In 2014, some of Australia's leading female artists came together to cover "I Touch Myself" to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
In 2017, the band performed a one-off show in Perth with The Preatures' Isabella Manfredi and Jack Moffit joining as guests on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, respectively. McEntee, Grossman and Harvey completed the line-up.
In December 2018, McEntee announced he would be reforming the group with new singer Lauren Ruth Ward, ex-Divinyls guitarist Frank Infante and a new rhythm section for an Australian tour, to begin in 2019. However, this announcement was criticised by Drayton and several fans as an "ultimate disrespect", with Drayton stating that anyone other than Amphlett who fronted the Divinyls should "seek some trustworthy advice". On 6 February 2019, the Australian tour was cancelled.
In early January 2021, former band drummer Warren McLean died.
Band members
Former members
Chrissy Amphlett — lead vocals (1980–1996, 2006–2009; died 2013)
Mark McEntee — guitar, occasional keyboards (1980–1996, 2006–2009)
Charlie Owen — guitar (2006–2009; touring member in 1991)
Jeremy Paul – bass (1980–1982)
Rick Grossman — bass (1982–1987)
Tim Millikan – bass (1988–1989)
Randy Jackson — bass (1990–1991)
Jerome Smith – bass (1991–1996, 2006–2009)
Richard Harvey – drums (1980—1985)
J. J. Harris — drums (1985–1986)
Tommy "Mugs" Cain — drums (1987)
Warren McLean – drums (1988; died 2021)
Tim Powles – drums (1989)
Charley Drayton — drums (1990–1996, 2006–2009)
Bjarne Ohlin – keyboards (1980–1986)
Kenny Lyon — keyboards (1987)
Roger Mason – keyboards (1988–1990)
Benmont Tench — keyboards (1990–1991)
Clayton Doley — keyboards (2006–2009)
Touring/substitute musicians
Ken Firth — bass guitar (1982)
Matthew Hughes – keyboards, bass guitar (1987–1988)
Frank Infante — guitar (1987)
Jim Hilbun – bass (1991)
Lee Borkman – keyboards, guitar (1991)
Mark Meyer – drums (1991)
Duane Jarvis – guitar (1988)
Randy Wiggins – guitar (1993–1995)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums:
1983: Desperate
1985: What a Life!
1988: Temperamental
1991: Divinyls
1996: Underworld
Awards and nominations
ARIA Music Awards
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. Divinyls were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.
|-
| 1991
| "I Touch Myself"
| Single of the Year
|
|-
| 2006
| Divinyls
| ARIA Hall of Fame
|
Countdown Australian Music Awards
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974–1987, it presented music awards from 1979–1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week. The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards.
|-
| rowspan="3" |1981
| rowspan="2" | "Boys in Town"
| Best Australian Single
|
|-
| Best Debut Single
|
|-
| Themselves
| Best New Talent
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1982
| Monkey Grip
| Best Debut Album
|
|-
| Chrissy Amphlett (Divinyls)
| Most Popular Female
|
|-
|1983
| Desperate
| Best Australian Album
|
|-
| 1984
| Christina Amphlett - "In My Life" (Divinyls)
| Best Female Performance in a Video
|
|-
MTV Video Music Awards
Originally beginning as an alternative to the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards were established in the end of the summer of 1984 by MTV to celebrate the top music videos of the year.
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=3|1991
| rowspan=3|"I Touch Myself"
| Video of the Year
|
| rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Group Video
|
|-
| Viewer's Choice
|
See also
Tony Mott
References
Further reading
Amphlett, Christina; Larry Writer, (November 2005). Pleasure and Pain: My Life. Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia. .
Stieven-Taylor, Alison, (15 October 2007). Rock chicks : the hottest female rockers from the 1960s to now. Sydney : Rockpool Publishing. .
External links
Official MySpace page
1980 establishments in Australia
2009 disestablishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Australian new wave musical groups
Australian rock music groups
ARIA Award winners
Chrysalis Records artists
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Musical groups disestablished in 2009
Musical groups from Sydney
New South Wales musical groups
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
Pub rock musical groups
Female-fronted musical groups
| false |
[
"Dadakuada is a type of Yoruba performance art form which originated from and is popular among the people of Kwara.\n\nHistory and Performance\nDadakuada started about three hundred years ago, according to folktales. Its lyrics basically are made of eulogy, ballad (ijala), incantation, invocation and some abusive words or some fun words. It is a folk genre of music similar to juju music and other types of folk music.\nDadakuada is very rich in beats which are derived from traditional instruments like talking drum, bata, gangan and agogo.\nIts singers are always in a band or what seems like a band, it contains a lead singer and others who support him as he is singing. The supporters are the accompanist, lead drummer, drummer, money-keeper and assistant vocalist. They are always seated in a semi-circle and they perform in any event, ranging from naming ceremonies to funeral. Later on the music genre spread to other south-western parts of Nigeria. They have an apprenticeship program where an upcoming dadakuada singer follows a professional singer to any function he has.\nNotable dadakuada musicians: Odolaye Aremu, Aremu Ose, Balu Iyabo.\n\nReferences\n\nNigerian music\nMusic genres",
"The contralto singing voice has a vocal range that lies between the F below \"middle C\" (F3) to two Fs above middle C (F5) and is the lowest type of female voice. In the lower and upper extremes, some contralto voices can sing from two Bs below middle C (B2) to two Bs above middle C (B5).\n\nThe term contralto was developed in relation to classical and operatic voices, where the classification is based not merely on the singer's vocal range but also on the tessitura and timbre of the voice. For classical and operatic singers, their voice type determines the roles they will sing and is a primary method of categorization. In classical music, a \"pure\" contralto is considered the rarest type of female voice. In non-classical music, singers are primarily defined by their genre and their gender, not their vocal range. When the terms soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone, and bass are used as descriptors of non-classical voices, they are applied more loosely than they would be to those of classical singers and generally refer only to the singer's perceived vocal range. Contemporarily, the informal term alto is sometimes used interchangeably with contralto.\n\nThe following is a list of singers in country, popular music, jazz, and musical theatre who have been described as contraltos.\n\nList of singers\n\nSee also\n List of mezzo-sopranos in non-classical music\n List of sopranos in non-classical music\n List of basses in non-classical music\n List of baritones in non-classical music\n List of tenors in non-classical music\n List of operatic contraltos\n Voice classification in non-classical music\n Voice type\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nWorks cited\n \n \n \n \n \n\n \nLists of singers\nLists of women in music"
] |
[
"Divinyls",
"1990s: Divinyls duo",
"Who was in the band in the 90s?",
"The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999,",
"were they the only ones in the band?",
"Amphlett and McEntee",
"How many albums were released in the 90s?",
"It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG.",
"Was there another after that?",
"Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US.",
"Did they go on tour?",
"Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett \"he was a bit too 'pop' for us\"",
"What type of music are they?",
"In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' \"I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore\""
] |
C_4c40c51419fe4098bbac6c4c80e21438_0
|
Did they have a reputation?
| 7 |
Did the Divinyls have a reputation?
|
Divinyls
|
In 1991 Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the US and No. 10 in the UK. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects. A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993). The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers. This song is also mentioned in The Guide to Getting it On by Paul Joannides. It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US. As with What A Life! they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls. CANNOTANSWER
|
A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums
|
Divinyls () were an Australian rock band that were formed in Sydney in 1980. The band primarily consisted of vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. Amphlett garnered widespread attention for performing on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience.
Originally a five-piece, the band underwent numerous line-up changes, with Amphlett and McEntee remaining as core members, before its dissolution in 1996.
In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations, named "Science Fiction" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time. The band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006 and in late 2007 Amphlett and McEntee reconvened to record a new single and begin working on a new album. The band played a short series of live gigs in Australia in late 2007 and early 2008. Divinyls broke up in 2009 and Amphlett died in 2013.
Divinyls released five studio albums—four placed in the Top 10 Australian chart, while one (Divinyls) reached No. 15 in the United States (US) and No. 33 for 3 weeks in Canada. Their biggest-selling single "I Touch Myself" (1990) achieved a No. 1 ranking in Australia, No. 4 in the United States, No. 10 in the United Kingdom (UK), and No. 13 in Canada.
Career
1980s: Formation, Desperate, What a Life! & Temperamental
Amphlett was the cousin of 1960s Australian pop icon Patricia "Little Pattie" Amphlett, who had been married to Keith Jacobsen—younger brother of pioneer rocker Col Joye and leading promoter Kevin Jacobsen. In her autobiography Pleasure and Pain (2005), Amphlett described breaking into the music scene from the age of fourteen, being arrested for busking when seventeen and travelling in Spain, and how her performances drew upon childhood pain.
Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee were introduced by Jeremy Paul (ex-Air Supply) in the car park of a small music venue in Collaroy, Sydney, after Amphlett and Paul had finished a gig with their then band, Batonrouge. Amphlett and McEntee met again at the Sydney Opera House where Amphlett and Paul were singing in a choral concert in 1980. They recruited keyboardist Bjarne Ohlin later in 1980 and drummer Richard Harvey in 1981, respectively, and for almost two years they performed in pubs and clubs in Sydney's Kings Cross. During this time, Paul negotiated publishing and recording agreements that led to the band signing with WEA. Australian film director Ken Cameron saw Divinyls performing in a club. This led to them providing the soundtrack for his 1982 film Monkey Grip and also gave Amphlett, Paul and McEntee supporting roles in the movie. The group released two singles from the soundtrack, Music from Monkey Grip EP, "Boys in Town", which reached No. 8 on the national singles chart, and "Only Lonely". The band was the opening act at the 1983 US Festival.
After the band's initial success, original manager and bassist Jeremy Paul left. He was replaced on bass, briefly by Ken Firth (ex-The Ferrets) and more permanently by Rick Grossman (ex-Matt Finish). Grossman left in 1987 to replace Clyde Bramley in Hoodoo Gurus. By early 1988, Divinyls consisted of Amphlett and McEntee with augmentation by additional musicians when recording or touring.
Over the decade Divinyls released four albums, Music from Monkey Grip EP on WEA in 1982, Desperate on Chrysalis Records in 1983, What a Life! in 1985 and Temperamental in 1988. The latter two albums were also released by Chrysalis in the United States. They had hit singles in Australia with, "Science Fiction" No. 13 in 1983, "Good Die Young" No. 32 in 1984 and "Pleasure and Pain" which was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman and went No. 11 in 1985. Their later manager Vince Lovegrove organised Divinyls' transfer from WEA to Chrysalis and their first tours of the United States. They established a fan base there, without achieving major commercial success. Divinyls also had Australian hits with cover versions of The Easybeats' "I'll Make You Happy", and Syndicate of Sound's "Hey Little Boy" ("Hey Little Girl" with the gender switched) which reached No. 25 in 1988. Amphlett became a controversial and highly visible celebrity for her brash, overtly sexual persona and subversive humour in lyrics, performances and media interviews.
Image transformation
At the start of their popularity, Divinyls were considered to be a hard rock band. At some point, many fans referred to Amphlett as the female Angus Young, as both had similar mannerisms on stage and wore black-and-white school uniforms while performing in the early 1980s. The band's image gradually changed after the release of the album What a Life! when the band began wearing elaborate clothing and producing more songs in the pop music genre. By the time of the release of their album Temperamental, Divinyls' image had changed to a glamour fashion style where they produced modern pop music.
1990s: diVINYLS & Underworld
In 1991, Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the United States and No. 10 in the United Kingdom. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects.
A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s, they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993).
The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers.
It wasn't until 1996 that their fifth studio album, Underworld, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS, Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the United States. As with What a Life!, they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls.
1998–2005: After the separation
Following Underworld, Amphlett pursued a stage career. In 1998, she played the role of Judy Garland in the Australian stage production of the life story of entertainer Peter Allen, titled The Boy from Oz. The production was a success and Amphlett's interpretation of Garland, during her final troubled years, brought her critical acclaim: she was nominated for the Helpmann Award for 'Best Female Actor in a Musical'.
Amphlett and McEntee concentrated on solo projects and collaborations with other artists. Amphlett and Drayton lived in New York City from 2000, while McEntee ran a clothing label, Wheels and Doll Baby, in Perth with his partner, Melanie Greensmith. In November 2005 Amphlett published her autobiography Pleasure and Pain: My Life co-written with Larry Writer; she detailed her achievements, drug and alcohol abuse, love affairs and triumphs while a member of Divinyls.
2006–2012: Hall of Fame and reformation
On 16 August 2006, Divinyls were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and made their first performance for 10 years at the award ceremony. They reformed shortly afterwards and a compilation, Greatest Hits, was released by EMI Music Australia in August 2006. The band recorded four new songs via a satellite link: Amphlett and Drayton at Palm Studios in Las Vegas and McEntee in Perth. A single and B-side, "Don't Wanna Do This"/"Asphyxiated", was released in November 2007, with a third track, "All Pretty Things", released on a compilation album for the Homebake Festival. Amphlett stated that the band would return to the studio to record a full album provided they "survived" their Homebake headline gig and national tour.
They performed during the Australian Idol grand final at the Sydney Opera House, on 25 November 2007, although their performance of "Boys in Town" (also performed by Idol winner Natalie Gauci) had to be repeated after Network Ten's transmission feed was interrupted. A national tour of Australia followed in December 2007 with a touring band featuring Drayton on drums, Jerome Smith on bass, Charlie Owen on guitar and newest member Clayton Doley on keyboards. Amphlett revealed on 7 December 2007 that she had multiple sclerosis in an interview with Richard Wilkins on Network Nine's A Current Affair—nevertheless, she was looking forward to touring with Divinyls. The next day, Divinyls headlined the Homebake music festival where Amphlett displayed an emotional fragility when attempting to get the crowd to sing along with her. In August 2009, Amphlett announced that Divinyls were finished and she had a new band in New York.
2013–present: Death of Amphlett, McLean and abortive reformation
Aged 53 years, Amphlett died on 21 April 2013 at her home in New York City after a protracted battle with breast cancer since 2010. Amphlett stated that she had been unable to receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy as treatment for the cancer due to her multiple sclerosis. Amphlett's cousin Patricia Thompson announced the news in an official public statement: "Our beloved Chrissy peacefully made her transition this morning. Christine Joy Amphlett succumbed to the effects of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, diseases she vigorously fought with exceptional bravery and dignity." In 2014, some of Australia's leading female artists came together to cover "I Touch Myself" to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
In 2017, the band performed a one-off show in Perth with The Preatures' Isabella Manfredi and Jack Moffit joining as guests on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, respectively. McEntee, Grossman and Harvey completed the line-up.
In December 2018, McEntee announced he would be reforming the group with new singer Lauren Ruth Ward, ex-Divinyls guitarist Frank Infante and a new rhythm section for an Australian tour, to begin in 2019. However, this announcement was criticised by Drayton and several fans as an "ultimate disrespect", with Drayton stating that anyone other than Amphlett who fronted the Divinyls should "seek some trustworthy advice". On 6 February 2019, the Australian tour was cancelled.
In early January 2021, former band drummer Warren McLean died.
Band members
Former members
Chrissy Amphlett — lead vocals (1980–1996, 2006–2009; died 2013)
Mark McEntee — guitar, occasional keyboards (1980–1996, 2006–2009)
Charlie Owen — guitar (2006–2009; touring member in 1991)
Jeremy Paul – bass (1980–1982)
Rick Grossman — bass (1982–1987)
Tim Millikan – bass (1988–1989)
Randy Jackson — bass (1990–1991)
Jerome Smith – bass (1991–1996, 2006–2009)
Richard Harvey – drums (1980—1985)
J. J. Harris — drums (1985–1986)
Tommy "Mugs" Cain — drums (1987)
Warren McLean – drums (1988; died 2021)
Tim Powles – drums (1989)
Charley Drayton — drums (1990–1996, 2006–2009)
Bjarne Ohlin – keyboards (1980–1986)
Kenny Lyon — keyboards (1987)
Roger Mason – keyboards (1988–1990)
Benmont Tench — keyboards (1990–1991)
Clayton Doley — keyboards (2006–2009)
Touring/substitute musicians
Ken Firth — bass guitar (1982)
Matthew Hughes – keyboards, bass guitar (1987–1988)
Frank Infante — guitar (1987)
Jim Hilbun – bass (1991)
Lee Borkman – keyboards, guitar (1991)
Mark Meyer – drums (1991)
Duane Jarvis – guitar (1988)
Randy Wiggins – guitar (1993–1995)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums:
1983: Desperate
1985: What a Life!
