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[
"Thelonious Monk",
"Lorraine Gordon (1947-1952)",
"Who was Lorraine Gordon?",
"Monk to Lorraine Gordon and her first husband, Alfred Lion, the founder of Blue Note Records.",
"Who introduced them?",
"Ike Quebec introduced Monk to Lorraine Gordon",
"Did he join Blue Note Records after that?",
"Shortly after meeting Gordon and Lion, Monk made his first recordings as the Coleman Hawkins Quartet leader for Blue Note",
"Did he and Lorraine start dating?",
"Monk married Nellie Smith the same year,",
"How else was Lorraine Gordon important to him?",
"Gordon preached his genius to the jazz world with unrelenting passion.",
"How did she get him noticed?",
"The guy has two left hands.' 'You just wait,' I'd say. 'This man's a genius, you don't know anything.'\"",
"Did he ever record for Blue Note under his own name?",
"I don't know.",
"What else was important about Lorraine Gordon?",
"Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card."
]
| C_c0dbc8b829804289890fcfacdece7851_0 | Why was his friend arrested? | 9 | Why was Thelonious Monk's friend arrested? | Thelonious Monk | In 1947, Ike Quebec introduced Monk to Lorraine Gordon and her first husband, Alfred Lion, the founder of Blue Note Records. From then on, Gordon preached his genius to the jazz world with unrelenting passion. Shortly after meeting Gordon and Lion, Monk made his first recordings as the Coleman Hawkins Quartet leader for Blue Note (later anthologized on Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1), which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation. Monk married Nellie Smith the same year, and in 1949 the couple had a son, T. S. Monk (called Toot), who became a jazz drummer. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born in 1953 and died of cancer in 1984. In her autobiography, Gordon spoke of the utter lack of interest in Monk's recordings, which translated to poor sales. "I went to Harlem and those record stores didn't want Monk or me. I'll never forget one particular owner, I can still see him and his store on Seventh Avenue and 125th Street. 'He can't play lady, what are you doing up here? The guy has two left hands.' 'You just wait,' I'd say. 'This man's a genius, you don't know anything.'" Due to Monk's reticence, Gordon became his mouthpiece to the public. In February 1948, she wrote to Ralph Ingersoll, the editor of the newspaper PM, and described Monk as "a genius living here in the heart of New York, whom nobody knows." As a result, one of PM's best writers visited Monk to do a feature on him, but Monk wouldn't speak to the reporter unless Gordon was in the room with him. In September of the same year, Lorraine approached Max Gordon, the owner and founder of the Village Vanguard jazz club, and secured Monk his first gig there. Monk was showcased at the club for a week, but not a single person came. In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and his friend Bud Powell. They found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without this, Monk was unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served, and this severely restricted his ability to perform for several years. Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing, recording at Blue Note, and performing at theaters and out-of-town gigs. CANNOTANSWER | They found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. | Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington.
Monk's compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists and are consistent with his unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of switched key releases, silences, and hesitations.
Monk was renowned for a distinct look which included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit during performances: while other musicians continued playing, Monk would stop, stand up, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano.
Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time magazine (the others being Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and Wynton Marsalis).
Biography
1917–1933: Early life
Thelonious Sphere Monk was born two years after his sister Marion on October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and was the son of Thelonious and Barbara Monk. His poorly written birth certificate misspelled his first name as "Thelious" or "Thelius". It also did not list his middle name, taken from his maternal grandfather, Sphere Batts. His brother, Thomas, was born in January 1920. In 1922, the family moved to the Phipps Houses, 243 West 63rd Street, in Manhattan, New York City; the neighborhood was known as San Juan Hill because of the many African-American veterans of the Spanish–American War who lived there (urban renewal displaced the long-time residents of the community, who saw their neighborhood replaced by the Amsterdam Housing Projects and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, though the Phipps Houses remained). Monk started playing the piano at the age of six, taking lessons from a neighbor, Alberta Simmons, who taught him stride playing in the style of Fats Waller, James P. Johnson and Eubie Blake. Monk's mother also taught him to play some hymns, and he would sometimes accompany her singing at church. He attended Stuyvesant High School, a public school for gifted students, but did not graduate.
For two years, between about the ages 10 to 12, Monk's piano teacher was an Austrian-born Jew named Simon Wolf, a pianist and violinist who studied under Alfred Megerlin, the first violinist and concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. Monk learned to play pieces by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, and Mozart, but was particularly drawn to pieces by Chopin and Rachmaninoff. The lessons were discontinued when it became clear that Monk's main focus was jazz music.
1934–1946: Early performing career
At 17, Monk toured with an evangelist, playing the church organ, and in his late teens he began to find work playing jazz. In the early to mid-1940s, he was the house pianist at Minton's Playhouse, a Manhattan nightclub. Much of Monk's style (in the Harlem stride tradition) was developed while he performed at Minton's where he participated in after-hours cutting contests, which featured many leading jazz soloists of the time. Monk's musical work at Minton's was crucial in the formulation of bebop, which would be furthered by other musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Parker, and, later, Miles Davis. Monk is believed to be the pianist featured on recordings Jerry Newman made around 1941 at the club. Monk's style at this time was later described as "hard-swinging," with the addition of runs in the style of Art Tatum. Monk's stated influences included Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and other early stride pianists. According to the documentary Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser, Monk lived in the same neighborhood in New York City as Johnson and knew him as a teenager.
In March 1943, Monk reported for his Army Induction physical, but was labeled by the Army psychiatrist as "psychiatric reject" and not inducted into the Armed Forces during WWII.
Mary Lou Williams, who mentored Monk and his contemporaries, spoke of Monk's rich inventiveness in this period, and how such invention was vital for musicians, since at the time it was common for fellow musicians to incorporate overheard musical ideas into their own works without giving due credit. "So, the boppers worked out a music that was hard to steal. I'll say this for the 'leeches,' though: they tried. I've seen them in Minton's busily writing on their shirt cuffs or scribbling on the tablecloth. And even our own guys, I'm afraid, did not give Monk the credit he had coming. Why, they even stole his idea of the beret and bop glasses."
In 1944, Monk cut his first commercial recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet. Hawkins was one of the earliest established jazz musicians to promote Monk, and the pianist later returned the favor by inviting Hawkins to join him on a 1957 session with John Coltrane.
1947–1952: Lorraine Gordon
In 1947, Ike Quebec introduced Monk to Lorraine Gordon and her first husband, Alfred Lion, co-founder of Blue Note Records. From then on, Gordon preached his genius to the jazz world with unrelenting passion. Shortly after meeting Gordon and Lion, Monk made his first recordings as a leader for Blue Note (later anthologized on Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1), which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation. Monk Blue Note Sessions were recorded between 1947 and 1952.
Monk married Nellie Smith in 1947, and on December 27, 1949 the couple had a son, T. S. Monk (called Toot), who became a jazz drummer. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born on September 5, 1953 and died of cancer in 1984.
In her autobiography, Gordon spoke of the utter lack of interest in Monk's recordings, which translated to poor sales. "I went to Harlem and those record stores didn't want Monk or me. I'll never forget one particular owner, I can still see him and his store on Seventh Avenue and 125th Street. 'He can't play lady, what are you doing up here? The guy has two left hands.' 'You just wait,' I'd say. 'This man's a genius, you don't know anything.'"
For Alfred Lion, co-owner of Blue Note Records, sales were a secondary consideration. Michael Cuscuna relates that Alfred Lion told him that there were three people in his life that when he heard them, he just flipped and had to record everything they did. The first was Monk, the second was Herbie Nichols, and the third was Andrew Hill, where he didn’t care how much money he made or lost. He just had to record this music.
Due to Monk's reticence, Gordon became his mouthpiece to the public. In February 1948, she wrote to Ralph Ingersoll, the editor of the newspaper PM, and described Monk as "a genius living here in the heart of New York, whom nobody knows". As a result, one of PM's best writers visited Monk to do a feature on him, but Monk wouldn't speak to the reporter unless Gordon was in the room with him. In September of the same year, Lorraine approached Max Gordon, the owner and founder of the Village Vanguard and secured Monk his first gig there. Monk was showcased at the club for a week, but not a single person came.
In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and his friend Bud Powell. They found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without this, Monk was nominally unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served. Although this severely restricted his ability to perform for several years, a coterie of musicians led by Randy Weston introduced Monk to Black-owned bars and clubs in Brooklyn that flouted the law, enabling the pianist to play little-advertised, one-night engagements throughout the borough with a modicum of regularity. Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing and performing at theaters, outer borough clubs and out-of-town venues.
1952–1954: Prestige Records
After intermittent recording sessions for Blue Note from 1947 to 1952, Monk was under contract to Prestige Records for the following two years. With Prestige, he cut several highly significant, but at the time under-recognized, albums, including collaborations with the saxophonist Sonny Rollins and the drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. In 1954, Monk participated in a Christmas Eve session, which produced most of the albums Bags' Groove and Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants by Davis. In his autobiography, Miles, Davis claimed that the alleged anger and tension between them did not take place and that the claims of blows being exchanged were "rumors" and a "misunderstanding".
In 1954, Monk paid his first visit to Paris. As well as performing at concerts, he recorded a solo piano session for French radio (later issued as an album by Disques Vogue). Backstage, Mary Lou Williams introduced him to Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de Koenigswarter, a member of the Rothschild family and a patroness of several New York City jazz musicians. She was a close friend for the rest of Monk's life: she "served as a surrogate wife right alongside Monk's equally devoted actual wife, Nellie" and "paid Monk's bills, dragged him to an endless array of doctors, put him and his family up in her own home and, when necessary, helped Nellie institutionalize him. In 1958 Monk and the baroness were stopped by the police in Delaware. When a small amount of marijuana was discovered, she took the rap for her friend and even served a few nights in jail."
1955–1961: Riverside Records
By the time of his signing to Riverside, Monk was highly regarded by his peers and by some critics, but his records remained poor sellers and his music was still regarded as too "difficult" for more mainstream acceptance. Indeed, with Monk's consent, Riverside had managed to buy out his previous Prestige contract for a mere $108.24. He willingly recorded two albums of jazz standards as a means of increasing his profile: Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington (1955) and The Unique Thelonious Monk (1956).
On Brilliant Corners, recorded in late 1956, Monk mainly performed his own music. The complex title track, which featured Rollins, was so difficult to play that the final version had to be edited together from multiple takes. The album, however, was largely regarded as the first commercial success for Monk.
After having his cabaret card restored, Monk relaunched his New York career with a landmark six-month residency at the Five Spot Cafe in the East Village neighborhood of New York beginning in June 1957, leading a quartet with John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Shadow Wilson on drums. Little of this group's music was documented owing to contractual problems: Coltrane was signed to Prestige at the time, but Monk refused to return to his former label. One studio session by the quartet was made for Riverside, three tunes which were not released until 1961 by the subsidiary label Jazzland along with outtakes from a larger group recording with Coltrane and Hawkins, those results appearing in 1957 as the album Monk's Music. An amateur recording from the Five Spot (a later September 1958 reunion with Coltrane sitting in for Johnny Griffin) was issued on Blue Note in 1993; and a recording of the quartet performing at a Carnegie Hall concert on November 29 was recorded in high fidelity by Voice of America engineers, unearthed in the collection of the Library of Congress and released by Blue Note in 2005.
"Crepuscule with Nellie," recorded in 1957, "was Monk's only, what's called through-composed composition, meaning that there is no improvising. It is Monk's concerto, if you will, and in some ways it speaks for itself. But he wrote it very, very carefully and very deliberately and really struggled to make it sound the way it sounds. [... I]t was his love song for Nellie," said the author of the "definitive Monk biography", Robin D. G. Kelley.
The Five Spot residency ended Christmas 1957; Coltrane left to rejoin Davis's group, and the band was effectively disbanded. Monk did not form another long-term band until June 1958 when he began a second residency at the Five Spot, again with a quartet, this time with Griffin (Charlie Rouse later) on tenor, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass, and Roy Haynes on drums.
On October 15, 1958, en route to a week-long engagement for the quartet at the Comedy Club in Baltimore, Maryland, Monk and de Koenigswarter were detained by police in Wilmington, Delaware. When Monk refused to answer questions or cooperate with the policemen, they beat him with a blackjack. Although they had authorization to search the vehicle and found narcotics in suitcases held in the trunk of the Baroness's car, Judge Christie of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that the unlawful detention of the pair, and the beating of Monk, rendered the consent to the search void as it was given under duress.
1962–1970: Columbia Records
After extended negotiations, Monk signed in 1962 with Columbia Records, one of the big four American record labels of the day. Monk's relationship with Riverside had soured over disagreements concerning royalty payments and had concluded with two European live albums; he had not recorded an album for Riverside since April 1960.
Working with producer Teo Macero on his debut for Columbia, the sessions in the first week of November had a lineup that had been with him for two years: tenor saxophonist Rouse (who worked regularly with Monk from 1959 to 1970), bassist John Ore, and drummer Frankie Dunlop. Monk's Dream, his first Columbia album, was released in 1963.
Columbia's resources allowed Monk to receive more promotion than earlier in his career. Monk's Dream became the best-selling LP of his lifetime, and on February 28, 1964, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine, being featured in the article "The Loneliest Monk". The cover article was originally intended to run in November 1963, but it was delayed due to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. According to biographer Kelley, the 1964 Time appearance came because "Barry Farrell, who wrote the cover story, wanted to write about a jazz musician and almost by default Monk was chosen, because they thought Ray Charles and Miles Davis were too controversial. ... [Monk] wasn't so political. ...[O]f course, I challenge that [in the biography]," Kelley wrote.
Monk continued to record studio albums, including Criss Cross, also in 1963, and Underground, in 1968. But by the Columbia years his compositional output was limited, and only his final Columbia studio record, Underground, featured a substantial number of new tunes, including his only time piece, "Ugly Beauty".
As had been the case with Riverside, his period with Columbia contains multiple live albums, including Miles and Monk at Newport (1963), Live at the It Club, and Live at the Jazz Workshop, the latter two recorded in 1964, the last not being released until 1982. After the departure of Ore and Dunlop, the remainder of the rhythm section in Monk's quartet during the bulk of his Columbia period was Larry Gales on bass and Ben Riley on drums, both of whom joined in 1964. Along with Rouse, they remained with Monk for over four years, his longest-serving band.
1971–1982: Later life and death
Monk had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s for health reasons and made only a small number of appearances during the final decade of his life. His last studio recordings as a leader were made in November 1971 for the English Black Lion label, near the end of a worldwide tour with the Giants of Jazz, a group which included Gillespie, Kai Winding, Sonny Stitt, Al McKibbon, and Art Blakey. Bassist McKibbon, who had known Monk for over twenty years and played on his final tour in 1971, later said: "On that tour, Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn't say 'Good morning,' 'Goodnight,' 'What time?' Nothing. Why, I don't know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn't communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly." A different side of Monk is revealed in Lewis Porter's biography, John Coltrane: His Life and Music; Coltrane states: "Monk is exactly the opposite of Miles [Davis]: he talks about music all the time, and he wants so much for you to understand that if, by chance, you ask him something, he'll spend hours if necessary to explain it to you." Blakey reports that Monk was excellent at both chess and checkers.
The documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988) attributes Monk's quirky behavior to mental illness. In the film, Monk's son says that his father sometimes did not recognize him, and he reports that Monk was hospitalized on several occasions owing to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No reports or diagnoses were ever publicized, but Monk would often become excited for two or three days, then pace for days after that, after which he would withdraw and stop speaking. Doctors recommended electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment option for Monk's illness, but his family would not allow it; antipsychotics and lithium were prescribed instead. Other theories abound: Leslie Gourse, author of the book Straight, No Chaser: The Life and Genius of Thelonious Monk (1997), reported that at least one of Monk's psychiatrists failed to find evidence of manic depression (bipolar disorder) or schizophrenia. Another doctor maintains that Monk was misdiagnosed and prescribed drugs during his hospital stay that may have caused brain damage.
As his health declined, Monk's last six years were spent as a guest in the Weehawken, New Jersey, home of his long-standing patron and friend, Pannonica de Koenigswarter, who nursed Monk during his final illness. She proved to be a steadfast presence, as did his own wife Nellie, especially as his life descended into further isolation. Monk did not play the piano during this time, even though one was present in his room, and he spoke to few visitors. He died of a stroke on February 17, 1982, and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
Posthumous myth: Monk at Juilliard
There have been numerous published references since the 1980s in Monk biographies purporting he attended the Juilliard School of Music, an error that continues to be disseminated in online biographies of Monk. At Monk’s funeral service in 1982, it was mentioned in his eulogy that he took classes in harmony and arrangement at Juilliard. In the 1988 documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, Samuel E. Wright narrates that "Monk began playing piano without formal training. Later, he took lessons and studied music theory at the Juilliard School of Music."
The complete lack of documented evidence connecting Monk with attending Juilliard was noted by Monk biographer Thomas Fitterling in the first German edition of his Monk biography published in 1987. The Juilliard canard may have its early source in the fact that Monk’s sister Marion thought that her piano teacher, a Mr. Wolfe (sic), who briefly taught Thelonious around 1930, may have been connected to Juilliard as a teacher or student. In fact, the Monk family piano teacher had been trained by the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic and has no known connection to Juilliard. Monk biographer Laurent de Wilde believed that the apocryphal Juilliard story may have stemmed from Monk’s late 1950s collaboration with Juilliard instructor Hall Overton. The main source of the Juilliard misunderstanding is probably that Monk participated in a music contest circa 1942–1943 at the Columbus Hill Community Center in his neighborhood, which had a Juilliard scholarship as the first prize. The teenage Monk entered the contest but placed second and thus failed to get the scholarship. According to Monk’s wife Nellie, when the prize winner later encountered Monk during a 1958 engagement and told him that Monk should rightfully have been awarded the Juilliard scholarship, Monk replied: "I'm glad I didn’t go to the conservatory. Probably would've ruined me."
Technique and playing style
Monk once said, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes."
According to Bebop: The Music and Its Players author Thomas Owens, "Monk's usual piano touch was harsh and percussive, even in ballads. He often attacked the keyboard anew for each note, rather than striving for any semblance of legato. Often seemingly unintentional seconds embellish his melodic lines, giving the effect of someone playing while wearing work gloves. [...] He hit the keys with fingers held flat rather than in a natural curve, and held his free fingers high above the keys. [...] Sometimes he hit a single key with more than one finger, and divided single-line melodies between the two hands." In contrast with this unorthodox approach to playing, he could play runs and arpeggios with great speed and accuracy. He also had good finger independence, allowing him to play a melodic line and a trill simultaneously in his right hand.
Monk's style was not universally appreciated. For example, the poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin described him as "the elephant on the keyboard".
Monk often used parts of whole tone scales, played either ascending or descending, and covering several octaves. He also had extended improvisations that featured parallel sixths (he also used these in the themes of some of his compositions). His solos also feature space and long notes. Unusually for a bebop-based pianist, as an accompanist and on solo performances he often employed a left-hand stride pattern. A further characteristic of his work as an accompanist was his tendency to stop playing, leaving a soloist with just bass and drums for support. Monk had a particular proclivity for the key of B flat. All of his many blues compositions, including "Blue Monk," "Misterioso," "Blues Five Spot," and "Functional," were composed in B flat; in addition, his signature theme, "Thelonious," largely consists of an incessantly repeated B-flat tone.
Tributes
Music in Monk Time is a 1983 documentary film about Monk and his music that was widely praised by music and film critics.
Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy performed as Monk's accompanist in 1960. Monk's tunes became a permanent part of his repertoire in concert and on albums. Lacy recorded many albums entirely focused on Monk's compositions.
Gunther Schuller wrote the work "Variants on a Theme of Thelonious Monk (Criss-Cross)" in 1960. It first appeared on Schuller's album Jazz Abstractions (1961) and was later performed and recorded by other artists, including Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and Bill Evans.
Round Midnight Variations is a collection of variations on the song "'Round Midnight" premiered in 2002. Composers contributing included Milton Babbitt, William Bolcom, David Crumb, George Crumb, Michael Daugherty, John Harbison, Joel Hoffman, Aaron Jay Kernis, Gerald Levinson, Tobias Picker, Frederic Rzewski, Augusta Read Thomas, and Michael Torke.
”Thelonious” Repertory Ensemble: Buell Neidlinger, along with Steve Lacy, studied and played with Monk at his home before playing with Cecil Taylor. His tribute band "Thelonious" (1981–1989) is the most substantive of all the Monk tribute bands in the depth and difficulty of its repertoire. The book included "Trinkle Tinkle", "Four In One", and "Skippy", the most difficult of Monk's compositions.
This group is well-documented on several records, including Thelonious at the Red Sea and Thelonious Atmosphere. Musicians: Buell Neidlinger (bass, leader, transcriptions), Marty Krystall (tenor, soprano sax, bass clarinet), Hugh Schick (trumpet, piano, likely the first transcriber of Monk’s more intricate / arcane compositions), Harry Connick Jr. (piano), John Beasley (piano), Bill Cunliffe, winner of T. Monk Competition (piano), Jerry Peters (Keyboards), William Jeffrey (drums), Fritz Wyse (drums), Billy Osborne (drums, piano), Larry Koonse (guitar). Two Monk alums, Putter Smith and Larry Gales, substituted for Buell in the rare instance that he was not available. It is likely the only Monk repertory / tribute band that never performed music of other composers.
Buell's other records show a lifelong devotion to the Monk oeuvre. Stringjazz, Buellgrass, and the Buell Neidlinger Quartet/Quintet are other groups of his that routinely played and recorded Monk’s compositions. The personnel in these bands involved luminaries including: Vincent Colaiuta, Elvin Jones, Billy Higgins, Peter Erskine (drums), George Bohanon (trombone), Warren Gale (trumpet).
Stefano Benni's 2005 Misterioso, A Journey into the Silence of Thelonious Monk was staged as a theatre production featuring Monk's music, directed by Filomena Campus, at the Edinburgh Festival in 2008, at the Riverside Studios in 2009, and at a variety of venues in the following years. In 2017, an Arts Council England-sponsored international Monk Misterioso Tour was launched at the British Library in October, culminating with a new dramatised production of Misterioso: A Journey into the Silence of Thelonious Monk at Kings Place to close the London Jazz Festival's celebration of the centenary of Monk's birth, featuring Campus alongside Cleveland Watkiss, Pat Thomas, Rowland Sutherland, Orphy Robinson, Dudley Phillips and Mark Mondesir.
John Beasley founded the big band group MONK'estra, which celebrates Monk's and other classic compositions with a contemporary twist incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythms, modern jazz playing, hip hop and traditional big band instrumentation, along with originals by Beasley.
Tribute albums
The following tribute albums to Monk have been released:
Reflections (1958) by Steve Lacy
Evidence (1962) by Steve Lacy and Don Cherry
Bennie Wallace Plays Monk (1981) by saxophonist Bennie Wallace
Four in One (1982) by Sphere: features former Monk sidemen Charlie Rouse (ten sax), Ben Riley (drums), Buster Williams (bass) and Kenny Barron (piano).
Sings Thelonius Monk (1982) by singer Soesja Citroen, featuring the Cees Slinger Octet
Thelonica (1983), by pianist Tommy Flanagan
Light Blue: Arthur Blythe Plays Thelonious Monk (1983) by saxophonist Arthur Blythe
That's The Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk (1984), an album featuring different groupings of rock and jazz musicians on each song including Steve Lacy, Donald Fagen, Todd Rundgren, Peter Frampton, Carla Bley, Joe Jackson, Gil Evans and Was Not Was.
Monk Suite: Kronos Quartet Plays Music of Thelonious Monk (1985) by Kronos Quartet with Ron Carter on bass.
Six Monk's Compositions (1987) (1987) by Anthony Braxton
Carmen Sings Monk (1988) by Carmen McRae
Rumba Para Monk (1988), by Jerry Gonzalez
Monk in Motian (1989) by Paul Motian, featuring Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell, Geri Allen and Dewey Redman
Thelonious Sphere Monk: Dreaming of the Masters Series Vol. 2, by Art Ensemble of Chicago with Cecil Taylor
Epistrophy (1991) by pianist Ran Blake
Monk's Modern Music (1994) by pianist Rick Roe with Rodney Whitaker on bass and Greg Hutchinson on drums
The Fo'tet Plays Monk (1995) by Ralph Peterson, Jr.
e.s.t. Esbjörn Svensson Trio Plays Monk (1996) by e.s.t.
Monk on Monk (1997) by T.S. Monk, featuring Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Grover Washington Jr., Roy Hargrove, Clark Terry, Geri Allen and others
Brilliant Corners: The Music of Thelonious Monk (1997) by Bill Holman
Thelonious: Fred Hersch Plays Monk (1997) by Fred Hersch
Green Chimneys: The Music of Thelonious Monk (1999) by Andy Summers
In the Key of Monk (1999) by Jessica Williams (musician)
Standard Time, Vol. 4: Marsalis Plays Monk (1999) by Wynton Marsalis
School Days (2002), recorded in 1963, by Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd, with Henry Grimes and Dennis Charles
Thelonious Moog (2003) by Steve Million and Joe "Guido" Welsh
Monk's Casino (2005) by pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach; a triple CD set that includes every composition by Monk. According to the album's liner notes by critic John Corbett, this is the first comprehensive recording of all Monk's songs.
An Open Letter to Thelonious (2008) by Ellis Marsalis
In Monk's Mood (2009) by John Tchicai
Friday the 13th: The Micros Play Monk (2010) by The Microscopic Septet
Melodious Monk: A New Look at An Old Master (2011) by Kim Pensyl and Phil DeGreg
The Monk Project (2012) by Jimmy Owens
Baritone Monk (2012) by The Claire Daly Quartet
Joey. Monk. Live! (2017) by Joey Alexander
John Beasley presents MONK'estra vol. 1 (2016), by John Beasley
John Beasley presents MONK'estra vol. 2 (2017) by John Beasley
The Monk: Live at Bimhuis (2018) by Miho Hazama and Metropole Orkest Big Band
Work: the complete composition of Thelonious Monk, solo guitar (2018) by Miles Okazaki
Thelonious Sphere Monk (2018) by MAST
Monk's Dreams: The complete compositions of Thelonious Sphere Monk (2018) by Frank Kimbrough
Other references to Monk
Comedian Felonious Munk and music producer Thelonious Martin both adopted stage names based on Monk's name. Other things named after Monk include punk rock band Thelonious Monster, the 2021 novel Felonious Monk'' by William Kotzwinkle, and the Cambridge, Massachusetts seafood-and-jazz restaurant Thelonious Monkfish, which later was renamed to The Mad Monkfish.
The North Coast Brewing Company produces Brother Thelonious ale, the proceeds from which go towards jazz music education for young people.
Discography
Awards and accolades
In 1993, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for "a body of distinguished and innovative musical composition that has had a significant and enduring impact on the evolution of jazz".
The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz was established in 1986 by the Monk family and Maria Fisher. Its mission is to offer public school-based jazz education programs for young people around the globe, helping students develop imaginative thinking, creativity, curiosity, a positive self-image, and a respect for their own and others' cultural heritage. In addition to hosting an annual International Jazz Competition since 1987, the institute also helped, through its partnership with UNESCO, designate April 30, 2012, as the first annual International Jazz Day.
Monk was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
References
Bibliography
External links
Official site
Memorial Page
Thelonious Monk's birth certificate
Thelonious Monk at All About Jazz
Not So Misterioso: Robert Christgau on Monk
1917 births
1982 deaths
African-American jazz composers
African-American jazz musicians
African-American jazz pianists
American jazz composers
American jazz pianists
American male pianists
Bebop pianists
Blue Note Records artists
Charly Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
American male jazz composers
People from Rocky Mount, North Carolina
Prestige Records artists
Pulitzer Prize winners
Riverside Records artists
Stuyvesant High School alumni
Jazz musicians from New York (state)
Jazz musicians from North Carolina
The Giants of Jazz members
Black Lion Records artists
20th-century jazz composers
20th-century American male musicians
Deaths from cerebral infarction | true | [
"Usamah Mohamad (born c. 1980) is a Sudanese web developer, blogger, and citizen journalist from Omdurman arrested during the protests of June 2012. A graduate of the University of Khartoum, he writes on Twitter under the name \"simsimt\".\n\nOn 22 June 2012, he and a friend used smartphones to document the heavy police presence in the neighborhood of Burri in Khartoum before a planned protest. They were then arrested by plainclothes officers. Though the friend was released seven hours later, Mohamad continued to be detained, and his relatives were informed that he was being held at Kober Prison. Before his arrest, Mohamad made a video for Al Jazeera explaining why he participated in the protests. In it, he stated his belief that \"after twenty-three years of oppression and injustice, poverty, crimes that are all committed in the current regime, change now is inevitable.\"\n\nAmnesty International designated Mohamad a prisoner of conscience, \"held solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression\". The organization also stated its concern that Mohamad was at risk of torture. Al Jazeera reported that Sudanese Twitter users were calling for his release under the hashtag #FreeUsamah.\n\nMohamed was released from incarceration in August 2012.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nLiving people\nAmnesty International prisoners of conscience held by Sudan\nSudanese journalists\nSudanese prisoners and detainees\nUniversity of Khartoum alumni\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nPlace of birth missing (living people)",
"Roghieh \"Faran\" Daneshgari () is an Iranian communist who was a member of the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas.\n\nCareer \nDaneshgari was a guerilla fighting against Pahlavi dynasty, however she was arrested in a safehouse. According to memoirs of Ahmad Ahmad, SAVAK agents told him that when they arrested Daneshgari, she resisted tortures and did not talk during interrogations. However, because she had trusted an undercover agent impersonating a friend and given him a phone number to inform her family, the line was tapped and several others were arrested. After the Iranian Revolution, she was released from prison and ran for an Assembly of Experts for Constitution seat from Tehran constituency, garnering 115,334 votes. Though Daneshgari was the most-voted leftist candidate, she was not elected.\n\nIn 1980, along with Mostafa Madani she tried to convince the minority faction of the OIPFG to prevent split, but to no avail. After the schism, Daneshgari a member of the central committee in the majority faction.\n\nScholar Haideh Moghissi argues that speeches made by Daneshgari during her 1979 campaign reflects \"deficiency\" in understanding gender issues in contemporary Iran, because she did not criticize Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran for emphasizing motherhood and their role in reproduction and instead made remarks about why women could be as courageous as men despite gender stereotypes.\n\nReferences \n\nOrganization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas members\nYear of birth missing (living people)\n20th-century Iranian women politicians\nLiving people"
]
|
[
"Thelonious Monk",
"Lorraine Gordon (1947-1952)",
"Who was Lorraine Gordon?",
"Monk to Lorraine Gordon and her first husband, Alfred Lion, the founder of Blue Note Records.",
"Who introduced them?",
"Ike Quebec introduced Monk to Lorraine Gordon",
"Did he join Blue Note Records after that?",
"Shortly after meeting Gordon and Lion, Monk made his first recordings as the Coleman Hawkins Quartet leader for Blue Note",
"Did he and Lorraine start dating?",
"Monk married Nellie Smith the same year,",
"How else was Lorraine Gordon important to him?",
"Gordon preached his genius to the jazz world with unrelenting passion.",
"How did she get him noticed?",
"The guy has two left hands.' 'You just wait,' I'd say. 'This man's a genius, you don't know anything.'\"",
"Did he ever record for Blue Note under his own name?",
"I don't know.",
"What else was important about Lorraine Gordon?",
"Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card.",
"Why was his friend arrested?",
"They found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell."
]
| C_c0dbc8b829804289890fcfacdece7851_0 | Did Monk have to move so he could play somewhere? | 10 | Did Thelonious Monk have to move so Monk could play somewhere? | Thelonious Monk | In 1947, Ike Quebec introduced Monk to Lorraine Gordon and her first husband, Alfred Lion, the founder of Blue Note Records. From then on, Gordon preached his genius to the jazz world with unrelenting passion. Shortly after meeting Gordon and Lion, Monk made his first recordings as the Coleman Hawkins Quartet leader for Blue Note (later anthologized on Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1), which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation. Monk married Nellie Smith the same year, and in 1949 the couple had a son, T. S. Monk (called Toot), who became a jazz drummer. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born in 1953 and died of cancer in 1984. In her autobiography, Gordon spoke of the utter lack of interest in Monk's recordings, which translated to poor sales. "I went to Harlem and those record stores didn't want Monk or me. I'll never forget one particular owner, I can still see him and his store on Seventh Avenue and 125th Street. 'He can't play lady, what are you doing up here? The guy has two left hands.' 'You just wait,' I'd say. 'This man's a genius, you don't know anything.'" Due to Monk's reticence, Gordon became his mouthpiece to the public. In February 1948, she wrote to Ralph Ingersoll, the editor of the newspaper PM, and described Monk as "a genius living here in the heart of New York, whom nobody knows." As a result, one of PM's best writers visited Monk to do a feature on him, but Monk wouldn't speak to the reporter unless Gordon was in the room with him. In September of the same year, Lorraine approached Max Gordon, the owner and founder of the Village Vanguard jazz club, and secured Monk his first gig there. Monk was showcased at the club for a week, but not a single person came. In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and his friend Bud Powell. They found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without this, Monk was unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served, and this severely restricted his ability to perform for several years. Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing, recording at Blue Note, and performing at theaters and out-of-town gigs. CANNOTANSWER | Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing, recording at Blue Note, and performing at theaters and out-of-town gigs. | Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington.
Monk's compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists and are consistent with his unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of switched key releases, silences, and hesitations.
Monk was renowned for a distinct look which included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit during performances: while other musicians continued playing, Monk would stop, stand up, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano.
Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time magazine (the others being Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and Wynton Marsalis).
Biography
1917–1933: Early life
Thelonious Sphere Monk was born two years after his sister Marion on October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and was the son of Thelonious and Barbara Monk. His poorly written birth certificate misspelled his first name as "Thelious" or "Thelius". It also did not list his middle name, taken from his maternal grandfather, Sphere Batts. His brother, Thomas, was born in January 1920. In 1922, the family moved to the Phipps Houses, 243 West 63rd Street, in Manhattan, New York City; the neighborhood was known as San Juan Hill because of the many African-American veterans of the Spanish–American War who lived there (urban renewal displaced the long-time residents of the community, who saw their neighborhood replaced by the Amsterdam Housing Projects and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, though the Phipps Houses remained). Monk started playing the piano at the age of six, taking lessons from a neighbor, Alberta Simmons, who taught him stride playing in the style of Fats Waller, James P. Johnson and Eubie Blake. Monk's mother also taught him to play some hymns, and he would sometimes accompany her singing at church. He attended Stuyvesant High School, a public school for gifted students, but did not graduate.
For two years, between about the ages 10 to 12, Monk's piano teacher was an Austrian-born Jew named Simon Wolf, a pianist and violinist who studied under Alfred Megerlin, the first violinist and concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. Monk learned to play pieces by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, and Mozart, but was particularly drawn to pieces by Chopin and Rachmaninoff. The lessons were discontinued when it became clear that Monk's main focus was jazz music.
1934–1946: Early performing career
At 17, Monk toured with an evangelist, playing the church organ, and in his late teens he began to find work playing jazz. In the early to mid-1940s, he was the house pianist at Minton's Playhouse, a Manhattan nightclub. Much of Monk's style (in the Harlem stride tradition) was developed while he performed at Minton's where he participated in after-hours cutting contests, which featured many leading jazz soloists of the time. Monk's musical work at Minton's was crucial in the formulation of bebop, which would be furthered by other musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Parker, and, later, Miles Davis. Monk is believed to be the pianist featured on recordings Jerry Newman made around 1941 at the club. Monk's style at this time was later described as "hard-swinging," with the addition of runs in the style of Art Tatum. Monk's stated influences included Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and other early stride pianists. According to the documentary Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser, Monk lived in the same neighborhood in New York City as Johnson and knew him as a teenager.
In March 1943, Monk reported for his Army Induction physical, but was labeled by the Army psychiatrist as "psychiatric reject" and not inducted into the Armed Forces during WWII.
Mary Lou Williams, who mentored Monk and his contemporaries, spoke of Monk's rich inventiveness in this period, and how such invention was vital for musicians, since at the time it was common for fellow musicians to incorporate overheard musical ideas into their own works without giving due credit. "So, the boppers worked out a music that was hard to steal. I'll say this for the 'leeches,' though: they tried. I've seen them in Minton's busily writing on their shirt cuffs or scribbling on the tablecloth. And even our own guys, I'm afraid, did not give Monk the credit he had coming. Why, they even stole his idea of the beret and bop glasses."
In 1944, Monk cut his first commercial recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet. Hawkins was one of the earliest established jazz musicians to promote Monk, and the pianist later returned the favor by inviting Hawkins to join him on a 1957 session with John Coltrane.
1947–1952: Lorraine Gordon
In 1947, Ike Quebec introduced Monk to Lorraine Gordon and her first husband, Alfred Lion, co-founder of Blue Note Records. From then on, Gordon preached his genius to the jazz world with unrelenting passion. Shortly after meeting Gordon and Lion, Monk made his first recordings as a leader for Blue Note (later anthologized on Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1), which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation. Monk Blue Note Sessions were recorded between 1947 and 1952.
Monk married Nellie Smith in 1947, and on December 27, 1949 the couple had a son, T. S. Monk (called Toot), who became a jazz drummer. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born on September 5, 1953 and died of cancer in 1984.
In her autobiography, Gordon spoke of the utter lack of interest in Monk's recordings, which translated to poor sales. "I went to Harlem and those record stores didn't want Monk or me. I'll never forget one particular owner, I can still see him and his store on Seventh Avenue and 125th Street. 'He can't play lady, what are you doing up here? The guy has two left hands.' 'You just wait,' I'd say. 'This man's a genius, you don't know anything.'"
For Alfred Lion, co-owner of Blue Note Records, sales were a secondary consideration. Michael Cuscuna relates that Alfred Lion told him that there were three people in his life that when he heard them, he just flipped and had to record everything they did. The first was Monk, the second was Herbie Nichols, and the third was Andrew Hill, where he didn’t care how much money he made or lost. He just had to record this music.
Due to Monk's reticence, Gordon became his mouthpiece to the public. In February 1948, she wrote to Ralph Ingersoll, the editor of the newspaper PM, and described Monk as "a genius living here in the heart of New York, whom nobody knows". As a result, one of PM's best writers visited Monk to do a feature on him, but Monk wouldn't speak to the reporter unless Gordon was in the room with him. In September of the same year, Lorraine approached Max Gordon, the owner and founder of the Village Vanguard and secured Monk his first gig there. Monk was showcased at the club for a week, but not a single person came.
In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and his friend Bud Powell. They found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without this, Monk was nominally unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served. Although this severely restricted his ability to perform for several years, a coterie of musicians led by Randy Weston introduced Monk to Black-owned bars and clubs in Brooklyn that flouted the law, enabling the pianist to play little-advertised, one-night engagements throughout the borough with a modicum of regularity. Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing and performing at theaters, outer borough clubs and out-of-town venues.
1952–1954: Prestige Records
After intermittent recording sessions for Blue Note from 1947 to 1952, Monk was under contract to Prestige Records for the following two years. With Prestige, he cut several highly significant, but at the time under-recognized, albums, including collaborations with the saxophonist Sonny Rollins and the drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. In 1954, Monk participated in a Christmas Eve session, which produced most of the albums Bags' Groove and Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants by Davis. In his autobiography, Miles, Davis claimed that the alleged anger and tension between them did not take place and that the claims of blows being exchanged were "rumors" and a "misunderstanding".
In 1954, Monk paid his first visit to Paris. As well as performing at concerts, he recorded a solo piano session for French radio (later issued as an album by Disques Vogue). Backstage, Mary Lou Williams introduced him to Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de Koenigswarter, a member of the Rothschild family and a patroness of several New York City jazz musicians. She was a close friend for the rest of Monk's life: she "served as a surrogate wife right alongside Monk's equally devoted actual wife, Nellie" and "paid Monk's bills, dragged him to an endless array of doctors, put him and his family up in her own home and, when necessary, helped Nellie institutionalize him. In 1958 Monk and the baroness were stopped by the police in Delaware. When a small amount of marijuana was discovered, she took the rap for her friend and even served a few nights in jail."
1955–1961: Riverside Records
By the time of his signing to Riverside, Monk was highly regarded by his peers and by some critics, but his records remained poor sellers and his music was still regarded as too "difficult" for more mainstream acceptance. Indeed, with Monk's consent, Riverside had managed to buy out his previous Prestige contract for a mere $108.24. He willingly recorded two albums of jazz standards as a means of increasing his profile: Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington (1955) and The Unique Thelonious Monk (1956).
On Brilliant Corners, recorded in late 1956, Monk mainly performed his own music. The complex title track, which featured Rollins, was so difficult to play that the final version had to be edited together from multiple takes. The album, however, was largely regarded as the first commercial success for Monk.
After having his cabaret card restored, Monk relaunched his New York career with a landmark six-month residency at the Five Spot Cafe in the East Village neighborhood of New York beginning in June 1957, leading a quartet with John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Shadow Wilson on drums. Little of this group's music was documented owing to contractual problems: Coltrane was signed to Prestige at the time, but Monk refused to return to his former label. One studio session by the quartet was made for Riverside, three tunes which were not released until 1961 by the subsidiary label Jazzland along with outtakes from a larger group recording with Coltrane and Hawkins, those results appearing in 1957 as the album Monk's Music. An amateur recording from the Five Spot (a later September 1958 reunion with Coltrane sitting in for Johnny Griffin) was issued on Blue Note in 1993; and a recording of the quartet performing at a Carnegie Hall concert on November 29 was recorded in high fidelity by Voice of America engineers, unearthed in the collection of the Library of Congress and released by Blue Note in 2005.
"Crepuscule with Nellie," recorded in 1957, "was Monk's only, what's called through-composed composition, meaning that there is no improvising. It is Monk's concerto, if you will, and in some ways it speaks for itself. But he wrote it very, very carefully and very deliberately and really struggled to make it sound the way it sounds. [... I]t was his love song for Nellie," said the author of the "definitive Monk biography", Robin D. G. Kelley.
The Five Spot residency ended Christmas 1957; Coltrane left to rejoin Davis's group, and the band was effectively disbanded. Monk did not form another long-term band until June 1958 when he began a second residency at the Five Spot, again with a quartet, this time with Griffin (Charlie Rouse later) on tenor, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass, and Roy Haynes on drums.
On October 15, 1958, en route to a week-long engagement for the quartet at the Comedy Club in Baltimore, Maryland, Monk and de Koenigswarter were detained by police in Wilmington, Delaware. When Monk refused to answer questions or cooperate with the policemen, they beat him with a blackjack. Although they had authorization to search the vehicle and found narcotics in suitcases held in the trunk of the Baroness's car, Judge Christie of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that the unlawful detention of the pair, and the beating of Monk, rendered the consent to the search void as it was given under duress.
1962–1970: Columbia Records
After extended negotiations, Monk signed in 1962 with Columbia Records, one of the big four American record labels of the day. Monk's relationship with Riverside had soured over disagreements concerning royalty payments and had concluded with two European live albums; he had not recorded an album for Riverside since April 1960.
Working with producer Teo Macero on his debut for Columbia, the sessions in the first week of November had a lineup that had been with him for two years: tenor saxophonist Rouse (who worked regularly with Monk from 1959 to 1970), bassist John Ore, and drummer Frankie Dunlop. Monk's Dream, his first Columbia album, was released in 1963.
Columbia's resources allowed Monk to receive more promotion than earlier in his career. Monk's Dream became the best-selling LP of his lifetime, and on February 28, 1964, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine, being featured in the article "The Loneliest Monk". The cover article was originally intended to run in November 1963, but it was delayed due to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. According to biographer Kelley, the 1964 Time appearance came because "Barry Farrell, who wrote the cover story, wanted to write about a jazz musician and almost by default Monk was chosen, because they thought Ray Charles and Miles Davis were too controversial. ... [Monk] wasn't so political. ...[O]f course, I challenge that [in the biography]," Kelley wrote.
Monk continued to record studio albums, including Criss Cross, also in 1963, and Underground, in 1968. But by the Columbia years his compositional output was limited, and only his final Columbia studio record, Underground, featured a substantial number of new tunes, including his only time piece, "Ugly Beauty".
As had been the case with Riverside, his period with Columbia contains multiple live albums, including Miles and Monk at Newport (1963), Live at the It Club, and Live at the Jazz Workshop, the latter two recorded in 1964, the last not being released until 1982. After the departure of Ore and Dunlop, the remainder of the rhythm section in Monk's quartet during the bulk of his Columbia period was Larry Gales on bass and Ben Riley on drums, both of whom joined in 1964. Along with Rouse, they remained with Monk for over four years, his longest-serving band.
1971–1982: Later life and death
Monk had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s for health reasons and made only a small number of appearances during the final decade of his life. His last studio recordings as a leader were made in November 1971 for the English Black Lion label, near the end of a worldwide tour with the Giants of Jazz, a group which included Gillespie, Kai Winding, Sonny Stitt, Al McKibbon, and Art Blakey. Bassist McKibbon, who had known Monk for over twenty years and played on his final tour in 1971, later said: "On that tour, Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn't say 'Good morning,' 'Goodnight,' 'What time?' Nothing. Why, I don't know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn't communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly." A different side of Monk is revealed in Lewis Porter's biography, John Coltrane: His Life and Music; Coltrane states: "Monk is exactly the opposite of Miles [Davis]: he talks about music all the time, and he wants so much for you to understand that if, by chance, you ask him something, he'll spend hours if necessary to explain it to you." Blakey reports that Monk was excellent at both chess and checkers.
The documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988) attributes Monk's quirky behavior to mental illness. In the film, Monk's son says that his father sometimes did not recognize him, and he reports that Monk was hospitalized on several occasions owing to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No reports or diagnoses were ever publicized, but Monk would often become excited for two or three days, then pace for days after that, after which he would withdraw and stop speaking. Doctors recommended electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment option for Monk's illness, but his family would not allow it; antipsychotics and lithium were prescribed instead. Other theories abound: Leslie Gourse, author of the book Straight, No Chaser: The Life and Genius of Thelonious Monk (1997), reported that at least one of Monk's psychiatrists failed to find evidence of manic depression (bipolar disorder) or schizophrenia. Another doctor maintains that Monk was misdiagnosed and prescribed drugs during his hospital stay that may have caused brain damage.
As his health declined, Monk's last six years were spent as a guest in the Weehawken, New Jersey, home of his long-standing patron and friend, Pannonica de Koenigswarter, who nursed Monk during his final illness. She proved to be a steadfast presence, as did his own wife Nellie, especially as his life descended into further isolation. Monk did not play the piano during this time, even though one was present in his room, and he spoke to few visitors. He died of a stroke on February 17, 1982, and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
Posthumous myth: Monk at Juilliard
There have been numerous published references since the 1980s in Monk biographies purporting he attended the Juilliard School of Music, an error that continues to be disseminated in online biographies of Monk. At Monk’s funeral service in 1982, it was mentioned in his eulogy that he took classes in harmony and arrangement at Juilliard. In the 1988 documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, Samuel E. Wright narrates that "Monk began playing piano without formal training. Later, he took lessons and studied music theory at the Juilliard School of Music."
The complete lack of documented evidence connecting Monk with attending Juilliard was noted by Monk biographer Thomas Fitterling in the first German edition of his Monk biography published in 1987. The Juilliard canard may have its early source in the fact that Monk’s sister Marion thought that her piano teacher, a Mr. Wolfe (sic), who briefly taught Thelonious around 1930, may have been connected to Juilliard as a teacher or student. In fact, the Monk family piano teacher had been trained by the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic and has no known connection to Juilliard. Monk biographer Laurent de Wilde believed that the apocryphal Juilliard story may have stemmed from Monk’s late 1950s collaboration with Juilliard instructor Hall Overton. The main source of the Juilliard misunderstanding is probably that Monk participated in a music contest circa 1942–1943 at the Columbus Hill Community Center in his neighborhood, which had a Juilliard scholarship as the first prize. The teenage Monk entered the contest but placed second and thus failed to get the scholarship. According to Monk’s wife Nellie, when the prize winner later encountered Monk during a 1958 engagement and told him that Monk should rightfully have been awarded the Juilliard scholarship, Monk replied: "I'm glad I didn’t go to the conservatory. Probably would've ruined me."
Technique and playing style
Monk once said, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes."
According to Bebop: The Music and Its Players author Thomas Owens, "Monk's usual piano touch was harsh and percussive, even in ballads. He often attacked the keyboard anew for each note, rather than striving for any semblance of legato. Often seemingly unintentional seconds embellish his melodic lines, giving the effect of someone playing while wearing work gloves. [...] He hit the keys with fingers held flat rather than in a natural curve, and held his free fingers high above the keys. [...] Sometimes he hit a single key with more than one finger, and divided single-line melodies between the two hands." In contrast with this unorthodox approach to playing, he could play runs and arpeggios with great speed and accuracy. He also had good finger independence, allowing him to play a melodic line and a trill simultaneously in his right hand.
Monk's style was not universally appreciated. For example, the poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin described him as "the elephant on the keyboard".
Monk often used parts of whole tone scales, played either ascending or descending, and covering several octaves. He also had extended improvisations that featured parallel sixths (he also used these in the themes of some of his compositions). His solos also feature space and long notes. Unusually for a bebop-based pianist, as an accompanist and on solo performances he often employed a left-hand stride pattern. A further characteristic of his work as an accompanist was his tendency to stop playing, leaving a soloist with just bass and drums for support. Monk had a particular proclivity for the key of B flat. All of his many blues compositions, including "Blue Monk," "Misterioso," "Blues Five Spot," and "Functional," were composed in B flat; in addition, his signature theme, "Thelonious," largely consists of an incessantly repeated B-flat tone.
Tributes
Music in Monk Time is a 1983 documentary film about Monk and his music that was widely praised by music and film critics.
Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy performed as Monk's accompanist in 1960. Monk's tunes became a permanent part of his repertoire in concert and on albums. Lacy recorded many albums entirely focused on Monk's compositions.
Gunther Schuller wrote the work "Variants on a Theme of Thelonious Monk (Criss-Cross)" in 1960. It first appeared on Schuller's album Jazz Abstractions (1961) and was later performed and recorded by other artists, including Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and Bill Evans.
Round Midnight Variations is a collection of variations on the song "'Round Midnight" premiered in 2002. Composers contributing included Milton Babbitt, William Bolcom, David Crumb, George Crumb, Michael Daugherty, John Harbison, Joel Hoffman, Aaron Jay Kernis, Gerald Levinson, Tobias Picker, Frederic Rzewski, Augusta Read Thomas, and Michael Torke.
”Thelonious” Repertory Ensemble: Buell Neidlinger, along with Steve Lacy, studied and played with Monk at his home before playing with Cecil Taylor. His tribute band "Thelonious" (1981–1989) is the most substantive of all the Monk tribute bands in the depth and difficulty of its repertoire. The book included "Trinkle Tinkle", "Four In One", and "Skippy", the most difficult of Monk's compositions.
This group is well-documented on several records, including Thelonious at the Red Sea and Thelonious Atmosphere. Musicians: Buell Neidlinger (bass, leader, transcriptions), Marty Krystall (tenor, soprano sax, bass clarinet), Hugh Schick (trumpet, piano, likely the first transcriber of Monk’s more intricate / arcane compositions), Harry Connick Jr. (piano), John Beasley (piano), Bill Cunliffe, winner of T. Monk Competition (piano), Jerry Peters (Keyboards), William Jeffrey (drums), Fritz Wyse (drums), Billy Osborne (drums, piano), Larry Koonse (guitar). Two Monk alums, Putter Smith and Larry Gales, substituted for Buell in the rare instance that he was not available. It is likely the only Monk repertory / tribute band that never performed music of other composers.
Buell's other records show a lifelong devotion to the Monk oeuvre. Stringjazz, Buellgrass, and the Buell Neidlinger Quartet/Quintet are other groups of his that routinely played and recorded Monk’s compositions. The personnel in these bands involved luminaries including: Vincent Colaiuta, Elvin Jones, Billy Higgins, Peter Erskine (drums), George Bohanon (trombone), Warren Gale (trumpet).
Stefano Benni's 2005 Misterioso, A Journey into the Silence of Thelonious Monk was staged as a theatre production featuring Monk's music, directed by Filomena Campus, at the Edinburgh Festival in 2008, at the Riverside Studios in 2009, and at a variety of venues in the following years. In 2017, an Arts Council England-sponsored international Monk Misterioso Tour was launched at the British Library in October, culminating with a new dramatised production of Misterioso: A Journey into the Silence of Thelonious Monk at Kings Place to close the London Jazz Festival's celebration of the centenary of Monk's birth, featuring Campus alongside Cleveland Watkiss, Pat Thomas, Rowland Sutherland, Orphy Robinson, Dudley Phillips and Mark Mondesir.
John Beasley founded the big band group MONK'estra, which celebrates Monk's and other classic compositions with a contemporary twist incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythms, modern jazz playing, hip hop and traditional big band instrumentation, along with originals by Beasley.
Tribute albums
The following tribute albums to Monk have been released:
Reflections (1958) by Steve Lacy
Evidence (1962) by Steve Lacy and Don Cherry
Bennie Wallace Plays Monk (1981) by saxophonist Bennie Wallace
Four in One (1982) by Sphere: features former Monk sidemen Charlie Rouse (ten sax), Ben Riley (drums), Buster Williams (bass) and Kenny Barron (piano).
Sings Thelonius Monk (1982) by singer Soesja Citroen, featuring the Cees Slinger Octet
Thelonica (1983), by pianist Tommy Flanagan
Light Blue: Arthur Blythe Plays Thelonious Monk (1983) by saxophonist Arthur Blythe
That's The Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk (1984), an album featuring different groupings of rock and jazz musicians on each song including Steve Lacy, Donald Fagen, Todd Rundgren, Peter Frampton, Carla Bley, Joe Jackson, Gil Evans and Was Not Was.
Monk Suite: Kronos Quartet Plays Music of Thelonious Monk (1985) by Kronos Quartet with Ron Carter on bass.
Six Monk's Compositions (1987) (1987) by Anthony Braxton
Carmen Sings Monk (1988) by Carmen McRae
Rumba Para Monk (1988), by Jerry Gonzalez
Monk in Motian (1989) by Paul Motian, featuring Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell, Geri Allen and Dewey Redman
Thelonious Sphere Monk: Dreaming of the Masters Series Vol. 2, by Art Ensemble of Chicago with Cecil Taylor
Epistrophy (1991) by pianist Ran Blake
Monk's Modern Music (1994) by pianist Rick Roe with Rodney Whitaker on bass and Greg Hutchinson on drums
The Fo'tet Plays Monk (1995) by Ralph Peterson, Jr.
e.s.t. Esbjörn Svensson Trio Plays Monk (1996) by e.s.t.
Monk on Monk (1997) by T.S. Monk, featuring Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Grover Washington Jr., Roy Hargrove, Clark Terry, Geri Allen and others
Brilliant Corners: The Music of Thelonious Monk (1997) by Bill Holman
Thelonious: Fred Hersch Plays Monk (1997) by Fred Hersch
Green Chimneys: The Music of Thelonious Monk (1999) by Andy Summers
In the Key of Monk (1999) by Jessica Williams (musician)
Standard Time, Vol. 4: Marsalis Plays Monk (1999) by Wynton Marsalis
School Days (2002), recorded in 1963, by Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd, with Henry Grimes and Dennis Charles
Thelonious Moog (2003) by Steve Million and Joe "Guido" Welsh
Monk's Casino (2005) by pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach; a triple CD set that includes every composition by Monk. According to the album's liner notes by critic John Corbett, this is the first comprehensive recording of all Monk's songs.
An Open Letter to Thelonious (2008) by Ellis Marsalis
In Monk's Mood (2009) by John Tchicai
Friday the 13th: The Micros Play Monk (2010) by The Microscopic Septet
Melodious Monk: A New Look at An Old Master (2011) by Kim Pensyl and Phil DeGreg
The Monk Project (2012) by Jimmy Owens
Baritone Monk (2012) by The Claire Daly Quartet
Joey. Monk. Live! (2017) by Joey Alexander
John Beasley presents MONK'estra vol. 1 (2016), by John Beasley
John Beasley presents MONK'estra vol. 2 (2017) by John Beasley
The Monk: Live at Bimhuis (2018) by Miho Hazama and Metropole Orkest Big Band
Work: the complete composition of Thelonious Monk, solo guitar (2018) by Miles Okazaki
Thelonious Sphere Monk (2018) by MAST
Monk's Dreams: The complete compositions of Thelonious Sphere Monk (2018) by Frank Kimbrough
Other references to Monk
Comedian Felonious Munk and music producer Thelonious Martin both adopted stage names based on Monk's name. Other things named after Monk include punk rock band Thelonious Monster, the 2021 novel Felonious Monk'' by William Kotzwinkle, and the Cambridge, Massachusetts seafood-and-jazz restaurant Thelonious Monkfish, which later was renamed to The Mad Monkfish.
The North Coast Brewing Company produces Brother Thelonious ale, the proceeds from which go towards jazz music education for young people.
Discography
Awards and accolades
In 1993, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for "a body of distinguished and innovative musical composition that has had a significant and enduring impact on the evolution of jazz".
The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz was established in 1986 by the Monk family and Maria Fisher. Its mission is to offer public school-based jazz education programs for young people around the globe, helping students develop imaginative thinking, creativity, curiosity, a positive self-image, and a respect for their own and others' cultural heritage. In addition to hosting an annual International Jazz Competition since 1987, the institute also helped, through its partnership with UNESCO, designate April 30, 2012, as the first annual International Jazz Day.
Monk was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
References
Bibliography
External links
Official site
Memorial Page
Thelonious Monk's birth certificate
Thelonious Monk at All About Jazz
Not So Misterioso: Robert Christgau on Monk
1917 births
1982 deaths
African-American jazz composers
African-American jazz musicians
African-American jazz pianists
American jazz composers
American jazz pianists
American male pianists
Bebop pianists
Blue Note Records artists
Charly Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
American male jazz composers
People from Rocky Mount, North Carolina
Prestige Records artists
Pulitzer Prize winners
Riverside Records artists
Stuyvesant High School alumni
Jazz musicians from New York (state)
Jazz musicians from North Carolina
The Giants of Jazz members
Black Lion Records artists
20th-century jazz composers
20th-century American male musicians
Deaths from cerebral infarction | false | [
"Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants is the fourth novel based on the television series Monk by Lee Goldberg. It is the first Monk novel to be published in hardcover, on July 3, 2007. The paperback edition was released on January 2, 2008.\n\nPlot summary\nAdrian Monk and Natalie Teeger take Julie to the hospital after she breaks her wrist during a soccer game, though before they leave, Monk gives the other parents the satisfaction of exposing the other team's coach as a murderer. At the hospital, Monk is stunned when he sees his old assistant Sharona Fleming working as a nurse. She explains that after leaving Monk's employ to remarry her ex-husband, Trevor Howe, and move to New Jersey, a friend of Trevor's from Los Angeles who owned a landscaping business sold his business to Trevor. They moved to Los Angeles and took over the business. However, recently, when one of his clients, a professor named Ellen Cole, was found bludgeoned to death with a lamp in her house, evidence turned up suggesting Trevor was the killer. Sharona has no trouble believing it, so she and Benjy have moved back up to San Francisco, with Benjy currently staying with Sharona's sister Gail.\n\nSharona doesn't hide the fact that she'd like her old job with Monk back, and before long there is open hostility between her and Natalie. To save her job, she works out a compromise: they will travel to Los Angeles so that Monk can see if Trevor is really guilty.\n\nMonk, Natalie and Sharona drive to Los Angeles, arriving by nightfall. They meet Lieutenant Sam Dozier of the Los Angeles Police Department while he's investigating the shooting of a cashier killed in an antiques store robbery. Here, Monk (wearing a gas mask due to fear of the smog) exposes the owner's wife as the killer. They then travel to Ellen Cole's house. Monk examines the scene and concludes (somewhat to his own regret), that Trevor is innocent. He notices several clues that suggest that Ellen Cole's killer was waiting for her, meaning that the murder was premeditated. However, Dozier informs Monk that jewelry from Trevor's clients was found in his truck, and Sharona dismisses this as not being enough to arrest Trevor - after all, it's not too difficult to commit identity theft and open an account with someone else's name to fence stolen goods.\n\nThey go on to question some of the people closest to the victim, on the chance that one of them might be the real killer (with Monk also busting one of them for shoplifting). Later, Monk, Natalie and Sharona head down to a bookstore to question the person who found the evidence to \"convict\" Trevor, LAPD consultant Ian Ludlow. Ludlow is a household name everywhere, writing his Detective Marshak stories and publishing new ones at a rate of one book every three months. He mentions the damning evidence, although Monk refuses to believe it. While they are at the bookstore, Natalie buys a few of Ludlow's titles, including his latest, Death Is the Last Word. The saleswoman at the bookstore mentions that Ludlow has a compulsion - he can't pass a store without signing his own books, and today, unsigned Ludlow titles are more valuable than signed books.\n\nSharona remains behind in Los Angeles, intending to do some asking around about Ellen Cole, while Monk and Natalie head back to San Francisco. During the drive, Monk flips through the Ludlow titles and quickly solves the mysteries in the books after only reading the first few pages. Natalie berates him for ruining the plots, but Monk remarks that there's really no point to reading his books: after all, in San Francisco, he solves a lot of cases that are usually a lot more interesting and complicated than what Ludlow can conjure. Not to mention, Ludlow has a certain key aspect present throughout his titles - the killer is always the least likely suspect who is betrayed by a personality quirk.\n\nWhile Monk and Natalie have been away, Julie has been staying with Benjy. She remarks that they seem to have way too many similarities (including having lost a father), and doesn't want to become identical to him at any point soon.\n\nThe next few days go by with no incidents, as Monk recuperates from the smog in Los Angeles. Natalie briefly has a run in with Joseph Cochran, a firefighter she dated briefly during a different homicide investigation. Cochran informs Natalie that he needs Monk's help again - this time, on a property theft. It seems that someone has stolen his fire company's hydraulic rescue equipment.\n\nThat Friday, when Natalie is leaving the house, her car starts leaking oil and she is forced to rent a Toyota Corolla while her Jeep Grand Cherokee goes into the shop for repairs.\n\nLater that day, Monk and Natalie are called by Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher to a crime scene on Baker Beach. Monk has to face his issues with nudists as he is led to the crime scene. They are shown the crime scene, which Stottlemeyer mentions as possibly being a crime scene but at the same time is possibly not one: a 37-year-old shoe salesman by the name of Ronald Webster has been found brutally mauled to death, and his midsection has been ripped open. The medical examiner has determined the approximate time of death to be some time the night before, but they can't be more precise, given the body's immersion in the water.\n\nMonk learns that this was probably not a robbery, as Webster's wallet is still in his pocket, as are his car and house keys. He also learns that the victim's car is not in the nearby parking lot. Randy theorizes that Webster came out skinny dipping with a special friend, who may have been washed away, however, this turns out to be an unlikely lead.\n\nAt Monk's request, the medical examiner turns Webster's body over, and he mentions that drowning is the likely cause of death. The wounds on his body, while still extremely painful, are not fatal, and they appear to have been made by a creature of some sort. After Randy makes several wild guesses about what kind of animal could make a bite like the one on the body, (his guesses getting more bizarre until he guesses that a clam is responsible) Monk dismisses him and tells all that the animal that did this was an alligator. He points out that all of the teeth marks are identical, as alligators have teeth that are all perfectly identical. The medical examiner points out to Monk that alligators are not indigenous to San Francisco, but an alligator may have been responsible - after all, alligators kill their prey by grabbing them with their mouths, and then holding them underwater until they drown, and the pattern of injuries is consistent with this theory. Monk, Natalie, Stottlemeyer and Disher are all convinced that this is a rather cleverly committed homicide.\n\nWith Stottlemeyer unable to mobilize a homicide task force with the San Francisco Police Department until the medical examiner completes his autopsy, Monk and Natalie ask around to see if there might be anything that would explain why Ronald Webster was killed in a rather bizarre fashion. They go to the shoe store where Webster worked, and question some of his fellow employees. Coincidentally, it seems that the store is in Natalie's neighborhood. They talk to one of his fellow employees, who tells them that Webster lived a very dull life, and also mentions that his priest is the only person who'd know more about him.\n\nLeaving the store, Monk mentions to Natalie that as Ronald Webster lived a rather quiet life, the theory that the alligator attack was premeditated homicide looks more compelling - for one thing, skinny dipping wasn't something that fit his personality. Also, his car was never found near the crime scene, and Monk figures that they'll find Webster's Buick Lucerne either near his house or near the store. Monk deduces that the crime scene at the beach was entirely staged, and Webster had to have been killed somewhere else.\n\nThe next day, Monk and Natalie head to Mission Dolores, a few blocks away, and speak to Father Bowen, Webster's priest. In questioning, he tells them that Webster attended mass every day. Monk figures that Webster had done something worth feeling very guilty about that caused him to attend daily mass. Bowen mentions that a few years ago, Webster hit a woman with his car and he fled the scene. He felt so guilty about the incident that he started attending church to pay for what he did. Natalie quickly calls Disher to ask for a check on the victim that Ronald Webster hit.\n\nTheir next stop is the office of Dr. Paula Dalmas, a dentist in Walnut Creek, and the woman that Webster had hit with his car. Questioning Dr. Dalmas, they learn that Webster has been sending money to her anonymously for a while, and had been following her for years. She mentions that she had to undergo quite a lot of surgery after the hit-and-run, including hip surgery and facial surgery, and has lost the ability to reproduce. Monk quickly figures that Dr. Dalmas is a dead end - she was left with permanent injuries after the hit-and-run, and as such has made it her job to fix other peoples' teeth. Also, she has an alibi for the night of the murder.\n\nAs Monk and Natalie return to San Francisco, Stottlemeyer calls to inform them that the medical examiner has completed his report and wants them down at the morgue. When they arrive at the morgue, they find Stottlemeyer and Disher waiting for them, as well as Ian Ludlow himself. Ludlow admits that Randy called him in, and that Randy was one of his top students when he was teaching a class on mystery writing at Berkeley, during the 2007 SFPD police strike. Monk, Natalie, Stottlemeyer, Disher, Ludlow and the medical examiner all look at Webster's body. The bite does appear to have been made by an alligator, judging by the amount of force per square inch applied. At the same time though, the medical examiner mentions that there are traces of bath water and bath salts in the body, suggesting he drowned in his bathtub, which only makes things more complicated. Natalie asks if it is easy to fake an alligator bite, and learns that it is actually more difficult than one thinks: you have to get the right amount of force per square inch, and if there are no signs of a struggle, it's a dead giveaway. Ludlow mentions that one of his characters in Death Is the Last Word actually tried faking an alligator bite with a bear trap with no success.\n\nFor obvious reasons, Monk is unhappy with Ludlow's presence, and dismisses some of the crucial clues Ludlow has found, such as the fact that Webster had his last meal (a few slices of pizza) less than an hour before he was killed. They decide to check out Ronald Webster's loft apartment. As they arrive, Stottlemeyer points out that the building he lived in was recently converted from an old warehouse, and Webster was the only occupant the building - so if he was killed here, no one would have heard anything like the sounds of a struggle.\n\nMonk examines the scene and notices streaks on the floor, some hydraulic fluid, and a drop of blood in the bathtub - clues that suggest that this is where Webster was killed. He also notices that their killer apparently was very messy and left behind basically everything except a name and a phone number, and is somewhat confused - why would someone who'd killed a guy in a very clever way suddenly become so messy? Monk also notices that the victim was a fan of Ludlow's books, judging by the fact that he has all but the latest title on his bookshelf. They also find a pizza box from Sorrento's with a receipt dated to Thursday night, and Natalie begins to wonder if she and Julie came very close to encountering Webster or spotted him and never recognized him.\n\nWhile they are investigating the apartment, Natalie gets a call from Joe Cochran. Monk quickly figures out who the caller is, and learning about the theft that happened at Joe's firehouse, he insists on checking it out.\n\nMonk and Natalie head down to Joe's firehouse where they meet Joe and Fire Captain Mantooth, who is pleased to meet Monk again. They explain to Monk that on Wednesday night, earlier in the week, at around 9:00pm, their crew was called away to a car fire in Washington Square. Someone had blown up a painter's van (the arson investigators have ruled it arson, having discovered that someone stuffed rags into the van's fuel tank). Monk quickly figures that the arsonist who did it wanted to get a lot of attention. It took Joe's crew at least two hours to fight the fire and clean up the rubble, and when they got back to their firehouse, they did their standard unloading procedure - cleaning the rig and doing an inventory check - and that's when they found that someone had stolen one of their Jaws of Life kits (the Jaws themselves are designed as a spreader to help extricate people who are trapped in their cars in accidents). Monk learns that the power unit stolen is powered by gasoline, and the Jaws also have a cutting force of 18,000 pounds per square inch. With this, Monk not only has figured out how Ronald Webster was killed, but he's also solved the case - and figured that Webster's killer is the same person as Ellen Cole's killer, even though both crimes have different M.Os (with Ellen being bludgeoned and Webster being mauled). Unfortunately, he doesn't believe he can recover the gear that was stolen, and reluctantly tells Joe and Mantooth that the thief probably dumped the gear in the Bay after he killed Ronald Webster.\n\nHere's What Happened\nRonald Webster's killer started the car fire to lure Joe's fire company out of the firehouse for a long enough period of time that he could steal the Jaws of Life package. The killer then attached a set of alligator jaws to the inside of the spreader to make the alligator bite look authentic and also enable him to replicate the biting force of an alligator. The following night, the killer broke into Webster's house, and knocked Webster out. After stripping him of his clothes, he put the body in the bathtub and filled it up with water (which he then laced with table sea-salts). Then the killer clamped the Jaws down on Webster, who must have regained consciousness and tried to fight back against his attacker, which explains the streaks Monk found on the floor near the bathtub when he investigated the apartment. After Webster was dead, the killer lugged the Jaws of Life and Webster's body down to his car. After dumping Webster's body and neatly folded clothes at Baker Beach, the killer drove somewhere else and threw the Jaws into the water.\n\nThe next morning, Sharona shows up at Monk's apartment, Monk having called her the night before. Stottlemeyer also shows up, and Monk explains that he believes Ludlow himself killed both Ronald Webster and Ellen Cole. He remembers how Ludlow said to him that he hangs around with Lieutenant Dozier for a few days as he waits for an unusual murder to come along, but Monk doesn't believe Ludlow waits - he believes that Ludlow befriends a random person he meets at a book signing, follows them for a while, kills them, finds out who is in their life, and then frames the least likely person for the crime.\n\nStottlemeyer, however, is not convinced, and believes that Monk is personally jealous at the fact that Ludlow is helping consult on the Webster case. To further press the issue, Monk tells Stottlemeyer that Ludlow confessed to them three times (inadvertently, that is): The first time was in the bookstore, where he told Monk that he couldn't make up the stuff he used for his latest Detective Marshak novel, the second being when Ludlow was huddled with the others around a table in the morgue, where Monk noticed Ludlow shaking his head and musing to himself \"I couldn't make this stuff up.\", and the third being when Ludlow entered the upper makeshift warehouse room and, after listening to the others, says smoothly \"I am always amazed at what you find when you scratch the surface of any ordinary person's life. Who would ever thought that this shoe salesman could have so many secrets?\". Stottlemeyer becomes furious with Monk, telling him that he must really feel threatened by Ludlow's sleuthing skills for him to be finding connections where none exist. He dismisses what Monk believes happened, apart from the M.O. for the fake alligator attack, and tells him that he has no plans to arrest Ian Ludlow. After Stottlemeyer leaves the apartment, Sharona gets mad at Monk for 'not being able to see past his own selfishness', but Monk pleads with her and Natalie to believe him. Despite all of Monk's previous triumphs and comebacks in the past, they don't.\n\nHowever, minutes later Stottlemeyer comes back and informs Natalie and Sharona that there has been some bad news. When they reach the street, they find that Natalie's car has been towed, though Natalie insists that she didn't park the car illegally. Stottlemeyer points out that it wasn't his call, and he has Monk, Natalie and Sharona accompany him to Natalie's house.\n\nWhen they get to Natalie's house, there is a heavy police presence outside. In the house, as the police search all through the rooms in compliance with an authorized search warrant, Ludlow greets Captain Stottlemeyer and proudly declares that he's gotten to the 'truth' of the case. He then accuses Natalie and Sharona of committing the murders, accusing Sharona of the Ellen Cole murder and Natalie to Ronald Webster. With smugness (as Natalie explicitly points out to the reader as the narrator), Ludlow presents his evidence through a series of false summations that clearly mock Adrian Monk's famous \"Here's What Happened\" summations: He explains their motive as, on Sharona's part, a desire to rid herself of her husband, and on Natalie's part, a desire to get Sharona out of the way and keep her job as Monk's assistant. Ludlow's first summation is against Sharona, saying that the one person who could set up an eBay account in Trevor's name and plant the stolen goods in his truck was her. Ludlow arrogantly declares that Sharona had 'unfettered access', and that in her 'most brazen act' she told Lieutenant Dozier how she did it. Next, he sardonically inquires why Sharona never called Adrian Monk in to investigate the homicide, and immediately concludes by saying that it's because Monk is so brilliant a detective, he would have pieced together the clues that Sharona killed Ellen Cole, then, Ludlow focuses on Natalie. By this point, Natalie is able to see that Ludlow is indeed the killer, just as Monk had said. In an attempt to counter Ludlow's accusations, she tells him \"Maybe you killed Ellen Cole.\", but Ludlow ignores her. In Ludlow's second summation, he accuses the two women of making a pact that Sharona would 'stay out of Monk's life forever' if Natalie agreed to help her keep Trevor behind bars, then he arrogantly declares that Natalie 'concocted a brilliant scheme' by deliberately committing the murder of Webster in such a bizarre way, that Monk would be immediately called in to investigate, and that part of the 'scheme' was to distract Adrian from learning that Sharona killed Ellen Cole. Ludlow even interjects to Natalie that the reason she wanted to keep her job as Monk's assistant is because she was secretly in love with him. Natalie desperately tries to refute all of Ludlow's wild accusations, but her efforts are futile. Next, Ludlow accuses Natalie of ordering an alligator jaw online the day before the firehouse theft, adding that she read his book 'Death is the Last Word' (Natalie tries to tell him that she really didn't), which inspired the 'fiendish plot', and that she drugged her daughter, Julie, before sneaking off to the firehouse to steal the Jaws of Life. Natalie points out that someone could have stolen her credit card number, ordered the jaws, then swiped them off her porch, and snuck out of her house on the night of the theft to the firehouse to steal the Jaws of Life, but Ludlow ignores her. \"I bet you even had a key to the building.\" he sneers, though Natalie protests this claim, saying that she doesn't have a key to the firehouse. Additionally, forensics has found evidence matching Natalie's car to clues found in Webster's apartment, making it clear that Natalie's car was towed because forensics wanted to give it an analysis. As impossible as it sounds, the evidence is arranged in a compelling enough way that Stottlemeyer has no choice but to arrest both women, much to Ludlow's satisfaction. To their horror, Monk has nothing to add.\n\nThe two women spend a night together in a holding cell, where they finally bond. Sharona recognizes that Natalie is a good fit for Monk - which is no small validation, when Natalie has been working in Sharona's shadow for years. At the same time, Sharona sadly advises her that Natalie will never have a chance for her own life, or her own happiness, unless she can bring herself to abandon Monk.\n\nThe next day, the two women are brought in for interrogation. Stottlemeyer asks the prison guards to release Natalie and Sharona from their handcuffs. Sharona asks Stottlemeyer if he's brought them in because he wants to apologize to them, but Stottlemeyer points out that Monk has caught a big break in the investigation and has found evidence that exonerates them. When they see Monk, he is carrying a big grocery bag. He quickly mentions that Ludlow killed Ellen Cole and Ronald Webster for little more reason than to create plot lines for his books, as Ludlow can't create stories in time to meet his deadlines. The way Ludlow works is like this: he befriends someone he meets at a book signing, then kills them, observes how events unfold, and then frames the least likely suspect for the crime. Monk goes back through how Ludlow committed the crimes, and then explains that the murder of Ronald Webster was about framing Natalie and expanding his next book.\n\nHe explains that the events leading up to Webster's death began when Natalie bought several of Ludlow's titles in Los Angeles. Monk figures that Ludlow must have stolen Natalie's credit card receipt and used the number on the receipt to order the alligator head and ship it to her house in San Francisco with overnight shipping, and then he swiped the jaws off Natalie's porch before Natalie got home so that she never knew about the theft. Monk also figures out that Ludlow must have done some online research on Adrian Monk's various cases throughout the years (such as the 'Golden Gate Strangler' case), which explains his extensive knowledge of Monk and both of his assistants, Sharona and Natalie.\n\nLudlow mentions that there isn't any proof, but Monk points out that Ludlow, like most bad mystery writers, has his killers drop clues everywhere so that his detective can wrap everything up nice and tight. He added a few clues too many when he framed Natalie. Monk also reveals that Natalie's relationship with Joe Cochran was one of the little surprises Ludlow likes to discover when he commits these seemingly random killings.\n\nMonk is starting to build a case, but Ludlow points out to Monk that all of the events described happened before he arrived in San Francisco on that Friday. At this, Monk asks Randy and confirms that he called Ludlow's cell phone, so he couldn't know where Ludlow actually was when he was contacted. Ludlow claims he was in Los Angeles, but Monk says he can prove Ludlow was actually in San Francisco. He presents a copy of a receipt from a pizza box he found in Ronald Webster's kitchen. It comes from Sorrento's, the pizzeria in Natalie's neighborhood.\n\nLudlow claims that the receipt can prove Webster was in the restaurant at the same time that Natalie was in there with Julie, a few nights before the murder, and that he knows this because he is thorough in his investigation. Monk tries to get Ludlow to explain how he knows this, and Ludlow claims that he knows Webster, Natalie and Julie were all in Sorrento's at the same time because Webster saw the 10% discount advertised on Julie's cast. However, Monk points out that Ludlow isn't explaining how he can know about the discount when he's never met Julie, and reveals that Ludlow actually had been in San Francisco. Additionally, Monk explains that Ludlow, like the killers of his own books, has been betrayed by a very hidden personality quirk.\n\nMonk reveals that there is a bookstore across the street from Sorrento's. After admitting that he had to wait until this morning to get the evidence (due to the store being closed on Sundays), he pulls out a copy of Death Is the Last Word that he bought at that bookstore. Ludlow asks if he should sign it, but Monk shows the title page, which shows that he actually signed this copy of the book two days before Webster was killed, several days before he claimed to have arrived in San Francisco.\n\nMonk mentions that that is Ludlow's personality quirk: he can't pass a bookstore without signing his own books. He watched Natalie and looked for just the right person to kill. Ronald Webster served to be the perfect victim. Ludlow befriended him, killed him by clamping the stolen Jaws of Life on him, and then dumped his body at the beach.\n\nLudlow is arrested, and Trevor - along with several other \"murderers\" in Los Angeles that were caught with Ludlow's assistance - are set free. As they leave, Monk admits to Natalie and Sharona that he would have arrested Ludlow earlier if he hadn't been so ashamed of himself for his mistakes. He also apologizes for letting them down the day before, and Monk points out that he was afraid of speaking up because he knew he would have tipped Ludlow off to the fact that he was being considered a suspect, and if Ludlow realized that Monk had caught on to him, he'd go back and buy up his signed books, then destroy them. He reveals that Ludlow also signed his stock at two other bookstores in San Francisco - one in Washington Square and one out at Baker Beach.\n\nExonerated, Sharona and Natalie reunite with their families, and Sharona prepares to return to Los Angeles with Trevor and Benjy, leaving Monk in Natalie's hands, and giving Monk the loving goodbye she never said the last time.\n\nCharacters\n\nCharacters from the television show\nAdrian Monk: the titular detective, played on the series by Tony Shalhoub;\nNatalie Teeger: Monk's loyal assistant, and the narrator of the book; played on the series by Traylor Howard;\nSharona Fleming: Monk's former assistant, a registered nurse; played on the series by Bitty Schram;\nDr. Charles Kroger: Monk's psychiatrist; played on the series by Stanley Kamel;\nCaptain Leland Stottlemeyer: Captain of the San Francisco Police Department's Homicide Division; Monk's oldest friend and former partner; played on the series by Ted Levine;\nLieutenant Randy Disher: Stottlemeyer's right-hand man, played on the series by Jason Gray-Stanford;\nJulie Teeger: Natalie's teenaged daughter; played on the series by Emmy Clarke;\nBenjy Fleming: Sharona's teenaged son; played on the series by Kane Ritchotte (seasons 1–3) and Max Morrow (season 1);\nTrevor Howe: Sharona's ex-husband, whom she remarried and returned to New Jersey with; played on the series by Frank John Hughes (season 2) and David Lee Russek (season 3) (erroneously referred to as 'Trevor Fleming');\nGail Fleming: Sharona's younger sister; played on the series by Amy Sedaris\n\nOriginal characters\n Ian Ludlow: a prolific mystery author, in the same vein as J.B. Fletcher. He consults for the LAPD in the same way that Monk consults for the San Francisco Police Department.\n Lieutenant Sam Dozier: LAPD detective, and Ludlow's biggest supporter;\n Ellen Cole: Professor of Gender Studies at UCLA, and Trevor's supposed victim;\n Sally Jenkins: Ellen Cole's ex-girlfriend\n Joe Cochran: Natalie's sometime-lover, a firefighter with the San Francisco Fire Department.\n Ronald Webster: A shoe salesman in San Francisco\n Dr. Daniel Hetzer: an SFPD Medical Examiner\n Maurice: One of Ronald Webster's colleagues\n Father Bowen: Ronald Webster's priest at Mission Dolores\n Dr. Paula Dalmas: A woman who was seriously injured by Webster in a hit-and-run; now works as a dentist in Walnut Creek\n Captain Mantooth: Joe Cochran's fire captain\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official Monk Site\n\n2007 American novels\nMonk (novel series)\nNovels set in California",
"\"Somewhere\" is a song by American singer Shanice. It was the lead single to her third album, 21... Ways to Grow (1994), and was released three days after Shanice turned 21 years old.\n\nCritical reception\nTroy J. Augusto from Cash Box wrote, \"Promising R&B singer looks to make her move to the top o’ the charts with this hardhitting, funky hip-hop number that oozes with radio accessibility and dance-floor hook. A big jump for Shanice, whose forthcoming 21... Wavs album just may be the one to put her in the big leagues with Mariah, Janet, Toni, et al. Bright, bouncy tune reflects serious maturation from the singer’s earlier material. Could be the start of something quite big.\"\n\nTrack listing\n 12\" single\nA1. \"Somewhere\" (Nothin' But Da Funk Mix) (4:16)\nA2. \"Somewhere\" (LP Version) (4:10)\nA3. \"Somewhere\" (Instrumental) (5:08)\nB1. \"Somewhere\" (Deep Soul Mix) (5:08)\nB2. \"Somewhere\" (A Capella) (4:13)\n\n CD single\n1. Somewhere (Nothin' But Da Funk Mix) [4:18]\n2. Somewhere (Deep Soul Mix) [5:11]\n3. Somewhere (LP Version) [4:15]\n4. Somewhere (Instrumental) [5:08]\n\nWeekly charts\n\nReferences\n\n1994 singles\nShanice songs\n1993 songs\nSongs written by Shanice\nMotown singles\nSongs written by Christopher Williams (singer)"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood"
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | What was Dixon like in adulthood? | 1 | What was Dixon like in adulthood? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | false | [
"Antwuan Willis Dixon (born August 19, 1988) is a professional skateboarder.\n\nSkateboarding career\n\nEarly life \nDixon started skateboarding at the age of twelve, when his mom ordered a Powell Peralta deck from CCS. In addition to the complete, Dixon ordered a skate video VHS: 411 Video Magazine - Issue 40.\n\nSponsorships \nDixon's first sponsorship was getting boards from Transitions skateboards. After Transitions, Dixon received boards from Chocolate skateboards and Youngguns skateboards. At Carson skatepark, Mark Waters saw Dixon skating. This led to Dixon getting on eS.\n\nBaker 3 \nIn 2005, Dixon released his first video part in the critically acclaimed Baker 3. Dixon filmed the entire part over 3 months. Dixon was 16 when the video was released.\n\nDixon was alternately featured in the Baker Skateboards video Baker Has a Deathwish, then rode for Deathwish skateboards. Eventually, Dixon and Death wish partied ways. After eS, Dixon was sponsored by Supra footwear. In 2009, Dixon got his first pro shoe from Supra.\n\nAntwuan's current sponsors include: FTP Skateboards, Hardluck MFG, Straye Shoes, Thunder Trucks, Brooklyn Projects, Hearts and Hammers, and Transitions Skateshop.\n\nLegal issues \n\nOn March 22, 2008, Dixon was arrested by Tampa police on charges stemming from possession of marijuana (less than 20 grams) and cocaine with the intent to sell, as well as the battery of three law enforcement officers. Dixon was irrevocably held on $4,000 dollars bond, which was subsequently paid for his immediate release.\n\nIn an interview for Skateboardermag, Dixon spoke on the incident:\n\nAh, man, some crazy shit happened at Tampa! I was just over there chilling, smoking, and I'm chilling outside paying for that tatoo [sic] dude and this girl to get in. Then, all of a sudden, this girl's like, \"Antwuan, you wanna go smoke?\" So we go and we're about to smoke these blunts, then this truck rolls up and it's undercover cops. They just jumped out. Then, this lady had seen I had a big-ass bag of weed and shit. She'd seen my money and thought I was a drug dealer from out there. They were talking about seizing my money, and I was like, \"I don't know what that means,\" and they're, like, \"We're basically gonna take your money when we leave here,\" and I'm, like, \"Hell no!\" I'm sitting there being handcuffed and shit, so I got up and grabbed my wallet and then I held it. Then me and the cops started fighting for a little bit I guess. I don't know, I was pretty faded. I don't remember. Next thing you know, I end up in jail in Florida with all these batteries against police officers. Now I got to go to court and stuff all the time.\n\nIn 2013, Dixon received a three year jail sentence after violating his probation, and was charged with battery, vandalism, and child endangerment after an argument at a convenience store escalated to violence. Dixon gave details in an interview with Thrasher magazine during his jail sentence:\n\nWhy am I in jail? Ah, man, for violating a three-year joint suspension. They gave me three years. The original case was, some fool at 7-11 being racist, I socked him a couple times. Spit in his face and he's still talking shit. Walking outside, boom, boom, boom. I bought what I was going to buy and go outside. Mind you, this dude had kids with him. He put his kids in the car. I'm a little faded or whatever, so I don't give a fuck. He keeps talking shit so I grab my board and start breaking his windows of his car. And his kids are in the car so they gave me battery, five counts of battery, vandalism and child endangerment. So you know, I violated the probation I was offered in this case. I had a three-year joint suspension, which is why I'm here now.\n\nDixon served his sentence and is now living in Los Angeles.\n\nOn September 13, 2016, Dixon was taken back into custody. Dixon was released sometime in November or December 2016.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nBaker Skateboards soundboard\nAntwuan Dixon | The Nine Club With Chris Roberts - Episode 107\nBaker Skateboards bio\nOfficial Deathwish Skateboards website\nOfficial KR3W press page\nOfficial MySpace page\nAntwuan Dixon Subpublic Profile\n\n1988 births\nLiving people\nAfrican-American skateboarders\nAmerican skateboarders\nPeople from Carson, California\nPeople from Victorville, California\nSportspeople from Los Angeles County, California\nSportspeople from San Bernardino County, California\n21st-century African-American sportspeople\n20th-century African-American people",
"Joseph Dixon (1799–1869) was an inventor, entrepreneur and the founder of what became the Dixon Ticonderoga Company, a well-known manufacturer of pencils in the United States.\n\nHis fascination with new technologies led to many innovations such as a mirror for a camera that was the forerunner of the viewfinder, a patented double-crank steam engine, and a method of printing banknotes to thwart counterfeiters. Most notably, Dixon manufactured the first wood and graphite pencil in the country.\n\nAmong his associates were such American inventors as Robert Fulton, Samuel Morse, and Alexander Graham Bell, and politician/business partner Orestes Cleveland.\n\nJoseph Dixon Crucible Company\n\nIn 1827, Joseph Dixon began his business in Salem, Massachusetts and, with his son, was involved with the Tantiusques graphite mine in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Dixon discovered the merits of graphite as a stove polish and an additive in lubricants, foundry facings, brake linings, oil-less bearings, and non-corrosive paints.\n\nHe also refined the use of graphite crucibles, refractory vessels used for melting metallic minerals. A heat-resistant graphite crucible he invented was widely used in the production of iron and steel during the Mexican–American War. This invention's success led Dixon to build a new mill in what is now the Van Vorst Park neighborhood of historic Downtown Jersey City, New Jersey in 1847. The Dixon Mills complex has subsequently become residences.\n\nDuring the 1860s, people typically wrote with quill pens and ink even though Dixon introduced graphite pencils in 1829. But the American Civil War created a demand for a dry, clean, portable writing instrument and led to the mass production of pencils. At the time of Dixon's death in 1869, the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company was the largest manufacturer of graphite products in the world. By 1870, The Joseph Dixon Crucible Company was the world's largest dealer and consumer of graphite. By 1872 the Dixon company was making 86,000 pencils a day.\n\nThe Joseph Dixon Crucible Company continued to prosper throughout the 20th century by growing through a series of mergers and acquisitions. In 1982, the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company merged with the Bryn Mawr Corporation, a Pennsylvania transportation and real estate company with operations dating back to 1795. Together, these companies formed the Dixon Ticonderoga Company, named after Dixon and its oldest brand-name pencil.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nDixon Ticonderoga Company\nTantiusques Graphite Mine\nLeadholder: Dixon\n\n19th-century American inventors\n1799 births\n1869 deaths\nPencils\nAmerican steel industry businesspeople\nAmerican printers\nAmerican engravers\nAmerican lithographers\nPeople from Salem, Massachusetts\n19th-century American businesspeople"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood",
"What was Dixon like in adulthood?",
"A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds,"
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | What was his profession? | 2 | What was Dixon's profession? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | he took up boxing, | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"The oldest profession in the world (or the world's oldest profession) is a phrase that, unless another meaning is specified, refers to prostitution. However, it did not start to acquire that meaning until 1889, after a Rudyard Kipling story, and it did not do so universally until after World War I. Formerly, various professions vied for the reputation of being the oldest.\n\nEarlier senses\nThe claim to be the oldest profession was made on behalf of farmers, cattle drovers, horticulturalists, barbers, engineers, landscape gardeners, the military, doctors, nurses, teachers, priests, lay preachers and even lawyers.\n\nPerhaps the earliest recorded claim to be the world's oldest profession was made on behalf of tailors. The Song in Praise of the Merchant-Taylors, attested from 1680, which was routinely performed at pageants at the Lord Mayor's Show, London, if the current mayor happened to belong to the tailors' guild, began:\nOf all the professions that ever were nam'd,\nThe taylor's, though slighted, is much to be fam'd':\nFor various invention, and antiquity,\nNo trade with the tayler's comparèd may be:\nAfter pointing out that Adam and Eve made garments for themselves, and were therefore tailors, it continued:\nThen judge if a tayler was not the first trade.\nThe oldest profession, and they are but raylers,\nWho scoff and deride men that be merchant-taylers.\n\nIn Margaret Cavendish's play The Sociable Companions (1668) soldiers claim \"our profession, which is to rob, fight and kill, is the most ancient profession that is\".\n\nThe Irish poet Henry Brooke (1701–1783) declared that humbugging (i.e. scamming) was the oldest profession:\nOf all trades and arts in repute or possession,\nHumbugging is held the most ancient profession.\n\nThe phrase had also been applied to murderers. In The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries (1875), Charles William Heckethorn, describing the Thugs of India, said:\nThe hierophant, on initiating the candidate, says to him: \"Thou hast chosen, my son, the most ancient profession, the most acceptable to the deity. Thou hast sworn to put to death every human being fate throws into thy hand...\"\n\nAssociation with prostitution\n\nThe phrase began to be associated with prostitution in the last decade of the nineteenth century following Rudyard Kipling's short story about an Indian prostitute, On the City Wall (January 1889). Kipling, after citing a biblical reference, began:\nLalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world. Lilith was her very-great-grandmamma, and that was before the days of Eve as every one knows. In the West, people say rude things about Lalun's profession, and write lectures about it, and distribute the lectures to young persons in order that Morality may be preserved. In the East where the profession is hereditary, descending from mother to daughter, nobody writes lectures or takes any notice; and that is a distinct proof of the inability of the East to manage its own affairs.\n\nIn a scathing article on the morals of the aristocracy in the mass circulation Reynold's Newspaper, 22 July 1894, the reference was repeated:In ancient Rome, under the empire, ladies used to go to baths to meet a certain class of men, while men resorted thither to meet a certain class of ladies. The ladies belonged to what has been called “the oldest profession in the world\", a profession which is carried on in Piccadilly, Regent street, and other parts of London with great energy every night … In the same year the Pall Mall Gazette reported a speech in which \"Mrs. Ormiston Chant … implored us to stand shoulder to shoulder and destroy what Kipling has called 'the oldest profession in the world'\".\n\nThe phrase was frequently used as a euphemism when delicacy forbade direct reference to prostitution.\n\nResidual usage of the phrase in its reputable sense\nThere is some evidence that unworldly speakers (e.g. of the older generation) or unsophisticated audiences (e.g. in small towns or rural areas) were not at first aware of the phrase's newly acquired meaning. Thus for some time the following could be said in English newspaper reports without apparent embarrassment: \"A certain proportion of the cadets were now leaving to enter the oldest profession in the world\" (1895). \"This gentleman's name often figures high in local prize lists, and he is considered an enthusiast in 'the oldest profession in the world'\" (1902). \"Mr Petrie heard the voice of God and observed the working of His hand in ways that are denied to most of us. His speech, and especially his prayers, exhibited a rare consciousness of the beauty of holiness, and were fragrant with phrases of singular charm. As you all know, Mr Petrie followed the oldest profession in the world\" (1915). \"In conclusion, he [Lord Eustace Percy] reminded the teachers that they were the most ancient profession in the world, having descended from the Academy of Plato, and they must always remember that fact (1924).\"\n\nHowever, those \"innocent\" uses of the phrase tended to die out as awareness of the newly acquired meaning increased, as did the appreciation that antiquity, of itself, did not make a profession respectable. One sociologist has argued that the phrase did not invariably refer to prostitution until the 1970s.\n\nSee also\n World's second oldest profession\n\nReferences\n\nProstitution\nEnglish phrases\nEnglish-language idioms",
"Annette von Aretin (23 May 1920 in Bamberg – 1 March 2006 in Munich) was christened Marie Adelheid Kunigunde Felicitas Elisabeth, Freiin von Aretin.\n\nShe was the first Bavarian television announcer. She gained popularity by appearing on the panel of Robert Lembke's quiz show Was bin ich? (What is my profession?), which was broadcast on German national television, for 34 years.\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\n1920 births\n2006 deaths\nPeople from Bamberg\nGerman baronesses\nGerman television personalities"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood",
"What was Dixon like in adulthood?",
"A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds,",
"What was his profession?",
"he took up boxing,"
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | Was he good at boxing? | 3 | Was Dixon good at boxing? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"Andranik Hakobyan (, born 6 October 1981 in Vagharshapat, Armenian SSR) is a Swiss amateur boxer with Armenian roots. He is a World Cup winner, World silver medalist and two-time Olympian.\n\nBiography\nAndranik Hakobyan was born on 6 October 1981. Hakobyan participated at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He won in the first round of the Olympic tournament, but lost in the second. In late 2008, Andranik got the right to compete at the 2008 Boxing World Cup in Moscow. The tournament brought together the best amateur boxers in all weight classes. Hakobyan was able to show all his capability and won the Cup in the middleweight (75 kg) category.\n\nHakobyan won a silver medal at the 2009 World Amateur Boxing Championships in Milan. After winning five straight matches, he lost to Abbos Atoev in the finals. Hakobyan won independent Armenia's first silver medal at the World Amateur Boxing Championships. Hakobyan became an Armenian Champion in 2010. Although he lost in the quarterfinals at the 2011 World Amateur Boxing Championships due to controversial scoring, his performance was still good enough to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics, where he was unable to win a medal.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1981 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Vagharshapat\nMiddleweight boxers\nOlympic boxers of Armenia\nBoxers at the 2008 Summer Olympics\nBoxers at the 2012 Summer Olympics\nArmenian male boxers\nAIBA World Boxing Championships medalists",
"Errol Christie (29 June 1963 – 11 June 2017) was an English professional boxer and boxing trainer. He was the captain of the English amateur boxing team from 1980 to 1983 and European amateur champion in 1983. After turning professional he was a regular fixture on ITV Fight Night in the 1980s. After retiring from boxing he became a trainer in white-collar boxing.\n\nCareer\n\nBoxing career\nChristie was born in Leicester and raised in Radford, Coventry, one of seven brothers. At the age of eight, he started boxing at the Standard-Triumph gym in Coventry managed by Tom McGarry. Out of 80 fights in his early career, Christie lost only two and gained a reputation for early knockouts. He was Warwickshire champion in 1976, schoolboy champion in 1977, NABC champion in 1979 and senior ABA champion in 1981, beating Cameron Lithgow in the final. He was appointed England boxing captain from 1980 to 1983. He moved to London in 1981 to further his boxing career.\n\nIn 1982, he became European amateur under-19 champion after defeating Assylbek Kilimov in the semi-finals and Moe Gruciano in the finals at Schwerin in what was then East Germany. Christie was listed in The Guinness Book of Records as the only British boxer to win all 10 amateur titles.\n\nAfter turning professional in 1982 with new manager Burt McCarthy he won his first 13 fights, 12 inside the distance, including a victory over French champion Joel Bonnetaz in February 1984. He earned the right to wear the Kronk Gym golden shorts after impressing its promoter Emanuel Steward while sparring there. In September 1984 Jose Seys delivered a surprise knockout which shook Christie's confidence. Seven more wins followed, including a win over former Mexican champion Gonzalo Montes, before a bout with Mark Kaylor in a British middleweight title eliminator at Wembley Arena in November 1985 in which he was knocked out in the eighth round.\n\nAfter winning his next four fights, beating Nigerian champion Hunter Clay and former welterweight world title challenger Sean Mannion, he suffered another setback when he was stopped by Charles Boston in December 1986. He won eight of his thirteen fights between June 1987 and October 1990, and in November 1990 faced Michael Watson at the National Exhibition Centre; Watson stopped him in the third round. Christie was out of the ring for over two years, returning in March 1993 to face Trevor Ambrose, losing after being stopped in the second round of what proved to be his final fight.\n\nPost-boxing career\nChristie had tried his hand at stand up comedy towards the end of his boxing career and after retiring from boxing in 1993 he worked as a market trader for six years.\n\nIn 1999, Christie began teaching white-collar boxers, initially at the Real Fight Club, and from 2003 at Gymbox in Holborn, London. In 2005, The Guardian and other newspapers reported an incident where one of Errol's white collar-boxing students, film distributor Simon Franks, hit Hollywood actor George Clooney at the premiere of his film Good Night, and Good Luck. An argument between the two men was alleged to have got out of control. Christie was quoted in The Guardian asking whether his student, Franks, had used his left hook. His students have included TV presenter Dermot O'Leary, former footballer Gianluca Vialli, musician Seal, and journalist Tony McMahon. He also worked with children in schools and community centres.\n\nIn 2010, Christie was taken on as the fight consultant to the play Sucker Punch written by Roy Williams and directed by Sacha Wares, performed at the Royal Court Theatre in Chelsea, London. In March 2010, Christie published his biography No Place To Hide, about racism in both the boxing game and 1970s/1980s Britain in collaboration with McMahon. The book was longlisted for the William Hill sports writer prize for 2010.\n\nPersonal life\nChristie was the uncle of Cyrus Christie, a professional footballer for Fulham F.C. and the Irish national team.\n\nIllness and death\nIn March 2015 Christie was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer. He died at St. Christopher's Hospice in London on 11 June 2017 of complications from the disease, aged 53.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\nBlack British sportspeople\nEnglish male boxers\nEnglish people of Jamaican descent\nMiddleweight boxers\nSportspeople from Coventry\nBoxers from Leicester\n1963 births\n2017 deaths\nDeaths from lung cancer\nDeaths from cancer in England\nEngland Boxing champions"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood",
"What was Dixon like in adulthood?",
"A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds,",
"What was his profession?",
"he took up boxing,",
"Was he good at boxing?",
"at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937."