1988: Temperamental
1991: Divinyls
1996: Underworld
Awards and nominations
ARIA Music Awards
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. Divinyls were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.
|-
| 1991
| "I Touch Myself"
| Single of the Year
|
|-
| 2006
| Divinyls
| ARIA Hall of Fame
|
Countdown Australian Music Awards
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974–1987, it presented music awards from 1979–1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week. The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards.
|-
| rowspan="3" |1981
| rowspan="2" | "Boys in Town"
| Best Australian Single
|
|-
| Best Debut Single
|
|-
| Themselves
| Best New Talent
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1982
| Monkey Grip
| Best Debut Album
|
|-
| Chrissy Amphlett (Divinyls)
| Most Popular Female
|
|-
|1983
| Desperate
| Best Australian Album
|
|-
| 1984
| Christina Amphlett - "In My Life" (Divinyls)
| Best Female Performance in a Video
|
|-
MTV Video Music Awards
Originally beginning as an alternative to the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards were established in the end of the summer of 1984 by MTV to celebrate the top music videos of the year.
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=3|1991
| rowspan=3|"I Touch Myself"
| Video of the Year
|
| rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Group Video
|
|-
| Viewer's Choice
|
See also
Tony Mott
References
Further reading
Amphlett, Christina; Larry Writer, (November 2005). Pleasure and Pain: My Life. Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia. .
Stieven-Taylor, Alison, (15 October 2007). Rock chicks : the hottest female rockers from the 1960s to now. Sydney : Rockpool Publishing. .
External links
Official MySpace page
1980 establishments in Australia
2009 disestablishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Australian new wave musical groups
Australian rock music groups
ARIA Award winners
Chrysalis Records artists
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Musical groups disestablished in 2009
Musical groups from Sydney
New South Wales musical groups
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
Pub rock musical groups
Female-fronted musical groups
| true |
[
"Brand.com was an American online reputation and brand management company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded as Reputation Changer in 2009. In 2013 it purchased the Brand.com domain name for $500,000, and changed its name. The company provided Internet search management, creating positive web articles about its clients in order to have them overtake negative news, and Wikipedia profile management. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2015 and was shut down.\n\nReputation Changer\nThe company was founded in September 2009 as Reputation Changer, with its headquarters in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The company began as an online reputation management company offering services to small businesses and individuals.\n\nTo help improve online reputations, Reputation Changer created its own positive content about its clients, in an attempt to force other less flattering articles about them down in Google search results and thus cause criticisms to \"disappear\". Though during this time the company had been accused of \"making false claims\" about the effectiveness of their services, the company insisted that those claims were the result of rivals and not legitimate complaints. This includes the hiding of negative user-generated reviews for hotels and other commercial enterprises.\n\nIn November 2012, Michael Zammuto joined the company as President. This led to some restructuring within the company including the June 2013 renaming of the company from Reputation Changer to Brand.com. The re-branding including the acquisition of the Internet domain brand.com for $500,000. The company also moved its headquarters from West Chester to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company had 135 employees, and worked with both small and large clients. Seattle City Light hired Brand.com to remove a 2008 Seattle Weekly story critical of their CEO, Jorge Carrasco. Brand.com created several blog posts \"to drown out critical stories\" including one at Huffington Post where the writer did not disclose conflict of interest, subsequently leading to the article being removed. Ars Technica reported that some of the websites that the stories were posted on \"appear to have been utterly fake\". In May 2014, Seattle City Light requested a refund from Brand.com as they claimed the company did not deliver the services that were promised as the critical story still appeared high in Google searches. In September 2014 it was revealed that Brand.com had received a penalty from Google for potentially trying to game the system in increasing its own company's Google rankings. Brand.com contacted online websites directly to ask the removal of links to Brand.com.\n\nServices\nBrand.com offered brand management and reputation management services. They reviewed the online presence of individuals and companies and provide action plans said to help control how information appears in search engines. Services also included suppression of negative reviews on sites like Yelp or Google Reviews. Part of these services was the planned launch of Brand.com's \"Google Eraser\", which claimed to expunge negative listings from a Google search. At the time some stated that the process was unproven, and that Brand.com had not been transparent about its process, claiming that their processes were proprietary.\n\nIn 2013, Brand.com stated further that they would enact a De-Indexing Action Plan to permanently erase false or libelous information from major search engines as opposed to attempting to move the negative information further down in search results. The process involved verifying that the information was false, and then working with Google, Yahoo, and Bing to de-index the information. The company created the Command Center platform, through which clients could monitor the results of its advertising or reputation management efforts.\n\nBrand.com edited Wikipedia on behalf of clients. The company claimed on its website to have \"built an entire practice around creating, managing, and monitoring Wikipedia.\" and offered to create a \"positive Wikipedia page\". Michael Zammuto told Quartz in 2013 that the company \"helps ensure that information on Wikipedia is accurate, not false or defamatory.\" Brand.com also charged clients to have journalists write news stories under their direction, instead of having journalists independently select their own stories from news releases, and claims that these news stories have appeared in news publications including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, The Huffington Post, and Forbes Magazine.\n\nBankruptcy\nHaving released most of its workers in 2014, Brand.com filed for bankruptcy in 2015.\n\nSee also\n\n Brand management\n Reputation management\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Brand.com\n\nSearch engine optimization\nCompanies based in Philadelphia\nInternet properties established in 2009\nReputation management companies\nBrand management",
"Reputation management, originally a public relations term, refers to the influencing, controlling, enhancing, or concealing of an individual's or group's reputation. The growth of the internet and social media led to growth of reputation management companies, with search results as a core part of a client's reputation. Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, focuses on the management of product and service search engine results. Ethical grey areas include mug shot removal sites, astroturfing customer review sites, censoring complaints, and using search engine optimization tactics to influence results. In other cases, the ethical lines are clear; some reputation management companies are closely connected to websites that publish unverified and libelous statements about people. Such unethical reputation management companies charge thousands of dollars to remove these posts – temporarily – from their websites.\n\nThis field of public relations has developed extensively, with the growth of the internet and social media the advent of reputation management companies. The overall outlook of search results has become an integral part of what defines \"reputation\" and reputation management now exists under two spheres: online and offline reputation management.\n\nOnline reputation management focuses on the management of product and service search results within the digital space, that is why it is common to see the same suggested links in the first page of a Google search. A variety of electronic markets and online communities like e-Bay, Amazon and Alibaba have ORM systems built in, and using effective control nodes these can minimize the threat and protect systems from possible misuses and abuses by malicious nodes in decentralized overlay networks.\n\nOffline reputation management shapes public perception of a said entity outside the digital sphere using select clearly defined controls and measures towards a desired result ideally representing what stakeholders think and feel about that entity. The most popular controls for off-line reputation management include social responsibility, media visibility, press releases in print media and sponsorship amongst related tools.\n\nWithin the last decade of active social media use, marketing a company and promoting their products online have become large components of businesses and their strategies. In terms of reputation management, companies are trying to be more aware of how they are perceived by their audiences both inside and outside of their target market. A problem which often arises from this is false advertising. In the past contribution of internet posts and blogs to a company would have been a foreign concept to most corporations and their consumers. However, due to increased number of competitors in market, it is increasingly difficult to get noticed and become popular within the realm of online business or among influencers because of how the algorithms work on social media. \n\nMarketing is used to restore lost reputations by companies who lost it or establish a brand new or new one.\n\nHistory\nReputation is a social construct based on the opinion other people hold about a person or thing. Before the internet was developed, consumers wanting to learn about a company had fewer options. They had access to resources such as the Yellow Pages, but mostly relied on word-of-mouth. A company's reputation depended on personal experience. A company while it grew and expanded was subject to the market's perception of the brand. Public relations were developed to manage the image and manage the reputation of a company or individual. The concept was initially created to broaden public relations outside of media relations. Academic studies have identified it as a driving force behind Fortune 500 corporate public relations since the beginning of the 21st century.\n\nOriginally, public relations included printed media, events and networking campaigns. At the end of 90s search engines became widely used. The popularity of the internet introduced new marketing and branding opportunities. Where once journalists were the main source of media content, blogs, review sites and social media gave a voice to consumers regardless of qualification. Public relations became part of online reputation management (ORM). ORM includes traditional reputation strategies of public relations but also focuses on building a long-term reputation strategy that is consistent across all web-based channels and platforms. ORM includes search engine reputation management which is designed to counter negative search results and elevate positive content.\n\nSome businesses have adopted unethical means to falsely improve their reputations. In 2007, a study by the University of California Berkeley found that some sellers on eBay were undertaking reputation management by selling products at a discount in exchange for positive feedback to game the system.\n\nOnline reputation management\n\nReputation management (sometimes referred to as rep management or ORM) is the practice of attempting to shape public perception of a person or organization by influencing information about that entity, primarily online. What necessitates this shaping of perceptions being the role of consumers in any organization and the cognizance of how much if ignored these perceptions may harm a company's performance at any time of the year, a risk no entrepreneur or company executive can afford.\n\nSpecifically, reputation management involves the monitoring of the reputation of an individual or a brand on the internet, primarily focusing on the various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, etc. addressing content which is potentially damaging to it, and using customer feedback to try to solve problems before they damage the individual's or brand's reputation. A major part of reputation management involves suppressing negative search results, while highlighting positive ones. For businesses, reputation management usually involves an attempt to bridge the gap between how a company perceives itself and how others view it.\n\nIn 2012, there had been an article released titled \"Social Media Research in Advertising, Communication, Marketing and Public Relations\" written by Hyoungkoo Khang et-al. The references to Kaplan and Haenleins theory of social presence, highlights the \"concept of self-presentation.\" \n\nKhang highlights that “companies must monitor individual's comments regarding service 24/7.\" This can imply that the reputation of a company does essentially rely on the consumer, as they are the ones that can make or break it. People of the internet do not rely their trust on advertisements, rather it is the reviews of others that often sells a product. The question at hand is if it is ethical to follow influencers who are often portraying a clean slate lifestyle and promoting products or services they don't believe in. However, in recent times, the backlash of this is more apparent, an example being Instagram models who advertise ‘fit-teas’ to appear more slimmer, have been accused of being the stem of societal beauty pressures and seen as harmful to the youth. What Khang deliberates, is actually ironic. How a social influencer holds this power of essentially influencing their products and opinions on their audiences or even society, whereas on the other hand, the audiences have a ‘power’ to sometimes even destroy a career because of backlash.\n\nGood management for companies\nA fast-growing discipline and corporate necessity, reputation management is widely acknowledged as a valuable intangible asset which can be one of the most important sources of competitive edge in a fiercely competitive market, and with firms under scrutiny from the business community, regulators, and corporate governance watchdogs; good reputation management practices continues to help firms cope with this scrutiny.\n\nOther benefits of sound reputation management practices is how much they reinforce and aid a corporation's branding objectives which on their own along the way play a paramount role in helping a company meet its marketing and business communication objectives, a key driver towards how much any company can go towards increasing profits and its market share. Good reputation management practices are helping any entity manage staff confidence as a control tool on public perceptions which if undermined and ignored can be costly, which in the long run may cripple employee confidence, a risk no employer would dare explore as staff morale is one of the most important drivers of company performance.\n\nReputation management campaigns in popular media\n\nIn 2011, controversy around the Taco Bell restaurant chain arose when public accusations were made that their \"seasoned beef\" product was only made up of only 35% real beef. A class action lawsuit was filed by the law firm Beasley Allen against Taco Bell. The suit was voluntarily withdrawn with Beasley Allen citing that \"From the inception of this case, we stated that if Taco Bell would make certain changes regarding disclosure and marketing of its 'seasoned beef' product, the case could be dismissed.\" Taco Bell responded to the case being withdrawn by launching a reputation management campaign titled \"Would it kill you to say you're sorry?\" that ran advertisements in various news outlets in print and online, which attempted to draw attention to the voluntary withdrawal of the case.\n\nExamples\nOrganisations often attempt to manage their reputations on websites that many people visit, such as eBay, Wikipedia, and Google. Some of the tactics used by reputation management firms include:\n\n Modifying the way results from searches are displayed on a search engine such as white papers and make appear in priority positive customer testimonials in order to push down negative content.\n Publishing original, positive websites and social media profiles, with the aim of outperforming negative results in a search.\n Submitting online press releases to authoritative websites in order to promote brand presence and suppress negative content.\n Submitting legal take-down requests if they have or pretend to have been libeled.\n Getting mentions of the business or individual on third-party sites that rank highly on Google.\n Creating fake, positive reviews of the individual or business to counteract negative ones.\n Using spambots and denial-of-service attacks to force sites with damaging content off the web entirely.\n Astroturfing third-party websites by creating anonymous accounts that create positive reviews or lash out against negative ones.\n Proactively offering free products to prominent reviewers.\n Removing online mug shots.\n Proactively responding to public criticism stemming from recent changes.\n Removing or suppressing images that are embarrassing or violate copyright.\n\n Contacting Wikipedia editors to remove allegedly incorrect information from the Wikipedia pages of businesses they represent.\n Forbidding any comments\n\nEthics\nThe practice of reputation management raises many ethical questions. It is widely disagreed upon where the line for disclosure, astroturfing, and censorship should be drawn. Firms have been known to hire staff to pose as bloggers on third-party sites without disclosing they were paid, and some have been criticized for asking websites to remove negative posts. The exposure of unethical reputation management may itself be risky to the reputation of a firm that attempts it if known.\n\nGoogle declares there to be nothing inherently wrong with reputation management, and even introduced a toolset in 2011 for users to monitor their online identity and request the removal of unwanted content. Many firms are selective about clients they accept. For example, they may avoid individuals who committed violent crimes who are looking to push information about their crimes lower on search results.\n\nIn 2010, a study showed that Naymz, one of the first Web 2.0 services to provide utilities for Online Reputation Management (ORM), had developed a method to assess the online reputation of its members (RepScore) that was rather easy to deceive. The study found that the highest level of online reputation was easily achieved by engaging a small social group of nine persons who connect with each other and provide reciprocal positive feedbacks and endorsements. As of December 2017, Naymz was shut down.\n\nIn 2015, the online retailer Amazon.com sued 1,114 people who were paid to publish fake five-star reviews for products. These reviews were created using a website for Macrotasking, Fiverr.com. Several other companies offer fake Yelp and Facebook reviews, and one journalist amassed five-star reviews for a business that doesn't exist, from social media accounts that have also given overwhelmingly positive reviews to \"a chiropractor in Arizona, a hair salon in London, a limo company in North Carolina, a realtor in Texas, and a locksmith in Florida, among other far-flung businesses\".\n\nIn 2016, the Washington Post detailed 25 court cases, at least 15 of which had false addresses for the defendant. The court cases had similar language and the defendant agreed to the injunction by the plaintiff, which allowed the reputation management company to issue takedown notices to Google, Yelp, Leagle, Ripoff Report, various news sites, and other websites.\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nReputation Management: The Future of Corporate Communications and Public Relations, Tony Langham, Emerald Group Publishing, (2018), \nReputation Management: The Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication, John Doorley, Helio Fred Garcia, Routledge, (2011), \nReputation Management: Building and Protecting Your Company's Profile in a Digital World, Andrew Hiles, AC Black (2011), \nReputation Management, Sabrina Helm, Kerstin Liehr-Gobbers, Christopher Storck, Springer Science & Business Media (2011),"
] |
[
"Divinyls",
"1990s: Divinyls duo",
"Who was in the band in the 90s?",
"The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999,",
"were they the only ones in the band?",
"Amphlett and McEntee",
"How many albums were released in the 90s?",
"It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG.",
"Was there another after that?",
"Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US.",
"Did they go on tour?",
"Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett \"he was a bit too 'pop' for us\"",
"What type of music are they?",
"In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' \"I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore\"",
"Did they have a reputation?",
"A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums"
] |
C_4c40c51419fe4098bbac6c4c80e21438_0
|
Did they stay together the whole decade?
| 8 |
Did the Divinyls stay together the whole decade?
|
Divinyls
|
In 1991 Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the US and No. 10 in the UK. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects. A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993). The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers. This song is also mentioned in The Guide to Getting it On by Paul Joannides. It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US. As with What A Life! they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls. CANNOTANSWER
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By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls.
|
Divinyls () were an Australian rock band that were formed in Sydney in 1980. The band primarily consisted of vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. Amphlett garnered widespread attention for performing on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience.
Originally a five-piece, the band underwent numerous line-up changes, with Amphlett and McEntee remaining as core members, before its dissolution in 1996.
In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations, named "Science Fiction" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time. The band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006 and in late 2007 Amphlett and McEntee reconvened to record a new single and begin working on a new album. The band played a short series of live gigs in Australia in late 2007 and early 2008. Divinyls broke up in 2009 and Amphlett died in 2013.
Divinyls released five studio albums—four placed in the Top 10 Australian chart, while one (Divinyls) reached No. 15 in the United States (US) and No. 33 for 3 weeks in Canada. Their biggest-selling single "I Touch Myself" (1990) achieved a No. 1 ranking in Australia, No. 4 in the United States, No. 10 in the United Kingdom (UK), and No. 13 in Canada.