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | What happened with his boxing career? | 4 | What happened with Dixon's boxing career? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"Fred Bretonnel (1 January 1905 – 4 September 1928) was a French lightweight boxer and title holder of the Featherweight Championship of France from 24 June to 7 October 1924, when it was taken by Lucien Vinez.\nIn a career totalling 76 matches, he lost 18, drew 14 and won 42 with 14 knock outs.\n\nHe fought in the first French-German match in France after the First World War, on 10 May 1922, defeating Paul Czirson.\n\nBretonnel's family were also strongly associated with boxing. His brother was a professional boxing trainer and manager, and his father started the first boxing magazine in France.\n\nBretonnel committed suicide by hanging on 4 September 1928, due to what was referred to as \"family troubles\". At the time of his death, he was a welterweight.\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n Bretonnel at the Boxing Encyclopedia\n\n1905 births\n1928 suicides\nLightweight boxers\nFrench male boxers\nSuicides by hanging in France",
"Title Bout Championship Boxing, abbreviated as TBCB, is a text-based boxing simulation that offers historical and fictional play, as well as the ability to forecast upcoming bouts. It is based on the popular 1979 tabletop game of the same name, which was created by Jim and Tom Trunzo.\n\nHistory\n\n\"There really wasn't a decent representation of our favourite sport, pro boxing,\" Jim Trunzo recalls of the decision he and his brother made in the late 1970s to create a game in which players flipped cards to simulate a fight, rather than use the dice or spinners that were prevalent in sports simulations of that era.\n\nThe Trunzos self-published the game, with help from Jim Barnes, who had founded the Statis-Pro line of sports simulation games. Barnes had developed what he called a \"Fast Action Deck\" to simulate the action and had given the Trunzo brothers his blessing to use the same concept in their game.\n\nAfter the self-published version of Title Bout Championship Boxing barely made its money back, the Trunzos secured a deal with Avalon Hil, which had purchased Statis-Pro and wanted to compete with APBA and Strat-o-matic in the sports simulation space. Avalon Hill had also arranged a marketing partnership with Sports Illustrated to boost its credibility.\n\nTitle Bout: The Game of Professional Boxing sold well but was eventually discontinued as gamers moved away from tabletop sports games to computer ones. The Trunzo brothers did not retain the name of their game, but they had the rights to the rest of it and released TKO Boxing for DOS through Lance Haffner Games in 1990. They later published another tabletop game, APBA Boxing, that used dice, and in 2001 Comp-U-Sport brought the game back to the digital realm with Title Fight 2001.\n\nThe Trunzos eventually sold the game to OOTP Developments, publishers of Out of the Park Baseball and Franchise Hockey Manager. OOTP released Title Bout Championship Boxing 2 in 2005 and version 2.5 in 2008. In 2013, OOTP sold the game to P.I.S.D. Ltd, which released Title Bout Championship Boxing 2013 in June of that year.\n\nGameplay \nTitle Bout Championship Boxing displays a boxing ring with fighters who trade blows, an immersive blow-by-blow text, a crowd that cheers, and ring card girls who flash up between rounds. The game features over 6,660 boxers past and present and in every weight class, allowing players to not only recreate historical fights but also stage bouts that could never have happened, such as Muhammad Ali taking on Mike Tyson in the prime of their careers, Floyd Mayweather battling the legendary Joe Gans, or Sam Langford trading punches with Marvin Hagler. The game's database is updated on a regular basis, allowing players to also forecast upcoming fights. Acting as promoter you stage fights between all the leading contenders, no exceptions.\n\nBouts can be simulated once or multiple times, allowing the player to discard outlier events and see how a fight will likely unfold. Players can also set up tournaments and peruse statistics that are tracked fight-by-fight as well as round-by-round, allowing them to see, for example, how many knock-outs have happened in a specific round. Win-loss records can be imported or they can start from 0–0 so all boxers in the game build unique histories.\n\nTitle Bout Championship Boxing also has many customisation options, including the ability to import boxer images and add new fighters to the game.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n P.I.S.D. website\n\n2013 video games\nBoxing video games\nMacOS games\nSports management video games\nWindows games\nLinux games\nVideo games developed in the United Kingdom"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood",
"What was Dixon like in adulthood?",
"A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds,",
"What was his profession?",
"he took up boxing,",
"Was he good at boxing?",
"at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937.",
"What happened with his boxing career?",
"He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money."
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | What did he do next in his life? | 5 | What did Dixon do next in his life? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"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",
"The Katy series is a set of novels by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, writing under the pen-name of Susan Coolidge. The first in the series, What Katy Did, was published in 1872 and followed the next year by What Katy Did at School. What Katy Did Next was released in 1886. Two further novels, Clover (1888) and In the High Valley (1890), focused upon other members of the eponymous character's family. The series was popular with readers in the late 19th century.\n\nThe series was later adapted into a TV series entitled Katy in 1962, and two films, one also called Katy in 1972 and What Katy Did in 1999.\n\nNovels\n What Katy Did\n What Katy Did at School\n What Katy Did Next\n Clover\n In the High Valley\n\nAdaptions\n Katy (TV series, 1962)\n Katy (film, 1972)\n What Katy Did (film, 1999)\n\nLiterary Criticism\nCritics are divided about how much the series played into period gender norms and often compare the series to Little Women. Foster and Simmons argue for its subversion of gender in their book What Katy Read: Feminist Re-Readings of ‘Classic’ Stories for Girls by suggesting the series “deconstructs family hierarchies”.\n\nInfluence\nThe series is unusual for its time by having an entry which focuses not on the family life at home but at school in What Katy Did at School.\n\nIn a 1995 survey, What Katy Did was voted as one of the top 10 books for 12-year-old girls.\n\nSee also\n\nSarah Chauncey Woolsey\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSeries details at Fantastic Fiction\n\nKaty series\n1870s novels\nNovel series\nSeries of children's books\nNovels by Susan Coolidge\n1880s novels\n1890s novels\n1962 American television series debuts\n1972 films\n1999 films"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood",
"What was Dixon like in adulthood?",
"A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds,",
"What was his profession?",
"he took up boxing,",
"Was he good at boxing?",
"at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937.",
"What happened with his boxing career?",
"He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.",
"What did he do next in his life?",
"Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but"
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | Was he a musician? | 6 | Was Dixon a musician? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"Christoph Bach ( – ) was a German musician of the Baroque period. He was the grandfather of Johann Sebastian Bach.\n\nAccording to information provided by Johann Sebastian Bach in his genealogy Origin of the Musical Bach Family written in 1735, Christoph Bach was the second son of Johannes Bach. His brothers, Johann Bach and Heinrich Bach, were also composers.\n\nHe was born in Wechmar, Germany, where he became a court musician. He also held town musician posts in Erfurt and in Arnstadt. Christoph Bach married Maria Magdalena Grabler. They had three sons, who were all musicians: Georg Christoph Bach (1642–1697), and the twins Johann Ambrosius Bach (1645–1695), who was Johann Sebastian Bach's father, and Johann Christoph Bach (1645–1693). Christoph Bach died in Arnstadt.\n\nSee also\n Bach Family\n\nReferences\n\n1613 births\n1661 deaths\nChristoph Bach",
"Jukka Markus \"Zarkus\" Poussa (12 July 1975 – 24 January 2016) was a Finnish musician. He was a member of the groups Giant Robot, RinneRadio, Hemma Beast and Anna-Mari Kähärän Orkesteri. He was known for using humor in his songs and performances. He was also the musician in the television show W-tyyli, and in 2007 he appeared in the series Jokainen vieras on laulun arvoinen. He died suddenly in January 2016 at the age of 40.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Huudetaan, music video (awarded honorary mention at OMVF)\n\nFinnish male musicians\n2016 deaths\nFinnish percussionists\n1975 births"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood",
"What was Dixon like in adulthood?",
"A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds,",
"What was his profession?",
"he took up boxing,",
"Was he good at boxing?",
"at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937.",
"What happened with his boxing career?",
"He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.",
"What did he do next in his life?",
"Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but",
"Was he a musician?",
"but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string."
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | Did he play any musical instruments? | 7 | Did Dixon play any musical instruments? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"The chrotta, was a musical instrument played in the British Isles, whose exact description is contested.\n\nAccording to Irish historian Gratton Flood, was a small harp played with a bow. The instrument could be rested on knees or on a table.\n\nFlood notes that the historian Gerbert had described the chrotta as an oblong instrument with six strings, four of which on a fingerboard and two off of it.\n\nHistorian Carl Engel noted that a 6th-century CE Italian writer, Venantius Fortunatus, had mentioned the \"Chrotta Britanna\" in a poem, but did not mention any bow.\n\nSee also\nCrwth, a similar Welsh instrument\n\nReferences\n\nBowed lyres\nIrish musical instruments\nEarly musical instruments\nLost and extinct musical instruments",
"Udaka Vadya is an Indian musical instrument. It is assumed either this musical instruments was jal tarang or similar to it. This percussion instrument was categorized in medieval musical treatises under ghana vadya (idiophonic instruments where the sound is produced by striking a surface). This instrument has been mentioned in Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra, as well as the Sangeeta Parijata of the 17th century. The skill to play this instrument was one of the essential 64 kala, or performing arts, to be learnt by a shishya (student) at gurukul.\n\nReferences\n\nHindustani musical instruments\nIndian musical instruments"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood",
"What was Dixon like in adulthood?",
"A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds,",
"What was his profession?",
"he took up boxing,",
"Was he good at boxing?",
"at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937.",
"What happened with his boxing career?",
"He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.",
"What did he do next in his life?",
"Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but",
"Was he a musician?",
"but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string.",
"Did he play any musical instruments?",
"Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar."
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | Was he a solo artist or ever part of a group? | 8 | Was Dixon a solo artist or ever part of a group? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"The Canadian Folk Music Awards are an annual music awards ceremony presenting awards in a variety of categories for achievements in both traditional and contemporary folk music, and other roots music genres, by Canadian musicians. The awards program was created in 2005 by a group of independent label representatives, folk music presenters, artists, and enthusiasts to celebrate and promote Canadian folk music.\n\nAwards ceremonies\nThe following is a listing of all Canadian Folk Music Awards ceremonies.\n\nAwards\n\nClassic Canadian Album\n\nTraditional Album of the Year\nThis award recognizes solo artists, groups or duos. Instrumental or vocal traditional folk music are eligible. Prior to 2008, this award was known as Best Album - Traditional.\n\nContemporary Album of the Year\nThis award recognizes solo artists, groups or duos. Instrumental or vocal contemporary folk music is eligible. Prior to 2008, this award was known as Best Album - Contemporary.\n\nChildren's Album of the Year\nThis award recognizes solo artists, groups or duos with a repertoire that is obviously directed towards youth. This award was first awarded in 2006 and prior to 2008 was known as Best Children's Album.\n\nTraditional Singer of the Year\nThis award recognizes a traditional solo vocalist, or a specified vocalist within a group. Prior to 2008, this award was known as Best Singer - Traditional. This award was not awarded in 2006 and 2007.\n\nContemporary Singer of the Year\nThis award recognizes a contemporary solo vocalist, or a specified vocalist within a group. Prior to 2008, this award was known as Best Singer - Contemporary.\n\nInstrumental Solo Artist of the Year\nThis award recognizes a solo artist. The majority of the recording must be instrumental. Instrumental music from all folk genres, traditional and contemporary, is eligible. This award was known as Best Instrumental Solo in 2005 and as Best Instrumentalist - Solo in 2006 and 2007.\n\nInstrumental Group of the Year\nThis award recognizes a group or duo. Instrumental music from all folk genres, traditional and contemporary, is eligible. This award was known as Best Instrumental Group in 2005 and Best Instrumentalist - Group in 2006 and 2007.\n\nEnglish Songwriter(s) of the Year\nThis award recognizes the lyrical and melodic excellence of a recording of original songs written in English. In the case of collaborations, 50% of the songwriters involved must be Canadian. Prior to 2008, this award was known as Best Songwriter - English.\n\nFrench Songwriter(s) of the Year\nThis award recognizes the lyrical and melodic excellence of a recording of original songs written in French. In the case of collaborations, 50% of the songwriters involved must be Canadian. This award was first awarded in 2007 where it was known as Best Songwriter - French.\n\nIndigenous Songwriter(s) of the Year\nThis award recognizes the lyrical and melodic excellence of a recording of original songs written in an Indigenous language or by an Indigenous artist writing in English, French or an Indigenous language. In the case of collaborations, 50% of the songwriters involved must be Canadian. This award was first awarded in 2006 where it was known as Best Songwriter - Aboriginal until 2007, and was not awarded in 2008 and 2012.\n\nVocal Group of the Year\nThis award recognizes a group or duo which focuses on ensemble singing. Music from all folk genres, traditional and contemporary, is eligible. The majority of the tracks must be vocal numbers. Prior to 2008, this award was known as Best Vocal Group.\n\nEnsemble of the Year\nThis award recognizes a group or duo which can be instrumental or instrumental/vocal. Music from all folk genres, traditional and contemporary, is eligible. Prior to 2008, this award was known as Best Ensemble.\n\nSolo Artist of the Year\nThis award recognizes a solo artist. Instrumental or vocal music from all folk genres, traditional and contemporary, is eligible. Prior to 2008, this award was known as Best Solo Artist.\n\nWorld Solo Artist of the Year\nThis award recognizes a solo artist. Instrumental or vocal world music is eligible. This award was known as Best World Artist Solo in 2005, as Best World Solo in 2007, as World Artist of the Year - Solo in 2010, and not awarded in 2006 and 2012.\n\nWorld Group of the Year\nThis award recognizes a group or duo. Instrumental or vocal world music is eligible. This award was known as Best Group - World Music in 2006, as Best World Group in 2007, as World Artist of the Year - Group in 2010, and not awarded in 2005.\n\nWorld Album of the Year\n\nNew/Emerging Artist(s) of the Year\nThis award recognizes an up-and-coming artist, duo or group. Instrumental or vocal music from all folk genres, traditional and contemporary, is eligible. Prior to 2008, this award was known as Best New/Emerging Artist.\n\nProducer(s) of the Year\nThis award recognizes excellence in craft through acknowledgment of the individual(s) who produce recordings. In case of collaborations, 50% of the team must be Canadian. International releases are permitted.\n\nPushing the Boundaries\nThis award recognizes a solo artist or group that takes creative risks by creating music with folk roots that is innovative, original and imaginative.\n\nYoung Performer(s) of the Year\nThis award recognizes a young (19 and under) solo artist or group. Music from all folk genres is eligible.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links",
"The 1994 Source Awards was held at the Paramount Theater in New York City, New York on April 25, 1994.\n\nWinners and nominees\nWinners are in bold text.\n\nArtist of the Year (group)\n A Tribe Called Quest\n\nArtist of the Year (solo)\n Dr. Dre\n\nNew Artist of the Year (group)\n Wu-Tang Clan\n\nNew Artist of the Year (solo)\n Snoop Doggy Dogg\n\nLyricist of the Year (group or solo)\n Snoop Doggy Dogg\n\nAlbum of the Year\n Dr. Dre – The Chronic\n\nSingle of the Year\n Wu-Tang Clan – Method Man\n\nRap Album of the Year\n Dr. Dre – The Chronic\n\nMotion Picture Soundtrack of the Year\n Menace II Society\n\nActing Performance, Movie or TV\n MC Eiht – Menace II Society\n\nR&B Artist of the Year\n Mary J. Blige\n\nProducer of the Year\n Dr. Dre\n\nDancehall Artist of the Year\n Buju Banton\n\nLive Performer of the Year (group or solo)\n KRS-One\n\nVideo of the Year\n Ice Cube – Check Yo Self\n\nPerformances\n Onyx – \"Throw Ya Gunz\"\n Thug Life – \"Out on Bail\"\n Wu-Tang Clan – \"C.R.E.A.M.\"\n\nReferences\n\nThe Source Awards, 1994\n1994 in American music\n1994 awards in the United States\n1994 in New York City"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood",
"What was Dixon like in adulthood?",
"A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds,",
"What was his profession?",
"he took up boxing,",
"Was he good at boxing?",
"at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937.",
"What happened with his boxing career?",
"He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.",
"What did he do next in his life?",
"Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but",
"Was he a musician?",
"but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string.",
"Did he play any musical instruments?",
"Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.",
"Was he a solo artist or ever part of a group?",
"In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne."
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | What kind of music did they make? | 9 | What kind of music did the Five Breezes make? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"What Kind of an American are you?, also known as What Kind of American are you?, is a World War I era song released in 1917. Albert Von Tilzer composed the music. Lew Brown and Charles R. McCarron wrote the lyrics. The song was published by Broadway Music Co. of New York, New York. On the cover is a gray drawing of Uncle Sam pointing. A map of the United States is featured on the lower half of the cover. The song was written for voice and piano.\n\nThe sheet music can be found at Pritzker Military Museum & Library.\n\nAnalysis\nThe song urges Americans (specifically immigrants) to use this war to prove their loyalty to the United States; whether that may be by fighting or by simply standing behind the US's actions. For those who show no support, this question is posed: \"What are you doing over here?\" It upholds the \"us-against-them\" mentality; the \"them\" in this case is Germany. The chorus is as follows:\nWhat kind of an American are you?\nIt's time to show what you intend to do\nIf they trample on Old Glory will you think that they are right,\nOr will you stand behind your land and fight with all your might?\nWhat kind of an American are you?\nThat's a question you'll have to answer to\nIf the Star Spangled Banner don't make you stand and cheer,\nThen what are you doing over here?\n\nExternal links\nWhat Kind of an American are You? at Wolfsonian FIU\nWhat Kind of an American are You? at Acumen\n\nReferences\n\nSongs about the United States\nAmerican patriotic songs\n1917 songs\nSongs of World War I\nSongs written by Albert Von Tilzer\nSongs with lyrics by Lew Brown\nSongs with music by Charles McCarron",
"\"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" is a pop song written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, which became a Top 40 hit for Cass Elliot in 1969.\n\nCass Elliot version\n\nOverview\nThe Cass Elliot version of the song is in the key of E major.\nShe recorded \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" after she had a hit in the summer of 1969 with \"It's Getting Better\", another Mann/Weil composition and the second single from her second solo album, Bubblegum, Lemonade &...Something for Mama. That album had been produced by Dunhill Records vice-president of A&R Steve Barri, who said: \"[Since Dunhill] didn't have much success with [the debut Cass Elliot solo album Dream a Little Dream we wanted to get her back on the [upper] charts and we tried to find some commercial songs.\" Barri would also attribute the bubblegum music focus of his output with Elliot to a desire \"to capture who she was...this real fun-loving positive...person I couldn't imagine anybody...not loving.\" In a September 1969 Melody Maker interview a week prior to the US release of the \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" single, Elliot stated: \"Bubblegum music is very pleasant to listen to...but it's like they say about Chinese food: half an hour after tasting it you are hungry again\", although she did concede \"maybe [bubblegum] is what I am supposed to be doing [since] my voice is very light...I just can't sing heavy material\". Elliot would be less easygoing in her 1971 summation of her 1968-1970 tenure with Dunhill Records, saying she had been \"forced to be so bubblegum that I'd stick to the floor when I walked.\" Barri, while admitting — also in 1971 — that \"Cass was one artist I couldn't find the answer for,\" would maintain: \"We never recorded anything that she didn't want to do.\"\n\nElliot had also told Melody Maker that \"It's Getting Better\" was \"musically...not quite what I want to be doing...It's a good recording for what it is, but you wouldn't exactly call it social commentary.\" \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\", while similar in structure to \"It's Getting Better\", could be considered social commentary: Steve Barri would rank \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" in with \"pop songs [that] really kind of say something\". Released in October 1969, \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" swiftly ascended the Hot 100 in Billboard, and in November 1969 Dunhill reissued Elliot's second solo album reformatted to include \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\", the album's title being changed to It's Getting Better/ Make Your Own Kind of Music. Steve Barri considered \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" to be a guaranteed Top Ten hit; the single would garner heavy radio airplay but comparatively meager sales, stalling at #36 on the Hot 100 (\"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" would reach #6 on the airplay driven Billboard Easy Listening chart).\n\nThe follow-up single to \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\": \"New World Coming\" - another Mann/ Weil composition - was similarly a sugarcoated message song and would have similar soft chart impact - with a #42 Hot 100 peak - signaling Elliot's challenges in maintaining a profile as a current hitmaker, as the 1960s turned into the 1970s. Dunhill Records president Jay Lasker would say of the underperformance of \"New World Coming\": \"The message here - at least to us - is that 'the message record has had it'. [Now] Mama Cass is going to do love songs.\" The followup to \"New World Coming\", \"A Song That Never Comes\", would be Elliot's final single to reach the Hot 100, spending two weeks at #99 in August 1970. Dunhill released Elliott's third solo album in October 1970, Mama's Big Ones, compiling seven of her eight Hot 100 singles plus some previously unreleased tracks, as her final solo album on the label. Subsequent to the one-off collaborative album Dave Mason & Cass Elliot on Blue Thumb, Dunhill announced in July 1970 that Elliot would reunite with her former bandmates for a final Mamas & Papas album, after which she would depart Dunhill to record for RCA Victor.\n\nIn an 8/14/2019 \"Staff Picks\" ranking of The 100 Best Songs of 1969 in Billboard, Elliott's \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" was ranked at #89, with the evaluation: \"Though just a modest hit, Elliot's ode to striking out on your own was a crucial evolution in self-referential pop. [In 1968] her debut album [had] stiffed, and...her three-week Vegas residency [infamously] closed after a single awful performance. In this light, the sunshine pop of 'Make Your Own Kind of Music'...sparkled even more defiantly.\"\n\nThe presiding rabbi at Elliot's funeral on 3 August 1974 included the lyrics of \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" in the eulogy.\n\nElliot's recording of \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" would be featured prominently in the television show Lost, first appearing in the episode \"Man of Science, Man of Faith\", and was rated as one of Spin magazine's \"Best Musical Moments From TV's Latest Golden Age\". The song also was used multiple times in the Showtime series Dexter, including an episode with the same title as the song. \n\nThe song also appears on the soundtrack to the films Beautiful Thing and Free Guy.\n\nThe track's uses on television include a 2015 episode (\"The Graduate\") of The Middle, set to a flashback montage of a character's long-ago high school graduation ceremony; in season two, episode seven of Sex Education (TV series);\nand as the theme song for the Swedish documentary show I en annan del av Köping.\n\nChart performance (Cass Elliot version)\n\nRemixes\nA remixed version of the Cass Elliot track was featured in the 1997 Dance compilation Dance Across The Universe (Part 1), which was released by Universal Records, along with a separate club-only promo which featured four different mixes (one of them dubbed \"The Mama Cass Mix\"). This version would reach #11 on the Dance Club Songs chart in Billboard.\n\nPaloma Faith version\n\nOverview\n\"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" became a Top 30 hit in the United Kingdom in 2018 via a remake by Paloma Faith.\n\nIt was announced 1 February 2018 that Škoda Auto had commissioned Paloma Faith to record a version of \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" to serve as jingle for an ad campaign to launch the Karoq, Škoda's new compact crossover SUV, Faith being quoted as saying: \"The reality of Škoda is it was the car people took the piss out of you for having...That's how they enticed me in really, it was like that thing or person who people tease for being who they are but is now celebrated for being who they are.\" Faith has since introduced \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" in concert with the statement that \"she doesn't usually approve of celebrity endorsements for products, but felt that Škoda was a brand worth celebrating due to how it's gradually become more respected over the years.\"\n\nThe track was made available for streaming as of 2 March 2018 with a promotional video made available 20 March 2018, with a year-long television ad campaign featuring a 60 second edit of the video inaugurated on 24 March 2018: \"the [video] follows Paloma through a series of flashbacks as she fights to make it in the music industry. It depicts her struggling to fit in as a young child to performing to empty pubs, to an iconic moment early in her career where she rebukes a music executive for not listening to her sing. The flashbacks are juxtaposed with images of her now as she enjoys chart-topping success and a new period in her life as a mother.\" (Faith had given birth to her first child in December 2016.)\n\n\"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" debuted on the UK chart dated 19 April 2018 at #59 to enter the Top 40 at #28 on the chart dated 10 May 2018. The track spent only that one week in the Top 40, its typical chart ranking during its ten week chart tenure being between #43 and #49; however, the track was certified silver for sales of 200,000 units. Included in the tracklist of Faith's fourth studio album; The Architect, on sites such as Spotify and Apple Music as of 20 April 2018, \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" was officially added to the album's tracklist on its 16 November 2018 re-release: labeled The Zeitgist Edition, this re-release also added \"Lullaby\" to the tracks on the original album.\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nOther versions\nThe first recording of \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" was on a 1968 single by the New York City-based trio the Will-O-Bees (Janet Blossom, Steven Porter, and Robert Merchanthouse), who regularly performed Mann/Weil compositions.\n\nIn 1972, Barbra Streisand's concert album [[Live Concert At The Forum featured the medley \"Sing\"/ \"Make Your Own Kind Of Music\"; released as a single, it reached #94 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #28 on the magazine's Easy Listening chart. On her 1973 album Barbra Streisand...And Other Musical Instruments Streisand sings \"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" in a medley with \"The World is a Concerto\".\n\n\"Make Your Own Kind of Music\" has also been recorded by Roslyn Kind (on This is Roslyn Kind, 1969); Bobby Sherman (on Here Comes Bobby, 1970); Marilyn Maye (on Girl Singer, 1970); Paul Westerberg (on a flexidisc with The Bob magazine #53 and on the \"Love Untold\" single, 1996); Telly Leung (on Songs for You, 2015) and Cock Robin (on Chinese Driver, 2016).\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Discography for the song\n (Mama Cass)\n Remix by DJ Mathieu Bouthier and Muttonheads\n\n1968 songs\n1969 singles\nCass Elliot songs\nBarbra Streisand songs\nDunhill Records singles\nSongs with lyrics by Cynthia Weil\nSongs written by Barry Mann\nSongs about music\n\n2018 singles\nPaloma Faith songs\nSony Music UK singles\nSong recordings produced by TMS (production team)"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood",
"What was Dixon like in adulthood?",
"A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds,",
"What was his profession?",
"he took up boxing,",
"Was he good at boxing?",
"at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937.",
"What happened with his boxing career?",
"He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.",
"What did he do next in his life?",
"Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but",
"Was he a musician?",
"but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string.",
"Did he play any musical instruments?",
"Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.",
"Was he a solo artist or ever part of a group?",
"In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne.",
"What kind of music did they make?",
"The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots."
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | What happened with the group? | 10 | What happened with the Five Breezes? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"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",
"¿Qué hubiera pasado si...? (in English, What would have happened if...?) is a counterfactual history Argentine book written by Rosendo Fraga. The book speculates on how would the History of Argentina have developed if certain key events did not take place or had happened in a different way.\n\nDescription\nAmong other things, the book speculates what would have happened if the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata wasn't created, if the British invasions of the Río de la Plata did not fail, if José de San Martín had obeyed the Supreme Directors and returned with the Army of the Andes to fight Artigas instead of taking the independentist war to Peru, if the Conquest of the Desert did not take place, if the different coup d'états that took place in Argentina did not happen or were defeated, and if Argentina had obtained the sovereignty of the Malvinas. Each chapter starts with a basic premise but speculates as well on related possibilities that could have influenced changes: for example, the one on San Martin questions as well what would have happened if the government of Chile fell, if a Spanish task force arrived to take Buenos Aires, and what stance could have the caudillos taken in those hypothetic scenarios.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Interview with Rosendo Fraga about the book \n\nArgentine books\nAlternate history anthologies"
]
|
[
"Willie Dixon",
"Adulthood",
"What was Dixon like in adulthood?",
"A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds,",
"What was his profession?",
"he took up boxing,",
"Was he good at boxing?",
"at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937.",
"What happened with his boxing career?",
"He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.",
"What did he do next in his life?",
"Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but",
"Was he a musician?",
"but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string.",
"Did he play any musical instruments?",
"Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.",
"Was he a solo artist or ever part of a group?",
"In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne.",
"What kind of music did they make?",
"The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots.",
"What happened with the group?",
"Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when"
]
| C_be66997cced243518cba8233d4437f6e_1 | Did the group split up? | 11 | Did the Five Breezes group split up? | Willie Dixon | Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money. Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar. In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records. CANNOTANSWER | when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. | William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.
Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.
Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography
Early life
Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 1, 1915. He was one of fourteen children. His mother, Daisy, often rhymed things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as a young teenager. Later in his teens, he learned to sing harmony from a local carpenter, Theo Phelps, who led a gospel quintet, the Union Jubilee Singers, in which Dixon sang bass; the group regularly performed on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. He began adapting his poems into songs and even sold some to local music groups.
Adulthood
Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.
Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.
In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.
Pinnacle of career
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but he began performing less, being more involved with administrative tasks for the label. By 1951, he was a full-time employee at Chess, where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records. His relationship with Chess was sometimes strained, but he stayed with the label from 1948 to the early 1960s. During this time Dixon's output and influence were prodigious. From late 1956 to early 1959, he worked in a similar capacity for Cobra Records, for which he produced early singles for Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy. In 1956, Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond", which was recorded by Lee Jackson, and released on Cobra in February 1957. Dixon later recorded for Bluesville Records. From the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, Dixon ran his own record label, Yambo Records, and two subsidiary labels, Supreme and Spoonful. He released his 1971 album, Peace?, on Yambo and also singles by McKinley Mitchell, Lucky Peterson and others.
Dixon is considered one of the key figures in the creation of Chicago blues. He worked with Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Joe Louis Walker, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Eddie Boyd, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Willie Mabon, Memphis Slim, Washboard Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Sam Lay and others.
In December 1964, the Rolling Stones reached number one on the UK Singles Chart with their cover of Dixon's "Little Red Rooster". In the same year, the group also covered "I Just Want To Make Love To You" on their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
Copyright battles
In his later years, Dixon became a tireless ambassador for the blues and a vocal advocate for its practitioners, founding the Blues Heaven Foundation, which works to preserve the legacy of the blues and to secure copyrights and royalties for blues musicians who were exploited in the past. Speaking with the simple eloquence that was a hallmark of his songs, Dixon claimed, "The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues."
In 1977, unhappy with the small royalties paid by Chess's publishing company, Arc Music, Dixon and Muddy Waters sued Arc and, with the proceeds from the settlement, founded their own publishing company, Hoochie Coochie Music.
In 1987, Dixon reached an out-of-court settlement with the rock band Led Zeppelin after suing for plagiarism in the band's use of his music in "Bring It On Home" and lyrics from his composition "You Need Love" (1962) in the band's recording of "Whole Lotta Love".
Death and legacy
Dixon's health increasingly deteriorated during the 1970s and the 1980s, primarily as a result of long-term diabetes. Eventually one of his legs was amputated.
Dixon was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in the inaugural session of the Blues Foundation's ceremony. In 1989 he received a Grammy Award for his album Hidden Charms.
Dixon died of heart failure on January 29, 1992, in Burbank, California, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. After his death, his widow, Marie Dixon, took over the Blues Heaven Foundation and moved the headquarters to Chess Records. Dixon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category Early Influences (pre-rock) in 1994. On April 28, 2013, both Dixon and his grandson Alex Dixon were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Dixon was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Vicksburg.
The actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer portrayed Dixon in Cadillac Records, a 2008 film based on the early history of Chess Records.
Songs
Dixon wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs. Several have become blues standards, including "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful". Other Dixon compositions that reached the record charts include "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters), "Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley).
In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists; many recorded at least one of his songs for their debut albums, including: Jeff Beck ("I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me"); the Blues Project ("Back Door Man", "Spoonful"); Canned Heat ("Evil Is Going On"); Cactus ("You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover"); Cream ("Spoonful"); the Doors ("Back Door Man"); Foghat ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Hawkwind ("Bring It on Home"); Led Zeppelin ("I Can't Quit You Baby", "You Shook Me"); Pretty Things ("Pretty Thing"); the Rolling Stones ("I Just Want to Make Love to You"); Siegel–Schwall Band ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Shadows of Knight ("You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Hoochie Coochie Man"); Steppenwolf ("Hoochie Coochie Man"); Ten Years After ("Spoonful", "Help Me"); and Johnny Winter ("Help Me").
Discography
Albums
Notes
References
Sources
Dixon, Willie (1992). Willie Dixon: Master Blues Composer, with Notes and Tablature. Hal Leonard. .
External links
Willie Dixon, Mississippi blues musician. Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven Foundation
Willie Dixon's Official Website
1915 births
1992 deaths
African-American guitarists
American amputees
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singer-songwriters
American conscientious objectors
American double-bassists
Male double-bassists
American music arrangers
Record producers from Illinois
American session musicians
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Checker Records artists
Cobra Records artists
Chicago blues musicians
Grammy Award winners
Jive singers
Jump blues musicians
Musicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi
Singer-songwriters from Mississippi
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American guitarists
Singer-songwriters from Illinois
Slap bassists (double bass)
Guitarists from Illinois
Guitarists from Mississippi
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century double-bassists
20th-century American male musicians
Male jazz musicians
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American male singer-songwriters
20th-century African-American male singers | true | [
"Supernatural was a Swedish pop group that consisted of the winners of the second season of the Swedish reality TV show Popstars. In Sweden the show was broadcast on Kanal5 in 2003.\nThe band had several hits with songs like Supernatural and Rock U. Supernatural was expected to take part in the Swedish precursor selections for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003 but its record label did not publicize the band sufficiently and the members subsequently split up in 2004 after arguments with their record label.\n\nMembers\nMathilda Carmbrant\nLinda Eriksson (aka Linda Varg)\nSandra Leto\nRobert Skowronski\nSebastian Zelle\n\nAfter split-up\nThe members of Supernatural started a new band, this time with the name Caught Up, but it did not experience the same success.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n\nSingles\n\nReferences\n\nPopstars winners\nSwedish pop music groups",
"The Hi-Revving Tongues were a New Zealand rock band from Auckland, led by vocalist/songwriter Chris Parfitt.\n\nThe group was founded in 1967 by Parfitt, Mike Balcombe, bassist John Walmsley, organist Bruce Coleman, and drummer Rob Noad. The group reached #1 for 2 weeks in 1969 with the single \"Rain and Tears\", a cover of a song by Aphrodite's Child. That same year, the group did a six-month residency at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go in Sydney, Australia. The group later performed simply as The Tongues and then as Caboose, and split up in 1972.\n\nReferences\n\nMusical groups from Auckland"
]
|
[
"Rose Tattoo",
"Side projects and temporary reformations (1987-1997)"
]
| C_d12f76c104f44a44bbdc1c0098509391_0 | What was one of the important side projects that Rose tattoo was involved in? | 1 | What was one of the important side projects that Rose tattoo was involved in? | Rose Tattoo | Anderson mounted his solo career from mid-1987. He released the ballad, "Suddenly" as a single. It was taken from Beats from a Single Drum, which was then re-released as his debut solo album in 1988. "Suddenly" had little chart success until it was used on television soap opera, Neighbours for the wedding of characters Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue). "Suddenly" peaked at No. 2 in September 1987 and was kept out of top spot by Minogue's debut single, "Locomotion". In the early 90s, Anderson tried to reunite Rose Tattoo, but the death of Royall, who died in 1991 of cancer while trying to overcome substance abuse in the form of a heroin addiction and alcoholism, stalled the reformation. In an interview with Australian journalist Nick Milligan on 25 March 2011, Anderson explained, "I was in Los Angeles in 1989 recording an album which the 'Bound For Glory' single came off and I was hanging around with the Gunners and a lot of other LA bad boy rock bands that we supposedly influenced. I realised then that apart from the fact that I was there to establish myself as a singer songwriter, there was still this great following for the band. I rang up the other members and said 'Let's reform. We've been apart for three years or more.' It was long enough for us to settle our differences and let all the wounds heal. I rang up each of the original members that were still interested and they all said, 'Yeah, let's get together.' So I said we should negotiate a deal where the band can come over and record in Los Angeles. But, of course, that was the year that our original drummer "Digger" Royall kicked his heroin habit. While he was recovering on methadone, cancer exploded through his body, quite sadly. That was the irony of it, because the cancer had been suppressed by the heroin addiction. Within months he was dead. That shook the band so badly on a personal level, because we had been so enthusiastic to reform. We didn't reform until '92. In '93, the word got around, because we had reformed with our existing drummer Paul DeMarco. The Gunners heard we were out playing again and said, 'We want you to do our support gigs throughout Australia.' We did those two Guns N' Roses raceways gigs - Eastern Creek in Sydney and the raceway down in Melbourne." Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses on the Australian leg of their Use Your Illusion Tour. Anderson, Wells, Cocks, Leach and new drummer Paul DeMarco from Wells' solo band reunited for the 1993 tour. The reunion was brief and each returned to solo projects. Around this time, ex-members of Rose Tattoo formed a short lived band with ex-Candy Harlots vocalist Aiz Lynch. This band had numerous rehearsals, but only recorded one demo before disbanding. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Rose Tattoo are an Australian rock and roll band, now led by Angry Anderson, which formed in Sydney in 1976. Their sound is hard rock mixed with blues rock influences, with songs including "Bad Boy for Love", "Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw", "Nice Boys", "We Can't Be Beaten" and "Scarred for Life". Their first four albums were produced by Harry Vanda and George Young who also worked with AC/DC. They disbanded in 1987, subsequently reforming briefly in 1993 to support Guns N' Roses on an Australian tour. They reassembled again from 1998 and have since released two more studio albums.
According to Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane, Rose Tattoo are "one of the most revered bands of all time. The Tatts played peerless, street-level heavy blues with the emphasis on slide guitar and strident lyric statements". Guns N' Roses, L.A. Guns, Keel, Nashville Pussy, Motosierra, Pud Spuke, Helen Schneider, Skrewdriver, and the Uruguayan band the Knight's Night have covered Rose Tattoo songs. On 16 August 2006, they were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame.
Seven former members have died including four of the early recording line-up, Dallas Royall (1991), Peter Wells (2006), Ian Rilen (2006), Lobby Loyde (2007), Mick Cocks (2009), Neil Smith (2013) and John Meyer (2020).
History
Early years (1976–1977)
Rose Tattoo were formed in Sydney in 1976 with Leigh Johnston on rhythm guitar, Tony Lake on lead vocals and they were led by slide guitarist Peter Wells — who had departed as bass guitarist of heavy metal band, Buffalo. Drummer Michael Vandersluys completed the line-up. Ian Rilen from Band of Light joined on bass guitar. He had taught himself to play while in prison and gave Wells' band the street-cred he was looking for. Rhythm guitarist Mick Cocks soon replaced Johnston; Lake and Vandersluys were substituted by former Buster Brown members Angry Anderson and Dallas "Digger" Royall, respectively. Melbourne-based Buster Brown had played at the 1974 Sunbury Festival and had included future AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd. Rose Tattoo had an early performance on New Year's Eve at the local rock club, Chequers.
Chiefly inspired by the Rolling Stones, Faces and Billy Thorpe and his 1970s Aztecs, Rose Tattoo's hard-rocking sound quickly earned a following in the Sydney area. Members of AC/DC were fans and recommended them to their label, Albert Productions. The band's debut, single "Bad Boy for Love", was written by Rilen, who left to form punk rock group, X,(not the L.A. band) prior to its release in October 1977. "Bad Boy for Love" was produced by Vanda & Young (ex-The Easybeats, AC/DC's producers) and peaked at No. 19 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. Initially Cocks switched to bass guitar to cover Rilen's departure, then Chris Turner (ex-Buffalo) joined on bass guitar. The band toured nationally on the pub rock circuit competing with the Angels, Cold Chisel, Dragon and Kevin Borich Express.
Self titled debut, success and follow-up albums (1978–1982)
One-time Buster Brown bass guitarist Geordie Leach was recruited to record their self-titled debut LP, Rose Tattoo, which reached the top 40 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart in November 1978. The album, produced by Vanda & Young, was released in some markets as Rock N' Roll Outlaw after their second single, "Rock N' Roll Outlaw" which did not reach the top 50. Leach left the band in May 1979 to be replaced in October by guitarist Lobby Loyde filling in on bass guitar (Coloured Balls, Purple Hearts, Wild Cherries). During his brief tenure, they recorded "Legalise Realise" which was released as an independent split single in March 1980, the other track, "Bong on Aussie", was by country singer Colin Paterson, to publicise a campaign to legalise marijuana. Later in 1980, they toured the United States and then toured Europe (including United Kingdom), but by September Loyde had left and Leach returned.
Early in 1981, "Rock N' Roll Outlaw" started to chart in Europe, peaking at No. 2 in France, No. 5 in Germany and No. 60 in UK. The line up of Anderson, Cocks, Leach, Royall and Wells toured Europe from April. Three years after their debut the band issued the follow-up album, Assault and Battery in September, which reached the top 30 in Australia. Both Rock N' Roll Outlaw and Assault and Battery peaked at No. 1 on the UK heavy metal albums chart. Rose Tattoo's 1981 tour of Europe included an appearance at the Reading Festival, where Anderson repeatedly head butted the amp stacks until his scalp started bleeding. They were hailed as the loudest band to play London's Marquee Club since Led Zeppelin.
Returning to Australia, the band began work on their third album; with new guitarist Robin Riley replacing Cocks, who went on to join Heaven, they issued Scarred for Life in 1982, subsequently touring the US in support of Aerosmith and ZZ Top. The band's US visit was not a major success but proved to be influential on the underground sleaze metal scene in Los Angeles, with bands such as Guns N' Roses which later cited Rose Tattoo as a favourite and recorded a cover of "Nice Boys" on Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide in 1986.
Southern Stars and Beats from a Single Drum (1983–1986)
In 1983, after the US tour, Riley, Royall and Wells all left. The remaining duo of Anderson and Leach recruited guitarists Greg Jordan and John Meyer from Perth progressive metal band, Saracen. With drummer Scott Johnston (Jimmy and the Boys, Outline, Kids in the Kitchen, Flash in the Pan, Swannee, Peter Wells) the band recorded 1984's Southern Stars, their last album for Albert Productions and Vanda & Young as producers. Leach then exited to join Cocks, Rilen, Royall and Wells in Illustrated Men, which toured during 1984–85.
Anderson took time out to play the character 'Ironbar' Bassey in the 1985 film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. That year Rose Tattoo, with the line-up of Anderson, Johnston, Meyer, Andy Cichon (bass) and Tim Gaze (slide guitar), released a cover of Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild", their first release for Mushroom Records. Meyer left and the group recorded 1986's Beats from a Single Drum as a four-piece for Mushroom. Soon after Anderson started his solo career and the band separated by the end of 1987. The album was subsequently re-released as Anderson's first solo album, with the ballad, "Suddenly", as his debut solo single. However, Anderson has admitted regret in recording the pop/ballad-oriented album. "Suddenly" had little chart success until it was used on TV soap opera, Neighbours for the wedding of characters Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue). "Suddenly" peaked at No. 2 in September 1987 and was kept out of top spot by Minogue's own debut single, "Locomotion".
Side projects and temporary reformations (1988–1997)
In the early 1990s, Anderson tried to reunite Rose Tattoo, but Dallas Royall died in 1991, of cancer when being treated for his heroin addiction and alcoholism, which delayed that reformation. Anderson explained to Nick Milligan in March 2011, "I was in Los Angeles in 1989 recording an album which the 'Bound for Glory' single came off and I was hanging around with the Gunners and a lot of other LA bad boy rock bands that we supposedly influenced. I realised then that apart from the fact that I was there to establish myself as a singer songwriter, there was still this great following for the band. I rang up the other members and said 'Let's reform. We've been apart for three years or more.' It was long enough for us to settle our differences and let all the wounds heal. I rang up each of the original members that were still interested and they all said, 'Yeah, let's get together.' So I said we should negotiate a deal where the band can come over and record in Los Angeles. But, of course, that was the year that our original drummer "Digger" Royall kicked his heroin habit. While he was recovering on methadone, cancer exploded through his body, quite sadly. That was the irony of it, because the cancer had been suppressed by the heroin addiction. Within months he was dead. That shook the band so badly on a personal level, because we had been so enthusiastic to reform. We didn't reform until '92."
Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses on the Australian leg of their Use Your Illusion Tour. Anderson, Wells, Cocks, Leach were joined by new drummer, Paul DeMarco, from Wells' solo band reunited for the 1993 tour. The reunion was brief as each returned to solo projects. Around this time, some ex-members of Rose Tattoo formed a short lived band with ex-Candy Harlots vocalist, Aiz Lynch. It had numerous rehearsals, but only recorded one demo before disbanding.
Second reformation: Pain to Blood Brothers (1998–2010)
Rose Tattoo, with original bassist Ian Rilen replacing Leach, reformed yet again in 1998 for the "All Hell Breaks Loose!!" tour, however Rilen remained with the band only for the duration of this tour. By the following year, Leach had returned to the fold once more, although his place was taken by Steve King in 2000. Rock music historian Ian McFarlane wrote that they are "one of the most revered bands of all time. The Tatts played peerless, street-level heavy blues with the emphasis on slide guitar and strident lyric statements" in his Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop.
Since that time Rose Tattoo has toured regularly around Australia and throughout Europe. In 2000, the band appeared at the Wacken Open Air festival as part of their tour. These shows formed the basis of the 25 to Life live album. At the Gimme Ted benefit concert on 10 March 2001 the group performed five songs. 2002 saw the release of Pain, the band's first studio album in 16 years. Cocks rejoined the group and they prepared material for a future album.
Plans for their next album, Blood Brothers were disrupted when Wells died on 27 March 2006, four years after his diagnosis of prostate cancer. On 16 August Rose Tattoo were inducted by musician Sarah McLeod, into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame alongside former member Lobby Loyde and Daddy Cool, Divinyls, Icehouse and Helen Reddy. Anderson had informed Wells of the forthcoming induction, "He was chuffed, I was so glad he knew about it. It's good we're getting recognized for the music. We've gone out and done it our own way, to our detriment or to our betterment." Founding member Ian Rilen died on 30 October from bladder cancer. One of his last public appearances was at the Hall of Fame induction.
Also in October, a number of Rose Tattoo songs were voted upon and ranked in the Triple M Essential 2006 Countdown of songs, including "Bad Boy for Love" (voted No. 1060 out of 2006) and "We Can't Be Beaten" (voted No. 397 out of 2006). That month they were one of 55 acts voted and played in Triple J's Impossible Music Festival of 2006, with their live recording of a gig performed on New Year's Day 1980 at Mount Druitt, New South Wales being selected out of over 1000 Live at the Wireless recordings over the radio station's 31-year history.
On 21 April 2007, Lobby Loyde died, aged 65, two years after being diagnosed with lung cancer. In June, Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses with Sebastian Bach on their Chinese Democracy Tour's Australian leg. In October they supported Motörhead on their Australian tour dates. In an interview with Australian rock magazine Unbelievably Bad, Anderson announced his intention to retire the band after one more album.
In 2008 they played the Download Festival in England. In April 2009 it was announced that guitarist Mick Cocks had liver cancer – he died on 22 December. By 2010 five former members had died of various cancers – Dallas Royall (throat cancer, 1991), Peter Wells (prostate cancer, 2006), Ian Rilen (bladder cancer, 2006), Lobby Loyde (lung cancer, 2007) and Mick Cocks (liver cancer, 2009).
Final statement to Outlaws (2011–current)
Rose Tattoo celebrated their 35th anniversary in 2011. They were demo-ing songs for a proposed new album and Anderson had told Milligan that it would be the group's "final statement" but that did not eventuate. They were uncertain of continuing when DeMarco was arrested in September 2014: he pled guilty to gun supply offences and was sentenced to a minimum of six years jail. On 5 August 2017 a new line-up of Anderson, Dai Pritchard, Bob Spencer, Mark Evans and John "Watto" Watson was announced. In August 2018 a new drummer joined, Jackie Barnes, the son of Australian vocalist, Jimmy Barnes.
The band toured Europe during March 2020 with Justin Ngariki on drums. They released a new album, Outlaws, on Cleopatra Records in that month. In May 2020, they were due to tour the US for the first time since 1982, but the tour was deferred due to COVID-19 restrictions. Outlaws is a re-recording of the band's debut album, Rose Tattoo, plus three early songs, which did not appear on the 1978 release: "Snow Queen", "Sweet Love (Rock n Roll)" and "Rosetta". Anderson provided the reasons behind making the album, "Honouring the past and respecting the future." It was recorded at Hercules Studio, Sydney by Mark Opitz and Tim McArtney. It was produced by Opitz, and mixed by Opitz, Spencer and McArtney. Liner notes were written by the author, Murray Engleheart.
On 1 September 2020 it was announced through Rose Tattoo's social media that John Meyer, the group's slide guitarist from 1983 to 1985, had died.
After 16 years of loyal service, Dai Pritchard announced his retirement from Rose Tattoo on 14 Apr 2021 via Facebook, leaving the band amicably to move into a new career in mental health.
Members
Current
Angry Anderson – lead vocals (1976–1987, 1992–1993, 1998–present)
Bob Spencer – guitar (2017–present)
Mark Evans – bass guitar (2017–present)
Paul DeMarco – drums (1992–2016, 2021-present)
Former
Peter Wells – slide guitar, bass guitar (1976–1983, 1992–1993, 1998–2006; died 2006)
Michael "Stork" Vandersluys – drums (1976)
Leigh Johnston – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1976)
Ian Rilen – bass guitar, vocals (1976–1977, 1998; died 2006)
Mick Cocks – guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1976–1982, 1992–1993, 1998–2000, 2005–2009; died 2009)
Dallas "Digger" Royall – drums (1976–1983; died 1991)
Gordon "Geordie" Leach – bass guitar (1977–1979, 1980–1984, 1992–1993, 1999, 2007-2013)
Chris Turner – guitar (1977)
Neil Smith – bass guitar (1979; died 2013)
Lobby Loyde – bass guitar (1979–1980; died 2007)
Robin Riley – guitar (1982–1983, 2000–2005, 2010–2011), slide guitar (2005-2006)
John Meyer – slide guitar (1983–1985; died 2020)
Greg Jordan – guitar (1983–1985)
Scott Johnston – drums (1983–1987)
Robert Bowron – drums (1982)
Tim Gaze – slide guitar (1985–1987)
Andy Cichon – bass guitar, piano, keyboards, backing vocals (1985–1986)
Jake Lardot – guitar (1987)
Rick Melick – keyboards (1987)
Steve King – bass guitar (2000–2007)
Paul DeMarco – drums (1992–2016, 2021-)
Randall Waller – guitar (2016)
John Watson - drums (2017-2018)
Jackie Barnes – drums (2018–2019)
Dai Pritchard – guitar (2007–2021)
Justin Nagriki – drums (2019–2021)
Timeline
Discography
Rose Tattoo (1978)
Assault & Battery (1981)
Scarred for Life (1982)
Southern Stars (1984)
Beats from a Single Drum (1986)
Pain (2002)
Blood Brothers (2007)
Outlaws (2020)
References
General
Note: Archived [on-line] copy has limited functionality.
Specific
External links
Geordie Leach Band
Australian hard rock musical groups
Musical groups from Sydney
Australian heavy metal musical groups
Australian blues rock groups
ARIA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Musical groups established in 1976
Musical quintets
Pub rock musical groups | false | [
"Michael Thomas Cocks (11 January 1955 – 22 December 2009) was an Australian musician, most noted for his guitar and songwriting work with Rose Tattoo. His original sound and style heavily influenced Guns N' Roses, who recorded a cover of the Rose Tattoo song \"Nice Boys\". He was also a member of Heaven, The Headhunters, Illustrated Men, Doomfoxx, Pete Wells Heart Attack and the Ted Mulry Gang. On 16 August 2006, Rose Tattoo were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame. In April 2009 Cocks was diagnosed with liver cancer and died from the disease on 22 December 2009. He was the fifth member of Rose Tattoo to die of cancer, he was predeceased by Dallas Royall (1991), Peter Wells (2006), Ian Rilen (2006), and Lobby Loyde (2007).\n\nBiography\n\nMichael Thomas \"Mick\" Cocks was born on 11 January 1955. Rose Tattoo formed in 1976 in Sydney with a line-up of Leigh Johnston on rhythm guitar, Tony Lake on lead vocals, Michael Vandersluys on drums and Peter Wells (ex-Buffalo) on slide guitar. Ian Rilen from Band of Light joined on bass guitar. Cocks soon joined the group and replaced Johnston on rhythm guitar. Lake and Vandersluys were substituted by former Buster Brown members Angry Anderson on vocals and Dallas \"Digger\" Royall on drums respectively. Rose Tattoo made their public debut on New Year's Eve at the rock club Chequers.\n\nThe band's debut single \"Bad Boy for Love\" peaked at No. 19 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart in 1977. When Rilen left the group Cocks switched to bass guitar then Chris Turner (ex-Buffalo) was brought and, in turn, was replaced by Geordie Leach (ex-Buster Brown). This line-up recorded their debut album, Rose Tattoo which reached the top 40 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart in November 1978. The group was briefly banned from appearing on Australian TV pop TV show, Countdown after Anderson kissed Cocks during their performance of \"Bad Boy for Love\".\n\nEarly in 1981 the band's single, \"Rock N' Roll Outlaw\" started to chart in Europe, peaking at No. 2 in France, No. 5 in Germany and No. 60 in UK. The line up of Anderson, Cocks, Leach, Royall and Wells toured Europe from April. Three years after their debut album the band issued the follow-up album, Assault and Battery in September, which reached the top 30 in Australia. Both Rock N' Roll Outlaw and Assault and Battery peaked at No. 1 on the UK heavy metal albums chart. In 1980 Cocks was also a founding member of The Headhunters – an ad hoc collection of R&B musicians – initially with Todd Hunter on bass guitar and his brother Marc on vocals (both from Dragon); John Watson on drums and Kevin Borich on lead guitar (both Kevin Borich Express). A later line-up included Cocks with Dave Tice (ex-Buffalo) on vocals and Mark Evans (ex-AC/DC, Finch) on guitar. In the mid-1990s Cocks, Evans and Tice performed as an acoustic blues trio in Sydney pubs and clubs. In late 1981, Rose Tattoo, with Cocks, returned to Australia from a tour of Europe and began work on their third album, Scarred for Life. In 1982, before recording commenced, Cocks had left to join Heaven and was replaced by Robin Riley on guitar.\n\nIn 1980 Heaven was a heavy metal band formed in Sydney, they had issued a debut album, Twilight of Mischief. In May 1982 Cocks replaced John Haese on guitar and the group toured the United States' West Coast supporting Mötley Crüe and Dio. They relocated to Los Angeles and recorded a second album for RCA during 1983, Where Angels Fear to Tread, which spawned the single, \"Rock School\". In September 1983 Cocks \"had been ousted from Heaven\" to be replaced by Evans. In November 1984, Cocks re-joined his ex-Rose Tattoo bandmates, Rilen, Leach, Royall and Wells to form Illustrated Men – with Rilen handling lead vocals – which toured Australia. The group \"played loud, barnstorming rock'n'roll in the Rose Tattoo tradition. Most of the songs in the band's repertoire had been written by Rilen\". By mid-1985 Illustrated Men had disbanded.\n\nFrom 1990 Anderson attempted to reform Rose Tattoo with Cocks but the death of Royall in 1991 of cancer stalled the process. In 1993 Rose Tattoo reunited, with Cocks and new drummer Paul DeMarco, to support Guns N' Roses on the Australian leg of their Use Your Illusion Tour. However the reunion was short-lived and the band's members returned to other projects. Cocks has also been a member of Pete Wells Heart Attack (1995) and the Ted Mulry Gang. Rose Tattoo reconvened in 1998 as Cocks, Anderson, Wells, Rilen and DeMarco, and undertook an Australian tour. The following year Rilen was replaced by Leach again but Cocks left soon after. In 2003 Cocks rejoined Rose Tattoo to write tracks with Anderson which were recorded for a future album, Blood Brothers. Sessions were disrupted by Wells illness and eventual death of prostate cancer on 27 March 2006, four years after his initial diagnosis. At this time Cocks was also a member of Doomfoxx.\n\nOn 16 August 2006, Rose Tattoo were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame. On 30 October 2006, Rilen died from bladder cancer two months after his appearance at the Hall of Fame ceremony. On 21 April 2007, Lobby Loyde, briefly a bass guitarist for Rose Tattoo, died of lung cancer. In April 2009 Cocks was diagnosed with liver cancer, manager Steve White stated, \"Mick ... is now under the advice of the very best doctors in Sydney. Treatment plans are underway and [he] is in good spirits and ready for a fight\". In July, a benefit concert with Rose Tattoo, Jimmy Barnes, You Am I, Ian Moss and The Screaming Jets played at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney to raise money for Cocks. Mick Cocks died from liver cancer on 22 December 2009, aged 54. He was the fifth member of Rose Tattoo to die of cancer and was survived by his partner, Mary.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\nRose Tattoo\n Rose Tattoo – (1978, Albert Productions)\n Assault & Battery – (1981, Albert Productions)\n Blood Brothers – (2007)\n\nHeaven\n Bent – (1982)\n Where Angels Fear to Tread – (1983)\n\nDoomfoxx\n Doomfoxx (2005)\n\nSingles\nRose Tattoo\n \"Bad Boy for Love\" (1977)\n \"Rock 'N' Roll Outlaw\" (1978)\n \"One of the Boys\" (1978)\n \"Realise Legalise\" (1980)\n \"Rock 'N' Roll Is King\" (1981)\n \"Out of This Place\" (1981)\n\nHeaven\n \"Rock School\"(1983)\n\nThe Headhunters\n \"I Believe I'm Love\"(1986)\n\nReferences \n\nGeneral\n Note: Archived [on-line] copy has limited functionality.\nSpecific\n\n1955 births\n2009 deaths\nAustralian heavy metal guitarists\nMusicians from Sydney\nDeaths from liver cancer\n20th-century Australian musicians\n20th-century guitarists\nRose Tattoo members",
"Jessie Knight (1904 – 1992) was the first prominent female tattoo artist in the UK.\n\nPersonal life\nJessie Knight was born in Croydon in South London, in 1904, one of eight children. Her family worked in circuses and she was involved in sharp-shooting and riding acts. She was married aged 27, but this only lasted eight years. She died in Barry, South Wales, in 1992.\n\nCareer as tattoo artist\nKnight began as a tattoo artist in 1921 when she was 18, having learnt how to tattoo from her father. She worked in Barry, South Wales. She was later an apprentice with Charlie Bell in Kent. She then moved to her own tattoo shops in Portsmouth and subsequently Aldershot. Many of her clients were women. She returned to Barry in 1968 and continued working into the 1980s.\n\nHer style was to work freehand after drawing the design onto the body.\n\nIn 1955 her tattoo of a highland fling won second prize in the Champion Tattoo Artist of All England competition held in London.\n\nLegacy\nHer work was included in an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, from March 2017 to January 2018, showing a history of British tattooing.\nTatty Devine has made a brooch and a necklace using an original design of Jessie Knight.\nSkin Digging, an exhibition of work by and owned by Jessie Knight from the collection of Neil Hopkin-Thomas was on display January 18 - February 18, 2018 at the Art Exchange gallery on the University of Essex campus in Colchester. Knight was one of the tattoo artists featured in an exhibition about the history of British tattooing at Chatham Historic Dockyard in 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was cancelled.\n\nReferences \n\n1904 births\n1992 deaths\nArtists from London\nBritish tattoo artists\n20th-century British women artists"
]
|
[
"Rose Tattoo",
"Side projects and temporary reformations (1987-1997)",
"What was one of the important side projects that Rose tattoo was involved in?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_d12f76c104f44a44bbdc1c0098509391_0 | What sort of projects was the band involved in during 1987-1997? | 2 | What sort of projects was the band Rose Tattoo involved in during 1987-1997? | Rose Tattoo | Anderson mounted his solo career from mid-1987. He released the ballad, "Suddenly" as a single. It was taken from Beats from a Single Drum, which was then re-released as his debut solo album in 1988. "Suddenly" had little chart success until it was used on television soap opera, Neighbours for the wedding of characters Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue). "Suddenly" peaked at No. 2 in September 1987 and was kept out of top spot by Minogue's debut single, "Locomotion". In the early 90s, Anderson tried to reunite Rose Tattoo, but the death of Royall, who died in 1991 of cancer while trying to overcome substance abuse in the form of a heroin addiction and alcoholism, stalled the reformation. In an interview with Australian journalist Nick Milligan on 25 March 2011, Anderson explained, "I was in Los Angeles in 1989 recording an album which the 'Bound For Glory' single came off and I was hanging around with the Gunners and a lot of other LA bad boy rock bands that we supposedly influenced. I realised then that apart from the fact that I was there to establish myself as a singer songwriter, there was still this great following for the band. I rang up the other members and said 'Let's reform. We've been apart for three years or more.' It was long enough for us to settle our differences and let all the wounds heal. I rang up each of the original members that were still interested and they all said, 'Yeah, let's get together.' So I said we should negotiate a deal where the band can come over and record in Los Angeles. But, of course, that was the year that our original drummer "Digger" Royall kicked his heroin habit. While he was recovering on methadone, cancer exploded through his body, quite sadly. That was the irony of it, because the cancer had been suppressed by the heroin addiction. Within months he was dead. That shook the band so badly on a personal level, because we had been so enthusiastic to reform. We didn't reform until '92. In '93, the word got around, because we had reformed with our existing drummer Paul DeMarco. The Gunners heard we were out playing again and said, 'We want you to do our support gigs throughout Australia.' We did those two Guns N' Roses raceways gigs - Eastern Creek in Sydney and the raceway down in Melbourne." Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses on the Australian leg of their Use Your Illusion Tour. Anderson, Wells, Cocks, Leach and new drummer Paul DeMarco from Wells' solo band reunited for the 1993 tour. The reunion was brief and each returned to solo projects. Around this time, ex-members of Rose Tattoo formed a short lived band with ex-Candy Harlots vocalist Aiz Lynch. This band had numerous rehearsals, but only recorded one demo before disbanding. CANNOTANSWER | He released the ballad, "Suddenly" as a single. | Rose Tattoo are an Australian rock and roll band, now led by Angry Anderson, which formed in Sydney in 1976. Their sound is hard rock mixed with blues rock influences, with songs including "Bad Boy for Love", "Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw", "Nice Boys", "We Can't Be Beaten" and "Scarred for Life". Their first four albums were produced by Harry Vanda and George Young who also worked with AC/DC. They disbanded in 1987, subsequently reforming briefly in 1993 to support Guns N' Roses on an Australian tour. They reassembled again from 1998 and have since released two more studio albums.
According to Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane, Rose Tattoo are "one of the most revered bands of all time. The Tatts played peerless, street-level heavy blues with the emphasis on slide guitar and strident lyric statements". Guns N' Roses, L.A. Guns, Keel, Nashville Pussy, Motosierra, Pud Spuke, Helen Schneider, Skrewdriver, and the Uruguayan band the Knight's Night have covered Rose Tattoo songs. On 16 August 2006, they were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame.
Seven former members have died including four of the early recording line-up, Dallas Royall (1991), Peter Wells (2006), Ian Rilen (2006), Lobby Loyde (2007), Mick Cocks (2009), Neil Smith (2013) and John Meyer (2020).
History
Early years (1976–1977)
Rose Tattoo were formed in Sydney in 1976 with Leigh Johnston on rhythm guitar, Tony Lake on lead vocals and they were led by slide guitarist Peter Wells — who had departed as bass guitarist of heavy metal band, Buffalo. Drummer Michael Vandersluys completed the line-up. Ian Rilen from Band of Light joined on bass guitar. He had taught himself to play while in prison and gave Wells' band the street-cred he was looking for. Rhythm guitarist Mick Cocks soon replaced Johnston; Lake and Vandersluys were substituted by former Buster Brown members Angry Anderson and Dallas "Digger" Royall, respectively. Melbourne-based Buster Brown had played at the 1974 Sunbury Festival and had included future AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd. Rose Tattoo had an early performance on New Year's Eve at the local rock club, Chequers.
Chiefly inspired by the Rolling Stones, Faces and Billy Thorpe and his 1970s Aztecs, Rose Tattoo's hard-rocking sound quickly earned a following in the Sydney area. Members of AC/DC were fans and recommended them to their label, Albert Productions. The band's debut, single "Bad Boy for Love", was written by Rilen, who left to form punk rock group, X,(not the L.A. band) prior to its release in October 1977. "Bad Boy for Love" was produced by Vanda & Young (ex-The Easybeats, AC/DC's producers) and peaked at No. 19 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. Initially Cocks switched to bass guitar to cover Rilen's departure, then Chris Turner (ex-Buffalo) joined on bass guitar. The band toured nationally on the pub rock circuit competing with the Angels, Cold Chisel, Dragon and Kevin Borich Express.
Self titled debut, success and follow-up albums (1978–1982)
One-time Buster Brown bass guitarist Geordie Leach was recruited to record their self-titled debut LP, Rose Tattoo, which reached the top 40 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart in November 1978. The album, produced by Vanda & Young, was released in some markets as Rock N' Roll Outlaw after their second single, "Rock N' Roll Outlaw" which did not reach the top 50. Leach left the band in May 1979 to be replaced in October by guitarist Lobby Loyde filling in on bass guitar (Coloured Balls, Purple Hearts, Wild Cherries). During his brief tenure, they recorded "Legalise Realise" which was released as an independent split single in March 1980, the other track, "Bong on Aussie", was by country singer Colin Paterson, to publicise a campaign to legalise marijuana. Later in 1980, they toured the United States and then toured Europe (including United Kingdom), but by September Loyde had left and Leach returned.
Early in 1981, "Rock N' Roll Outlaw" started to chart in Europe, peaking at No. 2 in France, No. 5 in Germany and No. 60 in UK. The line up of Anderson, Cocks, Leach, Royall and Wells toured Europe from April. Three years after their debut the band issued the follow-up album, Assault and Battery in September, which reached the top 30 in Australia. Both Rock N' Roll Outlaw and Assault and Battery peaked at No. 1 on the UK heavy metal albums chart. Rose Tattoo's 1981 tour of Europe included an appearance at the Reading Festival, where Anderson repeatedly head butted the amp stacks until his scalp started bleeding. They were hailed as the loudest band to play London's Marquee Club since Led Zeppelin.
Returning to Australia, the band began work on their third album; with new guitarist Robin Riley replacing Cocks, who went on to join Heaven, they issued Scarred for Life in 1982, subsequently touring the US in support of Aerosmith and ZZ Top. The band's US visit was not a major success but proved to be influential on the underground sleaze metal scene in Los Angeles, with bands such as Guns N' Roses which later cited Rose Tattoo as a favourite and recorded a cover of "Nice Boys" on Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide in 1986.
Southern Stars and Beats from a Single Drum (1983–1986)
In 1983, after the US tour, Riley, Royall and Wells all left. The remaining duo of Anderson and Leach recruited guitarists Greg Jordan and John Meyer from Perth progressive metal band, Saracen. With drummer Scott Johnston (Jimmy and the Boys, Outline, Kids in the Kitchen, Flash in the Pan, Swannee, Peter Wells) the band recorded 1984's Southern Stars, their last album for Albert Productions and Vanda & Young as producers. Leach then exited to join Cocks, Rilen, Royall and Wells in Illustrated Men, which toured during 1984–85.
Anderson took time out to play the character 'Ironbar' Bassey in the 1985 film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. That year Rose Tattoo, with the line-up of Anderson, Johnston, Meyer, Andy Cichon (bass) and Tim Gaze (slide guitar), released a cover of Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild", their first release for Mushroom Records. Meyer left and the group recorded 1986's Beats from a Single Drum as a four-piece for Mushroom. Soon after Anderson started his solo career and the band separated by the end of 1987. The album was subsequently re-released as Anderson's first solo album, with the ballad, "Suddenly", as his debut solo single. However, Anderson has admitted regret in recording the pop/ballad-oriented album. "Suddenly" had little chart success until it was used on TV soap opera, Neighbours for the wedding of characters Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue). "Suddenly" peaked at No. 2 in September 1987 and was kept out of top spot by Minogue's own debut single, "Locomotion".
Side projects and temporary reformations (1988–1997)
In the early 1990s, Anderson tried to reunite Rose Tattoo, but Dallas Royall died in 1991, of cancer when being treated for his heroin addiction and alcoholism, which delayed that reformation. Anderson explained to Nick Milligan in March 2011, "I was in Los Angeles in 1989 recording an album which the 'Bound for Glory' single came off and I was hanging around with the Gunners and a lot of other LA bad boy rock bands that we supposedly influenced. I realised then that apart from the fact that I was there to establish myself as a singer songwriter, there was still this great following for the band. I rang up the other members and said 'Let's reform. We've been apart for three years or more.' It was long enough for us to settle our differences and let all the wounds heal. I rang up each of the original members that were still interested and they all said, 'Yeah, let's get together.' So I said we should negotiate a deal where the band can come over and record in Los Angeles. But, of course, that was the year that our original drummer "Digger" Royall kicked his heroin habit. While he was recovering on methadone, cancer exploded through his body, quite sadly. That was the irony of it, because the cancer had been suppressed by the heroin addiction. Within months he was dead. That shook the band so badly on a personal level, because we had been so enthusiastic to reform. We didn't reform until '92."
Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses on the Australian leg of their Use Your Illusion Tour. Anderson, Wells, Cocks, Leach were joined by new drummer, Paul DeMarco, from Wells' solo band reunited for the 1993 tour. The reunion was brief as each returned to solo projects. Around this time, some ex-members of Rose Tattoo formed a short lived band with ex-Candy Harlots vocalist, Aiz Lynch. It had numerous rehearsals, but only recorded one demo before disbanding.
Second reformation: Pain to Blood Brothers (1998–2010)
Rose Tattoo, with original bassist Ian Rilen replacing Leach, reformed yet again in 1998 for the "All Hell Breaks Loose!!" tour, however Rilen remained with the band only for the duration of this tour. By the following year, Leach had returned to the fold once more, although his place was taken by Steve King in 2000. Rock music historian Ian McFarlane wrote that they are "one of the most revered bands of all time. The Tatts played peerless, street-level heavy blues with the emphasis on slide guitar and strident lyric statements" in his Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop.
Since that time Rose Tattoo has toured regularly around Australia and throughout Europe. In 2000, the band appeared at the Wacken Open Air festival as part of their tour. These shows formed the basis of the 25 to Life live album. At the Gimme Ted benefit concert on 10 March 2001 the group performed five songs. 2002 saw the release of Pain, the band's first studio album in 16 years. Cocks rejoined the group and they prepared material for a future album.
Plans for their next album, Blood Brothers were disrupted when Wells died on 27 March 2006, four years after his diagnosis of prostate cancer. On 16 August Rose Tattoo were inducted by musician Sarah McLeod, into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame alongside former member Lobby Loyde and Daddy Cool, Divinyls, Icehouse and Helen Reddy. Anderson had informed Wells of the forthcoming induction, "He was chuffed, I was so glad he knew about it. It's good we're getting recognized for the music. We've gone out and done it our own way, to our detriment or to our betterment." Founding member Ian Rilen died on 30 October from bladder cancer. One of his last public appearances was at the Hall of Fame induction.
Also in October, a number of Rose Tattoo songs were voted upon and ranked in the Triple M Essential 2006 Countdown of songs, including "Bad Boy for Love" (voted No. 1060 out of 2006) and "We Can't Be Beaten" (voted No. 397 out of 2006). That month they were one of 55 acts voted and played in Triple J's Impossible Music Festival of 2006, with their live recording of a gig performed on New Year's Day 1980 at Mount Druitt, New South Wales being selected out of over 1000 Live at the Wireless recordings over the radio station's 31-year history.
On 21 April 2007, Lobby Loyde died, aged 65, two years after being diagnosed with lung cancer. In June, Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses with Sebastian Bach on their Chinese Democracy Tour's Australian leg. In October they supported Motörhead on their Australian tour dates. In an interview with Australian rock magazine Unbelievably Bad, Anderson announced his intention to retire the band after one more album.
In 2008 they played the Download Festival in England. In April 2009 it was announced that guitarist Mick Cocks had liver cancer – he died on 22 December. By 2010 five former members had died of various cancers – Dallas Royall (throat cancer, 1991), Peter Wells (prostate cancer, 2006), Ian Rilen (bladder cancer, 2006), Lobby Loyde (lung cancer, 2007) and Mick Cocks (liver cancer, 2009).
Final statement to Outlaws (2011–current)
Rose Tattoo celebrated their 35th anniversary in 2011. They were demo-ing songs for a proposed new album and Anderson had told Milligan that it would be the group's "final statement" but that did not eventuate. They were uncertain of continuing when DeMarco was arrested in September 2014: he pled guilty to gun supply offences and was sentenced to a minimum of six years jail. On 5 August 2017 a new line-up of Anderson, Dai Pritchard, Bob Spencer, Mark Evans and John "Watto" Watson was announced. In August 2018 a new drummer joined, Jackie Barnes, the son of Australian vocalist, Jimmy Barnes.
The band toured Europe during March 2020 with Justin Ngariki on drums. They released a new album, Outlaws, on Cleopatra Records in that month. In May 2020, they were due to tour the US for the first time since 1982, but the tour was deferred due to COVID-19 restrictions. Outlaws is a re-recording of the band's debut album, Rose Tattoo, plus three early songs, which did not appear on the 1978 release: "Snow Queen", "Sweet Love (Rock n Roll)" and "Rosetta". Anderson provided the reasons behind making the album, "Honouring the past and respecting the future." It was recorded at Hercules Studio, Sydney by Mark Opitz and Tim McArtney. It was produced by Opitz, and mixed by Opitz, Spencer and McArtney. Liner notes were written by the author, Murray Engleheart.
On 1 September 2020 it was announced through Rose Tattoo's social media that John Meyer, the group's slide guitarist from 1983 to 1985, had died.
After 16 years of loyal service, Dai Pritchard announced his retirement from Rose Tattoo on 14 Apr 2021 via Facebook, leaving the band amicably to move into a new career in mental health.
Members
Current
Angry Anderson – lead vocals (1976–1987, 1992–1993, 1998–present)
Bob Spencer – guitar (2017–present)
Mark Evans – bass guitar (2017–present)
Paul DeMarco – drums (1992–2016, 2021-present)
Former
Peter Wells – slide guitar, bass guitar (1976–1983, 1992–1993, 1998–2006; died 2006)
Michael "Stork" Vandersluys – drums (1976)
Leigh Johnston – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1976)
Ian Rilen – bass guitar, vocals (1976–1977, 1998; died 2006)
Mick Cocks – guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1976–1982, 1992–1993, 1998–2000, 2005–2009; died 2009)
Dallas "Digger" Royall – drums (1976–1983; died 1991)
Gordon "Geordie" Leach – bass guitar (1977–1979, 1980–1984, 1992–1993, 1999, 2007-2013)
Chris Turner – guitar (1977)
Neil Smith – bass guitar (1979; died 2013)
Lobby Loyde – bass guitar (1979–1980; died 2007)
Robin Riley – guitar (1982–1983, 2000–2005, 2010–2011), slide guitar (2005-2006)
John Meyer – slide guitar (1983–1985; died 2020)
Greg Jordan – guitar (1983–1985)
Scott Johnston – drums (1983–1987)
Robert Bowron – drums (1982)
Tim Gaze – slide guitar (1985–1987)
Andy Cichon – bass guitar, piano, keyboards, backing vocals (1985–1986)
Jake Lardot – guitar (1987)
Rick Melick – keyboards (1987)
Steve King – bass guitar (2000–2007)
Paul DeMarco – drums (1992–2016, 2021-)
Randall Waller – guitar (2016)
John Watson - drums (2017-2018)
Jackie Barnes – drums (2018–2019)
Dai Pritchard – guitar (2007–2021)
Justin Nagriki – drums (2019–2021)
Timeline
Discography
Rose Tattoo (1978)
Assault & Battery (1981)
Scarred for Life (1982)
Southern Stars (1984)
Beats from a Single Drum (1986)
Pain (2002)
Blood Brothers (2007)
Outlaws (2020)
References
General
Note: Archived [on-line] copy has limited functionality.
Specific
External links
Geordie Leach Band
Australian hard rock musical groups
Musical groups from Sydney
Australian heavy metal musical groups
Australian blues rock groups
ARIA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Musical groups established in 1976
Musical quintets
Pub rock musical groups | false | [
"Peter Schneidermann better known as Peter Peter (born 12 August 1960) is a Danish rock musician and former member of the Danish rock band Sort Sol (formerly SODS), before engaging on his own musical projects Bleeder and The Bleeder Group. Peter Peter is also notable for working with filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn and has written scores and soundtracks for a number of films.\n\nBiography\nSchneidermann was born on the island of Bornholm, but the family soon moved to Copenhagen after his birth. As a young man, Peter was very interested in film and music. He got a Hagstrom guitar which he later painted pink. The guitar followed him throughout life, and he has it tattooed its picture on his upper arm. He was also into judo and won the Copenhagen Cup Baunehøj Hall. During his judo practices, he met Lars Nybo, who played drums in the band Space-brain, later known as Suck. Steen Jørgensen seeing his potential as a singer invited him in.\n\nSods / Sort Sol\n\nSoon after the break of Suck, Steen Jørgensen and Peter Schneidermann formed a new band called Sods (stylized as SODS), with Steen's girlfriend Camilla suggesting the name. Later Knud Odde and Tomas Ortved joined the band. Sods released the LPs Minutes to Go and Under En Sort Sol.\n\nSODS was later renamed Sort Sol (meaning Black Sun) and extended with a new member: Lars Top-Galia, who along with Peter came to be known as the \"evil twins\". The change of name also signified a shift in genre of music they played, moving from thrash punk to a more pop band. In 1993, the band released the album Glamourpuss. However soon after Peter Peter decided to leave the formation in 1995.\n\nBleeder / The Bleeder Group\nIn 1995, Peter Peter formed the more punk-oriented band Bleeder, after establishing his own record label I Hate You Records. The debut single was \"Knucklehead\" followed by the album Psycho Power in 1997. The title track, greatly affected by David Bowie, was filmed by Nicolas Winding Refn starting a long collaboration between Peter Peter and Refn. Another standing out track was a cover of The Osmonds hit \"Crazy Horses\". In 1996, Bleeder put music to Refn's cult film Pusher. Refn, an avid fan of the band called his second film Bleeder after Peter Peter's new band. Inclusion of singer Charlotte Bagge, known from the underground formation Squirm signalled a new development for Bleeder.\n\nPeter Peter also cooperated with the band Düreforsög producing their album Beach in (1999), also producing Kristian Vester's band Goodiepal. Other Peter Peter projects included the score notably for the film De Skrigende Halse\n\nIn 2000s, Peter Peter launched a new project he called The Bleeder Group (to differentiate from the original Bleeder). The new formation released the greatly acclaimed Sunrise in 2004. Tracks included \"The Men Behind the Moon\", \"It's Just A Game\", and \"I Know You're Going to Love My Sad Song / About People And What They Do\" and a new version of \"Knucklehead'.\n\nPeter Peter later devoted most of his time to film music, but also appeared at some festivals like the Copenhagen Jazz Festival alongside Thomas Ortved of the Sort Sol days.\n\nOther bands and projects\nPeter Peter has also played on occasions on various bands including:\nMartin and the Martians, a Danish punk band that included Martin Krogh\nTina Talks, another Danish punk band that included Lars Bo \"Tolle\" Tolstoy Jacobsen and Tomas Ortved\nMonomania, an experimental pop-punk/rock band that included Pussy Punk (Kate Svanholm), Eddie Haircut (Milan Balsgaard), Vicious Decay (Ann-Christine Gløet) and Sniff Høkerberg\nPubescent Hysteria, Danish punk band that included Franz De Zaster, Timmy Andersen and Sorte Per.\n \nOther projects he took part in included support (a project of Franz De Zaster), Tapehead. He also wrote for punk fanzine Iklipsx.\n\nProductions included punk/postpunk/art-punk/new wave band Tee Vee Pop and in 2009 Danish punk rock band Iceage from their early start.\n\nDiscography\nWith Sods\nMinutes to Go (1979)\nUnder en sort sol (1980)\nWith Sort Sol\nDagger & Guitar (1983)\nEverything That Rises Must Converge (1987)\nFlow My Firetear (1991)\nGlamourpuss (1994)\nWith Kira Skov\nEpiphanies of Grandeur (2012)\n\nFilmography\nWith Nicolas Winding Refn\nPusher (1996)\nBleeder (1999)\nPusher 2 (2004)\nPusher 3 (2005)\nValhalla Rising (2009)\n\nReferences\n\nSources\nJan Poulsen (born 1962), Under a Black Sun, \n https://www.discogs.com/artist/341201-Peter-Peter Releases from Peter Peter at Discogs.\n https://www.discogs.com/artist/304889-Bleeder Releases from Bleeder at Discogs.\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\nLiving people\n1960 births\nDanish rock musicians\nDanish people of German descent",
"Blue Tears was an American hard rock band from Henderson, Tennessee, United States, that enjoyed some short-lived fame in the late-1980s. However, the group failed to find significant commercial success, due to the wave of alternative/grunge music, and the group disbanded in 1993 as the members became involved in other projects. The band reformed in 2006 and released a new album. The band was permanently dissolved after lead singer Gregg Fulkerson died on April 14, 2009.\n\nHistory\nThe first iteration of what would become Blue Tears began in the fall of 1982, when Gregg Fulkerson (lead guitar), was a senior at Chester County High School and Mike Spears (bass), Bryan Hall (rhythm guitar) and Phil Johns were students at Freed Hardeman University. The band was originally called Misfit. Through the next several years the band had a couple of name changes (NonStop, Sahara) and several vocalists and drummers came and went.\n\nThe band made several recordings in Gregg's basement, but the first official recording was of their song \"Stay With Me\" which was recorded at the Castle Recording Studio in Nashville, TN. \"Stay With Me\" received much regional radio station airplay, and peaked at #2 on 92.3 FM Jackson, TN. The combination of radio airplay, devoted fans and multiple sold out concerts at the Paramount and Malco theaters caught the attention of record industry professionals. One of these recordings landed on the desk of a Los Angeles-based record company. They signed a recording contract with MCA Records soon after. The band also changed their name to Blue Tears just two months prior to releasing their debut album.\n\nBlue Tears was made up of founding members Gregg Fulkerson, Mike Spears and Bryan Hall. They were re-joined by Charlie Lauderdale on drums.\n\nThe debut album was released in June 1990 with lead single \"Rockin' With the Radio\" getting a music video. A second single, \"Innocent Kiss\" also received heavy promotion. The album was originally titled \"Thunder in the Night\" and was promoted as such but was eventually changed to a self-titled release. Unfortunately, the band was dismissed as just another glam metal act in that genres fading wave.\n\nBlue Tears entered the studio in 1991 and banged out new tracks for a second album. The tracks included \"Long Way Home\", \"Kisses In The Dark\", \"With You Tonight\", \"Follow Your Heart\", and \"Summer Girl\". However, due to the popularity of the grunge genre and MTV's revamp, MCA decided to not release the follow up album. But the never released tracks would eventually be released, along with some of Fulkerson's solo cuts, almost 15 years later.\n\nThe band members got involved in other projects. Most notably, Fulkerson and Spears worked with Stryper frontman in his first official solo album released in 1994. \n\nBy 2002, Fulkerson and Spears were again involved in another project called Attraction 65. At that time, there was already some sort of cult following of Blue Tears. Fulkerson decided to release a compilation of unreleased songs titled Mad, Bad and Dangerous and another called Dancin' On the Backstreets. Both of these were released on Sun City Records.\n\nHowever, in 2006, Blue Tears (only with Fulkerson, from the original band) resurfaced releasing an album titled The Innocent Ones on AOR Heaven.\n\nIt was posted on country singer Jessica Miller's Myspace page that lead singer Gregg Fulkerson had died on April 14, 2009 morning, aged 44. He was the only constant member in the band and the one who kept it together, and the band was put to rest\n\nBand members\n\nFinal line-up\nGregg Fulkerson - vocals, guitar, keyboards (1982–1993, 2005–2009)\nBryan Wolski - bass, backing vocals (2005–2009)\nRobert Streets - drums, percussion (2006–2009)\n\nFormer members\nMichael \"Mike\" Spears - bass, backing vocals (1982-1993)\nBryan Hall - guitar, backing vocals (1982–1993)\nCharlie Lauderdale - drums, percussion (1984–1993)\nPhil Johns - drums, backing vocals (1982–1984)\nVicki Buckley - vocals (1982–1983)\nPam Gleaton - vocals (1983-1984)\nRoger LaPointe - vocals (1983-1986)\nPaul Reeves - drums, backing vocals (1983-1984)\nAaron Sain - guitar (1984)\nLarry Gilbow - drums, percussion (1988-1992)\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n Blue Tears (1990)\n The Innocent Ones (2006)\n\nCompilation albums\n Mad, Bad and Dangerous (2005)\n Dancin' On the Back Streets (2005)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial Site\nSuncity Records\nGregg Fulkerson interview \n\nAmerican glam metal musical groups\nHard rock musical groups from Tennessee"
]
|
[
"Rose Tattoo",
"Side projects and temporary reformations (1987-1997)",
"What was one of the important side projects that Rose tattoo was involved in?",
"I don't know.",
"What sort of projects was the band involved in during 1987-1997?",
"He released the ballad, \"Suddenly\" as a single."