Career
1980s: Formation, Desperate, What a Life! & Temperamental
Amphlett was the cousin of 1960s Australian pop icon Patricia "Little Pattie" Amphlett, who had been married to Keith Jacobsen—younger brother of pioneer rocker Col Joye and leading promoter Kevin Jacobsen. In her autobiography Pleasure and Pain (2005), Amphlett described breaking into the music scene from the age of fourteen, being arrested for busking when seventeen and travelling in Spain, and how her performances drew upon childhood pain.
Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee were introduced by Jeremy Paul (ex-Air Supply) in the car park of a small music venue in Collaroy, Sydney, after Amphlett and Paul had finished a gig with their then band, Batonrouge. Amphlett and McEntee met again at the Sydney Opera House where Amphlett and Paul were singing in a choral concert in 1980. They recruited keyboardist Bjarne Ohlin later in 1980 and drummer Richard Harvey in 1981, respectively, and for almost two years they performed in pubs and clubs in Sydney's Kings Cross. During this time, Paul negotiated publishing and recording agreements that led to the band signing with WEA. Australian film director Ken Cameron saw Divinyls performing in a club. This led to them providing the soundtrack for his 1982 film Monkey Grip and also gave Amphlett, Paul and McEntee supporting roles in the movie. The group released two singles from the soundtrack, Music from Monkey Grip EP, "Boys in Town", which reached No. 8 on the national singles chart, and "Only Lonely". The band was the opening act at the 1983 US Festival.
After the band's initial success, original manager and bassist Jeremy Paul left. He was replaced on bass, briefly by Ken Firth (ex-The Ferrets) and more permanently by Rick Grossman (ex-Matt Finish). Grossman left in 1987 to replace Clyde Bramley in Hoodoo Gurus. By early 1988, Divinyls consisted of Amphlett and McEntee with augmentation by additional musicians when recording or touring.
Over the decade Divinyls released four albums, Music from Monkey Grip EP on WEA in 1982, Desperate on Chrysalis Records in 1983, What a Life! in 1985 and Temperamental in 1988. The latter two albums were also released by Chrysalis in the United States. They had hit singles in Australia with, "Science Fiction" No. 13 in 1983, "Good Die Young" No. 32 in 1984 and "Pleasure and Pain" which was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman and went No. 11 in 1985. Their later manager Vince Lovegrove organised Divinyls' transfer from WEA to Chrysalis and their first tours of the United States. They established a fan base there, without achieving major commercial success. Divinyls also had Australian hits with cover versions of The Easybeats' "I'll Make You Happy", and Syndicate of Sound's "Hey Little Boy" ("Hey Little Girl" with the gender switched) which reached No. 25 in 1988. Amphlett became a controversial and highly visible celebrity for her brash, overtly sexual persona and subversive humour in lyrics, performances and media interviews.
Image transformation
At the start of their popularity, Divinyls were considered to be a hard rock band. At some point, many fans referred to Amphlett as the female Angus Young, as both had similar mannerisms on stage and wore black-and-white school uniforms while performing in the early 1980s. The band's image gradually changed after the release of the album What a Life! when the band began wearing elaborate clothing and producing more songs in the pop music genre. By the time of the release of their album Temperamental, Divinyls' image had changed to a glamour fashion style where they produced modern pop music.
1990s: diVINYLS & Underworld
In 1991, Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the United States and No. 10 in the United Kingdom. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects.
A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s, they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993).
The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers.
It wasn't until 1996 that their fifth studio album, Underworld, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS, Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the United States. As with What a Life!, they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls.
1998–2005: After the separation
Following Underworld, Amphlett pursued a stage career. In 1998, she played the role of Judy Garland in the Australian stage production of the life story of entertainer Peter Allen, titled The Boy from Oz. The production was a success and Amphlett's interpretation of Garland, during her final troubled years, brought her critical acclaim: she was nominated for the Helpmann Award for 'Best Female Actor in a Musical'.
Amphlett and McEntee concentrated on solo projects and collaborations with other artists. Amphlett and Drayton lived in New York City from 2000, while McEntee ran a clothing label, Wheels and Doll Baby, in Perth with his partner, Melanie Greensmith. In November 2005 Amphlett published her autobiography Pleasure and Pain: My Life co-written with Larry Writer; she detailed her achievements, drug and alcohol abuse, love affairs and triumphs while a member of Divinyls.
2006–2012: Hall of Fame and reformation
On 16 August 2006, Divinyls were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and made their first performance for 10 years at the award ceremony. They reformed shortly afterwards and a compilation, Greatest Hits, was released by EMI Music Australia in August 2006. The band recorded four new songs via a satellite link: Amphlett and Drayton at Palm Studios in Las Vegas and McEntee in Perth. A single and B-side, "Don't Wanna Do This"/"Asphyxiated", was released in November 2007, with a third track, "All Pretty Things", released on a compilation album for the Homebake Festival. Amphlett stated that the band would return to the studio to record a full album provided they "survived" their Homebake headline gig and national tour.
They performed during the Australian Idol grand final at the Sydney Opera House, on 25 November 2007, although their performance of "Boys in Town" (also performed by Idol winner Natalie Gauci) had to be repeated after Network Ten's transmission feed was interrupted. A national tour of Australia followed in December 2007 with a touring band featuring Drayton on drums, Jerome Smith on bass, Charlie Owen on guitar and newest member Clayton Doley on keyboards. Amphlett revealed on 7 December 2007 that she had multiple sclerosis in an interview with Richard Wilkins on Network Nine's A Current Affair—nevertheless, she was looking forward to touring with Divinyls. The next day, Divinyls headlined the Homebake music festival where Amphlett displayed an emotional fragility when attempting to get the crowd to sing along with her. In August 2009, Amphlett announced that Divinyls were finished and she had a new band in New York.
2013–present: Death of Amphlett, McLean and abortive reformation
Aged 53 years, Amphlett died on 21 April 2013 at her home in New York City after a protracted battle with breast cancer since 2010. Amphlett stated that she had been unable to receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy as treatment for the cancer due to her multiple sclerosis. Amphlett's cousin Patricia Thompson announced the news in an official public statement: "Our beloved Chrissy peacefully made her transition this morning. Christine Joy Amphlett succumbed to the effects of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, diseases she vigorously fought with exceptional bravery and dignity." In 2014, some of Australia's leading female artists came together to cover "I Touch Myself" to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
In 2017, the band performed a one-off show in Perth with The Preatures' Isabella Manfredi and Jack Moffit joining as guests on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, respectively. McEntee, Grossman and Harvey completed the line-up.
In December 2018, McEntee announced he would be reforming the group with new singer Lauren Ruth Ward, ex-Divinyls guitarist Frank Infante and a new rhythm section for an Australian tour, to begin in 2019. However, this announcement was criticised by Drayton and several fans as an "ultimate disrespect", with Drayton stating that anyone other than Amphlett who fronted the Divinyls should "seek some trustworthy advice". On 6 February 2019, the Australian tour was cancelled.
In early January 2021, former band drummer Warren McLean died.
Band members
Former members
Chrissy Amphlett — lead vocals (1980–1996, 2006–2009; died 2013)
Mark McEntee — guitar, occasional keyboards (1980–1996, 2006–2009)
Charlie Owen — guitar (2006–2009; touring member in 1991)
Jeremy Paul – bass (1980–1982)
Rick Grossman — bass (1982–1987)
Tim Millikan – bass (1988–1989)
Randy Jackson — bass (1990–1991)
Jerome Smith – bass (1991–1996, 2006–2009)
Richard Harvey – drums (1980—1985)
J. J. Harris — drums (1985–1986)
Tommy "Mugs" Cain — drums (1987)
Warren McLean – drums (1988; died 2021)
Tim Powles – drums (1989)
Charley Drayton — drums (1990–1996, 2006–2009)
Bjarne Ohlin – keyboards (1980–1986)
Kenny Lyon — keyboards (1987)
Roger Mason – keyboards (1988–1990)
Benmont Tench — keyboards (1990–1991)
Clayton Doley — keyboards (2006–2009)
Touring/substitute musicians
Ken Firth — bass guitar (1982)
Matthew Hughes – keyboards, bass guitar (1987–1988)
Frank Infante — guitar (1987)
Jim Hilbun – bass (1991)
Lee Borkman – keyboards, guitar (1991)
Mark Meyer – drums (1991)
Duane Jarvis – guitar (1988)
Randy Wiggins – guitar (1993–1995)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums:
1983: Desperate
1985: What a Life!