]
| C_d12f76c104f44a44bbdc1c0098509391_0 | How well did that single do? | 3 | How well did the single "Suddenly" by Rose Tattoo do? | Rose Tattoo | Anderson mounted his solo career from mid-1987. He released the ballad, "Suddenly" as a single. It was taken from Beats from a Single Drum, which was then re-released as his debut solo album in 1988. "Suddenly" had little chart success until it was used on television soap opera, Neighbours for the wedding of characters Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue). "Suddenly" peaked at No. 2 in September 1987 and was kept out of top spot by Minogue's debut single, "Locomotion". In the early 90s, Anderson tried to reunite Rose Tattoo, but the death of Royall, who died in 1991 of cancer while trying to overcome substance abuse in the form of a heroin addiction and alcoholism, stalled the reformation. In an interview with Australian journalist Nick Milligan on 25 March 2011, Anderson explained, "I was in Los Angeles in 1989 recording an album which the 'Bound For Glory' single came off and I was hanging around with the Gunners and a lot of other LA bad boy rock bands that we supposedly influenced. I realised then that apart from the fact that I was there to establish myself as a singer songwriter, there was still this great following for the band. I rang up the other members and said 'Let's reform. We've been apart for three years or more.' It was long enough for us to settle our differences and let all the wounds heal. I rang up each of the original members that were still interested and they all said, 'Yeah, let's get together.' So I said we should negotiate a deal where the band can come over and record in Los Angeles. But, of course, that was the year that our original drummer "Digger" Royall kicked his heroin habit. While he was recovering on methadone, cancer exploded through his body, quite sadly. That was the irony of it, because the cancer had been suppressed by the heroin addiction. Within months he was dead. That shook the band so badly on a personal level, because we had been so enthusiastic to reform. We didn't reform until '92. In '93, the word got around, because we had reformed with our existing drummer Paul DeMarco. The Gunners heard we were out playing again and said, 'We want you to do our support gigs throughout Australia.' We did those two Guns N' Roses raceways gigs - Eastern Creek in Sydney and the raceway down in Melbourne." Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses on the Australian leg of their Use Your Illusion Tour. Anderson, Wells, Cocks, Leach and new drummer Paul DeMarco from Wells' solo band reunited for the 1993 tour. The reunion was brief and each returned to solo projects. Around this time, ex-members of Rose Tattoo formed a short lived band with ex-Candy Harlots vocalist Aiz Lynch. This band had numerous rehearsals, but only recorded one demo before disbanding. CANNOTANSWER | Suddenly" peaked at No. 2 in September 1987 and was kept out of top spot by Minogue's debut single, | Rose Tattoo are an Australian rock and roll band, now led by Angry Anderson, which formed in Sydney in 1976. Their sound is hard rock mixed with blues rock influences, with songs including "Bad Boy for Love", "Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw", "Nice Boys", "We Can't Be Beaten" and "Scarred for Life". Their first four albums were produced by Harry Vanda and George Young who also worked with AC/DC. They disbanded in 1987, subsequently reforming briefly in 1993 to support Guns N' Roses on an Australian tour. They reassembled again from 1998 and have since released two more studio albums.
According to Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane, Rose Tattoo are "one of the most revered bands of all time. The Tatts played peerless, street-level heavy blues with the emphasis on slide guitar and strident lyric statements". Guns N' Roses, L.A. Guns, Keel, Nashville Pussy, Motosierra, Pud Spuke, Helen Schneider, Skrewdriver, and the Uruguayan band the Knight's Night have covered Rose Tattoo songs. On 16 August 2006, they were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame.
Seven former members have died including four of the early recording line-up, Dallas Royall (1991), Peter Wells (2006), Ian Rilen (2006), Lobby Loyde (2007), Mick Cocks (2009), Neil Smith (2013) and John Meyer (2020).
History
Early years (1976–1977)
Rose Tattoo were formed in Sydney in 1976 with Leigh Johnston on rhythm guitar, Tony Lake on lead vocals and they were led by slide guitarist Peter Wells — who had departed as bass guitarist of heavy metal band, Buffalo. Drummer Michael Vandersluys completed the line-up. Ian Rilen from Band of Light joined on bass guitar. He had taught himself to play while in prison and gave Wells' band the street-cred he was looking for. Rhythm guitarist Mick Cocks soon replaced Johnston; Lake and Vandersluys were substituted by former Buster Brown members Angry Anderson and Dallas "Digger" Royall, respectively. Melbourne-based Buster Brown had played at the 1974 Sunbury Festival and had included future AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd. Rose Tattoo had an early performance on New Year's Eve at the local rock club, Chequers.
Chiefly inspired by the Rolling Stones, Faces and Billy Thorpe and his 1970s Aztecs, Rose Tattoo's hard-rocking sound quickly earned a following in the Sydney area. Members of AC/DC were fans and recommended them to their label, Albert Productions. The band's debut, single "Bad Boy for Love", was written by Rilen, who left to form punk rock group, X,(not the L.A. band) prior to its release in October 1977. "Bad Boy for Love" was produced by Vanda & Young (ex-The Easybeats, AC/DC's producers) and peaked at No. 19 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. Initially Cocks switched to bass guitar to cover Rilen's departure, then Chris Turner (ex-Buffalo) joined on bass guitar. The band toured nationally on the pub rock circuit competing with the Angels, Cold Chisel, Dragon and Kevin Borich Express.
Self titled debut, success and follow-up albums (1978–1982)
One-time Buster Brown bass guitarist Geordie Leach was recruited to record their self-titled debut LP, Rose Tattoo, which reached the top 40 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart in November 1978. The album, produced by Vanda & Young, was released in some markets as Rock N' Roll Outlaw after their second single, "Rock N' Roll Outlaw" which did not reach the top 50. Leach left the band in May 1979 to be replaced in October by guitarist Lobby Loyde filling in on bass guitar (Coloured Balls, Purple Hearts, Wild Cherries). During his brief tenure, they recorded "Legalise Realise" which was released as an independent split single in March 1980, the other track, "Bong on Aussie", was by country singer Colin Paterson, to publicise a campaign to legalise marijuana. Later in 1980, they toured the United States and then toured Europe (including United Kingdom), but by September Loyde had left and Leach returned.
Early in 1981, "Rock N' Roll Outlaw" started to chart in Europe, peaking at No. 2 in France, No. 5 in Germany and No. 60 in UK. The line up of Anderson, Cocks, Leach, Royall and Wells toured Europe from April. Three years after their debut the band issued the follow-up album, Assault and Battery in September, which reached the top 30 in Australia. Both Rock N' Roll Outlaw and Assault and Battery peaked at No. 1 on the UK heavy metal albums chart. Rose Tattoo's 1981 tour of Europe included an appearance at the Reading Festival, where Anderson repeatedly head butted the amp stacks until his scalp started bleeding. They were hailed as the loudest band to play London's Marquee Club since Led Zeppelin.
Returning to Australia, the band began work on their third album; with new guitarist Robin Riley replacing Cocks, who went on to join Heaven, they issued Scarred for Life in 1982, subsequently touring the US in support of Aerosmith and ZZ Top. The band's US visit was not a major success but proved to be influential on the underground sleaze metal scene in Los Angeles, with bands such as Guns N' Roses which later cited Rose Tattoo as a favourite and recorded a cover of "Nice Boys" on Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide in 1986.
Southern Stars and Beats from a Single Drum (1983–1986)
In 1983, after the US tour, Riley, Royall and Wells all left. The remaining duo of Anderson and Leach recruited guitarists Greg Jordan and John Meyer from Perth progressive metal band, Saracen. With drummer Scott Johnston (Jimmy and the Boys, Outline, Kids in the Kitchen, Flash in the Pan, Swannee, Peter Wells) the band recorded 1984's Southern Stars, their last album for Albert Productions and Vanda & Young as producers. Leach then exited to join Cocks, Rilen, Royall and Wells in Illustrated Men, which toured during 1984–85.
Anderson took time out to play the character 'Ironbar' Bassey in the 1985 film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. That year Rose Tattoo, with the line-up of Anderson, Johnston, Meyer, Andy Cichon (bass) and Tim Gaze (slide guitar), released a cover of Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild", their first release for Mushroom Records. Meyer left and the group recorded 1986's Beats from a Single Drum as a four-piece for Mushroom. Soon after Anderson started his solo career and the band separated by the end of 1987. The album was subsequently re-released as Anderson's first solo album, with the ballad, "Suddenly", as his debut solo single. However, Anderson has admitted regret in recording the pop/ballad-oriented album. "Suddenly" had little chart success until it was used on TV soap opera, Neighbours for the wedding of characters Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue). "Suddenly" peaked at No. 2 in September 1987 and was kept out of top spot by Minogue's own debut single, "Locomotion".
Side projects and temporary reformations (1988–1997)
In the early 1990s, Anderson tried to reunite Rose Tattoo, but Dallas Royall died in 1991, of cancer when being treated for his heroin addiction and alcoholism, which delayed that reformation. Anderson explained to Nick Milligan in March 2011, "I was in Los Angeles in 1989 recording an album which the 'Bound for Glory' single came off and I was hanging around with the Gunners and a lot of other LA bad boy rock bands that we supposedly influenced. I realised then that apart from the fact that I was there to establish myself as a singer songwriter, there was still this great following for the band. I rang up the other members and said 'Let's reform. We've been apart for three years or more.' It was long enough for us to settle our differences and let all the wounds heal. I rang up each of the original members that were still interested and they all said, 'Yeah, let's get together.' So I said we should negotiate a deal where the band can come over and record in Los Angeles. But, of course, that was the year that our original drummer "Digger" Royall kicked his heroin habit. While he was recovering on methadone, cancer exploded through his body, quite sadly. That was the irony of it, because the cancer had been suppressed by the heroin addiction. Within months he was dead. That shook the band so badly on a personal level, because we had been so enthusiastic to reform. We didn't reform until '92."
Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses on the Australian leg of their Use Your Illusion Tour. Anderson, Wells, Cocks, Leach were joined by new drummer, Paul DeMarco, from Wells' solo band reunited for the 1993 tour. The reunion was brief as each returned to solo projects. Around this time, some ex-members of Rose Tattoo formed a short lived band with ex-Candy Harlots vocalist, Aiz Lynch. It had numerous rehearsals, but only recorded one demo before disbanding.
Second reformation: Pain to Blood Brothers (1998–2010)
Rose Tattoo, with original bassist Ian Rilen replacing Leach, reformed yet again in 1998 for the "All Hell Breaks Loose!!" tour, however Rilen remained with the band only for the duration of this tour. By the following year, Leach had returned to the fold once more, although his place was taken by Steve King in 2000. Rock music historian Ian McFarlane wrote that they are "one of the most revered bands of all time. The Tatts played peerless, street-level heavy blues with the emphasis on slide guitar and strident lyric statements" in his Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop.
Since that time Rose Tattoo has toured regularly around Australia and throughout Europe. In 2000, the band appeared at the Wacken Open Air festival as part of their tour. These shows formed the basis of the 25 to Life live album. At the Gimme Ted benefit concert on 10 March 2001 the group performed five songs. 2002 saw the release of Pain, the band's first studio album in 16 years. Cocks rejoined the group and they prepared material for a future album.
Plans for their next album, Blood Brothers were disrupted when Wells died on 27 March 2006, four years after his diagnosis of prostate cancer. On 16 August Rose Tattoo were inducted by musician Sarah McLeod, into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame alongside former member Lobby Loyde and Daddy Cool, Divinyls, Icehouse and Helen Reddy. Anderson had informed Wells of the forthcoming induction, "He was chuffed, I was so glad he knew about it. It's good we're getting recognized for the music. We've gone out and done it our own way, to our detriment or to our betterment." Founding member Ian Rilen died on 30 October from bladder cancer. One of his last public appearances was at the Hall of Fame induction.
Also in October, a number of Rose Tattoo songs were voted upon and ranked in the Triple M Essential 2006 Countdown of songs, including "Bad Boy for Love" (voted No. 1060 out of 2006) and "We Can't Be Beaten" (voted No. 397 out of 2006). That month they were one of 55 acts voted and played in Triple J's Impossible Music Festival of 2006, with their live recording of a gig performed on New Year's Day 1980 at Mount Druitt, New South Wales being selected out of over 1000 Live at the Wireless recordings over the radio station's 31-year history.
On 21 April 2007, Lobby Loyde died, aged 65, two years after being diagnosed with lung cancer. In June, Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses with Sebastian Bach on their Chinese Democracy Tour's Australian leg. In October they supported Motörhead on their Australian tour dates. In an interview with Australian rock magazine Unbelievably Bad, Anderson announced his intention to retire the band after one more album.
In 2008 they played the Download Festival in England. In April 2009 it was announced that guitarist Mick Cocks had liver cancer – he died on 22 December. By 2010 five former members had died of various cancers – Dallas Royall (throat cancer, 1991), Peter Wells (prostate cancer, 2006), Ian Rilen (bladder cancer, 2006), Lobby Loyde (lung cancer, 2007) and Mick Cocks (liver cancer, 2009).
Final statement to Outlaws (2011–current)
Rose Tattoo celebrated their 35th anniversary in 2011. They were demo-ing songs for a proposed new album and Anderson had told Milligan that it would be the group's "final statement" but that did not eventuate. They were uncertain of continuing when DeMarco was arrested in September 2014: he pled guilty to gun supply offences and was sentenced to a minimum of six years jail. On 5 August 2017 a new line-up of Anderson, Dai Pritchard, Bob Spencer, Mark Evans and John "Watto" Watson was announced. In August 2018 a new drummer joined, Jackie Barnes, the son of Australian vocalist, Jimmy Barnes.
The band toured Europe during March 2020 with Justin Ngariki on drums. They released a new album, Outlaws, on Cleopatra Records in that month. In May 2020, they were due to tour the US for the first time since 1982, but the tour was deferred due to COVID-19 restrictions. Outlaws is a re-recording of the band's debut album, Rose Tattoo, plus three early songs, which did not appear on the 1978 release: "Snow Queen", "Sweet Love (Rock n Roll)" and "Rosetta". Anderson provided the reasons behind making the album, "Honouring the past and respecting the future." It was recorded at Hercules Studio, Sydney by Mark Opitz and Tim McArtney. It was produced by Opitz, and mixed by Opitz, Spencer and McArtney. Liner notes were written by the author, Murray Engleheart.
On 1 September 2020 it was announced through Rose Tattoo's social media that John Meyer, the group's slide guitarist from 1983 to 1985, had died.
After 16 years of loyal service, Dai Pritchard announced his retirement from Rose Tattoo on 14 Apr 2021 via Facebook, leaving the band amicably to move into a new career in mental health.
Members
Current
Angry Anderson – lead vocals (1976–1987, 1992–1993, 1998–present)
Bob Spencer – guitar (2017–present)
Mark Evans – bass guitar (2017–present)
Paul DeMarco – drums (1992–2016, 2021-present)
Former
Peter Wells – slide guitar, bass guitar (1976–1983, 1992–1993, 1998–2006; died 2006)
Michael "Stork" Vandersluys – drums (1976)
Leigh Johnston – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1976)
Ian Rilen – bass guitar, vocals (1976–1977, 1998; died 2006)
Mick Cocks – guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1976–1982, 1992–1993, 1998–2000, 2005–2009; died 2009)
Dallas "Digger" Royall – drums (1976–1983; died 1991)
Gordon "Geordie" Leach – bass guitar (1977–1979, 1980–1984, 1992–1993, 1999, 2007-2013)
Chris Turner – guitar (1977)
Neil Smith – bass guitar (1979; died 2013)
Lobby Loyde – bass guitar (1979–1980; died 2007)
Robin Riley – guitar (1982–1983, 2000–2005, 2010–2011), slide guitar (2005-2006)
John Meyer – slide guitar (1983–1985; died 2020)
Greg Jordan – guitar (1983–1985)
Scott Johnston – drums (1983–1987)
Robert Bowron – drums (1982)
Tim Gaze – slide guitar (1985–1987)
Andy Cichon – bass guitar, piano, keyboards, backing vocals (1985–1986)
Jake Lardot – guitar (1987)
Rick Melick – keyboards (1987)
Steve King – bass guitar (2000–2007)
Paul DeMarco – drums (1992–2016, 2021-)
Randall Waller – guitar (2016)
John Watson - drums (2017-2018)
Jackie Barnes – drums (2018–2019)
Dai Pritchard – guitar (2007–2021)
Justin Nagriki – drums (2019–2021)
Timeline
Discography
Rose Tattoo (1978)
Assault & Battery (1981)
Scarred for Life (1982)
Southern Stars (1984)
Beats from a Single Drum (1986)
Pain (2002)
Blood Brothers (2007)
Outlaws (2020)
References
General
Note: Archived [on-line] copy has limited functionality.
Specific
External links
Geordie Leach Band
Australian hard rock musical groups
Musical groups from Sydney
Australian heavy metal musical groups
Australian blues rock groups
ARIA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Musical groups established in 1976
Musical quintets
Pub rock musical groups | false | [
"\"How Do I Deal\" is a song by American actress Jennifer Love Hewitt from the soundtrack to the film I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. The song was released as a single on November 17, 1998, with an accompanying music video. The single became Hewitt's one and only appearance on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, peaking at number 59 in a seven-week run. Although not a big success in America, the single reached number five in New Zealand and peaked at number eight in Australia, where it is certified gold.\n\nTrack listings\nUS CD, 7-inch, and cassette single\n \"How Do I Deal\" (single version) – 3:23\n \"Try to Say Goodbye\" (performed by Jory Eve) – 3:36\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"How Do I Deal\" – 3:24\n \"Sugar Is Sweeter\" (performed by CJ Bolland) – 5:34\n\nAustralian CD single\n \"How Do I Deal\" – 3:23\n \"Sugar Is Sweeter\" (Danny Saber Remix featuring Justin Warfield, performed by CJ Bolland) – 4:57\n \"Try to Say Goodbye\" (performed by Jory Eve) – 3:35\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n143 Records singles\n1998 songs\n1999 singles\nJennifer Love Hewitt songs\nI Know What You Did Last Summer (franchise)\nMusic videos directed by Joseph Kahn\nSong recordings produced by Bruce Fairbairn\nSong recordings produced by David Foster\nSongs written for films\nWarner Records singles",
"\"How Do I Breathe\" is a song recorded by American singer Mario. It is the first single from his third studio album Go. The single was released on May 15, 2007. It was produced by Norwegian production team Stargate. On the issue date of July 7, 2007, the single debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 91. \"How Do I Breathe\" also debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number 30 on download sales alone, the day before the physical release of the song. It also became Mario's last charting single in the UK. The song also peaked at number 18 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The official remix of the song features Fabolous and the second official remix features Cassidy. A rare third one features both artists and switches between beats. The song was co-written by Mario.\n\nWriting and recording\nMario met Stargate, the producers from Norway. They met when Mario was overseas touring, and they talked about producing. They were up-and-coming at the time. Mario frequently heard their music on the radio and would later say he thought, \"Wow, I really like their music. These guys are classic.\" Mario and Stargate made two songs, which they collaborated on with Ne-Yo, but they did not make the cut. Then they did two more songs, which Mario co-wrote, one of which was \"How Do I Breathe\". Mario said: \"The truth is that I felt like the track already had a story to tell; but that there had to be a certain flow over the record. I had to show some vulnerability, and that is what the record is about. It's about being vulnerable and knowing that you lost something that so essential to your life. I'd say it's about 75% true to life, and the rest is just creative writing.\"\n\nCritical reception\nMark Edward Nero of About.com says \"The track isn't particularly groundbreaking, but it has a simple charm, in a sort of Ne-Yo meets Toni Braxton kind of way\".\n\nAaron Fields of KSTW.com stated: \"First single off the album, yet didn't have the success like \"Let me love you\" did. I remember thinking he was definitely back when I heard this song. I'm not sure why this song didn't get more attention as it is one of the better songs done by him, nevertheless I probably would have picked this for the first single as well. I still bump this one in the car.\"\n\nMusic video\nThe video was directed by Melina and premiered on BET's Access Granted on May 23, 2007. One scene where Mario is dressed in a white t-shirt while singing in smoke, is similar to the scene in Kanye West's video \"Touch the Sky\". After its premiere, \"How Do I Breathe\" received heavy airplay on BET's music video countdown show 106 & Park. It also appeared at number 87 on BET's Notarized: Top 100 Videos of 2007 countdown.\n\nVariations of \"How Do I Breathe\"\nAfter the song was released, there were two different variations that were available. The official version provided by Sony BMG, which was included within the official music video, has different lyrics than the one obtained via a peer-to-peer file sharing network. The specific difference in the lyrics is seen within the bridge of the song near the end.\n\nIn the official version, the bridge's lyrics are as follows:\"Ooh, I should've brought my love home, girl.And baby, I ain't perfect you know.The grind has got a tight hold.Girl, come back to me ... Cause girl you made it hard to breathe...When you're not with me...\"\nIn the other version obtained via a file sharing network, the bridge's lyrics are:\"Ooh, I can't get over you, no.Baby I don't wanna let go.Girl, you need to come home.Back to me ... Cause girl you made it hard to breathe...When you're not with me...\"\n\nThe other version obtained over a file sharing network also features a shout out to former NFL running back Shaun Alexander by an untold DJ near the end of the track.\n\nIn other media\nOn July 16, 2008, Kourtni Lind and Matt Dorame from the US television reality program and dance competition So You Think You Can Dance danced to \"How Do I Breathe\" as the part of the competition.\n\nTrack listing\nUK CD:\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (radio edit)\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (Full Phat remix featuring Rhymefest)\n\nPromo CD:\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (radio edit)\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (instrumental)\n\nHow Do I Breathe, Pt. 2:\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (radio edit)\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (Full Phat Remix featuring Rhymefest)\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (Allister Whitehead Remix)\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (video)\n\nCD single\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (radio edit) – 3:38\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (instrumental) – 3:38\n \"How Do I Breathe\" (call out hook) – 0:10\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n2006 songs\n2007 singles\nMario (American singer) songs\nJ Records singles\nMusic videos directed by Melina Matsoukas\nSong recordings produced by Stargate (record producers)\nSongs written by Tor Erik Hermansen\nSongs written by Mikkel Storleer Eriksen"
]
|
[
"Rose Tattoo",
"Side projects and temporary reformations (1987-1997)",
"What was one of the important side projects that Rose tattoo was involved in?",
"I don't know.",
"What sort of projects was the band involved in during 1987-1997?",
"He released the ballad, \"Suddenly\" as a single.",
"How well did that single do?",
"Suddenly\" peaked at No. 2 in September 1987 and was kept out of top spot by Minogue's debut single,"
]
| C_d12f76c104f44a44bbdc1c0098509391_0 | Did they release any other singles during this time period? | 4 | Besides "Suddenly", did Rose Tattoo release any other singles during 1987-1997? | Rose Tattoo | Anderson mounted his solo career from mid-1987. He released the ballad, "Suddenly" as a single. It was taken from Beats from a Single Drum, which was then re-released as his debut solo album in 1988. "Suddenly" had little chart success until it was used on television soap opera, Neighbours for the wedding of characters Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue). "Suddenly" peaked at No. 2 in September 1987 and was kept out of top spot by Minogue's debut single, "Locomotion". In the early 90s, Anderson tried to reunite Rose Tattoo, but the death of Royall, who died in 1991 of cancer while trying to overcome substance abuse in the form of a heroin addiction and alcoholism, stalled the reformation. In an interview with Australian journalist Nick Milligan on 25 March 2011, Anderson explained, "I was in Los Angeles in 1989 recording an album which the 'Bound For Glory' single came off and I was hanging around with the Gunners and a lot of other LA bad boy rock bands that we supposedly influenced. I realised then that apart from the fact that I was there to establish myself as a singer songwriter, there was still this great following for the band. I rang up the other members and said 'Let's reform. We've been apart for three years or more.' It was long enough for us to settle our differences and let all the wounds heal. I rang up each of the original members that were still interested and they all said, 'Yeah, let's get together.' So I said we should negotiate a deal where the band can come over and record in Los Angeles. But, of course, that was the year that our original drummer "Digger" Royall kicked his heroin habit. While he was recovering on methadone, cancer exploded through his body, quite sadly. That was the irony of it, because the cancer had been suppressed by the heroin addiction. Within months he was dead. That shook the band so badly on a personal level, because we had been so enthusiastic to reform. We didn't reform until '92. In '93, the word got around, because we had reformed with our existing drummer Paul DeMarco. The Gunners heard we were out playing again and said, 'We want you to do our support gigs throughout Australia.' We did those two Guns N' Roses raceways gigs - Eastern Creek in Sydney and the raceway down in Melbourne." Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses on the Australian leg of their Use Your Illusion Tour. Anderson, Wells, Cocks, Leach and new drummer Paul DeMarco from Wells' solo band reunited for the 1993 tour. The reunion was brief and each returned to solo projects. Around this time, ex-members of Rose Tattoo formed a short lived band with ex-Candy Harlots vocalist Aiz Lynch. This band had numerous rehearsals, but only recorded one demo before disbanding. CANNOTANSWER | Locomotion | Rose Tattoo are an Australian rock and roll band, now led by Angry Anderson, which formed in Sydney in 1976. Their sound is hard rock mixed with blues rock influences, with songs including "Bad Boy for Love", "Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw", "Nice Boys", "We Can't Be Beaten" and "Scarred for Life". Their first four albums were produced by Harry Vanda and George Young who also worked with AC/DC. They disbanded in 1987, subsequently reforming briefly in 1993 to support Guns N' Roses on an Australian tour. They reassembled again from 1998 and have since released two more studio albums.
According to Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane, Rose Tattoo are "one of the most revered bands of all time. The Tatts played peerless, street-level heavy blues with the emphasis on slide guitar and strident lyric statements". Guns N' Roses, L.A. Guns, Keel, Nashville Pussy, Motosierra, Pud Spuke, Helen Schneider, Skrewdriver, and the Uruguayan band the Knight's Night have covered Rose Tattoo songs. On 16 August 2006, they were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame.
Seven former members have died including four of the early recording line-up, Dallas Royall (1991), Peter Wells (2006), Ian Rilen (2006), Lobby Loyde (2007), Mick Cocks (2009), Neil Smith (2013) and John Meyer (2020).
History
Early years (1976–1977)
Rose Tattoo were formed in Sydney in 1976 with Leigh Johnston on rhythm guitar, Tony Lake on lead vocals and they were led by slide guitarist Peter Wells — who had departed as bass guitarist of heavy metal band, Buffalo. Drummer Michael Vandersluys completed the line-up. Ian Rilen from Band of Light joined on bass guitar. He had taught himself to play while in prison and gave Wells' band the street-cred he was looking for. Rhythm guitarist Mick Cocks soon replaced Johnston; Lake and Vandersluys were substituted by former Buster Brown members Angry Anderson and Dallas "Digger" Royall, respectively. Melbourne-based Buster Brown had played at the 1974 Sunbury Festival and had included future AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd. Rose Tattoo had an early performance on New Year's Eve at the local rock club, Chequers.
Chiefly inspired by the Rolling Stones, Faces and Billy Thorpe and his 1970s Aztecs, Rose Tattoo's hard-rocking sound quickly earned a following in the Sydney area. Members of AC/DC were fans and recommended them to their label, Albert Productions. The band's debut, single "Bad Boy for Love", was written by Rilen, who left to form punk rock group, X,(not the L.A. band) prior to its release in October 1977. "Bad Boy for Love" was produced by Vanda & Young (ex-The Easybeats, AC/DC's producers) and peaked at No. 19 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. Initially Cocks switched to bass guitar to cover Rilen's departure, then Chris Turner (ex-Buffalo) joined on bass guitar. The band toured nationally on the pub rock circuit competing with the Angels, Cold Chisel, Dragon and Kevin Borich Express.
Self titled debut, success and follow-up albums (1978–1982)
One-time Buster Brown bass guitarist Geordie Leach was recruited to record their self-titled debut LP, Rose Tattoo, which reached the top 40 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart in November 1978. The album, produced by Vanda & Young, was released in some markets as Rock N' Roll Outlaw after their second single, "Rock N' Roll Outlaw" which did not reach the top 50. Leach left the band in May 1979 to be replaced in October by guitarist Lobby Loyde filling in on bass guitar (Coloured Balls, Purple Hearts, Wild Cherries). During his brief tenure, they recorded "Legalise Realise" which was released as an independent split single in March 1980, the other track, "Bong on Aussie", was by country singer Colin Paterson, to publicise a campaign to legalise marijuana. Later in 1980, they toured the United States and then toured Europe (including United Kingdom), but by September Loyde had left and Leach returned.
Early in 1981, "Rock N' Roll Outlaw" started to chart in Europe, peaking at No. 2 in France, No. 5 in Germany and No. 60 in UK. The line up of Anderson, Cocks, Leach, Royall and Wells toured Europe from April. Three years after their debut the band issued the follow-up album, Assault and Battery in September, which reached the top 30 in Australia. Both Rock N' Roll Outlaw and Assault and Battery peaked at No. 1 on the UK heavy metal albums chart. Rose Tattoo's 1981 tour of Europe included an appearance at the Reading Festival, where Anderson repeatedly head butted the amp stacks until his scalp started bleeding. They were hailed as the loudest band to play London's Marquee Club since Led Zeppelin.
Returning to Australia, the band began work on their third album; with new guitarist Robin Riley replacing Cocks, who went on to join Heaven, they issued Scarred for Life in 1982, subsequently touring the US in support of Aerosmith and ZZ Top. The band's US visit was not a major success but proved to be influential on the underground sleaze metal scene in Los Angeles, with bands such as Guns N' Roses which later cited Rose Tattoo as a favourite and recorded a cover of "Nice Boys" on Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide in 1986.
Southern Stars and Beats from a Single Drum (1983–1986)
In 1983, after the US tour, Riley, Royall and Wells all left. The remaining duo of Anderson and Leach recruited guitarists Greg Jordan and John Meyer from Perth progressive metal band, Saracen. With drummer Scott Johnston (Jimmy and the Boys, Outline, Kids in the Kitchen, Flash in the Pan, Swannee, Peter Wells) the band recorded 1984's Southern Stars, their last album for Albert Productions and Vanda & Young as producers. Leach then exited to join Cocks, Rilen, Royall and Wells in Illustrated Men, which toured during 1984–85.
Anderson took time out to play the character 'Ironbar' Bassey in the 1985 film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. That year Rose Tattoo, with the line-up of Anderson, Johnston, Meyer, Andy Cichon (bass) and Tim Gaze (slide guitar), released a cover of Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild", their first release for Mushroom Records. Meyer left and the group recorded 1986's Beats from a Single Drum as a four-piece for Mushroom. Soon after Anderson started his solo career and the band separated by the end of 1987. The album was subsequently re-released as Anderson's first solo album, with the ballad, "Suddenly", as his debut solo single. However, Anderson has admitted regret in recording the pop/ballad-oriented album. "Suddenly" had little chart success until it was used on TV soap opera, Neighbours for the wedding of characters Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue). "Suddenly" peaked at No. 2 in September 1987 and was kept out of top spot by Minogue's own debut single, "Locomotion".
Side projects and temporary reformations (1988–1997)
In the early 1990s, Anderson tried to reunite Rose Tattoo, but Dallas Royall died in 1991, of cancer when being treated for his heroin addiction and alcoholism, which delayed that reformation. Anderson explained to Nick Milligan in March 2011, "I was in Los Angeles in 1989 recording an album which the 'Bound for Glory' single came off and I was hanging around with the Gunners and a lot of other LA bad boy rock bands that we supposedly influenced. I realised then that apart from the fact that I was there to establish myself as a singer songwriter, there was still this great following for the band. I rang up the other members and said 'Let's reform. We've been apart for three years or more.' It was long enough for us to settle our differences and let all the wounds heal. I rang up each of the original members that were still interested and they all said, 'Yeah, let's get together.' So I said we should negotiate a deal where the band can come over and record in Los Angeles. But, of course, that was the year that our original drummer "Digger" Royall kicked his heroin habit. While he was recovering on methadone, cancer exploded through his body, quite sadly. That was the irony of it, because the cancer had been suppressed by the heroin addiction. Within months he was dead. That shook the band so badly on a personal level, because we had been so enthusiastic to reform. We didn't reform until '92."
Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses on the Australian leg of their Use Your Illusion Tour. Anderson, Wells, Cocks, Leach were joined by new drummer, Paul DeMarco, from Wells' solo band reunited for the 1993 tour. The reunion was brief as each returned to solo projects. Around this time, some ex-members of Rose Tattoo formed a short lived band with ex-Candy Harlots vocalist, Aiz Lynch. It had numerous rehearsals, but only recorded one demo before disbanding.
Second reformation: Pain to Blood Brothers (1998–2010)
Rose Tattoo, with original bassist Ian Rilen replacing Leach, reformed yet again in 1998 for the "All Hell Breaks Loose!!" tour, however Rilen remained with the band only for the duration of this tour. By the following year, Leach had returned to the fold once more, although his place was taken by Steve King in 2000. Rock music historian Ian McFarlane wrote that they are "one of the most revered bands of all time. The Tatts played peerless, street-level heavy blues with the emphasis on slide guitar and strident lyric statements" in his Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop.
Since that time Rose Tattoo has toured regularly around Australia and throughout Europe. In 2000, the band appeared at the Wacken Open Air festival as part of their tour. These shows formed the basis of the 25 to Life live album. At the Gimme Ted benefit concert on 10 March 2001 the group performed five songs. 2002 saw the release of Pain, the band's first studio album in 16 years. Cocks rejoined the group and they prepared material for a future album.
Plans for their next album, Blood Brothers were disrupted when Wells died on 27 March 2006, four years after his diagnosis of prostate cancer. On 16 August Rose Tattoo were inducted by musician Sarah McLeod, into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame alongside former member Lobby Loyde and Daddy Cool, Divinyls, Icehouse and Helen Reddy. Anderson had informed Wells of the forthcoming induction, "He was chuffed, I was so glad he knew about it. It's good we're getting recognized for the music. We've gone out and done it our own way, to our detriment or to our betterment." Founding member Ian Rilen died on 30 October from bladder cancer. One of his last public appearances was at the Hall of Fame induction.
Also in October, a number of Rose Tattoo songs were voted upon and ranked in the Triple M Essential 2006 Countdown of songs, including "Bad Boy for Love" (voted No. 1060 out of 2006) and "We Can't Be Beaten" (voted No. 397 out of 2006). That month they were one of 55 acts voted and played in Triple J's Impossible Music Festival of 2006, with their live recording of a gig performed on New Year's Day 1980 at Mount Druitt, New South Wales being selected out of over 1000 Live at the Wireless recordings over the radio station's 31-year history.
On 21 April 2007, Lobby Loyde died, aged 65, two years after being diagnosed with lung cancer. In June, Rose Tattoo supported Guns N' Roses with Sebastian Bach on their Chinese Democracy Tour's Australian leg. In October they supported Motörhead on their Australian tour dates. In an interview with Australian rock magazine Unbelievably Bad, Anderson announced his intention to retire the band after one more album.
In 2008 they played the Download Festival in England. In April 2009 it was announced that guitarist Mick Cocks had liver cancer – he died on 22 December. By 2010 five former members had died of various cancers – Dallas Royall (throat cancer, 1991), Peter Wells (prostate cancer, 2006), Ian Rilen (bladder cancer, 2006), Lobby Loyde (lung cancer, 2007) and Mick Cocks (liver cancer, 2009).
Final statement to Outlaws (2011–current)
Rose Tattoo celebrated their 35th anniversary in 2011. They were demo-ing songs for a proposed new album and Anderson had told Milligan that it would be the group's "final statement" but that did not eventuate. They were uncertain of continuing when DeMarco was arrested in September 2014: he pled guilty to gun supply offences and was sentenced to a minimum of six years jail. On 5 August 2017 a new line-up of Anderson, Dai Pritchard, Bob Spencer, Mark Evans and John "Watto" Watson was announced. In August 2018 a new drummer joined, Jackie Barnes, the son of Australian vocalist, Jimmy Barnes.
The band toured Europe during March 2020 with Justin Ngariki on drums. They released a new album, Outlaws, on Cleopatra Records in that month. In May 2020, they were due to tour the US for the first time since 1982, but the tour was deferred due to COVID-19 restrictions. Outlaws is a re-recording of the band's debut album, Rose Tattoo, plus three early songs, which did not appear on the 1978 release: "Snow Queen", "Sweet Love (Rock n Roll)" and "Rosetta". Anderson provided the reasons behind making the album, "Honouring the past and respecting the future." It was recorded at Hercules Studio, Sydney by Mark Opitz and Tim McArtney. It was produced by Opitz, and mixed by Opitz, Spencer and McArtney. Liner notes were written by the author, Murray Engleheart.
On 1 September 2020 it was announced through Rose Tattoo's social media that John Meyer, the group's slide guitarist from 1983 to 1985, had died.
After 16 years of loyal service, Dai Pritchard announced his retirement from Rose Tattoo on 14 Apr 2021 via Facebook, leaving the band amicably to move into a new career in mental health.
Members
Current
Angry Anderson – lead vocals (1976–1987, 1992–1993, 1998–present)
Bob Spencer – guitar (2017–present)
Mark Evans – bass guitar (2017–present)
Paul DeMarco – drums (1992–2016, 2021-present)
Former
Peter Wells – slide guitar, bass guitar (1976–1983, 1992–1993, 1998–2006; died 2006)
Michael "Stork" Vandersluys – drums (1976)
Leigh Johnston – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1976)
Ian Rilen – bass guitar, vocals (1976–1977, 1998; died 2006)
Mick Cocks – guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals (1976–1982, 1992–1993, 1998–2000, 2005–2009; died 2009)
Dallas "Digger" Royall – drums (1976–1983; died 1991)
Gordon "Geordie" Leach – bass guitar (1977–1979, 1980–1984, 1992–1993, 1999, 2007-2013)
Chris Turner – guitar (1977)
Neil Smith – bass guitar (1979; died 2013)
Lobby Loyde – bass guitar (1979–1980; died 2007)
Robin Riley – guitar (1982–1983, 2000–2005, 2010–2011), slide guitar (2005-2006)
John Meyer – slide guitar (1983–1985; died 2020)
Greg Jordan – guitar (1983–1985)
Scott Johnston – drums (1983–1987)
Robert Bowron – drums (1982)
Tim Gaze – slide guitar (1985–1987)
Andy Cichon – bass guitar, piano, keyboards, backing vocals (1985–1986)
Jake Lardot – guitar (1987)
Rick Melick – keyboards (1987)
Steve King – bass guitar (2000–2007)
Paul DeMarco – drums (1992–2016, 2021-)
Randall Waller – guitar (2016)
John Watson - drums (2017-2018)
Jackie Barnes – drums (2018–2019)
Dai Pritchard – guitar (2007–2021)
Justin Nagriki – drums (2019–2021)
Timeline
Discography
Rose Tattoo (1978)
Assault & Battery (1981)
Scarred for Life (1982)
Southern Stars (1984)
Beats from a Single Drum (1986)
Pain (2002)
Blood Brothers (2007)
Outlaws (2020)
References
General
Note: Archived [on-line] copy has limited functionality.
Specific
External links
Geordie Leach Band
Australian hard rock musical groups
Musical groups from Sydney
Australian heavy metal musical groups
Australian blues rock groups
ARIA Award winners
ARIA Hall of Fame inductees
Musical groups established in 1976
Musical quintets
Pub rock musical groups | true | [
"The Gurus were an American psychedelic rock band from the 1960s. They were among the first to incorporate Middle Eastern influences, maybe more than any other band of that era. The band broke up without making a large impact on the music scene of the time, although they did release two singles on United Artists Records in 1966 and 1967. Their album, The Gurus Are Hear, failed to be released in 1967, which was noted as the reason for the band splitting up.\n\nThe album was finally released in 2003.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican psychedelic rock music groups",
"Blue Eyed Kentucky Girl is a compilation album by American country singer-songwriter Loretta Lynn. It was released in 1985 via MCA Records and was produced by Owen Bradley. The album included ten previously-recorded hits by Lynn during a fifteen-year time span. All of the album's recordings were first cut on MCA/Decca Records.\n\nBackground, release and reception\nBlue Eyed Kentucky Girl was part of a series of compilations MCA released by Loretta Lynn during the 1980s. A total of ten tracks were included on the album package. The songs chosen were recorded in sessions over a fifteen-year time-span between 1964 and 1980. Eight of the album's tracks had been among Lynn's biggest hits in her career. This included signature songs, such as \"Coal Miner's Daughter\"(1970), \"You're Lookin' at Country\" (1971) and \"The Pill.\" Also included were other hits, such as \"Somebody Led Me Away\" (1981) and \"The Home You're Tearing Down\" (1965). All of the album's sessions had originally been produced by Owen Bradley, Lynn's long-time producer at MCA.\n\nBlue Eyed Kentucky Girl had first been released in 1985 via MCA Records. It was offered as both a compact disc and an audio cassette. It was later released again On November 15, 1995 via Universal Special Products on a cassette. The album did not reach any peak positions on any music publication charts, including Billboard. It also did not spawn any singles to radio. The album was reviewed by Hank Small of Allmusic following its re-release: \"Blue Eyed Kentucky Girl assembles ten tracks from Loretta Lynn's 1970s recordings for RCA [MCA], perhaps the singer's most creatively fertile period.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nCD version\n\nCassette version\n\nPersonnel\nAll credits are adapted from the liner notes of Blue Eyed Kentucky Girl.\n\nMusical and technical personnel\n Owen Bradley – producer\n Steve Hoffman – compiled credits\n Loretta Lynn – lead vocals, harmony vocals\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n1985 compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Owen Bradley\nLoretta Lynn compilation albums\nMCA Records compilation albums"
]
|
[
"Osama bin Laden",
"Bush administration"
]
| C_b5267abce9974ff5b5cd078779e1c660_0 | When did the Bush administration learn about him? | 1 | When did the Bush administration learn about Osama bin Laden? | Osama bin Laden | Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million though the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri. CANNOTANSWER | Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects | Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian terrorist and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization . The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries. Under bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States, and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.
He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. Bin Ladens father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until US pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings.
Bin Laden is most well known for his role in masterminding the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and prompted the United States, on the orders of President George W. Bush, to initiate the "War on Terror" and the subsequent War in Afghanistan. He subsequently became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the United States, as the FBI offered a $25 million bounty in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALs inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan. The covert operation was conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of President Barack Obama.