1988: Temperamental
1991: Divinyls
1996: Underworld
Awards and nominations
ARIA Music Awards
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. Divinyls were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.
|-
| 1991
| "I Touch Myself"
| Single of the Year
|
|-
| 2006
| Divinyls
| ARIA Hall of Fame
|
Countdown Australian Music Awards
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974–1987, it presented music awards from 1979–1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week. The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards.
|-
| rowspan="3" |1981
| rowspan="2" | "Boys in Town"
| Best Australian Single
|
|-
| Best Debut Single
|
|-
| Themselves
| Best New Talent
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1982
| Monkey Grip
| Best Debut Album
|
|-
| Chrissy Amphlett (Divinyls)
| Most Popular Female
|
|-
|1983
| Desperate
| Best Australian Album
|
|-
| 1984
| Christina Amphlett - "In My Life" (Divinyls)
| Best Female Performance in a Video
|
|-
MTV Video Music Awards
Originally beginning as an alternative to the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards were established in the end of the summer of 1984 by MTV to celebrate the top music videos of the year.
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=3|1991
| rowspan=3|"I Touch Myself"
| Video of the Year
|
| rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Group Video
|
|-
| Viewer's Choice
|
See also
Tony Mott
References
Further reading
Amphlett, Christina; Larry Writer, (November 2005). Pleasure and Pain: My Life. Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia. .
Stieven-Taylor, Alison, (15 October 2007). Rock chicks : the hottest female rockers from the 1960s to now. Sydney : Rockpool Publishing. .
External links
Official MySpace page
1980 establishments in Australia
2009 disestablishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Australian new wave musical groups
Australian rock music groups
ARIA Award winners
Chrysalis Records artists
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Musical groups disestablished in 2009
Musical groups from Sydney
New South Wales musical groups
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
Pub rock musical groups
Female-fronted musical groups
| true |
[
"\"Stay the Ride Alive\" is the thirty-seventh single released by Japanese musical artist Gackt on January 1, 2010. The song was originally titled \"Stay the Decade Alive\", before being renamed \"Stay the Ride Alive\" in late November.\n\nSummary \nLike \"Journey through the Decade\" and \"The Next Decade\", Gackt recorded this song for the Kamen Rider Decade television series. It is used as the theme song for the Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider W & Decade: Movie War 2010 films.\n\nIn addition to the CD release, a version including a DVD of the music video was also released, as well as the \"special memorial single\" version which is a Digipak with a special cover, a third disc, and a booklet describing Gackt's collaboration with the Kamen Rider Decade production.\n\nThe music video for the single features Kamen Rider Decades Masahiro Inoue, who plays the title character of the series, and Kamen Rider Double.\n\nThe theme \"Stay the Ride Alive\" is that of .\n\nCD\n\nDVD\n\nSpecial memorial single\n\nCharts\nOricon\n\nBillboard Japan\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nKamen Rider Decade on Avex Mode's official website\n\n2010 singles\n2010 songs\nGackt songs\nJapanese television drama theme songs\nSongs with lyrics by Shoko Fujibayashi\nJapanese film songs",
"Let's Stay Together may refer to:\n\nMusic\n Let's Stay Together (Al Green album), 1972\n \"Let's Stay Together\" (Al Green song), the title song, also covered by Tina Turner in 1983\n Let's Stay Together (Jimmy McGriff album), 1972, featuring a version of the Al Green song\n Let's Stay Together (Lyfe Jennings song), 2006\n \"Let's Stay Together\", a song by Ludacris from the 2008 album Theater of the Mind\n \"Let's Stay Together\", a single by Guy from the 1990 album The Future\n\nOther\n Let's Stay Together (TV series), a BET original series\n \"Let's Stay Together\" (30 Rock), an episode of 30 Rock\n Let's Stay Together (campaign group), a group which was formed to campaign for a 'no' vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum\n\nSee also\n Let's Stick Together (disambiguation)"
] |
[
"Divinyls",
"1990s: Divinyls duo",
"Who was in the band in the 90s?",
"The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999,",
"were they the only ones in the band?",
"Amphlett and McEntee",
"How many albums were released in the 90s?",
"It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG.",
"Was there another after that?",
"Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US.",
"Did they go on tour?",
"Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett \"he was a bit too 'pop' for us\"",
"What type of music are they?",
"In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' \"I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore\"",
"Did they have a reputation?",
"A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums",
"Did they stay together the whole decade?",
"By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls."
] |
C_4c40c51419fe4098bbac6c4c80e21438_0
|
Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
| 9 |
Other than the breakup of the band, are there any other interesting aspects about the Divinyls?
|
Divinyls
|
In 1991 Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the US and No. 10 in the UK. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects. A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993). The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers. This song is also mentioned in The Guide to Getting it On by Paul Joannides. It wasn't until 1996 that Underworld, their fifth studio album, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the US. As with What A Life! they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls. CANNOTANSWER
|
The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets;
|
Divinyls () were an Australian rock band that were formed in Sydney in 1980. The band primarily consisted of vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. Amphlett garnered widespread attention for performing on stage in a school uniform and fishnet stockings, and often used an illuminated neon tube as a prop for displaying aggression towards both band members and the audience.
Originally a five-piece, the band underwent numerous line-up changes, with Amphlett and McEntee remaining as core members, before its dissolution in 1996.
In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations, named "Science Fiction" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time. The band was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame in 2006 and in late 2007 Amphlett and McEntee reconvened to record a new single and begin working on a new album. The band played a short series of live gigs in Australia in late 2007 and early 2008. Divinyls broke up in 2009 and Amphlett died in 2013.
Divinyls released five studio albums—four placed in the Top 10 Australian chart, while one (Divinyls) reached No. 15 in the United States (US) and No. 33 for 3 weeks in Canada. Their biggest-selling single "I Touch Myself" (1990) achieved a No. 1 ranking in Australia, No. 4 in the United States, No. 10 in the United Kingdom (UK), and No. 13 in Canada.
Career
1980s: Formation, Desperate, What a Life! & Temperamental
Amphlett was the cousin of 1960s Australian pop icon Patricia "Little Pattie" Amphlett, who had been married to Keith Jacobsen—younger brother of pioneer rocker Col Joye and leading promoter Kevin Jacobsen. In her autobiography Pleasure and Pain (2005), Amphlett described breaking into the music scene from the age of fourteen, being arrested for busking when seventeen and travelling in Spain, and how her performances drew upon childhood pain.
Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee were introduced by Jeremy Paul (ex-Air Supply) in the car park of a small music venue in Collaroy, Sydney, after Amphlett and Paul had finished a gig with their then band, Batonrouge. Amphlett and McEntee met again at the Sydney Opera House where Amphlett and Paul were singing in a choral concert in 1980. They recruited keyboardist Bjarne Ohlin later in 1980 and drummer Richard Harvey in 1981, respectively, and for almost two years they performed in pubs and clubs in Sydney's Kings Cross. During this time, Paul negotiated publishing and recording agreements that led to the band signing with WEA. Australian film director Ken Cameron saw Divinyls performing in a club. This led to them providing the soundtrack for his 1982 film Monkey Grip and also gave Amphlett, Paul and McEntee supporting roles in the movie. The group released two singles from the soundtrack, Music from Monkey Grip EP, "Boys in Town", which reached No. 8 on the national singles chart, and "Only Lonely". The band was the opening act at the 1983 US Festival.
After the band's initial success, original manager and bassist Jeremy Paul left. He was replaced on bass, briefly by Ken Firth (ex-The Ferrets) and more permanently by Rick Grossman (ex-Matt Finish). Grossman left in 1987 to replace Clyde Bramley in Hoodoo Gurus. By early 1988, Divinyls consisted of Amphlett and McEntee with augmentation by additional musicians when recording or touring.
Over the decade Divinyls released four albums, Music from Monkey Grip EP on WEA in 1982, Desperate on Chrysalis Records in 1983, What a Life! in 1985 and Temperamental in 1988. The latter two albums were also released by Chrysalis in the United States. They had hit singles in Australia with, "Science Fiction" No. 13 in 1983, "Good Die Young" No. 32 in 1984 and "Pleasure and Pain" which was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman and went No. 11 in 1985. Their later manager Vince Lovegrove organised Divinyls' transfer from WEA to Chrysalis and their first tours of the United States. They established a fan base there, without achieving major commercial success. Divinyls also had Australian hits with cover versions of The Easybeats' "I'll Make You Happy", and Syndicate of Sound's "Hey Little Boy" ("Hey Little Girl" with the gender switched) which reached No. 25 in 1988. Amphlett became a controversial and highly visible celebrity for her brash, overtly sexual persona and subversive humour in lyrics, performances and media interviews.
Image transformation
At the start of their popularity, Divinyls were considered to be a hard rock band. At some point, many fans referred to Amphlett as the female Angus Young, as both had similar mannerisms on stage and wore black-and-white school uniforms while performing in the early 1980s. The band's image gradually changed after the release of the album What a Life! when the band began wearing elaborate clothing and producing more songs in the pop music genre. By the time of the release of their album Temperamental, Divinyls' image had changed to a glamour fashion style where they produced modern pop music.
1990s: diVINYLS & Underworld
In 1991, Divinyls released diVINYLS on Virgin Records and the single "I Touch Myself" which became their only Australian No.1 single. The song reached No. 4 in the United States and No. 10 in the United Kingdom. The majority of Divinyls' hits were co-written by Amphlett and McEntee, but in this case they wrote with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. diVINYLS reached No. 5 on the Australian album charts and No. 15 on Billboard Top 200. The drummer for the diVINYLS sessions was Charley Drayton, who became romantically involved with Amphlett: they married in July 1999, and from 2000, lived together in New York. A disagreement with Virgin Records stifled future development outside Australia where they released popular albums and achieved two more top twenty singles with "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" No. 19 in 1992 and "I'm Jealous" No. 14 in 1995. During the 1980s and 1990s Amphlett collaborated as a songwriter with other artists including Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper, and both Amphlett and McEntee worked on solo projects.
A live album, Divinyls Live, was released in 1991 but Divinyls did not provide another studio album for five years. In the early 1990s, they recorded a series of cover songs for various movie soundtracks, including the Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the Wild Ones' "Wild Thing" for Reckless Kelly (1993), and Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug" for Super Mario Brothers (1993).
The song "I Touch Myself" caused such a controversy it had trouble getting airplay in many US-area markets; so much to the point that while performing their song live in Texas at Austin Aqua Fest 1991 the plug was pulled on the band mid-set by organisers.
It wasn't until 1996 that their fifth studio album, Underworld, was released in Australia by BMG. Despite the success of diVINYLS, Virgin had not kept them under contract and BMG did not release Underworld in the United States. As with What a Life!, they worked with three producers, beginning with Peter Collins recording "I'm Jealous" in Nashville, followed by Keith Forsey for "Sex Will Keep Us Together" and "Heart of Steel". Although "Heart of Steel" was chosen as a single, Divinyls discontinued working with Forsey because according to Amphlett "he was a bit too 'pop' for us" and remaining tracks were produced by their drummer Drayton. By the end of 1996, Amphlett and McEntee had a falling out and separated without formally disbanding Divinyls.
1998–2005: After the separation
Following Underworld, Amphlett pursued a stage career. In 1998, she played the role of Judy Garland in the Australian stage production of the life story of entertainer Peter Allen, titled The Boy from Oz. The production was a success and Amphlett's interpretation of Garland, during her final troubled years, brought her critical acclaim: she was nominated for the Helpmann Award for 'Best Female Actor in a Musical'.
Amphlett and McEntee concentrated on solo projects and collaborations with other artists. Amphlett and Drayton lived in New York City from 2000, while McEntee ran a clothing label, Wheels and Doll Baby, in Perth with his partner, Melanie Greensmith. In November 2005 Amphlett published her autobiography Pleasure and Pain: My Life co-written with Larry Writer; she detailed her achievements, drug and alcohol abuse, love affairs and triumphs while a member of Divinyls.
2006–2012: Hall of Fame and reformation
On 16 August 2006, Divinyls were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and made their first performance for 10 years at the award ceremony. They reformed shortly afterwards and a compilation, Greatest Hits, was released by EMI Music Australia in August 2006. The band recorded four new songs via a satellite link: Amphlett and Drayton at Palm Studios in Las Vegas and McEntee in Perth. A single and B-side, "Don't Wanna Do This"/"Asphyxiated", was released in November 2007, with a third track, "All Pretty Things", released on a compilation album for the Homebake Festival. Amphlett stated that the band would return to the studio to record a full album provided they "survived" their Homebake headline gig and national tour.
They performed during the Australian Idol grand final at the Sydney Opera House, on 25 November 2007, although their performance of "Boys in Town" (also performed by Idol winner Natalie Gauci) had to be repeated after Network Ten's transmission feed was interrupted. A national tour of Australia followed in December 2007 with a touring band featuring Drayton on drums, Jerome Smith on bass, Charlie Owen on guitar and newest member Clayton Doley on keyboards. Amphlett revealed on 7 December 2007 that she had multiple sclerosis in an interview with Richard Wilkins on Network Nine's A Current Affair—nevertheless, she was looking forward to touring with Divinyls. The next day, Divinyls headlined the Homebake music festival where Amphlett displayed an emotional fragility when attempting to get the crowd to sing along with her. In August 2009, Amphlett announced that Divinyls were finished and she had a new band in New York.
2013–present: Death of Amphlett, McLean and abortive reformation
Aged 53 years, Amphlett died on 21 April 2013 at her home in New York City after a protracted battle with breast cancer since 2010. Amphlett stated that she had been unable to receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy as treatment for the cancer due to her multiple sclerosis. Amphlett's cousin Patricia Thompson announced the news in an official public statement: "Our beloved Chrissy peacefully made her transition this morning. Christine Joy Amphlett succumbed to the effects of breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, diseases she vigorously fought with exceptional bravery and dignity." In 2014, some of Australia's leading female artists came together to cover "I Touch Myself" to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer.
In 2017, the band performed a one-off show in Perth with The Preatures' Isabella Manfredi and Jack Moffit joining as guests on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, respectively. McEntee, Grossman and Harvey completed the line-up.
In December 2018, McEntee announced he would be reforming the group with new singer Lauren Ruth Ward, ex-Divinyls guitarist Frank Infante and a new rhythm section for an Australian tour, to begin in 2019. However, this announcement was criticised by Drayton and several fans as an "ultimate disrespect", with Drayton stating that anyone other than Amphlett who fronted the Divinyls should "seek some trustworthy advice". On 6 February 2019, the Australian tour was cancelled.
In early January 2021, former band drummer Warren McLean died.
Band members
Former members
Chrissy Amphlett — lead vocals (1980–1996, 2006–2009; died 2013)
Mark McEntee — guitar, occasional keyboards (1980–1996, 2006–2009)
Charlie Owen — guitar (2006–2009; touring member in 1991)
Jeremy Paul – bass (1980–1982)
Rick Grossman — bass (1982–1987)
Tim Millikan – bass (1988–1989)
Randy Jackson — bass (1990–1991)
Jerome Smith – bass (1991–1996, 2006–2009)
Richard Harvey – drums (1980—1985)
J. J. Harris — drums (1985–1986)
Tommy "Mugs" Cain — drums (1987)
Warren McLean – drums (1988; died 2021)
Tim Powles – drums (1989)
Charley Drayton — drums (1990–1996, 2006–2009)
Bjarne Ohlin – keyboards (1980–1986)
Kenny Lyon — keyboards (1987)
Roger Mason – keyboards (1988–1990)
Benmont Tench — keyboards (1990–1991)
Clayton Doley — keyboards (2006–2009)
Touring/substitute musicians
Ken Firth — bass guitar (1982)
Matthew Hughes – keyboards, bass guitar (1987–1988)
Frank Infante — guitar (1987)
Jim Hilbun – bass (1991)
Lee Borkman – keyboards, guitar (1991)
Mark Meyer – drums (1991)
Duane Jarvis – guitar (1988)
Randy Wiggins – guitar (1993–1995)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums:
1983: Desperate
1985: What a Life!
1988: Temperamental
1991: Divinyls
1996: Underworld
Awards and nominations
ARIA Music Awards
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. Divinyls were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006.
|-
| 1991
| "I Touch Myself"
| Single of the Year
|
|-
| 2006
| Divinyls
| ARIA Hall of Fame
|
Countdown Australian Music Awards
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974–1987, it presented music awards from 1979–1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week. The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards.
|-
| rowspan="3" |1981
| rowspan="2" | "Boys in Town"
| Best Australian Single
|
|-
| Best Debut Single
|
|-
| Themselves
| Best New Talent
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1982
| Monkey Grip
| Best Debut Album
|
|-
| Chrissy Amphlett (Divinyls)
| Most Popular Female
|
|-
|1983
| Desperate
| Best Australian Album
|
|-
| 1984
| Christina Amphlett - "In My Life" (Divinyls)
| Best Female Performance in a Video
|
|-
MTV Video Music Awards
Originally beginning as an alternative to the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards were established in the end of the summer of 1984 by MTV to celebrate the top music videos of the year.