Name
There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English; however, bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other US governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of bin is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions, articles, and patronymics uncapitalized in surnames; the nasab bin means "son of". The spellings with o and e come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.
Osama bin Laden's full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". "Mohammed" refers to bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden; "Awad" refers to his grandfather, Awad bin Aboud bin Laden, a Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" refers not to bin Laden's great-grandfather, who was named Aboud, but to Aboud's father, Laden Ali al-Qahtani.
The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father, Mohammed bin Laden, never officially registered the name.
Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah "Abū 'Abdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الأمير, al-Amīr), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, aš-Šaykh), the "Jihadist Sheik" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, Šaykh al-Mujāhid), "Hajj" (حج, Ḥajj), and the "Director". The word usāmah (أسامة) means "lion", earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".
Early life and education
Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Yemeni Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Syrian Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957. Despite it being generally accepted that bin Laden was born in Riyadh, his birthplace was listed as Jeddah in the initial FBI and Interpol documents.
Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the elite Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Bin Laden attended an English-language course in Oxford, England during 1971. One source described him as "hard working"; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and association football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the English club Arsenal.
Personal life
At age 17 in 1974, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria; but they were later separated and she left Afghanistan on September 9, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s); Khairiah Sabar (married 1985); Siham Sabar (married 1987); and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony. Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives. Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and , Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movements.
Nasser al-Bahri, who was bin Laden's personal bodyguard from 1997 to 2001, details bin Laden's personal life in his memoir. He describes him as a frugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert.
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot Jim Harrington misjudged a landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas, in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between and in height and weighing about , although the author Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, writes that a number of bin Laden's close friends confirmed that reports of his height were greatly exaggerated, and that bin Laden was actually "just over tall". Eventually, after his death, he was measured to be roughly . Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white keffiyeh. Bin Laden had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male keffiyeh and instead wore the traditional Yemeni male keffiyeh. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.
Beliefs and ideology
A major component of bin Laden's ideology was the concept that civilians from enemy countries, including women and children, were legitimate targets for jihadists to kill. According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that US foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East. As such, the threat to US national security arises not from al-Qaeda being offended by what America is but rather by what America does, or in the words of Scheuer, "They (al-Qaeda) hate us (Americans) for what we do, not who we are." Nonetheless, bin Laden criticized the US for its secular form of governance, calling upon Americans to convert to Islam and reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury, in a letter published in late 2002.
Bin Laden believed that the Islamic world was in crisis and that the complete restoration of Sharia law would be the only way to set things right in the Muslim world. He opposed such alternatives as secular government, as well as pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, and democracy. He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology.
These beliefs, in conjunction with violent jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states. He also called for the elimination of Israel, and called upon the United States to withdraw all of its civilians and military personnel from the Middle East, as well as from every Islamic country of the world.
His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars, journalists from The New York Times, the BBC, and Qatari news station Al Jazeera, analysts such as Peter Bergen, Michael Scheuer, Marc Sageman, and Bruce Hoffman. He was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.
In 1997, he condemned the United States for its hypocrisy in not labeling the bombing of Hiroshima as terrorism. In November 2001, he maintained that the revenge killing of Americans was justified because he claimed that Islamic law allows believers to attack invaders even when the enemy uses human shields. However, according to Rodenbeck, "this classical position was originally intended as a legal justification for the accidental killings of civilians under very limited circumstances — not as a basis for the intentional targeting of noncombatants." A few months later in a 2002 letter, he made no mention of this justification but claimed "that since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for its government's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets."
Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and United States was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry. Al-Qaeda manuals express this strategy. In a 2004 tape broadcast by Al Jazeera, bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy".
A number of errors and inconsistencies in bin Laden's arguments have been alleged by authors such as Max Rodenbeck and Noah Feldman. He invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence of Western political system—American law being "the law of the rich and wealthy"—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions and so can be lawfully punished by death. He denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable. Rodenbeck states, "Evidently, [bin Laden] has never heard theological justifications for democracy, based on the notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God."
Bin Laden was heavily anti-Semitic, stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions. In a December 1998 interview with Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden stated that Operation Desert Fox was proof that Israeli Jews controlled the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could. In a letter released in late 2002, he stated that Jews controlled the civilian media outlets, politics, and economic institutions of the United States. In a May 1998 interview with ABC's John Miller, bin Laden stated that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a "Greater Israel". He stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along and that war was "inevitable" between them, and further accused the US of stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment. He claimed that the US State Department and US Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving the Israeli state's goals. He often delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Shia Muslims have been listed along with heretics, America, and Israel as the four principal enemies of Islam at ideology classes of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.
Bin Laden was opposed to music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants on the one hand, but rejected chilled water on the other.
Bin Laden also believed climate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with President Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny".
Militant and political career
Mujahideen in Afghanistan
After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan, joined Abdullah Azzam and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen resistance in the Soviet–Afghan War. He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan." From 1979 to 1992, the United States (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan, specifically Operation Cyclone), Saudi Arabia, and China provided between $6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). British journalist Jason Burke wrote that "He did not receive any direct funding or training from the US during the 1980s. Nor did his followers. The Afghan mujahideen, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, received large amounts of both. Some bled to the Arabs fighting the Soviets but nothing significant." Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI. According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, bin Laden acted as a liaison between the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords, but no evidence of contact between the CIA and Bin Laden exists in the CIA archives. Steve Coll states that although bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." Bin Laden's first trainer was U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed.
By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat, which funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own Arab soldiers. From this base, bin Laden participated in some combat activity against the Soviets, such as the Battle of Jaji in 1987. Despite its little strategic significance, the battle was lionized in the mainstream Arab press. It was during this time that he became idolised by many Arabs.
1988 Gilgit massacre
In May 1988, responding to rumours of a massacre of Sunnis by Shias, large numbers of Shias from in and around Gilgit, Pakistan were killed in a massacre. Shia civilians were also subjected to rape.
The massacre is alleged by B. Raman, a founder of India's Research and Analysis Wing, to have been in response to a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit during the rule of military dictator Zia-ul Haq. He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.
Formation and structuring of al-Qaeda
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force. Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.
According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because its existence was still a closely held secret. His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.
Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad. Along with his Arab legion, he was thought to have brought down the mighty superpower of the Soviet Union. After his return to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden engaged in opposition movements to the Saudi monarchy while working for his family business. He offered to send al-Qaeda to overthrow the Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party government in South Yemen but was rebuffed by Prince Turki bin Faisal. He then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd. He was also angered by the internecine tribal fighting among the Afghans. However, he continued working with the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI. He funded the 1990 Afghan coup d'état attempt and also lobbied the Parliament of Pakistan to carry out an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on August 2, 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the royal family at risk. With Iraqi forces on the Saudi border, Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism was potentially inciting internal dissent. One week after King Fahd agreed to U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's offer of American military assistance, Bin Laden met with King Fahd and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the United States and others and offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion. When Sultan asked how bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam used Iraqi chemical and biological weapons against them he replied "We will fight him with faith." Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi territory.
Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. forces, arguing that the Quran prohibited non-Muslims from setting foot in the Arabian Peninsula and that two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the prophet Muhammad received and recited Allah's message, should only be defended by Muslims. Bin Laden tried to convince the Saudi ulama to issue a fatwa condemning the American military deployment but senior clerics refused out of fear of repression. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to try to silence him. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in the north-eastern Saudi city of Dhahran and was deployed in the desert barely 400 miles from Medina.
Meanwhile, on November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed. They discovered copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked the earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries. Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and later admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on November 5, 1990.
Move to Sudan
In 1991, bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia by its government after repeatedly criticizing the Saudi alliance with the United States. He and his followers moved first to Afghanistan and then relocated to Sudan by 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed. Bin Laden's personal security detail consisted of bodyguards personally selected by him. Their arsenal included SA-7, Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs, and PK machine guns. Meanwhile, in March–April 1992, bin Laden tried to play a pacifying role in the escalating civil war in Afghanistan, by urging warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to join the other mujahideen leaders negotiating a coalition government instead of trying to conquer Kabul for himself.
US intelligence monitored bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house and signals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves.
Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile. During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in agriculture and businesses. He was the Sudan agent for the British firm Hunting Surveys, and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union. He was generous to the poor and popular with the people. He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In response, in 1994 Fahd stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his family to cut off his $7 million a year stipend.
By that time, bin Laden was being linked with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and Sudan expelled the EIJ.
The US State Department accused Sudan of being a sponsor of international terrorism and bin Laden of operating terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. However, according to Sudan officials, this stance became obsolete as the Islamist political leader Hassan al-Turabi lost influence in their country. The Sudanese wanted to engage with the US but American officials refused to meet with them even after they had expelled bin Laden. It was not until 2000 that the State Department authorized US intelligence officials to visit Sudan.
The 9/11 Commission Report states:
In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against bin Laden in any country.
The 9/11 Commission Report further states:
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, and paid for by the CIA.
Due to the increasing pressure on Sudan from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden was permitted to leave for a country of his choice. He chose to return to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight on May 18, 1996; there he forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar. According to the 9/11 Commission, the expulsion from Sudan significantly weakened bin Laden and his organization. Some African intelligence sources have argued that the expulsion left bin Laden without an option other than becoming a full-time radical, and that most of the 300 Afghan Arabs who left with him subsequently became terrorists. Various sources report that bin Laden lost between $20 million and $300 million in Sudan; the government seized his construction equipment, and bin Laden was forced to liquidate his businesses, land, and even his horses.
1996 Declaration of war and 1998 fatwa
In August 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. Despite the assurance of President George H. W. Bush to King Fahd in 1990, that all US forces based in Saudi Arabia would be withdrawn once the Iraqi threat had been dealt with, by 1996 the Americans were still there. Bush cited the necessity of dealing with the remnants of Saddam's regime (which Bush had chosen not to destroy). Bin Laden's view was that "the 'evils' of the Middle East arose from America's attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into an American colony".
In 1998 he issued a fatwā against the United States, which was first published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper. It was entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam. The reference to occupation in the fatwā referred to US forces based in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq, known as Operation Southern Watch.
In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from donors from the days of the Soviet jihad, and from the Pakistani ISI to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters. Bin Laden effectively took over Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash, and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, as well as provided false identifications to members of bin Laden's terrorist network. The arms smuggler Viktor Bout helped to run the airline, maintaining planes and loading cargo. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, concluded that Ariana was being used as a terrorist taxi service.
Early attacks and aid for attacks
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.
After this bombing, al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going to Jannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims and to Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s, bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded. The war that followed caused the deaths of 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with the Islamist surrender to the government. In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of its Counterterrorism Center (CTC) called Bin Laden Issue Station, code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against Bin Laden's activities. Bin Laden Issue Station was headed by Michael Scheuer, a veteran of the Islamic Extremism Branch of the CTC.
Late 1990s attacks
It has been claimed that bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians, and outraged the Egyptian public. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his Najim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.
Another successful attack was carried out in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundred Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.
In February 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip. At the public announcement, fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets". He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. The 1998 US embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the attention of the United States public for the first time. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the bombings.
In retaliation for the embassy bombings, President Bill Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on bin Laden-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998. In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the United States of America, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft. On June 7, 1999, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation placed bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000, which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, tourists at Mount Nebo, and a site on the Jordan River, as well as the sinking of the destroyer in Yemen, and an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.
Yugoslav Wars
A former US State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, and asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, had reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an all-mujahedeen unit called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall.
According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canada–United States border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.
A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former Mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived in the area north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites. A second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997 report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.
In 1999, the press reported that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. The Bosnian government denied this information following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.
The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
The head of Albania's State Intelligence Service (SHISH), Fatos Klosi, said that Osama was running a terror network in Albania to take part in the Kosovo War under the guise of a humanitarian organisation and it was reported to have been started in 1994. Claude Kader, who was a member, testified its existence during his trial. By 1998, four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt. The mujahideen fighters were organised by Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to him and Zawihiri.
During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army. He claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe. He claimed that they had informed Richard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the US decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with Osama despite the 1998 United States embassy bombings earlier. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists, which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
September 11 attacks
After his initial denial, in the wake of the attacks, bin Laden announced, "what the United States is tasting today is nothing compared to what we have tasted for decades. Our umma has known this humiliation and contempt for over eighty years. Its sons are killed, its blood is spilled, its holy sites are attacked, and it is not governed according to Allah's command. Despite this, no one cares". In response to the attacks, the United States launched the War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report noted that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient to prosecute the case.
Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack. In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
In the 2004 video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he said he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence in the hijacking of the planes on September 11. According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. ... I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers ... with the raids" (May 23, 2006). In the tapes he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006). Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the US military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the US enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.
Criminal charges
On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on March 10, 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by a grand jury of the United States on June 8, 1998, on a charges of conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent Ziyad Khaleel in the United States. However the Taliban ruled not to extradite Bin Laden on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence published in the indictments and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims.
Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure before the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.
On October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. However, they did offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial in return for the United States ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by President Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable, with Bush responding "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
On June 15, 2011, federal prosecutors of the United States of America officially dropped all criminal charges against Osama bin Laden following his death in May.
Pursuit by the United States
Clinton administration
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (and specifically their elite Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état; in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.
In 2000, before the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as correctly focused on bin Laden, while Robert Oakley criticized their obsession with Osama.
Bush administration
Immediately after the September 11 attacks, US government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million, although the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.
Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the White Mountains (Spin Ghar) in Afghanistan's east, near the Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post, the US government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough US ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.
US and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Obama administration
On October 7, 2008, in the second presidential debate, on foreign policy, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, then President-elect Obama expressed his plans to renew US commitment to finding al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers in an effort to ratchet up the hunt for the terrorist. President Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on bin Laden that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah, replacing it with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaeda and its spawn.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda would not be defeated unless its leader, Osama bin Laden, were captured or killed. Testifying to the US Congress, he said that bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of bin Laden. According to him, killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large.
In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, the White House announced that SEAL Team Six had successfully carried out the operation, killing him in his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
While referring to Osama bin Laden in a CNN film clip on September 17, 2001, then-President George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or alive'". Subsequently, bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods. None were ever definitively proven. After military offensives in Afghanistan failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place. Some of the conflicting reports regarding bin Laden's whereabouts and mistaken claims about his death follow:
On December 11, 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Atiyah instructs Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership. Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are weak and have many of their own problems. The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post.
Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally verified videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival, including in August 2007. Bin Laden claimed sole responsibility for the September 11 attacks and specifically denied any prior knowledge of them by the Taliban or the Afghan people.
In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.
In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author Rohan Gunaratna stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral.
In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee reported that in January or February (2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on December 6, 2009, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
On December 9, 2009, BBC News reported that US Army General Stanley A. McChrystal (Commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010) emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus indicating that the US high command believed that bin Laden was still alive.
On February 2, 2010, Afghan president Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included a discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai's plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden.
On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Sabzevar, in northeastern Iran. On June 9, The Australian's online edition repeated the claim. This report turned out to be false.
On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was alive, well, and living comfortably in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said that the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States.
On March 29, 2012, Pakistani newspaper Dawn acquired a report produced by Pakistani security officials, based on interrogation of his three surviving wives, that detailed his movements while living underground in Pakistan.
In a 2010 letter, bin Laden chastised followers who had reinterpreted al-tatarrus—an Islamic doctrine meant to excuse the unintended killing of non-combatants in unusual circumstances—to justify routine massacres of Muslim civilians, which had turned Muslims against the extremist movement. Of the groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, Bin Laden condemned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for an attack on members of a hostile tribe, declaring that the operation is not justified, as there were casualties of noncombatants. Bin Laden wrote that the tatarrus doctrine needs to be revisited based on the modern-day context and clear boundaries established. He asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties. In Yemen, Bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability or would at least show the people that we are careful in keeping the Muslims safe on the basis of peace. In Somalia, he called attention to the extreme poverty caused by constant warfare, and he advised al-Shabab to pursue economic development. He instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.
Whereabouts just before his death
In April 2011, various US intelligence outlets were able to pinpoint Bin Laden's suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was previously believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found away in a three-story windowless mansion in Abbottabad at . Bin Laden's mansion was located southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy. Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but it was present in images taken in 2005.
Death and aftermath
Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 AM local time (4:00 PM eastern time) by a United States military special operations unit.
The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, reports at the time stated that US forces had taken bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death. Subsequent reporting has called this account into question—citing, for example, the absence of evidence that there was an imam on board the , where the burial was said to have taken place.
Pakistani authorities later demolished the compound in February 2012 to prevent it from becoming a neo-Islamist shrine. In February 2013, Pakistan announced plans to build a ₨265 million PKR ($30 million USD) amusement park in the area, including the property of the former hideout.
In an interview in 2019, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan claimed that Pakistani intelligence led the CIA to Osama bin Laden.
It was widely reported by the press that bin Laden was fatally wounded by Robert J. O'Neill, however, it has also been widely discredited by witnesses, who claim that bin Laden was possibly already dead by the time O'Neill arrived, having been injured by an anonymous SEAL Team Six member referred to under the pseudonym "Red". According to Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, bin Laden was struck by two suppressed shots to the side of the head from around ten feet away after leaning out of his bedroom doorway to survey Bissonnette and a point man, once the Navy SEALs entered the bedroom, his body began convulsing and Bissonnette and another SEAL responded by firing multiple shots into his chest.
Allegations of Pakistan-support protection of bin Laden
Bin Laden was killed within the fortified complex of buildings that were probably built for him, and had reportedly been his home for at least five years. The compound was located less than a mile from Pakistan Military Academy and less than 100 kilometers' drive from Pakistan's capital. While the United States and Pakistan governments both claimed, and later maintained, that no Pakistani officials, including senior military leaders, knew bin Laden's whereabouts or had prior knowledge of the US strike, Carlotta Gall, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, reported that ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. In a 2015 London Review of Books article, investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh asserted—citing US sources—that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Pasha knew of the US mission in advance, and authorized the helicopters delivering the SEALs to enter Pakistani airspace; and that the CIA learned of bin Laden's whereabouts from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who was paid an estimated $25 million for the information. Both stories were denied by US and Pakistani officials.
Mosharraf Zia, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's United States envoy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services could have failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound so close to Islamabad. "Obviously bin Laden did have a support system", he said. "The issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan, or within the society of Pakistan?"
Others argued that bin Laden lived in the compound with a local family, and never used the internet or a mobile phone, which would have made him much easier to locate. Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government baseless speculation. Government officials said that the country's limited resources had been committed to its war against the Pakistan Taliban, and other insurgents who posed an active threat to it, rather than to finding or sheltering bin Laden. Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
See also
Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
The Golden Chain
Islamic extremism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic terrorism
Islamism
List of assassinations by the United States
Osama bin Laden in popular culture
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism
Tere Bin Laden
War on terror
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (2006) – Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004
External links
Osama bin Laden collected news and commentary at Dawn
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America', The Observer, November 24, 2002
Hunting Bin Laden, PBS Frontline, (November 2002)
"5 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Osama bin Laden", Dainik Bhaskar, (May 2016)
Young Osama, Steve Coll, The New Yorker, December 12, 2005
How the World Sees Osama bin Laden, slideshow by Life
The Osama bin Laden File from the National Security Archive, posted May 2, 2011
Letters from Abbottabad from Combating Terrorism Center
FBI Records: The Vault - Osama Bin Laden
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War on terror | false | [
"What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception is an autobiographical bestseller by Scott McClellan, who served as White House Press Secretary from 2003 until 2006 under President George W. Bush. The book was scheduled to be released on June 2, 2008; however, excerpts were released to the press a week before publication. The book quickly became a media sensation for its candid, insider's critique of the Bush administration and ran as a leading story on most top news outlets days after the content became public. It was listed as a number-one bestseller by the New York Times and on Amazon.com when it first went on sale.\n\nContent \nMcClellan harshly criticizes the Bush administration over its Iraq war-making campaign, though he writes in detail about his personal admiration for President Bush. He accuses Bush of \"self-deception\" and of maintaining a \"permanent campaign approach\" to governing, rather than making the best choices. McClellan stops short of saying Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq (in fact, stating flatly that he did not believe that Bush would intentionally lie), writing that the administration was not \"employing out-and-out deception\" to make the case for war in 2002, though he does assert the administration relied on an aggressive \"political propaganda campaign\" instead of the truth to sell the Iraq War. The book is also critical of the press corps for being too accepting of the administration's perspective on the Iraq War, and of Condoleezza Rice for being \"too accommodating\" and overly careful about protecting her own reputation.\n\nReaction \nMcClellan's transformation from White House Press Secretary to prominent critic was a shock to most political observers, and his public changeover \"startled Washington\".\n\nWhite House reaction \nThe Bush administration issued a statement about the book through McClellan's successor, Press Secretary Dana Perino, who said, \"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew.\" The administration additionally took exception to the claim that they had misled the nation in the \nlead-up to the war in Iraq, as Perino said, \"He's suggesting that we purposely misled. There is no new evidence of that.\"\n\nCongressional reaction \nIn response to the claims made by McClellan in the book, Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who is the Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, have called upon McClellan to testify under oath in front of Congress. McClellan testified publicly under oath before the House Judiciary Committee in July 2008.\n\nMcClellan response \nMcClellan has responded by stating that his role as Deputy White House Press Secretary during the lead-up to the Iraq War was not to make policy, contending that he was inclined to give the Administration the \"benefit of the doubt\" like most Americans, and that he did not fully appreciate the circumstances until after leaving the \"White House bubble\" and being able to reflect with a more clear-eyed view of events.\n\nSales \nWhile McClellan's book advance was for a comparatively low $75,000, What Happened reached the number-one position on the sales chart of Amazon.com, and its printing was quadrupled to more than 300,000 copies by its publisher, PublicAffairs.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n McClellan: Plame leak case was turning point Today, NBC program, May 29, 2008\n\n2008 non-fiction books\nBooks about George W. Bush\nIraq War books\nPolitical autobiographies\nWar on Terror books\nPublicAffairs books",
"State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III () is a book by Bob Woodward, originally due to be published October 2, 2006 (but unexpectedly released two days early by the publisher due to demand), that examines how the George W. Bush administration managed the Iraq War after the 2003 invasion. It follows Woodward's previous books on the Bush administration, Bush at War and Plan of Attack. Based on interviews with a number of people in the Bush administration (although not with George W. Bush himself), the book makes a number of allegations about the administration.\n\nNewsweek magazine presented a special excerpt of the book. Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe reported on the potential fallout for Bush and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and analyzed the administration's response.\n\nReported in the book\nAccording to Woodward's book:\n Andrew Card resigned because of concerns about how the public would perceive the administration's handling of Iraq in the future and that he had twice tried to persuade Bush to replace Rumsfeld.\n Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met regularly with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to offer advice on the War in Iraq. Kissinger confirmed in recorded interviews with Woodward that the advice was the same as he had given in an August 12, 2005, column in the Washington Post: \"Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy.\"\n CIA Director George Tenet and J. Cofer Black met with then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on July 10, 2001, to warn her about an imminent Al Qaeda attack and were disappointed Rice wasn't alarmed enough by the warning, although Rice's friend Philip D. Zelikow (also executive director of the 9/11 Commission) also says in the book that the warning wasn't specific enough to enable the government to take a specific action to counter it (pages 49–52).\n Tony Blair repeatedly complained that the US government denied UK security services access to intelligence; although intelligence they collected was being stored on the SIPRNet, SIPRNet's classified information was barred to all foreign nationals, such as British and Australian troops in Iraq. After Bush signed a directive (along with Rumsfeld and acting CIA director John McLaughlin) ordering that \"NOFORN would no longer apply to the British and Australians when they were planning for combat operations, training with the Americans or engaged in counterterrorism activities\", officials within the Pentagon instead began creating a parallel SIPRNet to which classified information would be slowly copied over after review.\nAl-Gore reportedly promising the position Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff to General Eric Shinseki if he won the 2000 Presidential Election, causing a heavy sparked of anger among military community, especially knowing that Army has dominated most of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff position in which it was Shinseki service branch and at that time served as Army Chief of Staff. The incumbent Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 2000 Presidential Election, General Hugh Shelton is also from Army and so does his predecessor General John Shaliskasvili and General Colin Powell all from the Army. This was the primary reason why many from military community chose to support George W. Bush instead of Al-Gore. Following assuming the Presidency, instead of Shinseki it was Air Force General Richard B. Myers whom Bush chosen to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.\n Although members of the Bush administration publicly said the situation in Iraq was improving, internal reports and memos distributed between various government agencies, including the White House and The Pentagon, acknowledged the situation was worsening.\n Senate Minority Leader (later Majority Leader) Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said of Bush, \"I just can't stand him\". Reid so dislikes Bush that he can't bear watching his speeches, instead having aides brief him on them afterward.\nShinseki was reportedly despise the new administration of President George W. Bush, since his failure to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as what was promised by Al-Gore and constantly criticizing the administration and oppose the administration military policy. \n Condoleezza Rice hired old friend Philip D. Zelikow to go to Iraq and give her a detailed report (and gave him authority to go anywhere and ask anything). On February 10, 2005, two weeks after Rice became Secretary of State, Zelikow gave her a 15-page, single-spaced memo. Zelikow wrote: \"At this point Iraq remains a failed state shadowed by constant violence and undergoing revolutionary political change.\"\n Robert D. Blackwill, the National Security Council's top official for Iraq, was deeply disturbed by what he considered the inadequate number of troops on the ground there. He told Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, her deputy, that the NSC needed to do a military review. Rice had made it clear that her authority did not extend to Rumsfeld or the military, and the matter was dropped.\n When Hadley replaced Rice as National Security Advisor, he assessed the problems from the first term. He told a \"colleague\" on February 5, 2005, \"I give us a B-minus for policy development and a D-minus for policy execution.\"\n General John P. Abizaid, head of US forces in Iraq, visited US Representative John P. Murtha (D-Penn.) in Murtha's office and held up his index finger about a quarter of an inch from his thumb, telling Murtha \"We're that far apart\" on Iraq policy.\n \"One of Kissinger's private criticisms of Bush was that he had no mechanism in place, or even an inclination, to consider the downsides of impending decisions. Alternative courses of action were rarely considered.\"\n\nWoodward's possible sources\nThese are some of the speculated sources (speculators in parentheses):\n\"Andrew Card [former White House chief of staff], who gives Woodward most of his Oval Office material as far as I can tell, is written up as some kind of hero for engineering his own removal as White House chief of staff,\" wrote Rich Lowry, editor of National Review. \"From what I have read, there is no acknowledgment that some of Bush's difficulties might have been Card's doing, which is the advantage of being a Woodward source.\" (Michiko Kakutani, reviewing the book in the New York Times, and others also believe Card was a source.)\nThe former Saudi Arabian ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan (Kakutani)\nGeorge Tenet, former director of the CIA (Kakutani)\nFormer Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage (Kakutani)\nBrent Scowcroft, chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board under George W. Bush and national security adviser to George H. W. Bush (Kakutani)\n\nWoodward's cited sources\nJay Garner, former head of the Iraq postwar planning office (\"In an interview last December, I asked Garner ...\")\nUS Representative John Murtha is cited by Woodward as a source.\nDonald Rumsfeld\n\nReviews and critiques\n State of Denial Reviews at Metacritic.com\nNeoconservative commentator and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush David Frum stated: \"Woodward characters are always saying things like 'We've got to get this on track' and 'Fix it.' Bold, decisive — and Woodward loves reporting this boldness and decisiveness. But when things don't get back on track, when they don't get fixed, the question, 'why not?' does not long or deeply interest our chronicler. It is a remarkable fact, but America's most famous living reporter on politics and government is not really very seriously interested in either politics or government.\"\nAnother point about Woodward's book by Frum: \"Remember — a Woodward book is not exactly a 'book' as you or I might think of one. It more like a raw intelligence product, full of unverified and often contradictory assertions. Nor is it \"written\" as you or I might write, that is, by composing one page after another to form a coherent narrative or argument. Rather it is compiled in rough chronological order of incident, without much regard to sequencing of thought. So while it is possible for someone like NSC official Meghan O'Sullivan to be presented as a person of rare competence on p. 127 and as utterly unfit for her job on p. 331, it is equally possible for these contradictions to appear much closer to one another.\"\n\"The story is classic Bob Woodward: fly-on-the-wall descriptions of super-secret discussions, details missed by every other reporter, a juicy scoop\" writes The Wall Street Journals Jonathan Karl. The book \"is replete with [typical] Woodwardian reporting: secret meetings recounted in vivid detail, complete with lengthy, verbatim quotations of what key players said to each other as the story unfolded. Once again, it all reads as if Bob Woodward was lurking in the background as the meetings happened, taking exceptionally detailed notes. But of course he was not there. We learn not only what the president and all his men said but also what unspoken thoughts raced through their minds. But Mr. Woodward wasn't inside their heads either, it is safe to say.\" Concluding that \"Mr. Woodward attempts to write like a novelist, not a journalist,\" Karl adds that \"As more than a few people have noted over the course of Mr. Woodward's long career, his narratives are propelled in part by who talks to him and, just as important, who gives him the best, most detailed and colorful descriptions of what went on in all those secret meetings.\"\n\"This is a fun book, a weighty book, and a political tour-de-force. But it isn't journalism. Instead it lies somewhere between an historical novel such as Burr by Gore Vidal, and books such as Rise of the Vulcans by James Mann or Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer. State of Denial has had great influence among the chattering classes in Washington and I believe influenced the recent congressional elections and led to the downfall of Rumsfeld. This book is highly recommended.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAmerican political books\n2006 non-fiction books\nBooks by Bob Woodward\nBooks about George W. Bush\nBooks about the 2003 invasion of Iraq\nWar on Terror books"
]
|
[
"Osama bin Laden",
"Bush administration",
"When did the Bush administration learn about him?",
"Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects"
]
| C_b5267abce9974ff5b5cd078779e1c660_0 | How did they conclude he was involved? | 2 | How did the Bush administration conclude that Osama bin Laden was involved? | Osama bin Laden | Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million though the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian terrorist and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization . The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries. Under bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States, and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.
He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. Bin Ladens father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until US pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings.
Bin Laden is most well known for his role in masterminding the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and prompted the United States, on the orders of President George W. Bush, to initiate the "War on Terror" and the subsequent War in Afghanistan. He subsequently became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the United States, as the FBI offered a $25 million bounty in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALs inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan. The covert operation was conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of President Barack Obama.
Name
There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English; however, bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other US governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of bin is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions, articles, and patronymics uncapitalized in surnames; the nasab bin means "son of". The spellings with o and e come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.
Osama bin Laden's full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". "Mohammed" refers to bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden; "Awad" refers to his grandfather, Awad bin Aboud bin Laden, a Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" refers not to bin Laden's great-grandfather, who was named Aboud, but to Aboud's father, Laden Ali al-Qahtani.
The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father, Mohammed bin Laden, never officially registered the name.
Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah "Abū 'Abdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الأمير, al-Amīr), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, aš-Šaykh), the "Jihadist Sheik" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, Šaykh al-Mujāhid), "Hajj" (حج, Ḥajj), and the "Director". The word usāmah (أسامة) means "lion", earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".
Early life and education
Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Yemeni Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Syrian Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957. Despite it being generally accepted that bin Laden was born in Riyadh, his birthplace was listed as Jeddah in the initial FBI and Interpol documents.
Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the elite Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Bin Laden attended an English-language course in Oxford, England during 1971. One source described him as "hard working"; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and association football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the English club Arsenal.
Personal life
At age 17 in 1974, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria; but they were later separated and she left Afghanistan on September 9, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s); Khairiah Sabar (married 1985); Siham Sabar (married 1987); and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony. Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives. Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and , Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movements.
Nasser al-Bahri, who was bin Laden's personal bodyguard from 1997 to 2001, details bin Laden's personal life in his memoir. He describes him as a frugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert.
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot Jim Harrington misjudged a landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas, in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between and in height and weighing about , although the author Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, writes that a number of bin Laden's close friends confirmed that reports of his height were greatly exaggerated, and that bin Laden was actually "just over tall". Eventually, after his death, he was measured to be roughly . Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white keffiyeh. Bin Laden had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male keffiyeh and instead wore the traditional Yemeni male keffiyeh. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.
Beliefs and ideology
A major component of bin Laden's ideology was the concept that civilians from enemy countries, including women and children, were legitimate targets for jihadists to kill. According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that US foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East. As such, the threat to US national security arises not from al-Qaeda being offended by what America is but rather by what America does, or in the words of Scheuer, "They (al-Qaeda) hate us (Americans) for what we do, not who we are." Nonetheless, bin Laden criticized the US for its secular form of governance, calling upon Americans to convert to Islam and reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury, in a letter published in late 2002.
Bin Laden believed that the Islamic world was in crisis and that the complete restoration of Sharia law would be the only way to set things right in the Muslim world. He opposed such alternatives as secular government, as well as pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, and democracy. He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology.
These beliefs, in conjunction with violent jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states. He also called for the elimination of Israel, and called upon the United States to withdraw all of its civilians and military personnel from the Middle East, as well as from every Islamic country of the world.
His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars, journalists from The New York Times, the BBC, and Qatari news station Al Jazeera, analysts such as Peter Bergen, Michael Scheuer, Marc Sageman, and Bruce Hoffman. He was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.
In 1997, he condemned the United States for its hypocrisy in not labeling the bombing of Hiroshima as terrorism. In November 2001, he maintained that the revenge killing of Americans was justified because he claimed that Islamic law allows believers to attack invaders even when the enemy uses human shields. However, according to Rodenbeck, "this classical position was originally intended as a legal justification for the accidental killings of civilians under very limited circumstances — not as a basis for the intentional targeting of noncombatants." A few months later in a 2002 letter, he made no mention of this justification but claimed "that since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for its government's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets."
Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and United States was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry. Al-Qaeda manuals express this strategy. In a 2004 tape broadcast by Al Jazeera, bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy".
A number of errors and inconsistencies in bin Laden's arguments have been alleged by authors such as Max Rodenbeck and Noah Feldman. He invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence of Western political system—American law being "the law of the rich and wealthy"—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions and so can be lawfully punished by death. He denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable. Rodenbeck states, "Evidently, [bin Laden] has never heard theological justifications for democracy, based on the notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God."
Bin Laden was heavily anti-Semitic, stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions. In a December 1998 interview with Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden stated that Operation Desert Fox was proof that Israeli Jews controlled the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could. In a letter released in late 2002, he stated that Jews controlled the civilian media outlets, politics, and economic institutions of the United States. In a May 1998 interview with ABC's John Miller, bin Laden stated that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a "Greater Israel". He stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along and that war was "inevitable" between them, and further accused the US of stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment. He claimed that the US State Department and US Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving the Israeli state's goals. He often delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Shia Muslims have been listed along with heretics, America, and Israel as the four principal enemies of Islam at ideology classes of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.
Bin Laden was opposed to music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants on the one hand, but rejected chilled water on the other.
Bin Laden also believed climate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with President Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny".
Militant and political career
Mujahideen in Afghanistan
After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan, joined Abdullah Azzam and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen resistance in the Soviet–Afghan War. He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan." From 1979 to 1992, the United States (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan, specifically Operation Cyclone), Saudi Arabia, and China provided between $6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). British journalist Jason Burke wrote that "He did not receive any direct funding or training from the US during the 1980s. Nor did his followers. The Afghan mujahideen, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, received large amounts of both. Some bled to the Arabs fighting the Soviets but nothing significant." Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI. According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, bin Laden acted as a liaison between the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords, but no evidence of contact between the CIA and Bin Laden exists in the CIA archives. Steve Coll states that although bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." Bin Laden's first trainer was U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed.
By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat, which funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own Arab soldiers. From this base, bin Laden participated in some combat activity against the Soviets, such as the Battle of Jaji in 1987. Despite its little strategic significance, the battle was lionized in the mainstream Arab press. It was during this time that he became idolised by many Arabs.
1988 Gilgit massacre
In May 1988, responding to rumours of a massacre of Sunnis by Shias, large numbers of Shias from in and around Gilgit, Pakistan were killed in a massacre. Shia civilians were also subjected to rape.
The massacre is alleged by B. Raman, a founder of India's Research and Analysis Wing, to have been in response to a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit during the rule of military dictator Zia-ul Haq. He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.
Formation and structuring of al-Qaeda
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force. Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.
According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because its existence was still a closely held secret. His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.
Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad. Along with his Arab legion, he was thought to have brought down the mighty superpower of the Soviet Union. After his return to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden engaged in opposition movements to the Saudi monarchy while working for his family business. He offered to send al-Qaeda to overthrow the Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party government in South Yemen but was rebuffed by Prince Turki bin Faisal. He then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd. He was also angered by the internecine tribal fighting among the Afghans. However, he continued working with the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI. He funded the 1990 Afghan coup d'état attempt and also lobbied the Parliament of Pakistan to carry out an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on August 2, 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the royal family at risk. With Iraqi forces on the Saudi border, Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism was potentially inciting internal dissent. One week after King Fahd agreed to U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's offer of American military assistance, Bin Laden met with King Fahd and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the United States and others and offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion. When Sultan asked how bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam used Iraqi chemical and biological weapons against them he replied "We will fight him with faith." Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi territory.
Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. forces, arguing that the Quran prohibited non-Muslims from setting foot in the Arabian Peninsula and that two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the prophet Muhammad received and recited Allah's message, should only be defended by Muslims. Bin Laden tried to convince the Saudi ulama to issue a fatwa condemning the American military deployment but senior clerics refused out of fear of repression. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to try to silence him. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in the north-eastern Saudi city of Dhahran and was deployed in the desert barely 400 miles from Medina.
Meanwhile, on November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed. They discovered copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked the earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries. Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and later admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on November 5, 1990.
Move to Sudan
In 1991, bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia by its government after repeatedly criticizing the Saudi alliance with the United States. He and his followers moved first to Afghanistan and then relocated to Sudan by 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed. Bin Laden's personal security detail consisted of bodyguards personally selected by him. Their arsenal included SA-7, Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs, and PK machine guns. Meanwhile, in March–April 1992, bin Laden tried to play a pacifying role in the escalating civil war in Afghanistan, by urging warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to join the other mujahideen leaders negotiating a coalition government instead of trying to conquer Kabul for himself.
US intelligence monitored bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house and signals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves.
Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile. During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in agriculture and businesses. He was the Sudan agent for the British firm Hunting Surveys, and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union. He was generous to the poor and popular with the people. He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In response, in 1994 Fahd stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his family to cut off his $7 million a year stipend.
By that time, bin Laden was being linked with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and Sudan expelled the EIJ.
The US State Department accused Sudan of being a sponsor of international terrorism and bin Laden of operating terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. However, according to Sudan officials, this stance became obsolete as the Islamist political leader Hassan al-Turabi lost influence in their country. The Sudanese wanted to engage with the US but American officials refused to meet with them even after they had expelled bin Laden. It was not until 2000 that the State Department authorized US intelligence officials to visit Sudan.
The 9/11 Commission Report states:
In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against bin Laden in any country.
The 9/11 Commission Report further states:
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, and paid for by the CIA.
Due to the increasing pressure on Sudan from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden was permitted to leave for a country of his choice. He chose to return to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight on May 18, 1996; there he forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar. According to the 9/11 Commission, the expulsion from Sudan significantly weakened bin Laden and his organization. Some African intelligence sources have argued that the expulsion left bin Laden without an option other than becoming a full-time radical, and that most of the 300 Afghan Arabs who left with him subsequently became terrorists. Various sources report that bin Laden lost between $20 million and $300 million in Sudan; the government seized his construction equipment, and bin Laden was forced to liquidate his businesses, land, and even his horses.
1996 Declaration of war and 1998 fatwa
In August 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. Despite the assurance of President George H. W. Bush to King Fahd in 1990, that all US forces based in Saudi Arabia would be withdrawn once the Iraqi threat had been dealt with, by 1996 the Americans were still there. Bush cited the necessity of dealing with the remnants of Saddam's regime (which Bush had chosen not to destroy). Bin Laden's view was that "the 'evils' of the Middle East arose from America's attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into an American colony".
In 1998 he issued a fatwā against the United States, which was first published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper. It was entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam. The reference to occupation in the fatwā referred to US forces based in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq, known as Operation Southern Watch.
In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from donors from the days of the Soviet jihad, and from the Pakistani ISI to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters. Bin Laden effectively took over Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash, and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, as well as provided false identifications to members of bin Laden's terrorist network. The arms smuggler Viktor Bout helped to run the airline, maintaining planes and loading cargo. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, concluded that Ariana was being used as a terrorist taxi service.
Early attacks and aid for attacks
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.
After this bombing, al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going to Jannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims and to Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s, bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded. The war that followed caused the deaths of 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with the Islamist surrender to the government. In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of its Counterterrorism Center (CTC) called Bin Laden Issue Station, code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against Bin Laden's activities. Bin Laden Issue Station was headed by Michael Scheuer, a veteran of the Islamic Extremism Branch of the CTC.
Late 1990s attacks
It has been claimed that bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians, and outraged the Egyptian public. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his Najim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.
Another successful attack was carried out in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundred Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.
In February 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip. At the public announcement, fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets". He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. The 1998 US embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the attention of the United States public for the first time. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the bombings.
In retaliation for the embassy bombings, President Bill Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on bin Laden-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998. In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the United States of America, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft. On June 7, 1999, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation placed bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000, which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, tourists at Mount Nebo, and a site on the Jordan River, as well as the sinking of the destroyer in Yemen, and an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.
Yugoslav Wars
A former US State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, and asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, had reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an all-mujahedeen unit called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall.
According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canada–United States border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.
A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former Mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived in the area north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites. A second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997 report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.
In 1999, the press reported that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. The Bosnian government denied this information following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.
The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
The head of Albania's State Intelligence Service (SHISH), Fatos Klosi, said that Osama was running a terror network in Albania to take part in the Kosovo War under the guise of a humanitarian organisation and it was reported to have been started in 1994. Claude Kader, who was a member, testified its existence during his trial. By 1998, four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt. The mujahideen fighters were organised by Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to him and Zawihiri.
During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army. He claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe. He claimed that they had informed Richard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the US decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with Osama despite the 1998 United States embassy bombings earlier. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists, which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
September 11 attacks
After his initial denial, in the wake of the attacks, bin Laden announced, "what the United States is tasting today is nothing compared to what we have tasted for decades. Our umma has known this humiliation and contempt for over eighty years. Its sons are killed, its blood is spilled, its holy sites are attacked, and it is not governed according to Allah's command. Despite this, no one cares". In response to the attacks, the United States launched the War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report noted that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient to prosecute the case.
Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack. In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
In the 2004 video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he said he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence in the hijacking of the planes on September 11. According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. ... I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers ... with the raids" (May 23, 2006). In the tapes he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006). Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the US military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the US enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.
Criminal charges
On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on March 10, 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by a grand jury of the United States on June 8, 1998, on a charges of conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent Ziyad Khaleel in the United States. However the Taliban ruled not to extradite Bin Laden on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence published in the indictments and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims.
Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure before the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.
On October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. However, they did offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial in return for the United States ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by President Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable, with Bush responding "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
On June 15, 2011, federal prosecutors of the United States of America officially dropped all criminal charges against Osama bin Laden following his death in May.
Pursuit by the United States
Clinton administration
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (and specifically their elite Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état; in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.
In 2000, before the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as correctly focused on bin Laden, while Robert Oakley criticized their obsession with Osama.
Bush administration
Immediately after the September 11 attacks, US government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million, although the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.
Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the White Mountains (Spin Ghar) in Afghanistan's east, near the Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post, the US government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough US ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.
US and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Obama administration
On October 7, 2008, in the second presidential debate, on foreign policy, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, then President-elect Obama expressed his plans to renew US commitment to finding al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers in an effort to ratchet up the hunt for the terrorist. President Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on bin Laden that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah, replacing it with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaeda and its spawn.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda would not be defeated unless its leader, Osama bin Laden, were captured or killed. Testifying to the US Congress, he said that bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of bin Laden. According to him, killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large.
In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, the White House announced that SEAL Team Six had successfully carried out the operation, killing him in his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
While referring to Osama bin Laden in a CNN film clip on September 17, 2001, then-President George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or alive'". Subsequently, bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods. None were ever definitively proven. After military offensives in Afghanistan failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place. Some of the conflicting reports regarding bin Laden's whereabouts and mistaken claims about his death follow:
On December 11, 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Atiyah instructs Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership. Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are weak and have many of their own problems. The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post.
Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally verified videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival, including in August 2007. Bin Laden claimed sole responsibility for the September 11 attacks and specifically denied any prior knowledge of them by the Taliban or the Afghan people.
In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.
In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author Rohan Gunaratna stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral.
In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee reported that in January or February (2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on December 6, 2009, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
On December 9, 2009, BBC News reported that US Army General Stanley A. McChrystal (Commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010) emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus indicating that the US high command believed that bin Laden was still alive.
On February 2, 2010, Afghan president Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included a discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai's plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden.
On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Sabzevar, in northeastern Iran. On June 9, The Australian's online edition repeated the claim. This report turned out to be false.
On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was alive, well, and living comfortably in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said that the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States.
On March 29, 2012, Pakistani newspaper Dawn acquired a report produced by Pakistani security officials, based on interrogation of his three surviving wives, that detailed his movements while living underground in Pakistan.
In a 2010 letter, bin Laden chastised followers who had reinterpreted al-tatarrus—an Islamic doctrine meant to excuse the unintended killing of non-combatants in unusual circumstances—to justify routine massacres of Muslim civilians, which had turned Muslims against the extremist movement. Of the groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, Bin Laden condemned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for an attack on members of a hostile tribe, declaring that the operation is not justified, as there were casualties of noncombatants. Bin Laden wrote that the tatarrus doctrine needs to be revisited based on the modern-day context and clear boundaries established. He asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties. In Yemen, Bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability or would at least show the people that we are careful in keeping the Muslims safe on the basis of peace. In Somalia, he called attention to the extreme poverty caused by constant warfare, and he advised al-Shabab to pursue economic development. He instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.