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=3|1991
| rowspan=3|"I Touch Myself"
| Video of the Year
|
| rowspan=3|
|-
| Best Group Video
|
|-
| Viewer's Choice
|
See also
Tony Mott
References
Further reading
Amphlett, Christina; Larry Writer, (November 2005). Pleasure and Pain: My Life. Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia. .
Stieven-Taylor, Alison, (15 October 2007). Rock chicks : the hottest female rockers from the 1960s to now. Sydney : Rockpool Publishing. .
External links
Official MySpace page
1980 establishments in Australia
2009 disestablishments in Australia
APRA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Australian new wave musical groups
Australian rock music groups
ARIA Award winners
Chrysalis Records artists
Musical groups established in 1980
Musical groups disestablished in 1996
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Musical groups disestablished in 2009
Musical groups from Sydney
New South Wales musical groups
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
Pub rock musical groups
Female-fronted musical groups
| true |
[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Lapu-Lapu",
"Legacy"
] |
C_29090bb342ea41eaa3bf8c3b7dd080db_0
|
What legacy did lapu leave behind?
| 1 |
What legacy did lapu leave behind?
|
Lapu-Lapu
|
Lapu-Lapu is regarded, retroactively, as the first Filipino hero. The government erected a statue in his honor on Mactan Island and renamed the town of Opon in Cebu to Lapu-Lapu City. A large statue of him, donated by South Korea, stands in the middle of Agrifina Circle in Rizal Park in Manila, replacing a fountain and rollerskating rink. Lapu-Lapu appears on the official seal of the Philippine National Police. His face was used as the main design on the 1-centavo coin that was circulated in the Philippines from 1967 to 1974. According to local legend, Lapu-Lapu never died but was turned into stone, and has since then been guarding the seas of Mactan. Fishermen in the island city would throw coins at a stone shaped like a man as a way of asking for permission to fish in the monarch's territory. Another urban legend concerns the statue of Lapu-Lapu erected at the center of the town plaza. The statue faced the old city hall, where mayors used to hold office; Lapu-Lapu was shown with a crossbow in the stance of shooting an enemy. Superstitious citizens proposed to replace this crossbow with a sword, after three consecutive mayors of the city each died of heart attack. In the United States, a street in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco, California is named after Lapu-Lapu. That street and others in the immediate neighborhood were renamed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors with names derived from historical Filipino heroes on August 31, 1979. During the First Regular Season of the 14th Congress of the Philippines, Senator Richard Gordon introduced a bill proposing to declare April 27 as an official Philippine national holiday to be known as Adlaw ni Lapu-Lapu, (Cebuano, "Day of Lapu-Lapu"). On April 27, 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte declared April 27 (the date when Battle of Mactan happened) as Lapu-Lapu Day for honoring as the first hero in the country who defeated foreign rule. Duterte also signed the creation of "Order of Lapu-Lapu" earlier in April 7, to recognize the government workers and private citizens on supporting his advocacies. CANNOTANSWER
|
Lapu-Lapu is regarded, retroactively, as the first Filipino hero.
| false |
[
"Mactan Shrine, also known as Liberty Shrine, is a memorial park on the island of Mactan in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, Philippines. It host two monuments namely the Magellan Monument, which is dedicated to Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and the Lapu Lapu Monument, a bronze statue which commemorates Lapu Lapu, a native leader who defeated Spanish soldiers led by Magellan in the 1521 Battle of Mactan.\n\nHistory\n\nThe Mactan Shrine in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu was established in 1969 as national shrine through Republic Act No. 5695 during the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos. The site is believed to be the approximate location of the historic Battle of Mactan which saw the defeat of the Spaniards led by explorer Ferdinand Magellan against Lapu-Lapu the datu of Mactan and his forces. The legislation included the Magellan Monument a structure which was erected back in the Spanish colonial era in 1866. Republic Act No. 5695 also mandated for a monument for Lapu Lapu, who is regarded as hero for his role in the historic battle in 1521 as well as the erection of a Liberty House, a facility which would exhibit memorabilia showcasing the Philippines' history prior to the arrival of the Spanish. In 1981, a bronze statue depicting Lapu-Lapu was erected within the shrine.\n\nIn National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) announced that it would improve the Mactan Shrine in 2019. Reports of plans for the Lapu-Lapu statue received negative reception but the NHCP gave an assurance that the statue won't be relocated. The following year, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) as part of the National Quincentennial Committee which was formed to commemorate the 500 anniversary of the Battle of Mactan unveiled a design for a new Lapu-Lapu Shrine which and launched a design competition for a new Lapu-Lapu monument which will serve as a centerpiece of the structure. The NHCP also launched a bidding in relation to the restoration of the Magellan Shrine.\n\nIn preparation for the 2021 Quincentennial Commemorations in the Philippines, the conservation work was done on the Magellan Monument and the Lapulapu sculpture was repainted. Starting January 17, 2021, the mast at the shrine will permanently hoist the Philippine flag.\n\nMonuments\nLapulapu Monument – A bronze statue depicting noted native leader, Lapu-Lapu\nMagellan Monument – A stone obelisk built in 1866 dedicated to explorer Ferdinand Magellan who is noted for leading the majority of the first circumnavigation of the Earth.\n\nFuture monument and museum\nTh Lapu-Lapu Memorial Shrine and Museum is a proposed structure to built inside the Mactan Shrine. The structure will be built on the shore adjacent to the Mactan Shrine. A new Lapu-Lapu monument will be built inside the structure with the winning entry of a design competition to be used a basis for the monument's design. The existing Lapu-Lapu statue will be kept intact. The groundbreaking is scheduled to take place on April 27, 2021.\n\nReferences\n\nMonuments and memorials in the Philippines\nBuildings and structures in Lapu-Lapu City\nTourist attractions in Cebu\nLapu-Lapu City\nParks in the Philippines",
"The legislative districts of Lapu-Lapu are the representations of the highly urbanized city of Lapu-Lapu in the Congress of the Philippines. The city is currently represented in the lower house of the Congress through its lone congressional district.\n\nHistory \nThe present-day city of Lapu-Lapu initially formed part of the second district of Cebu province in 1907. When seats for the upper house of the Philippine Legislature were elected from territory-based districts between 1916 and 1935, the then-municipality of Opon formed part of the tenth senatorial district which elected two out of the 24-member senate.\n\nIn the disruption caused by the Second World War, two delegates represented the province of Cebu (of which the municipality of Opon was a part) in the National Assembly of the Japanese-sponsored Second Philippine Republic: one was the provincial governor (an ex officio member), while the other was elected through a provincial assembly of KALIBAPI members during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. Upon the restoration of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1945, the province's seven-district configuration was restored. The Municipality of Opon, converted into the city of Lapu-Lapu in 1961, remained a part of Cebu's second district until 1972.\n\nLapu-Lapu was represented in the Interim Batasang Pambansa as part of Region VII from 1978 to 1984. The city, along with the rest of Cebu province (except Cebu City), elected six representatives, at large, to the Regular Batasang Pambansa in the 1984 elections. When the province was reapportioned into six congressional districts under the new Constitution which was proclaimed on February 11, 1987, Lapu-Lapu formed part of the province's sixth district.\n\nTwo years after Lapu-Lapu was converted into a highly urbanized city in 2007, it was also granted separate congressional representation by virtue of Republic Act No. 9726, approved on October 22, 2009. The law separated the city from Cebu's sixth district to form its own congressional district after the 2010 elections.\n\nLone District \n\nPopulation (2020): 497,604\n\nSee also \nLegislative districts of Cebu\n\nReferences \n\nLapu-Lapu\nLapu-Lapu City\nPolitics of Lapu-Lapu, Philippines",
"Lapu-Lapu's at-large congressional district is the congressional district of the Philippines in Lapu-Lapu City. It has been represented in the House of Representatives of the Philippines since 2010. Previously included in Cebu's 6th congressional district, it includes all barangays of the city. It is currently represented in the 18th Congress by Paz Radaza of the Lakas–CMD.\n\nRepresentation history\n\nElection results\n\n2010\n\n2013\n\n2016\n\n2019\n\nSee also\nLegislative district of Lapu-Lapu\n\nReferences\n\nCongressional districts of the Philippines\nPolitics of Lapu-Lapu, Philippines\n2009 establishments in the Philippines\nAt-large congressional districts of the Philippines\nCongressional districts of Central Visayas\nConstituencies established in 2009"
] |
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