Whereabouts just before his death
In April 2011, various US intelligence outlets were able to pinpoint Bin Laden's suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was previously believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found away in a three-story windowless mansion in Abbottabad at . Bin Laden's mansion was located southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy. Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but it was present in images taken in 2005.
Death and aftermath
Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 AM local time (4:00 PM eastern time) by a United States military special operations unit.
The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, reports at the time stated that US forces had taken bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death. Subsequent reporting has called this account into question—citing, for example, the absence of evidence that there was an imam on board the , where the burial was said to have taken place.
Pakistani authorities later demolished the compound in February 2012 to prevent it from becoming a neo-Islamist shrine. In February 2013, Pakistan announced plans to build a ₨265 million PKR ($30 million USD) amusement park in the area, including the property of the former hideout.
In an interview in 2019, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan claimed that Pakistani intelligence led the CIA to Osama bin Laden.
It was widely reported by the press that bin Laden was fatally wounded by Robert J. O'Neill, however, it has also been widely discredited by witnesses, who claim that bin Laden was possibly already dead by the time O'Neill arrived, having been injured by an anonymous SEAL Team Six member referred to under the pseudonym "Red". According to Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, bin Laden was struck by two suppressed shots to the side of the head from around ten feet away after leaning out of his bedroom doorway to survey Bissonnette and a point man, once the Navy SEALs entered the bedroom, his body began convulsing and Bissonnette and another SEAL responded by firing multiple shots into his chest.
Allegations of Pakistan-support protection of bin Laden
Bin Laden was killed within the fortified complex of buildings that were probably built for him, and had reportedly been his home for at least five years. The compound was located less than a mile from Pakistan Military Academy and less than 100 kilometers' drive from Pakistan's capital. While the United States and Pakistan governments both claimed, and later maintained, that no Pakistani officials, including senior military leaders, knew bin Laden's whereabouts or had prior knowledge of the US strike, Carlotta Gall, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, reported that ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. In a 2015 London Review of Books article, investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh asserted—citing US sources—that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Pasha knew of the US mission in advance, and authorized the helicopters delivering the SEALs to enter Pakistani airspace; and that the CIA learned of bin Laden's whereabouts from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who was paid an estimated $25 million for the information. Both stories were denied by US and Pakistani officials.
Mosharraf Zia, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's United States envoy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services could have failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound so close to Islamabad. "Obviously bin Laden did have a support system", he said. "The issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan, or within the society of Pakistan?"
Others argued that bin Laden lived in the compound with a local family, and never used the internet or a mobile phone, which would have made him much easier to locate. Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government baseless speculation. Government officials said that the country's limited resources had been committed to its war against the Pakistan Taliban, and other insurgents who posed an active threat to it, rather than to finding or sheltering bin Laden. Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
See also
Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
The Golden Chain
Islamic extremism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic terrorism
Islamism
List of assassinations by the United States
Osama bin Laden in popular culture
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism
Tere Bin Laden
War on terror
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (2006) – Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004
External links
Osama bin Laden collected news and commentary at Dawn
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America', The Observer, November 24, 2002
Hunting Bin Laden, PBS Frontline, (November 2002)
"5 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Osama bin Laden", Dainik Bhaskar, (May 2016)
Young Osama, Steve Coll, The New Yorker, December 12, 2005
How the World Sees Osama bin Laden, slideshow by Life
The Osama bin Laden File from the National Security Archive, posted May 2, 2011
Letters from Abbottabad from Combating Terrorism Center
FBI Records: The Vault - Osama Bin Laden
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War on terror | false | [
"Saint Quadragesimus (d. end of 6th century) was, according to tradition, a shepherd who lived at Policastro, Italy, and served as a subdeacon. Not much else is known of him, and he is remembered solely for the miracle of raising a dead man to life. He was mentioned under 26 October in earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology, but is not listed in the latest editions. Birth unknown death 590 A.D lived in Policastro, Italy\n\nSurio, in his Historiae seu vitae sanctorum (vol XI (November), pp. 956–957, Marietti, 1879), writes: \"The first person to refer to this saint by name was Saint Gregory the Great, in Book Three of his Dialogues, chapter 17. From this source...Baronio got the name of Quadragesimus, as he affirms himself...\"\n\nOf Quadragesimus, Gregory the Great writes:\n\nNot long since in our time, a certain man called Quadragesimus was subdeacon in the church of Buxentin, who in times past kept a flock of sheep in the same country of Aurelia: by whose faithful report I understood a marvellous strange thing, which is this. At such time as he led a shepherd's life, there was an holy man that dwelt in the mountain of Argentario: whose religious conversation and inward virtue was answerable to the habit of a monk, which outwardly he did wear. Every year he travelled from his mountain to the church of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles: and in the way took this Quadragesimus' house for his lodging, as himself did tell me. Coming upon a day to his house, which was hard by the church, a poor woman's husband died not far off, whom when they had, as the manner is, washed, put on his garments, and made him ready to be buried, yet it was so late, that it could not be done that day: wherefore the desolate widow sat by the dead corpse, weeping all night long, and to satisfy her grief she did continually lament and cry out. The man of God, seeing her so pitifully to weep and never to give over, was much grieved, and said to Quadragesimus the subdeacon: \"My soul taketh compassion of this woman's sorrow, arise, I beseech you, and let us pray\": and thereupon they went to the church, which, as I said, was hard by, and fell to their devotions. And when they had prayed a good while, the servant of God desired Quadragesimus to conclude their prayer; which being done, he took a little dust from the side of the altar: and so came with Quadragesimus to the dead body; and there he began again to pray, and when he continued so a long time, he desired him not, as he did before, to conclude their prayers, but himself gave the blessing, and so rose up: and because he had the dust in his right hand, with his left he took away the cloth that covered the dead man's face; which the woman seeing, earnestly withstood him, and marvelled much what he meant to do: when the cloth was gone, he rubbed the dead man's face a good while with the dust, which he had taken up; and at length, he that was dead received his soul again, began to open his mouth and his eyes, and to sit up, and as though he had awakened from a deep sleep, marvelled what they did about him; which when the woman, that had wearied herself with crying, beheld, she began then afresh to weep for joy, and cry out far louder than she did before: but the man of God modestly forbad her, saying: \"Peace, good woman, and say nothing, and if any demand how this happened, say only, that our Lord Jesus Christ hath vouchsafed to work his pleasure.\" Thus he spake, and forthwith he departed from Quadragesimus, and never came to his house again. For, desirous to avoid all temporal honour, he so handled the matter, that they which saw him work that miracle, did never see him more so long as he lived.\n\nExternal links\n Quadragesimo, suddiacono\n\nReferences\n\n6th-century Christian saints\nMedieval Italian saints\n6th-century Italo-Roman people",
"Royal Freeman Nash was the secretary-treasurer of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) from February 15, 1916, to September 1, 1917.\n\nCareer \nNash was a white author. Historian Patricia Bernstein described him in 2006 as a social worker. He headed the North Carolina branch of the NAACP.\n\nBefore being made secretary, he had investigated fires in Cherokee County, Georgia, that the NAACP thought could be arson against Black people. His 1916 investigation also reported on attacks on Black people in Forsyth County, Georgia. Nash took office as secretary-treasurer in February 1916, but hadn't adopted a tangible program for the organization's future by mid-November. In February, Philip G. Peabody, a wealthy American, offered to donate $10,000, to the anti-lynching movement and wrote NAACP leader Moorfield Storey requesting a plan for how the organization would spend the money before he committed to donating it. To the fledgling NAACP, this was a vast sum, and Nash quickly worked to figure out how the money would be spent. He produced a lengthy report for Peabody proposing an extensive information campaign and other advocacy around the nation towards an anti-lynching law. Bernstein writes that \"perhaps the NAACP did its job too well\"; Peabody may have thought his money would not be sufficient for the program. He did not ever donate $10,000.\n\nThat same year he investigated the Lynching of Anthony Crawford in North Carolina. Nash's report was republished in newspapers around the country. He was torn between whether the NAACP needed to hire a new lawyer or official to work on publicity. Historian Charles Francis Kellogg describes this as having a chilling effect on his relations with prominent NAACP members Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard. A committee was established shortly after to develop plans for 1917 and the NAACP hired its first field secretary, James Weldon Johnson. As secretary, Nash was intensely focused on the NAACP's Federal Aid Committeein 1917 Ovington wrote that he spent half of his time with the committee.\n\nIn the aftermath of the Lynching of Jesse Washington he worked with Elisabeth Freeman to investigate. The day after the lynching, Nash contacted Freeman and advised her on how to best investigate the lynching. He requested that she gather large amounts of information, including interviewing locals, legal evidence, and images. Nash also provided Freeman with a copy of his investigation in Georgia. The NAACP sought to publicize the lynching widely to aid anti-lynching movements. Nash and Freeman were unable to get the lynching prosecuted, though they were successful in widely publicizing it.\n\nHe proposed changing the name of the NAACP to a name honoring several figures associated with the abolition of slavery in the US, suggesting \"The [William Lloyd] Garrison Association,” “The Wendell Phillips Association,” and “The [Abraham] Lincoln Association” because he thought the organization's name was \"cumbersome\". Nash left his role in May 1917 to serve in World War I, entering training for officers. He initially took a leave of absence but by September was forced to resign, in part due to his large involvement with the Federal Aid Committee. Nash remained involved in the NAACP. Nash later expressed guilt that he had left the organization. In the army he rose to the rank of captain in the field artillery and was transferred to the 167th Field Artillery Brigade, a brigade made up of Black soldiers.\n\nHistorians August Meier and Elliott Rudwick conclude that Nash was \"singularly ineffective\" as secretary.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography \n\n \n \n \n \n\nNAACP activists\nYear of birth missing\nYear of death missing"
]
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[
"Osama bin Laden",
"Bush administration",
"When did the Bush administration learn about him?",
"Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects",
"How did they conclude he was involved?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_b5267abce9974ff5b5cd078779e1c660_0 | what was did the bush administration do about him? | 3 | what did the bush administration do about Osama bin Laden? | Osama bin Laden | Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million though the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri. CANNOTANSWER | offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. | Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian terrorist and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization . The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries. Under bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States, and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.
He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. Bin Ladens father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until US pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings.
Bin Laden is most well known for his role in masterminding the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and prompted the United States, on the orders of President George W. Bush, to initiate the "War on Terror" and the subsequent War in Afghanistan. He subsequently became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the United States, as the FBI offered a $25 million bounty in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALs inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan. The covert operation was conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of President Barack Obama.
Name
There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English; however, bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other US governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of bin is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions, articles, and patronymics uncapitalized in surnames; the nasab bin means "son of". The spellings with o and e come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.
Osama bin Laden's full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". "Mohammed" refers to bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden; "Awad" refers to his grandfather, Awad bin Aboud bin Laden, a Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" refers not to bin Laden's great-grandfather, who was named Aboud, but to Aboud's father, Laden Ali al-Qahtani.
The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father, Mohammed bin Laden, never officially registered the name.
Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah "Abū 'Abdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الأمير, al-Amīr), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, aš-Šaykh), the "Jihadist Sheik" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, Šaykh al-Mujāhid), "Hajj" (حج, Ḥajj), and the "Director". The word usāmah (أسامة) means "lion", earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".
Early life and education
Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Yemeni Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Syrian Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957. Despite it being generally accepted that bin Laden was born in Riyadh, his birthplace was listed as Jeddah in the initial FBI and Interpol documents.
Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the elite Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Bin Laden attended an English-language course in Oxford, England during 1971. One source described him as "hard working"; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and association football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the English club Arsenal.
Personal life
At age 17 in 1974, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria; but they were later separated and she left Afghanistan on September 9, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s); Khairiah Sabar (married 1985); Siham Sabar (married 1987); and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony. Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives. Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and , Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movements.
Nasser al-Bahri, who was bin Laden's personal bodyguard from 1997 to 2001, details bin Laden's personal life in his memoir. He describes him as a frugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert.
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot Jim Harrington misjudged a landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas, in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between and in height and weighing about , although the author Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, writes that a number of bin Laden's close friends confirmed that reports of his height were greatly exaggerated, and that bin Laden was actually "just over tall". Eventually, after his death, he was measured to be roughly . Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white keffiyeh. Bin Laden had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male keffiyeh and instead wore the traditional Yemeni male keffiyeh. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.
Beliefs and ideology
A major component of bin Laden's ideology was the concept that civilians from enemy countries, including women and children, were legitimate targets for jihadists to kill. According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that US foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East. As such, the threat to US national security arises not from al-Qaeda being offended by what America is but rather by what America does, or in the words of Scheuer, "They (al-Qaeda) hate us (Americans) for what we do, not who we are." Nonetheless, bin Laden criticized the US for its secular form of governance, calling upon Americans to convert to Islam and reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury, in a letter published in late 2002.
Bin Laden believed that the Islamic world was in crisis and that the complete restoration of Sharia law would be the only way to set things right in the Muslim world. He opposed such alternatives as secular government, as well as pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, and democracy. He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology.
These beliefs, in conjunction with violent jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states. He also called for the elimination of Israel, and called upon the United States to withdraw all of its civilians and military personnel from the Middle East, as well as from every Islamic country of the world.
His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars, journalists from The New York Times, the BBC, and Qatari news station Al Jazeera, analysts such as Peter Bergen, Michael Scheuer, Marc Sageman, and Bruce Hoffman. He was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.
In 1997, he condemned the United States for its hypocrisy in not labeling the bombing of Hiroshima as terrorism. In November 2001, he maintained that the revenge killing of Americans was justified because he claimed that Islamic law allows believers to attack invaders even when the enemy uses human shields. However, according to Rodenbeck, "this classical position was originally intended as a legal justification for the accidental killings of civilians under very limited circumstances — not as a basis for the intentional targeting of noncombatants." A few months later in a 2002 letter, he made no mention of this justification but claimed "that since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for its government's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets."
Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and United States was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry. Al-Qaeda manuals express this strategy. In a 2004 tape broadcast by Al Jazeera, bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy".
A number of errors and inconsistencies in bin Laden's arguments have been alleged by authors such as Max Rodenbeck and Noah Feldman. He invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence of Western political system—American law being "the law of the rich and wealthy"—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions and so can be lawfully punished by death. He denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable. Rodenbeck states, "Evidently, [bin Laden] has never heard theological justifications for democracy, based on the notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God."
Bin Laden was heavily anti-Semitic, stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions. In a December 1998 interview with Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden stated that Operation Desert Fox was proof that Israeli Jews controlled the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could. In a letter released in late 2002, he stated that Jews controlled the civilian media outlets, politics, and economic institutions of the United States. In a May 1998 interview with ABC's John Miller, bin Laden stated that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a "Greater Israel". He stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along and that war was "inevitable" between them, and further accused the US of stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment. He claimed that the US State Department and US Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving the Israeli state's goals. He often delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Shia Muslims have been listed along with heretics, America, and Israel as the four principal enemies of Islam at ideology classes of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.
Bin Laden was opposed to music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants on the one hand, but rejected chilled water on the other.
Bin Laden also believed climate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with President Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny".
Militant and political career
Mujahideen in Afghanistan
After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan, joined Abdullah Azzam and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen resistance in the Soviet–Afghan War. He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan." From 1979 to 1992, the United States (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan, specifically Operation Cyclone), Saudi Arabia, and China provided between $6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). British journalist Jason Burke wrote that "He did not receive any direct funding or training from the US during the 1980s. Nor did his followers. The Afghan mujahideen, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, received large amounts of both. Some bled to the Arabs fighting the Soviets but nothing significant." Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI. According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, bin Laden acted as a liaison between the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords, but no evidence of contact between the CIA and Bin Laden exists in the CIA archives. Steve Coll states that although bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." Bin Laden's first trainer was U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed.
By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat, which funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own Arab soldiers. From this base, bin Laden participated in some combat activity against the Soviets, such as the Battle of Jaji in 1987. Despite its little strategic significance, the battle was lionized in the mainstream Arab press. It was during this time that he became idolised by many Arabs.
1988 Gilgit massacre
In May 1988, responding to rumours of a massacre of Sunnis by Shias, large numbers of Shias from in and around Gilgit, Pakistan were killed in a massacre. Shia civilians were also subjected to rape.
The massacre is alleged by B. Raman, a founder of India's Research and Analysis Wing, to have been in response to a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit during the rule of military dictator Zia-ul Haq. He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.
Formation and structuring of al-Qaeda
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force. Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.
According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because its existence was still a closely held secret. His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.
Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad. Along with his Arab legion, he was thought to have brought down the mighty superpower of the Soviet Union. After his return to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden engaged in opposition movements to the Saudi monarchy while working for his family business. He offered to send al-Qaeda to overthrow the Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party government in South Yemen but was rebuffed by Prince Turki bin Faisal. He then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd. He was also angered by the internecine tribal fighting among the Afghans. However, he continued working with the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI. He funded the 1990 Afghan coup d'état attempt and also lobbied the Parliament of Pakistan to carry out an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on August 2, 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the royal family at risk. With Iraqi forces on the Saudi border, Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism was potentially inciting internal dissent. One week after King Fahd agreed to U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's offer of American military assistance, Bin Laden met with King Fahd and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the United States and others and offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion. When Sultan asked how bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam used Iraqi chemical and biological weapons against them he replied "We will fight him with faith." Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi territory.
Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. forces, arguing that the Quran prohibited non-Muslims from setting foot in the Arabian Peninsula and that two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the prophet Muhammad received and recited Allah's message, should only be defended by Muslims. Bin Laden tried to convince the Saudi ulama to issue a fatwa condemning the American military deployment but senior clerics refused out of fear of repression. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to try to silence him. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in the north-eastern Saudi city of Dhahran and was deployed in the desert barely 400 miles from Medina.
Meanwhile, on November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed. They discovered copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked the earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries. Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and later admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on November 5, 1990.
Move to Sudan
In 1991, bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia by its government after repeatedly criticizing the Saudi alliance with the United States. He and his followers moved first to Afghanistan and then relocated to Sudan by 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed. Bin Laden's personal security detail consisted of bodyguards personally selected by him. Their arsenal included SA-7, Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs, and PK machine guns. Meanwhile, in March–April 1992, bin Laden tried to play a pacifying role in the escalating civil war in Afghanistan, by urging warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to join the other mujahideen leaders negotiating a coalition government instead of trying to conquer Kabul for himself.
US intelligence monitored bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house and signals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves.
Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile. During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in agriculture and businesses. He was the Sudan agent for the British firm Hunting Surveys, and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union. He was generous to the poor and popular with the people. He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In response, in 1994 Fahd stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his family to cut off his $7 million a year stipend.
By that time, bin Laden was being linked with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and Sudan expelled the EIJ.
The US State Department accused Sudan of being a sponsor of international terrorism and bin Laden of operating terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. However, according to Sudan officials, this stance became obsolete as the Islamist political leader Hassan al-Turabi lost influence in their country. The Sudanese wanted to engage with the US but American officials refused to meet with them even after they had expelled bin Laden. It was not until 2000 that the State Department authorized US intelligence officials to visit Sudan.
The 9/11 Commission Report states:
In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against bin Laden in any country.
The 9/11 Commission Report further states:
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, and paid for by the CIA.
Due to the increasing pressure on Sudan from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden was permitted to leave for a country of his choice. He chose to return to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight on May 18, 1996; there he forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar. According to the 9/11 Commission, the expulsion from Sudan significantly weakened bin Laden and his organization. Some African intelligence sources have argued that the expulsion left bin Laden without an option other than becoming a full-time radical, and that most of the 300 Afghan Arabs who left with him subsequently became terrorists. Various sources report that bin Laden lost between $20 million and $300 million in Sudan; the government seized his construction equipment, and bin Laden was forced to liquidate his businesses, land, and even his horses.
1996 Declaration of war and 1998 fatwa
In August 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. Despite the assurance of President George H. W. Bush to King Fahd in 1990, that all US forces based in Saudi Arabia would be withdrawn once the Iraqi threat had been dealt with, by 1996 the Americans were still there. Bush cited the necessity of dealing with the remnants of Saddam's regime (which Bush had chosen not to destroy). Bin Laden's view was that "the 'evils' of the Middle East arose from America's attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into an American colony".
In 1998 he issued a fatwā against the United States, which was first published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper. It was entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam. The reference to occupation in the fatwā referred to US forces based in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq, known as Operation Southern Watch.
In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from donors from the days of the Soviet jihad, and from the Pakistani ISI to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters. Bin Laden effectively took over Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash, and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, as well as provided false identifications to members of bin Laden's terrorist network. The arms smuggler Viktor Bout helped to run the airline, maintaining planes and loading cargo. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, concluded that Ariana was being used as a terrorist taxi service.
Early attacks and aid for attacks
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.
After this bombing, al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going to Jannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims and to Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s, bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded. The war that followed caused the deaths of 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with the Islamist surrender to the government. In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of its Counterterrorism Center (CTC) called Bin Laden Issue Station, code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against Bin Laden's activities. Bin Laden Issue Station was headed by Michael Scheuer, a veteran of the Islamic Extremism Branch of the CTC.
Late 1990s attacks
It has been claimed that bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians, and outraged the Egyptian public. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his Najim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.
Another successful attack was carried out in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundred Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.
In February 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip. At the public announcement, fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets". He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. The 1998 US embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the attention of the United States public for the first time. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the bombings.
In retaliation for the embassy bombings, President Bill Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on bin Laden-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998. In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the United States of America, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft. On June 7, 1999, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation placed bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000, which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, tourists at Mount Nebo, and a site on the Jordan River, as well as the sinking of the destroyer in Yemen, and an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.
Yugoslav Wars
A former US State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, and asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, had reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an all-mujahedeen unit called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall.
According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canada–United States border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.
A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former Mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived in the area north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites. A second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997 report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.
In 1999, the press reported that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. The Bosnian government denied this information following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.
The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
The head of Albania's State Intelligence Service (SHISH), Fatos Klosi, said that Osama was running a terror network in Albania to take part in the Kosovo War under the guise of a humanitarian organisation and it was reported to have been started in 1994. Claude Kader, who was a member, testified its existence during his trial. By 1998, four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt. The mujahideen fighters were organised by Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to him and Zawihiri.
During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army. He claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe. He claimed that they had informed Richard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the US decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with Osama despite the 1998 United States embassy bombings earlier. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists, which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
September 11 attacks
After his initial denial, in the wake of the attacks, bin Laden announced, "what the United States is tasting today is nothing compared to what we have tasted for decades. Our umma has known this humiliation and contempt for over eighty years. Its sons are killed, its blood is spilled, its holy sites are attacked, and it is not governed according to Allah's command. Despite this, no one cares". In response to the attacks, the United States launched the War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report noted that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient to prosecute the case.
Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack. In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
In the 2004 video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he said he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence in the hijacking of the planes on September 11. According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. ... I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers ... with the raids" (May 23, 2006). In the tapes he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006). Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the US military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the US enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.
Criminal charges
On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on March 10, 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by a grand jury of the United States on June 8, 1998, on a charges of conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent Ziyad Khaleel in the United States. However the Taliban ruled not to extradite Bin Laden on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence published in the indictments and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims.
Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure before the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.
On October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. However, they did offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial in return for the United States ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by President Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable, with Bush responding "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
On June 15, 2011, federal prosecutors of the United States of America officially dropped all criminal charges against Osama bin Laden following his death in May.
Pursuit by the United States
Clinton administration
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (and specifically their elite Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état; in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.
In 2000, before the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as correctly focused on bin Laden, while Robert Oakley criticized their obsession with Osama.
Bush administration
Immediately after the September 11 attacks, US government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million, although the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.
Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the White Mountains (Spin Ghar) in Afghanistan's east, near the Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post, the US government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough US ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.
US and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Obama administration
On October 7, 2008, in the second presidential debate, on foreign policy, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, then President-elect Obama expressed his plans to renew US commitment to finding al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers in an effort to ratchet up the hunt for the terrorist. President Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on bin Laden that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah, replacing it with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaeda and its spawn.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda would not be defeated unless its leader, Osama bin Laden, were captured or killed. Testifying to the US Congress, he said that bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of bin Laden. According to him, killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large.
In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, the White House announced that SEAL Team Six had successfully carried out the operation, killing him in his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
While referring to Osama bin Laden in a CNN film clip on September 17, 2001, then-President George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or alive'". Subsequently, bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods. None were ever definitively proven. After military offensives in Afghanistan failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place. Some of the conflicting reports regarding bin Laden's whereabouts and mistaken claims about his death follow:
On December 11, 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Atiyah instructs Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership. Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are weak and have many of their own problems. The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post.
Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally verified videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival, including in August 2007. Bin Laden claimed sole responsibility for the September 11 attacks and specifically denied any prior knowledge of them by the Taliban or the Afghan people.
In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.
In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author Rohan Gunaratna stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral.
In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee reported that in January or February (2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on December 6, 2009, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
On December 9, 2009, BBC News reported that US Army General Stanley A. McChrystal (Commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010) emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus indicating that the US high command believed that bin Laden was still alive.
On February 2, 2010, Afghan president Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included a discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai's plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden.
On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Sabzevar, in northeastern Iran. On June 9, The Australian's online edition repeated the claim. This report turned out to be false.
On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was alive, well, and living comfortably in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said that the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States.
On March 29, 2012, Pakistani newspaper Dawn acquired a report produced by Pakistani security officials, based on interrogation of his three surviving wives, that detailed his movements while living underground in Pakistan.
In a 2010 letter, bin Laden chastised followers who had reinterpreted al-tatarrus—an Islamic doctrine meant to excuse the unintended killing of non-combatants in unusual circumstances—to justify routine massacres of Muslim civilians, which had turned Muslims against the extremist movement. Of the groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, Bin Laden condemned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for an attack on members of a hostile tribe, declaring that the operation is not justified, as there were casualties of noncombatants. Bin Laden wrote that the tatarrus doctrine needs to be revisited based on the modern-day context and clear boundaries established. He asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties. In Yemen, Bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability or would at least show the people that we are careful in keeping the Muslims safe on the basis of peace. In Somalia, he called attention to the extreme poverty caused by constant warfare, and he advised al-Shabab to pursue economic development. He instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.
Whereabouts just before his death
In April 2011, various US intelligence outlets were able to pinpoint Bin Laden's suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was previously believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found away in a three-story windowless mansion in Abbottabad at . Bin Laden's mansion was located southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy. Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but it was present in images taken in 2005.
Death and aftermath
Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 AM local time (4:00 PM eastern time) by a United States military special operations unit.
The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, reports at the time stated that US forces had taken bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death. Subsequent reporting has called this account into question—citing, for example, the absence of evidence that there was an imam on board the , where the burial was said to have taken place.
Pakistani authorities later demolished the compound in February 2012 to prevent it from becoming a neo-Islamist shrine. In February 2013, Pakistan announced plans to build a ₨265 million PKR ($30 million USD) amusement park in the area, including the property of the former hideout.
In an interview in 2019, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan claimed that Pakistani intelligence led the CIA to Osama bin Laden.
It was widely reported by the press that bin Laden was fatally wounded by Robert J. O'Neill, however, it has also been widely discredited by witnesses, who claim that bin Laden was possibly already dead by the time O'Neill arrived, having been injured by an anonymous SEAL Team Six member referred to under the pseudonym "Red". According to Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, bin Laden was struck by two suppressed shots to the side of the head from around ten feet away after leaning out of his bedroom doorway to survey Bissonnette and a point man, once the Navy SEALs entered the bedroom, his body began convulsing and Bissonnette and another SEAL responded by firing multiple shots into his chest.
Allegations of Pakistan-support protection of bin Laden
Bin Laden was killed within the fortified complex of buildings that were probably built for him, and had reportedly been his home for at least five years. The compound was located less than a mile from Pakistan Military Academy and less than 100 kilometers' drive from Pakistan's capital. While the United States and Pakistan governments both claimed, and later maintained, that no Pakistani officials, including senior military leaders, knew bin Laden's whereabouts or had prior knowledge of the US strike, Carlotta Gall, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, reported that ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. In a 2015 London Review of Books article, investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh asserted—citing US sources—that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Pasha knew of the US mission in advance, and authorized the helicopters delivering the SEALs to enter Pakistani airspace; and that the CIA learned of bin Laden's whereabouts from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who was paid an estimated $25 million for the information. Both stories were denied by US and Pakistani officials.
Mosharraf Zia, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's United States envoy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services could have failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound so close to Islamabad. "Obviously bin Laden did have a support system", he said. "The issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan, or within the society of Pakistan?"
Others argued that bin Laden lived in the compound with a local family, and never used the internet or a mobile phone, which would have made him much easier to locate. Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government baseless speculation. Government officials said that the country's limited resources had been committed to its war against the Pakistan Taliban, and other insurgents who posed an active threat to it, rather than to finding or sheltering bin Laden. Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
See also
Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
The Golden Chain
Islamic extremism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic terrorism
Islamism
List of assassinations by the United States
Osama bin Laden in popular culture
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism
Tere Bin Laden
War on terror
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (2006) – Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004
External links
Osama bin Laden collected news and commentary at Dawn
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America', The Observer, November 24, 2002
Hunting Bin Laden, PBS Frontline, (November 2002)
"5 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Osama bin Laden", Dainik Bhaskar, (May 2016)
Young Osama, Steve Coll, The New Yorker, December 12, 2005
How the World Sees Osama bin Laden, slideshow by Life
The Osama bin Laden File from the National Security Archive, posted May 2, 2011
Letters from Abbottabad from Combating Terrorism Center
FBI Records: The Vault - Osama Bin Laden
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Saudi Arabian Wahhabists
War on terror | false | [
"What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception is an autobiographical bestseller by Scott McClellan, who served as White House Press Secretary from 2003 until 2006 under President George W. Bush. The book was scheduled to be released on June 2, 2008; however, excerpts were released to the press a week before publication. The book quickly became a media sensation for its candid, insider's critique of the Bush administration and ran as a leading story on most top news outlets days after the content became public. It was listed as a number-one bestseller by the New York Times and on Amazon.com when it first went on sale.\n\nContent \nMcClellan harshly criticizes the Bush administration over its Iraq war-making campaign, though he writes in detail about his personal admiration for President Bush. He accuses Bush of \"self-deception\" and of maintaining a \"permanent campaign approach\" to governing, rather than making the best choices. McClellan stops short of saying Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq (in fact, stating flatly that he did not believe that Bush would intentionally lie), writing that the administration was not \"employing out-and-out deception\" to make the case for war in 2002, though he does assert the administration relied on an aggressive \"political propaganda campaign\" instead of the truth to sell the Iraq War. The book is also critical of the press corps for being too accepting of the administration's perspective on the Iraq War, and of Condoleezza Rice for being \"too accommodating\" and overly careful about protecting her own reputation.\n\nReaction \nMcClellan's transformation from White House Press Secretary to prominent critic was a shock to most political observers, and his public changeover \"startled Washington\".\n\nWhite House reaction \nThe Bush administration issued a statement about the book through McClellan's successor, Press Secretary Dana Perino, who said, \"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew.\" The administration additionally took exception to the claim that they had misled the nation in the \nlead-up to the war in Iraq, as Perino said, \"He's suggesting that we purposely misled. There is no new evidence of that.\"\n\nCongressional reaction \nIn response to the claims made by McClellan in the book, Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who is the Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, have called upon McClellan to testify under oath in front of Congress. McClellan testified publicly under oath before the House Judiciary Committee in July 2008.\n\nMcClellan response \nMcClellan has responded by stating that his role as Deputy White House Press Secretary during the lead-up to the Iraq War was not to make policy, contending that he was inclined to give the Administration the \"benefit of the doubt\" like most Americans, and that he did not fully appreciate the circumstances until after leaving the \"White House bubble\" and being able to reflect with a more clear-eyed view of events.\n\nSales \nWhile McClellan's book advance was for a comparatively low $75,000, What Happened reached the number-one position on the sales chart of Amazon.com, and its printing was quadrupled to more than 300,000 copies by its publisher, PublicAffairs.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n McClellan: Plame leak case was turning point Today, NBC program, May 29, 2008\n\n2008 non-fiction books\nBooks about George W. Bush\nIraq War books\nPolitical autobiographies\nWar on Terror books\nPublicAffairs books",
"Scott McClellan (born February 14, 1968) is the former White House Press Secretary (2003–06) for President George W. Bush, he was the 24th person to hold this post. He was also the author of a controversial No. 1 New York Times bestseller about the Bush Administration titled What Happened. He replaced Ari Fleischer as press secretary in July 2003 and served until May 10, 2006. McClellan was the longest serving press secretary under George W. Bush.\n\nHe is now the Vice President for Communications at Seattle University.\n\nFamily\nBorn in Austin, Texas, McClellan is the youngest son of Carole Keeton, former Texas State Comptroller and former 2006 independent Texas gubernatorial candidate, and attorney Barr McClellan. McClellan's brother Mark headed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and was formerly Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration. McClellan is the grandson of the late W. Page Keeton, longtime Dean of the University of Texas School of Law and renowned expert in tort law. He married Jill Martinez in November 2003. They have three sons.\n\nCareer\n\nMcClellan graduated from Austin High School in 1986. He was a top-ranked tennis player there and served as student council president. He later graduated from The University of Texas at Austin, where he was president of Sigma Phi Epsilon and a member of the tennis team in his early college years, with a B.A. in 1991. He served as campaign manager for three of his mother's successful campaigns for statewide office. In addition, he worked on political grassroots efforts and was the Chief of Staff to a Texas State Senator.\n\nKaren Hughes, then-Governor of Texas George W. Bush's communications director, hired McClellan to be Bush's deputy communications director. McClellan served as Bush's traveling press secretary during the 2000 Presidential election. McClellan became White House Deputy Press Secretary in 2001. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, who stepped down as White House Press Secretary on July 15, 2003. McClellan announced his resignation as Press Secretary on April 19, 2006 and was replaced with Tony Snow.\n\nMemoir and criticism of Bush administration\n\nMcClellan criticized the Bush Administration in his 2008 memoir, What Happened. In the book, he accused Bush of \"self-deception\" and of maintaining a \"permanent campaign approach\" to governing rather than making the best choices. McClellan stopped short of saying that Bush purposely lied about his reasons for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, writing that the administration was not \"employing out-and-out deception\" to make the case for war in 2002, though he did assert the administration relied on an aggressive \"political propaganda campaign\" to sell the Iraq War. His book was also critical of the White House press corps for being too accepting of the administration's perspective on the war, and of Condoleezza Rice for being \"too accommodating\" and overly careful about protecting her own reputation.\n\nIn a Washington Post article on June 1, 2008, McClellan said of Bush: \"I still like and admire George W. Bush. I consider him a fundamentally decent person, and I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people.\"\n\nSpeaking frequently on the TV circuit, McClellan told Keith Olbermann in an interview on June 9, 2008, regarding the Iraq War planning: \"I don't think there was a conspiracy theory there, some conspiracy to deliberately mislead. I don't want to imply a sinister intent. There might have been some individuals that knew more than others and tried to push things forward in a certain way, and that's something I can't speak to. I don't think that you had a bunch of people sitting around a room, planning and plotting in a sinister way. That's the point I make in the book. At the same time, whether or not it was sinister or not, it was very troubling that we went to war on this basis.\"\n\nAs a result of his assertions in his book, McClellan was invited to testify before the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. During the actual testimony McClellan said: \"I do not think the president had any knowledge\" (of the revelation of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a C.I.A. agent); \"In terms of the vice president, I do not know.\"\n\nResponse to criticisms\nThe Bush administration responded through Press Secretary Dana Perino, who said, \"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House. We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew.\"\n\nCritics of McClellan's book included former White House staffers such as Karl Rove, Dan Bartlett, Ari Fleischer and Mary Matalin. Fleischer and Matalin have claimed that McClellan had not shared similar doubts during his tenure in the White House, and that if he had held such doubts then he ought not to have replaced Fleischer as Press Secretary. McClellan has responded by stating that he, like many other Americans, was inclined to give the administration the \"benefit of the doubt\" on the necessity of the Iraq War, and did not fully appreciate the circumstances until after leaving the \"White House bubble\".\n\nBob Dole penned an excoriation of McClellan's book, writing, \"Bottom line is that I have little respect for turncoats like McClellan who have it both ways. Some in public (and private) life have no shame when big bucks are involved. If their motive is 'good government,' O.K. but that's rarely the case.\" Dole likened the experience to a personal one, referring to a book, \"Senator for Sale,\" written in 1995 by his ex-staffer, Stanley Hilton, who worked for him in 1979 and 1980. Dole's spokesperson, Nelson Warfield, responded to the book by characterizing it, in the Boston Globe, as \"pure garbage,\" a \"lame attempt at character assassination.\" \n\nOn May 28, 2008, The O'Reilly Factor host Bill O'Reilly presented a clip from an interview with Fleischer, who suggested that the book was heavily influenced by the publisher's editor. In a subsequent interview on The O'Reilly Factor days later, McClellan told O'Reilly that contention was not true. McClellan further testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee that Fleischer's assertion was false. McClellan stated on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann that \"everything in the book is a clear reflection of my views and everything in the book is mine.\"\n\n2008 election cycle\nMcClellan endorsed Barack Obama for president on CNN's D.L. Hughley Breaks the News aired on October 25, 2008. The endorsement was reported in the press two days earlier as the show had been taped prior to airing.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n1968 births\nAmerican memoirists\nAustin High School (Austin, Texas) alumni\nGeorge W. Bush administration personnel\nLiving people\nTexas Independents\nUniversity of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts alumni\nWhite House Press Secretaries\nWriters from Austin, Texas"
]
|
[
"Osama bin Laden",
"Bush administration",
"When did the Bush administration learn about him?",
"Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects",
"How did they conclude he was involved?",
"I don't know.",
"what was did the bush administration do about him?",
"offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death."
]
| C_b5267abce9974ff5b5cd078779e1c660_0 | Did he ever get captured? | 4 | Did Osama bin Laden ever get captured? | Osama bin Laden | Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million though the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian terrorist and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization . The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries. Under bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States, and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.
He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. Bin Ladens father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until US pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings.
Bin Laden is most well known for his role in masterminding the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and prompted the United States, on the orders of President George W. Bush, to initiate the "War on Terror" and the subsequent War in Afghanistan. He subsequently became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the United States, as the FBI offered a $25 million bounty in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALs inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan. The covert operation was conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of President Barack Obama.
Name
There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English; however, bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other US governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of bin is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions, articles, and patronymics uncapitalized in surnames; the nasab bin means "son of". The spellings with o and e come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.
Osama bin Laden's full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". "Mohammed" refers to bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden; "Awad" refers to his grandfather, Awad bin Aboud bin Laden, a Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" refers not to bin Laden's great-grandfather, who was named Aboud, but to Aboud's father, Laden Ali al-Qahtani.
The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father, Mohammed bin Laden, never officially registered the name.
Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah "Abū 'Abdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الأمير, al-Amīr), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, aš-Šaykh), the "Jihadist Sheik" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, Šaykh al-Mujāhid), "Hajj" (حج, Ḥajj), and the "Director". The word usāmah (أسامة) means "lion", earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".
Early life and education
Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Yemeni Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Syrian Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957. Despite it being generally accepted that bin Laden was born in Riyadh, his birthplace was listed as Jeddah in the initial FBI and Interpol documents.
Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the elite Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Bin Laden attended an English-language course in Oxford, England during 1971. One source described him as "hard working"; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and association football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the English club Arsenal.
Personal life
At age 17 in 1974, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria; but they were later separated and she left Afghanistan on September 9, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s); Khairiah Sabar (married 1985); Siham Sabar (married 1987); and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony. Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives. Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and , Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movements.
Nasser al-Bahri, who was bin Laden's personal bodyguard from 1997 to 2001, details bin Laden's personal life in his memoir. He describes him as a frugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert.
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot Jim Harrington misjudged a landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas, in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between and in height and weighing about , although the author Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, writes that a number of bin Laden's close friends confirmed that reports of his height were greatly exaggerated, and that bin Laden was actually "just over tall". Eventually, after his death, he was measured to be roughly . Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white keffiyeh. Bin Laden had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male keffiyeh and instead wore the traditional Yemeni male keffiyeh. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.
Beliefs and ideology
A major component of bin Laden's ideology was the concept that civilians from enemy countries, including women and children, were legitimate targets for jihadists to kill. According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that US foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East. As such, the threat to US national security arises not from al-Qaeda being offended by what America is but rather by what America does, or in the words of Scheuer, "They (al-Qaeda) hate us (Americans) for what we do, not who we are." Nonetheless, bin Laden criticized the US for its secular form of governance, calling upon Americans to convert to Islam and reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury, in a letter published in late 2002.
Bin Laden believed that the Islamic world was in crisis and that the complete restoration of Sharia law would be the only way to set things right in the Muslim world. He opposed such alternatives as secular government, as well as pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, and democracy. He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology.
These beliefs, in conjunction with violent jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states. He also called for the elimination of Israel, and called upon the United States to withdraw all of its civilians and military personnel from the Middle East, as well as from every Islamic country of the world.
His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars, journalists from The New York Times, the BBC, and Qatari news station Al Jazeera, analysts such as Peter Bergen, Michael Scheuer, Marc Sageman, and Bruce Hoffman. He was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.
In 1997, he condemned the United States for its hypocrisy in not labeling the bombing of Hiroshima as terrorism. In November 2001, he maintained that the revenge killing of Americans was justified because he claimed that Islamic law allows believers to attack invaders even when the enemy uses human shields. However, according to Rodenbeck, "this classical position was originally intended as a legal justification for the accidental killings of civilians under very limited circumstances — not as a basis for the intentional targeting of noncombatants." A few months later in a 2002 letter, he made no mention of this justification but claimed "that since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for its government's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets."
Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and United States was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry. Al-Qaeda manuals express this strategy. In a 2004 tape broadcast by Al Jazeera, bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy".
A number of errors and inconsistencies in bin Laden's arguments have been alleged by authors such as Max Rodenbeck and Noah Feldman. He invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence of Western political system—American law being "the law of the rich and wealthy"—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions and so can be lawfully punished by death. He denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable. Rodenbeck states, "Evidently, [bin Laden] has never heard theological justifications for democracy, based on the notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God."
Bin Laden was heavily anti-Semitic, stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions. In a December 1998 interview with Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden stated that Operation Desert Fox was proof that Israeli Jews controlled the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could. In a letter released in late 2002, he stated that Jews controlled the civilian media outlets, politics, and economic institutions of the United States. In a May 1998 interview with ABC's John Miller, bin Laden stated that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a "Greater Israel". He stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along and that war was "inevitable" between them, and further accused the US of stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment. He claimed that the US State Department and US Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving the Israeli state's goals. He often delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Shia Muslims have been listed along with heretics, America, and Israel as the four principal enemies of Islam at ideology classes of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.
Bin Laden was opposed to music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants on the one hand, but rejected chilled water on the other.
Bin Laden also believed climate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with President Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny".
Militant and political career
Mujahideen in Afghanistan
After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan, joined Abdullah Azzam and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen resistance in the Soviet–Afghan War. He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan." From 1979 to 1992, the United States (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan, specifically Operation Cyclone), Saudi Arabia, and China provided between $6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). British journalist Jason Burke wrote that "He did not receive any direct funding or training from the US during the 1980s. Nor did his followers. The Afghan mujahideen, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, received large amounts of both. Some bled to the Arabs fighting the Soviets but nothing significant." Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI. According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, bin Laden acted as a liaison between the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords, but no evidence of contact between the CIA and Bin Laden exists in the CIA archives. Steve Coll states that although bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." Bin Laden's first trainer was U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed.
By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat, which funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own Arab soldiers. From this base, bin Laden participated in some combat activity against the Soviets, such as the Battle of Jaji in 1987. Despite its little strategic significance, the battle was lionized in the mainstream Arab press. It was during this time that he became idolised by many Arabs.
1988 Gilgit massacre
In May 1988, responding to rumours of a massacre of Sunnis by Shias, large numbers of Shias from in and around Gilgit, Pakistan were killed in a massacre. Shia civilians were also subjected to rape.
The massacre is alleged by B. Raman, a founder of India's Research and Analysis Wing, to have been in response to a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit during the rule of military dictator Zia-ul Haq. He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.
Formation and structuring of al-Qaeda
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force. Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.
According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because its existence was still a closely held secret. His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.
Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad. Along with his Arab legion, he was thought to have brought down the mighty superpower of the Soviet Union. After his return to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden engaged in opposition movements to the Saudi monarchy while working for his family business. He offered to send al-Qaeda to overthrow the Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party government in South Yemen but was rebuffed by Prince Turki bin Faisal. He then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd. He was also angered by the internecine tribal fighting among the Afghans. However, he continued working with the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI. He funded the 1990 Afghan coup d'état attempt and also lobbied the Parliament of Pakistan to carry out an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on August 2, 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the royal family at risk. With Iraqi forces on the Saudi border, Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism was potentially inciting internal dissent. One week after King Fahd agreed to U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's offer of American military assistance, Bin Laden met with King Fahd and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the United States and others and offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion. When Sultan asked how bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam used Iraqi chemical and biological weapons against them he replied "We will fight him with faith." Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi territory.
Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. forces, arguing that the Quran prohibited non-Muslims from setting foot in the Arabian Peninsula and that two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the prophet Muhammad received and recited Allah's message, should only be defended by Muslims. Bin Laden tried to convince the Saudi ulama to issue a fatwa condemning the American military deployment but senior clerics refused out of fear of repression. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to try to silence him. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in the north-eastern Saudi city of Dhahran and was deployed in the desert barely 400 miles from Medina.
Meanwhile, on November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed. They discovered copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked the earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries. Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and later admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on November 5, 1990.
Move to Sudan
In 1991, bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia by its government after repeatedly criticizing the Saudi alliance with the United States. He and his followers moved first to Afghanistan and then relocated to Sudan by 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed. Bin Laden's personal security detail consisted of bodyguards personally selected by him. Their arsenal included SA-7, Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs, and PK machine guns. Meanwhile, in March–April 1992, bin Laden tried to play a pacifying role in the escalating civil war in Afghanistan, by urging warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to join the other mujahideen leaders negotiating a coalition government instead of trying to conquer Kabul for himself.
US intelligence monitored bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house and signals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves.
Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile. During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in agriculture and businesses. He was the Sudan agent for the British firm Hunting Surveys, and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union. He was generous to the poor and popular with the people. He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In response, in 1994 Fahd stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his family to cut off his $7 million a year stipend.
By that time, bin Laden was being linked with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and Sudan expelled the EIJ.
The US State Department accused Sudan of being a sponsor of international terrorism and bin Laden of operating terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. However, according to Sudan officials, this stance became obsolete as the Islamist political leader Hassan al-Turabi lost influence in their country. The Sudanese wanted to engage with the US but American officials refused to meet with them even after they had expelled bin Laden. It was not until 2000 that the State Department authorized US intelligence officials to visit Sudan.
The 9/11 Commission Report states:
In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against bin Laden in any country.
The 9/11 Commission Report further states:
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, and paid for by the CIA.
Due to the increasing pressure on Sudan from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden was permitted to leave for a country of his choice. He chose to return to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight on May 18, 1996; there he forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar. According to the 9/11 Commission, the expulsion from Sudan significantly weakened bin Laden and his organization. Some African intelligence sources have argued that the expulsion left bin Laden without an option other than becoming a full-time radical, and that most of the 300 Afghan Arabs who left with him subsequently became terrorists. Various sources report that bin Laden lost between $20 million and $300 million in Sudan; the government seized his construction equipment, and bin Laden was forced to liquidate his businesses, land, and even his horses.
1996 Declaration of war and 1998 fatwa
In August 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. Despite the assurance of President George H. W. Bush to King Fahd in 1990, that all US forces based in Saudi Arabia would be withdrawn once the Iraqi threat had been dealt with, by 1996 the Americans were still there. Bush cited the necessity of dealing with the remnants of Saddam's regime (which Bush had chosen not to destroy). Bin Laden's view was that "the 'evils' of the Middle East arose from America's attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into an American colony".
In 1998 he issued a fatwā against the United States, which was first published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper. It was entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam. The reference to occupation in the fatwā referred to US forces based in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq, known as Operation Southern Watch.
In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from donors from the days of the Soviet jihad, and from the Pakistani ISI to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters. Bin Laden effectively took over Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash, and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, as well as provided false identifications to members of bin Laden's terrorist network. The arms smuggler Viktor Bout helped to run the airline, maintaining planes and loading cargo. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, concluded that Ariana was being used as a terrorist taxi service.
Early attacks and aid for attacks
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.
After this bombing, al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going to Jannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims and to Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s, bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded. The war that followed caused the deaths of 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with the Islamist surrender to the government. In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of its Counterterrorism Center (CTC) called Bin Laden Issue Station, code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against Bin Laden's activities. Bin Laden Issue Station was headed by Michael Scheuer, a veteran of the Islamic Extremism Branch of the CTC.
Late 1990s attacks
It has been claimed that bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians, and outraged the Egyptian public. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his Najim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.
Another successful attack was carried out in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundred Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.
In February 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip. At the public announcement, fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets". He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. The 1998 US embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the attention of the United States public for the first time. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the bombings.
In retaliation for the embassy bombings, President Bill Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on bin Laden-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998. In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the United States of America, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft. On June 7, 1999, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation placed bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000, which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, tourists at Mount Nebo, and a site on the Jordan River, as well as the sinking of the destroyer in Yemen, and an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.
Yugoslav Wars
A former US State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, and asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, had reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an all-mujahedeen unit called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall.
According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canada–United States border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.
A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former Mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived in the area north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites. A second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997 report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.
In 1999, the press reported that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. The Bosnian government denied this information following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.
The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
The head of Albania's State Intelligence Service (SHISH), Fatos Klosi, said that Osama was running a terror network in Albania to take part in the Kosovo War under the guise of a humanitarian organisation and it was reported to have been started in 1994. Claude Kader, who was a member, testified its existence during his trial. By 1998, four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt. The mujahideen fighters were organised by Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to him and Zawihiri.
During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army. He claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe. He claimed that they had informed Richard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the US decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with Osama despite the 1998 United States embassy bombings earlier. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists, which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
September 11 attacks
After his initial denial, in the wake of the attacks, bin Laden announced, "what the United States is tasting today is nothing compared to what we have tasted for decades. Our umma has known this humiliation and contempt for over eighty years. Its sons are killed, its blood is spilled, its holy sites are attacked, and it is not governed according to Allah's command. Despite this, no one cares". In response to the attacks, the United States launched the War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report noted that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient to prosecute the case.
Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack. In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
In the 2004 video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he said he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence in the hijacking of the planes on September 11. According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. ... I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers ... with the raids" (May 23, 2006). In the tapes he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006). Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the US military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the US enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.
Criminal charges
On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on March 10, 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by a grand jury of the United States on June 8, 1998, on a charges of conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent Ziyad Khaleel in the United States. However the Taliban ruled not to extradite Bin Laden on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence published in the indictments and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims.
Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure before the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.
On October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. However, they did offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial in return for the United States ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by President Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable, with Bush responding "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
On June 15, 2011, federal prosecutors of the United States of America officially dropped all criminal charges against Osama bin Laden following his death in May.
Pursuit by the United States
Clinton administration
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (and specifically their elite Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état; in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.
In 2000, before the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as correctly focused on bin Laden, while Robert Oakley criticized their obsession with Osama.
Bush administration
Immediately after the September 11 attacks, US government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million, although the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.
Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the White Mountains (Spin Ghar) in Afghanistan's east, near the Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post, the US government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough US ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.
US and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Obama administration
On October 7, 2008, in the second presidential debate, on foreign policy, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, then President-elect Obama expressed his plans to renew US commitment to finding al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers in an effort to ratchet up the hunt for the terrorist. President Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on bin Laden that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah, replacing it with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaeda and its spawn.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda would not be defeated unless its leader, Osama bin Laden, were captured or killed. Testifying to the US Congress, he said that bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of bin Laden. According to him, killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large.
In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, the White House announced that SEAL Team Six had successfully carried out the operation, killing him in his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
While referring to Osama bin Laden in a CNN film clip on September 17, 2001, then-President George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or alive'". Subsequently, bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods. None were ever definitively proven. After military offensives in Afghanistan failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place. Some of the conflicting reports regarding bin Laden's whereabouts and mistaken claims about his death follow:
On December 11, 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Atiyah instructs Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership. Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are weak and have many of their own problems. The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post.
Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally verified videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival, including in August 2007. Bin Laden claimed sole responsibility for the September 11 attacks and specifically denied any prior knowledge of them by the Taliban or the Afghan people.
In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.
In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author Rohan Gunaratna stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral.
In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee reported that in January or February (2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on December 6, 2009, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
On December 9, 2009, BBC News reported that US Army General Stanley A. McChrystal (Commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010) emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus indicating that the US high command believed that bin Laden was still alive.
On February 2, 2010, Afghan president Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included a discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai's plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden.
On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Sabzevar, in northeastern Iran. On June 9, The Australian's online edition repeated the claim. This report turned out to be false.
On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was alive, well, and living comfortably in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said that the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States.
On March 29, 2012, Pakistani newspaper Dawn acquired a report produced by Pakistani security officials, based on interrogation of his three surviving wives, that detailed his movements while living underground in Pakistan.
In a 2010 letter, bin Laden chastised followers who had reinterpreted al-tatarrus—an Islamic doctrine meant to excuse the unintended killing of non-combatants in unusual circumstances—to justify routine massacres of Muslim civilians, which had turned Muslims against the extremist movement. Of the groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, Bin Laden condemned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for an attack on members of a hostile tribe, declaring that the operation is not justified, as there were casualties of noncombatants. Bin Laden wrote that the tatarrus doctrine needs to be revisited based on the modern-day context and clear boundaries established. He asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties. In Yemen, Bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability or would at least show the people that we are careful in keeping the Muslims safe on the basis of peace. In Somalia, he called attention to the extreme poverty caused by constant warfare, and he advised al-Shabab to pursue economic development. He instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.
Whereabouts just before his death
In April 2011, various US intelligence outlets were able to pinpoint Bin Laden's suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was previously believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found away in a three-story windowless mansion in Abbottabad at . Bin Laden's mansion was located southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy. Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but it was present in images taken in 2005.
Death and aftermath
Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 AM local time (4:00 PM eastern time) by a United States military special operations unit.
The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, reports at the time stated that US forces had taken bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death. Subsequent reporting has called this account into question—citing, for example, the absence of evidence that there was an imam on board the , where the burial was said to have taken place.
Pakistani authorities later demolished the compound in February 2012 to prevent it from becoming a neo-Islamist shrine. In February 2013, Pakistan announced plans to build a ₨265 million PKR ($30 million USD) amusement park in the area, including the property of the former hideout.
In an interview in 2019, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan claimed that Pakistani intelligence led the CIA to Osama bin Laden.
It was widely reported by the press that bin Laden was fatally wounded by Robert J. O'Neill, however, it has also been widely discredited by witnesses, who claim that bin Laden was possibly already dead by the time O'Neill arrived, having been injured by an anonymous SEAL Team Six member referred to under the pseudonym "Red". According to Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, bin Laden was struck by two suppressed shots to the side of the head from around ten feet away after leaning out of his bedroom doorway to survey Bissonnette and a point man, once the Navy SEALs entered the bedroom, his body began convulsing and Bissonnette and another SEAL responded by firing multiple shots into his chest.
Allegations of Pakistan-support protection of bin Laden
Bin Laden was killed within the fortified complex of buildings that were probably built for him, and had reportedly been his home for at least five years. The compound was located less than a mile from Pakistan Military Academy and less than 100 kilometers' drive from Pakistan's capital. While the United States and Pakistan governments both claimed, and later maintained, that no Pakistani officials, including senior military leaders, knew bin Laden's whereabouts or had prior knowledge of the US strike, Carlotta Gall, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, reported that ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. In a 2015 London Review of Books article, investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh asserted—citing US sources—that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Pasha knew of the US mission in advance, and authorized the helicopters delivering the SEALs to enter Pakistani airspace; and that the CIA learned of bin Laden's whereabouts from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who was paid an estimated $25 million for the information. Both stories were denied by US and Pakistani officials.
Mosharraf Zia, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's United States envoy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services could have failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound so close to Islamabad. "Obviously bin Laden did have a support system", he said. "The issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan, or within the society of Pakistan?"
Others argued that bin Laden lived in the compound with a local family, and never used the internet or a mobile phone, which would have made him much easier to locate. Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government baseless speculation. Government officials said that the country's limited resources had been committed to its war against the Pakistan Taliban, and other insurgents who posed an active threat to it, rather than to finding or sheltering bin Laden. Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
See also
Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
The Golden Chain
Islamic extremism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic terrorism
Islamism
List of assassinations by the United States
Osama bin Laden in popular culture
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism
Tere Bin Laden
War on terror
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (2006) – Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004
External links
Osama bin Laden collected news and commentary at Dawn
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America', The Observer, November 24, 2002
Hunting Bin Laden, PBS Frontline, (November 2002)
"5 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Osama bin Laden", Dainik Bhaskar, (May 2016)
Young Osama, Steve Coll, The New Yorker, December 12, 2005
How the World Sees Osama bin Laden, slideshow by Life
The Osama bin Laden File from the National Security Archive, posted May 2, 2011
Letters from Abbottabad from Combating Terrorism Center
FBI Records: The Vault - Osama Bin Laden
1957 births
2011 deaths
20th-century criminals
20th-century Muslims
21st-century criminals
21st-century Muslims
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam
Afghanistan conflict (1978–present)
Al-Qaeda founders
Al-Qaeda propagandists
Anti-Americanism
Anti-imperialism in Africa
Anti-imperialism in Asia
Antisemitism in Africa
Antisemitism in Asia
Antisemitism in Saudi Arabia
Anti-Zionism in the Arab world
Assassinated al-Qaeda leaders
Assassinations by the United States
Assassinations in Pakistan
Atharis
Osama bin Laden
Burials at sea
Civil engineers
Deaths by firearm in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Extrajudicial killings
FBI Most Wanted Terrorists
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
Fugitives
Individuals designated as terrorists by the United States government
Islamist mass murderers
Leaders of Islamic terror groups
Mujahideen members of the Soviet–Afghan War
People associated with the September 11 attacks
People designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee
People from Riyadh
People of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
Saudi Arabian al-Qaeda members
Saudi Arabian anti-communists
Saudi Arabian criminals
Saudi Arabian emigrants to Pakistan
Saudi Arabian expatriates in Afghanistan
Saudi Arabian expatriates in Sudan
Saudi Arabian mass murderers
Saudi Arabian people of Syrian descent
Saudi Arabian people of Yemeni descent
Saudi Arabian poets
Saudi Arabian propagandists
Saudi Arabian Salafis
Saudi Arabian Wahhabists
War on terror | false | [
"Achaia is a Polish fantasy series of novels written by Andrzej Ziemiański, published in three volumes in 2002, 2003 and 2004 by the Fabryka Słów. The first two volumes received the Janusz A. Zajdel Award nomination (in 2002 and 2003, respectively); the second one received the Nautilus Award in 2004. All three volumes were reissued in 2011.\n\nDue to an error, the second volume did not include one chapter. It was later published in Science Fiction magazine.\n\nThe Achaia series is written as a trilogy and the first three volumes are considered to be the first part of the trilogy.\nThe second part of the trilogy is called Pomnik Cesarzowej Achai.\n\nPlot synopsis \nAchaja is a firstborn daughter of one of the seven Great Dukes of Troy, Archentar. It is a Troy's tradition to have the first child sent to a military service in their youth. While most noble families manage to get their daughters out of this ordeal by temporary adopting some boys from lesser nobility, Archentar is manipulated by his young wife to actually sent the princess off to the training. Soon after, her unit is dispatched to a battlefield and captured by the enemy forces of Luan. There, Achaja is to be used as a leverage to get back lands from Troy. Upon Archentar's diplomatic visit in Luan, the girl is tortured beneath his window so that the man could hear her screams before the negotiations over lands. As the man does not budge, she is made into a slave and sent to a labour camp to build a Royal Road. In order to survive, she takes a deal made by two experienced slaves to sell her body to them for protection. One of them, Hekke, turns out to have been a famous sword master before he disgraced himself and ended up as a slave. He teaches Achaja the craft. After a while, Achaja decides to try and run away from the camp despite the risk of terrible death if she is caught. Against all odds, she manages to succeed and starts her journey which will make her take on many different roles: a prostitute, a farmer girl and finally, a soldier instrumental in a war that will change the shape of the whole continent.\n\nWhen Achaja is first introduced to the reader, she compares herself to a little girl of which she has been reading - alone in the woods and afraid of monsters. As her own story goes on, Achaja realises that she has now herself become a monster that little girls in the woods may be afraid of.\n\nA wizard Meredith is visited by one of the gods, who tells him to slay the leader of The Order, a powerful religious organization that oversees this world. He attempts to fulfill the god's will, but fails and is captured by the Knights of the Order. He is sentenced to life in a dark, underground cell. Even though it is said that nobody can get into the cell once it is locked, the wizard is soon visited by Virus - a creature that claims to have neither a body nor a soul. Virus promises the man to help him accomplish what nobody ever did - to escape from the Order's prison.\n\nZaan is a highly intelligent scribe bored with the routine of everyday life. He dreams of becoming a legend, of making his mark in history and being remembered by generations to come. Yet his life passes monotonously. Until one day he meets Sirius, a young contract killer. Zaan is drawn to the adventurous life that Sirius leads and decides to become his companion. When the two men start talking, Sirius tells Zaan how as a child he was captured by pirates and made into a slave. He recounts that among other slaves on the ship, there was another boy his age - a long missing son of Great Duke Orion whose fate remained a mystery for years and was only known by Sirius. He and the prince befriended and the young royal told him many stories about Orion's court. One day, the pirate ship started leaking and everyone but Sirius died. Hearing the story, Zaan comes up with an idea to convince Orion that Sirius is in fact the missing prince. With his wit and knowledge, the man manages to get them into Orion's court and soon gains power that he could previously only dream of. Determined more than ever to get everything he ever wanted, Zaan wages a war against the whole world.\n\nReferences \n\n2002 novels\n2003 novels\n2004 novels\nFantasy novel series\nPolish fantasy novels\nFabryka Słów books\n21st-century Polish novels",
"HMS Hussar was a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.\n\nConstruction\nThe Hussar was one of five frigates of the class built of fir rather than oak. Fir was cheaper and more abundant than oak and permitted noticeably faster construction, but at a cost of a reduced lifespan; the four fir-built Coventry-class vessels that did not get captured lasted an average of only nine years before being struck off.\n\nJohn Inglis served on the ship as a midshipman in 1758 at the beginning of his career, under his in-law, Captain John Elliot.\n\nSee also\nList of ships captured in the 18th century\nGlossary of nautical terms\n\nReferences\n\n Robert Gardiner, The First Frigates, Conway Maritime Press, London 1992. .\n David Lyon, The Sailing Navy List, Conway Maritime Press, London 1993. .\n Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1714 to 1792, Seaforth Publishing, London 2007. .\n\n \n\nFrigates of the Royal Navy\n1757 ships\nShips built in Chatham\nCaptured ships"
]
|
[
"Osama bin Laden",
"Bush administration",
"When did the Bush administration learn about him?",
"Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects",
"How did they conclude he was involved?",
"I don't know.",
"what was did the bush administration do about him?",
"offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death.",
"Did he ever get captured?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_b5267abce9974ff5b5cd078779e1c660_0 | what was the administrations role in the events that happened? | 5 | what was the bush administrations role following the events of Osama bin Laden? | Osama bin Laden | Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million though the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri. CANNOTANSWER | the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. | Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian terrorist and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization . The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries. Under bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States, and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.
He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. Bin Ladens father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until US pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings.
Bin Laden is most well known for his role in masterminding the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and prompted the United States, on the orders of President George W. Bush, to initiate the "War on Terror" and the subsequent War in Afghanistan. He subsequently became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the United States, as the FBI offered a $25 million bounty in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALs inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan. The covert operation was conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of President Barack Obama.
Name
There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English; however, bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other US governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of bin is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions, articles, and patronymics uncapitalized in surnames; the nasab bin means "son of". The spellings with o and e come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.
Osama bin Laden's full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". "Mohammed" refers to bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden; "Awad" refers to his grandfather, Awad bin Aboud bin Laden, a Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" refers not to bin Laden's great-grandfather, who was named Aboud, but to Aboud's father, Laden Ali al-Qahtani.
The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father, Mohammed bin Laden, never officially registered the name.
Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah "Abū 'Abdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الأمير, al-Amīr), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, aš-Šaykh), the "Jihadist Sheik" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, Šaykh al-Mujāhid), "Hajj" (حج, Ḥajj), and the "Director". The word usāmah (أسامة) means "lion", earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".
Early life and education
Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Yemeni Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Syrian Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957. Despite it being generally accepted that bin Laden was born in Riyadh, his birthplace was listed as Jeddah in the initial FBI and Interpol documents.
Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the elite Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Bin Laden attended an English-language course in Oxford, England during 1971. One source described him as "hard working"; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and association football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the English club Arsenal.
Personal life
At age 17 in 1974, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria; but they were later separated and she left Afghanistan on September 9, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s); Khairiah Sabar (married 1985); Siham Sabar (married 1987); and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony. Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives. Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and , Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movements.
Nasser al-Bahri, who was bin Laden's personal bodyguard from 1997 to 2001, details bin Laden's personal life in his memoir. He describes him as a frugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert.
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot Jim Harrington misjudged a landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas, in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between and in height and weighing about , although the author Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, writes that a number of bin Laden's close friends confirmed that reports of his height were greatly exaggerated, and that bin Laden was actually "just over tall". Eventually, after his death, he was measured to be roughly . Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white keffiyeh. Bin Laden had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male keffiyeh and instead wore the traditional Yemeni male keffiyeh. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.
Beliefs and ideology
A major component of bin Laden's ideology was the concept that civilians from enemy countries, including women and children, were legitimate targets for jihadists to kill. According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that US foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East. As such, the threat to US national security arises not from al-Qaeda being offended by what America is but rather by what America does, or in the words of Scheuer, "They (al-Qaeda) hate us (Americans) for what we do, not who we are." Nonetheless, bin Laden criticized the US for its secular form of governance, calling upon Americans to convert to Islam and reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury, in a letter published in late 2002.
Bin Laden believed that the Islamic world was in crisis and that the complete restoration of Sharia law would be the only way to set things right in the Muslim world. He opposed such alternatives as secular government, as well as pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, and democracy. He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology.
These beliefs, in conjunction with violent jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states. He also called for the elimination of Israel, and called upon the United States to withdraw all of its civilians and military personnel from the Middle East, as well as from every Islamic country of the world.
His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars, journalists from The New York Times, the BBC, and Qatari news station Al Jazeera, analysts such as Peter Bergen, Michael Scheuer, Marc Sageman, and Bruce Hoffman. He was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.
In 1997, he condemned the United States for its hypocrisy in not labeling the bombing of Hiroshima as terrorism. In November 2001, he maintained that the revenge killing of Americans was justified because he claimed that Islamic law allows believers to attack invaders even when the enemy uses human shields. However, according to Rodenbeck, "this classical position was originally intended as a legal justification for the accidental killings of civilians under very limited circumstances — not as a basis for the intentional targeting of noncombatants." A few months later in a 2002 letter, he made no mention of this justification but claimed "that since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for its government's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets."
Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and United States was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry. Al-Qaeda manuals express this strategy. In a 2004 tape broadcast by Al Jazeera, bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy".
A number of errors and inconsistencies in bin Laden's arguments have been alleged by authors such as Max Rodenbeck and Noah Feldman. He invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence of Western political system—American law being "the law of the rich and wealthy"—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions and so can be lawfully punished by death. He denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable. Rodenbeck states, "Evidently, [bin Laden] has never heard theological justifications for democracy, based on the notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God."
Bin Laden was heavily anti-Semitic, stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions. In a December 1998 interview with Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden stated that Operation Desert Fox was proof that Israeli Jews controlled the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could. In a letter released in late 2002, he stated that Jews controlled the civilian media outlets, politics, and economic institutions of the United States. In a May 1998 interview with ABC's John Miller, bin Laden stated that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a "Greater Israel". He stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along and that war was "inevitable" between them, and further accused the US of stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment. He claimed that the US State Department and US Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving the Israeli state's goals. He often delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Shia Muslims have been listed along with heretics, America, and Israel as the four principal enemies of Islam at ideology classes of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.
Bin Laden was opposed to music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants on the one hand, but rejected chilled water on the other.
Bin Laden also believed climate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with President Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny".
Militant and political career
Mujahideen in Afghanistan
After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan, joined Abdullah Azzam and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen resistance in the Soviet–Afghan War. He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan." From 1979 to 1992, the United States (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan, specifically Operation Cyclone), Saudi Arabia, and China provided between $6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). British journalist Jason Burke wrote that "He did not receive any direct funding or training from the US during the 1980s. Nor did his followers. The Afghan mujahideen, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, received large amounts of both. Some bled to the Arabs fighting the Soviets but nothing significant." Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI. According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, bin Laden acted as a liaison between the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords, but no evidence of contact between the CIA and Bin Laden exists in the CIA archives. Steve Coll states that although bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." Bin Laden's first trainer was U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed.
By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat, which funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own Arab soldiers. From this base, bin Laden participated in some combat activity against the Soviets, such as the Battle of Jaji in 1987. Despite its little strategic significance, the battle was lionized in the mainstream Arab press. It was during this time that he became idolised by many Arabs.
1988 Gilgit massacre
In May 1988, responding to rumours of a massacre of Sunnis by Shias, large numbers of Shias from in and around Gilgit, Pakistan were killed in a massacre. Shia civilians were also subjected to rape.
The massacre is alleged by B. Raman, a founder of India's Research and Analysis Wing, to have been in response to a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit during the rule of military dictator Zia-ul Haq. He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.
Formation and structuring of al-Qaeda
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force. Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.
According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because its existence was still a closely held secret. His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.
Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad. Along with his Arab legion, he was thought to have brought down the mighty superpower of the Soviet Union. After his return to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden engaged in opposition movements to the Saudi monarchy while working for his family business. He offered to send al-Qaeda to overthrow the Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party government in South Yemen but was rebuffed by Prince Turki bin Faisal. He then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd. He was also angered by the internecine tribal fighting among the Afghans. However, he continued working with the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI. He funded the 1990 Afghan coup d'état attempt and also lobbied the Parliament of Pakistan to carry out an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on August 2, 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the royal family at risk. With Iraqi forces on the Saudi border, Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism was potentially inciting internal dissent. One week after King Fahd agreed to U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's offer of American military assistance, Bin Laden met with King Fahd and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the United States and others and offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion. When Sultan asked how bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam used Iraqi chemical and biological weapons against them he replied "We will fight him with faith." Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi territory.
Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. forces, arguing that the Quran prohibited non-Muslims from setting foot in the Arabian Peninsula and that two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the prophet Muhammad received and recited Allah's message, should only be defended by Muslims. Bin Laden tried to convince the Saudi ulama to issue a fatwa condemning the American military deployment but senior clerics refused out of fear of repression. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to try to silence him. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in the north-eastern Saudi city of Dhahran and was deployed in the desert barely 400 miles from Medina.
Meanwhile, on November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed. They discovered copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked the earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries. Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and later admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on November 5, 1990.
Move to Sudan
In 1991, bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia by its government after repeatedly criticizing the Saudi alliance with the United States. He and his followers moved first to Afghanistan and then relocated to Sudan by 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed. Bin Laden's personal security detail consisted of bodyguards personally selected by him. Their arsenal included SA-7, Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs, and PK machine guns. Meanwhile, in March–April 1992, bin Laden tried to play a pacifying role in the escalating civil war in Afghanistan, by urging warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to join the other mujahideen leaders negotiating a coalition government instead of trying to conquer Kabul for himself.
US intelligence monitored bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house and signals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves.
Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile. During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in agriculture and businesses. He was the Sudan agent for the British firm Hunting Surveys, and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union. He was generous to the poor and popular with the people. He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In response, in 1994 Fahd stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his family to cut off his $7 million a year stipend.
By that time, bin Laden was being linked with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and Sudan expelled the EIJ.
The US State Department accused Sudan of being a sponsor of international terrorism and bin Laden of operating terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. However, according to Sudan officials, this stance became obsolete as the Islamist political leader Hassan al-Turabi lost influence in their country. The Sudanese wanted to engage with the US but American officials refused to meet with them even after they had expelled bin Laden. It was not until 2000 that the State Department authorized US intelligence officials to visit Sudan.
The 9/11 Commission Report states:
In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against bin Laden in any country.
The 9/11 Commission Report further states:
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, and paid for by the CIA.
Due to the increasing pressure on Sudan from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden was permitted to leave for a country of his choice. He chose to return to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight on May 18, 1996; there he forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar. According to the 9/11 Commission, the expulsion from Sudan significantly weakened bin Laden and his organization. Some African intelligence sources have argued that the expulsion left bin Laden without an option other than becoming a full-time radical, and that most of the 300 Afghan Arabs who left with him subsequently became terrorists. Various sources report that bin Laden lost between $20 million and $300 million in Sudan; the government seized his construction equipment, and bin Laden was forced to liquidate his businesses, land, and even his horses.
1996 Declaration of war and 1998 fatwa
In August 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. Despite the assurance of President George H. W. Bush to King Fahd in 1990, that all US forces based in Saudi Arabia would be withdrawn once the Iraqi threat had been dealt with, by 1996 the Americans were still there. Bush cited the necessity of dealing with the remnants of Saddam's regime (which Bush had chosen not to destroy). Bin Laden's view was that "the 'evils' of the Middle East arose from America's attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into an American colony".
In 1998 he issued a fatwā against the United States, which was first published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper. It was entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam. The reference to occupation in the fatwā referred to US forces based in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq, known as Operation Southern Watch.
In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from donors from the days of the Soviet jihad, and from the Pakistani ISI to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters. Bin Laden effectively took over Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash, and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, as well as provided false identifications to members of bin Laden's terrorist network. The arms smuggler Viktor Bout helped to run the airline, maintaining planes and loading cargo. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, concluded that Ariana was being used as a terrorist taxi service.
Early attacks and aid for attacks
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.
After this bombing, al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going to Jannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims and to Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s, bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded. The war that followed caused the deaths of 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with the Islamist surrender to the government. In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of its Counterterrorism Center (CTC) called Bin Laden Issue Station, code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against Bin Laden's activities. Bin Laden Issue Station was headed by Michael Scheuer, a veteran of the Islamic Extremism Branch of the CTC.
Late 1990s attacks
It has been claimed that bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians, and outraged the Egyptian public. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his Najim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.
Another successful attack was carried out in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundred Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.
In February 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip. At the public announcement, fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets". He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. The 1998 US embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the attention of the United States public for the first time. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the bombings.
In retaliation for the embassy bombings, President Bill Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on bin Laden-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998. In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the United States of America, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft. On June 7, 1999, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation placed bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000, which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, tourists at Mount Nebo, and a site on the Jordan River, as well as the sinking of the destroyer in Yemen, and an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.
Yugoslav Wars
A former US State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, and asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, had reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an all-mujahedeen unit called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall.
According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canada–United States border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.
A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former Mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived in the area north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites. A second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997 report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.
In 1999, the press reported that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. The Bosnian government denied this information following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.
The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
The head of Albania's State Intelligence Service (SHISH), Fatos Klosi, said that Osama was running a terror network in Albania to take part in the Kosovo War under the guise of a humanitarian organisation and it was reported to have been started in 1994. Claude Kader, who was a member, testified its existence during his trial. By 1998, four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt. The mujahideen fighters were organised by Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to him and Zawihiri.
During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army. He claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe. He claimed that they had informed Richard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the US decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with Osama despite the 1998 United States embassy bombings earlier. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists, which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
September 11 attacks
After his initial denial, in the wake of the attacks, bin Laden announced, "what the United States is tasting today is nothing compared to what we have tasted for decades. Our umma has known this humiliation and contempt for over eighty years. Its sons are killed, its blood is spilled, its holy sites are attacked, and it is not governed according to Allah's command. Despite this, no one cares". In response to the attacks, the United States launched the War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report noted that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient to prosecute the case.
Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack. In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
In the 2004 video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he said he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence in the hijacking of the planes on September 11. According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. ... I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers ... with the raids" (May 23, 2006). In the tapes he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006). Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the US military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the US enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.
Criminal charges
On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on March 10, 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by a grand jury of the United States on June 8, 1998, on a charges of conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent Ziyad Khaleel in the United States. However the Taliban ruled not to extradite Bin Laden on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence published in the indictments and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims.
Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure before the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.
On October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. However, they did offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial in return for the United States ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by President Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable, with Bush responding "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
On June 15, 2011, federal prosecutors of the United States of America officially dropped all criminal charges against Osama bin Laden following his death in May.
Pursuit by the United States
Clinton administration
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (and specifically their elite Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état; in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.
In 2000, before the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as correctly focused on bin Laden, while Robert Oakley criticized their obsession with Osama.
Bush administration
Immediately after the September 11 attacks, US government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million, although the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.
Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the White Mountains (Spin Ghar) in Afghanistan's east, near the Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post, the US government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough US ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.
US and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Obama administration
On October 7, 2008, in the second presidential debate, on foreign policy, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, then President-elect Obama expressed his plans to renew US commitment to finding al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers in an effort to ratchet up the hunt for the terrorist. President Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on bin Laden that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah, replacing it with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaeda and its spawn.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda would not be defeated unless its leader, Osama bin Laden, were captured or killed. Testifying to the US Congress, he said that bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of bin Laden. According to him, killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large.
In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, the White House announced that SEAL Team Six had successfully carried out the operation, killing him in his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
While referring to Osama bin Laden in a CNN film clip on September 17, 2001, then-President George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or alive'". Subsequently, bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods. None were ever definitively proven. After military offensives in Afghanistan failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place. Some of the conflicting reports regarding bin Laden's whereabouts and mistaken claims about his death follow:
On December 11, 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Atiyah instructs Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership. Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are weak and have many of their own problems. The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post.
Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally verified videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival, including in August 2007. Bin Laden claimed sole responsibility for the September 11 attacks and specifically denied any prior knowledge of them by the Taliban or the Afghan people.
In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.
In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author Rohan Gunaratna stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral.
In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee reported that in January or February (2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on December 6, 2009, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
On December 9, 2009, BBC News reported that US Army General Stanley A. McChrystal (Commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010) emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus indicating that the US high command believed that bin Laden was still alive.
On February 2, 2010, Afghan president Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included a discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai's plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden.
On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Sabzevar, in northeastern Iran. On June 9, The Australian's online edition repeated the claim. This report turned out to be false.
On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was alive, well, and living comfortably in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said that the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States.
On March 29, 2012, Pakistani newspaper Dawn acquired a report produced by Pakistani security officials, based on interrogation of his three surviving wives, that detailed his movements while living underground in Pakistan.
In a 2010 letter, bin Laden chastised followers who had reinterpreted al-tatarrus—an Islamic doctrine meant to excuse the unintended killing of non-combatants in unusual circumstances—to justify routine massacres of Muslim civilians, which had turned Muslims against the extremist movement. Of the groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, Bin Laden condemned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for an attack on members of a hostile tribe, declaring that the operation is not justified, as there were casualties of noncombatants. Bin Laden wrote that the tatarrus doctrine needs to be revisited based on the modern-day context and clear boundaries established. He asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties. In Yemen, Bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability or would at least show the people that we are careful in keeping the Muslims safe on the basis of peace. In Somalia, he called attention to the extreme poverty caused by constant warfare, and he advised al-Shabab to pursue economic development. He instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.
Whereabouts just before his death
In April 2011, various US intelligence outlets were able to pinpoint Bin Laden's suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was previously believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found away in a three-story windowless mansion in Abbottabad at . Bin Laden's mansion was located southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy. Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but it was present in images taken in 2005.
Death and aftermath
Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 AM local time (4:00 PM eastern time) by a United States military special operations unit.
The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, reports at the time stated that US forces had taken bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death. Subsequent reporting has called this account into question—citing, for example, the absence of evidence that there was an imam on board the , where the burial was said to have taken place.
Pakistani authorities later demolished the compound in February 2012 to prevent it from becoming a neo-Islamist shrine. In February 2013, Pakistan announced plans to build a ₨265 million PKR ($30 million USD) amusement park in the area, including the property of the former hideout.
In an interview in 2019, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan claimed that Pakistani intelligence led the CIA to Osama bin Laden.
It was widely reported by the press that bin Laden was fatally wounded by Robert J. O'Neill, however, it has also been widely discredited by witnesses, who claim that bin Laden was possibly already dead by the time O'Neill arrived, having been injured by an anonymous SEAL Team Six member referred to under the pseudonym "Red". According to Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, bin Laden was struck by two suppressed shots to the side of the head from around ten feet away after leaning out of his bedroom doorway to survey Bissonnette and a point man, once the Navy SEALs entered the bedroom, his body began convulsing and Bissonnette and another SEAL responded by firing multiple shots into his chest.
Allegations of Pakistan-support protection of bin Laden
Bin Laden was killed within the fortified complex of buildings that were probably built for him, and had reportedly been his home for at least five years. The compound was located less than a mile from Pakistan Military Academy and less than 100 kilometers' drive from Pakistan's capital. While the United States and Pakistan governments both claimed, and later maintained, that no Pakistani officials, including senior military leaders, knew bin Laden's whereabouts or had prior knowledge of the US strike, Carlotta Gall, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, reported that ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. In a 2015 London Review of Books article, investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh asserted—citing US sources—that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Pasha knew of the US mission in advance, and authorized the helicopters delivering the SEALs to enter Pakistani airspace; and that the CIA learned of bin Laden's whereabouts from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who was paid an estimated $25 million for the information. Both stories were denied by US and Pakistani officials.
Mosharraf Zia, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's United States envoy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services could have failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound so close to Islamabad. "Obviously bin Laden did have a support system", he said. "The issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan, or within the society of Pakistan?"
Others argued that bin Laden lived in the compound with a local family, and never used the internet or a mobile phone, which would have made him much easier to locate. Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government baseless speculation. Government officials said that the country's limited resources had been committed to its war against the Pakistan Taliban, and other insurgents who posed an active threat to it, rather than to finding or sheltering bin Laden. Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
See also
Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
The Golden Chain
Islamic extremism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic terrorism
Islamism
List of assassinations by the United States
Osama bin Laden in popular culture
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism
Tere Bin Laden
War on terror
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (2006) – Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004
External links
Osama bin Laden collected news and commentary at Dawn
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America', The Observer, November 24, 2002
Hunting Bin Laden, PBS Frontline, (November 2002)
"5 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Osama bin Laden", Dainik Bhaskar, (May 2016)
Young Osama, Steve Coll, The New Yorker, December 12, 2005
How the World Sees Osama bin Laden, slideshow by Life
The Osama bin Laden File from the National Security Archive, posted May 2, 2011
Letters from Abbottabad from Combating Terrorism Center
FBI Records: The Vault - Osama Bin Laden
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War on terror | true | [
"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",
"The following lists events that happened during 1959 in Ruanda-Urundi.\n\nEvents\n\nNovember\n November 1 – Violence between the Hutu and Tutsi people was triggered by an attack upon Hutu activist Dominique Mbonyumutwa. Over the next two weeks 300 people, mostly Tutsi, were killed, in what was known as the wind of destruction.\n\nReferences\n\n \n1950s in Ruanda-Urundi\nYears of the 20th century in Ruanda-Urundi\nRuanda-Urundi\nRuanda-Urundi"
]
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[
"Osama bin Laden",
"Bush administration",
"When did the Bush administration learn about him?",
"Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects",
"How did they conclude he was involved?",
"I don't know.",
"what was did the bush administration do about him?",
"offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death.",
"Did he ever get captured?",
"I don't know.",
"what was the administrations role in the events that happened?",
"the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005."
]
| C_b5267abce9974ff5b5cd078779e1c660_0 | What happened after the special operations were shut down? | 6 | What happened after the bush administrations' special operations were shut down? | Osama bin Laden | Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million though the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri. CANNOTANSWER | U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007. | Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian terrorist and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization . The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries. Under bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States, and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.
He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. Bin Ladens father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until US pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings.
Bin Laden is most well known for his role in masterminding the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and prompted the United States, on the orders of President George W. Bush, to initiate the "War on Terror" and the subsequent War in Afghanistan. He subsequently became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the United States, as the FBI offered a $25 million bounty in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALs inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan. The covert operation was conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of President Barack Obama.
Name
There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English; however, bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other US governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of bin is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions, articles, and patronymics uncapitalized in surnames; the nasab bin means "son of". The spellings with o and e come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.
Osama bin Laden's full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". "Mohammed" refers to bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden; "Awad" refers to his grandfather, Awad bin Aboud bin Laden, a Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" refers not to bin Laden's great-grandfather, who was named Aboud, but to Aboud's father, Laden Ali al-Qahtani.
The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father, Mohammed bin Laden, never officially registered the name.
Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah "Abū 'Abdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الأمير, al-Amīr), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, aš-Šaykh), the "Jihadist Sheik" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, Šaykh al-Mujāhid), "Hajj" (حج, Ḥajj), and the "Director". The word usāmah (أسامة) means "lion", earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".
Early life and education
Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Yemeni Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Syrian Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957. Despite it being generally accepted that bin Laden was born in Riyadh, his birthplace was listed as Jeddah in the initial FBI and Interpol documents.
Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the elite Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Bin Laden attended an English-language course in Oxford, England during 1971. One source described him as "hard working"; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and association football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the English club Arsenal.
Personal life
At age 17 in 1974, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria; but they were later separated and she left Afghanistan on September 9, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s); Khairiah Sabar (married 1985); Siham Sabar (married 1987); and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony. Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives. Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and , Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movements.
Nasser al-Bahri, who was bin Laden's personal bodyguard from 1997 to 2001, details bin Laden's personal life in his memoir. He describes him as a frugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert.
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot Jim Harrington misjudged a landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas, in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between and in height and weighing about , although the author Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, writes that a number of bin Laden's close friends confirmed that reports of his height were greatly exaggerated, and that bin Laden was actually "just over tall". Eventually, after his death, he was measured to be roughly . Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white keffiyeh. Bin Laden had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male keffiyeh and instead wore the traditional Yemeni male keffiyeh. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.
Beliefs and ideology
A major component of bin Laden's ideology was the concept that civilians from enemy countries, including women and children, were legitimate targets for jihadists to kill. According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that US foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East. As such, the threat to US national security arises not from al-Qaeda being offended by what America is but rather by what America does, or in the words of Scheuer, "They (al-Qaeda) hate us (Americans) for what we do, not who we are." Nonetheless, bin Laden criticized the US for its secular form of governance, calling upon Americans to convert to Islam and reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury, in a letter published in late 2002.
Bin Laden believed that the Islamic world was in crisis and that the complete restoration of Sharia law would be the only way to set things right in the Muslim world. He opposed such alternatives as secular government, as well as pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, and democracy. He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology.
These beliefs, in conjunction with violent jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states. He also called for the elimination of Israel, and called upon the United States to withdraw all of its civilians and military personnel from the Middle East, as well as from every Islamic country of the world.
His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars, journalists from The New York Times, the BBC, and Qatari news station Al Jazeera, analysts such as Peter Bergen, Michael Scheuer, Marc Sageman, and Bruce Hoffman. He was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.
In 1997, he condemned the United States for its hypocrisy in not labeling the bombing of Hiroshima as terrorism. In November 2001, he maintained that the revenge killing of Americans was justified because he claimed that Islamic law allows believers to attack invaders even when the enemy uses human shields. However, according to Rodenbeck, "this classical position was originally intended as a legal justification for the accidental killings of civilians under very limited circumstances — not as a basis for the intentional targeting of noncombatants." A few months later in a 2002 letter, he made no mention of this justification but claimed "that since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for its government's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets."
Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and United States was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry. Al-Qaeda manuals express this strategy. In a 2004 tape broadcast by Al Jazeera, bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy".
A number of errors and inconsistencies in bin Laden's arguments have been alleged by authors such as Max Rodenbeck and Noah Feldman. He invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence of Western political system—American law being "the law of the rich and wealthy"—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions and so can be lawfully punished by death. He denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable. Rodenbeck states, "Evidently, [bin Laden] has never heard theological justifications for democracy, based on the notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God."
Bin Laden was heavily anti-Semitic, stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions. In a December 1998 interview with Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden stated that Operation Desert Fox was proof that Israeli Jews controlled the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could. In a letter released in late 2002, he stated that Jews controlled the civilian media outlets, politics, and economic institutions of the United States. In a May 1998 interview with ABC's John Miller, bin Laden stated that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a "Greater Israel". He stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along and that war was "inevitable" between them, and further accused the US of stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment. He claimed that the US State Department and US Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving the Israeli state's goals. He often delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Shia Muslims have been listed along with heretics, America, and Israel as the four principal enemies of Islam at ideology classes of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.
Bin Laden was opposed to music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants on the one hand, but rejected chilled water on the other.
Bin Laden also believed climate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with President Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny".
Militant and political career
Mujahideen in Afghanistan
After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan, joined Abdullah Azzam and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen resistance in the Soviet–Afghan War. He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan." From 1979 to 1992, the United States (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan, specifically Operation Cyclone), Saudi Arabia, and China provided between $6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). British journalist Jason Burke wrote that "He did not receive any direct funding or training from the US during the 1980s. Nor did his followers. The Afghan mujahideen, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, received large amounts of both. Some bled to the Arabs fighting the Soviets but nothing significant." Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI. According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, bin Laden acted as a liaison between the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords, but no evidence of contact between the CIA and Bin Laden exists in the CIA archives. Steve Coll states that although bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." Bin Laden's first trainer was U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed.
By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat, which funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own Arab soldiers. From this base, bin Laden participated in some combat activity against the Soviets, such as the Battle of Jaji in 1987. Despite its little strategic significance, the battle was lionized in the mainstream Arab press. It was during this time that he became idolised by many Arabs.
1988 Gilgit massacre
In May 1988, responding to rumours of a massacre of Sunnis by Shias, large numbers of Shias from in and around Gilgit, Pakistan were killed in a massacre. Shia civilians were also subjected to rape.
The massacre is alleged by B. Raman, a founder of India's Research and Analysis Wing, to have been in response to a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit during the rule of military dictator Zia-ul Haq. He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.
Formation and structuring of al-Qaeda
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force. Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.
According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because its existence was still a closely held secret. His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.
Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad. Along with his Arab legion, he was thought to have brought down the mighty superpower of the Soviet Union. After his return to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden engaged in opposition movements to the Saudi monarchy while working for his family business. He offered to send al-Qaeda to overthrow the Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party government in South Yemen but was rebuffed by Prince Turki bin Faisal. He then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd. He was also angered by the internecine tribal fighting among the Afghans. However, he continued working with the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI. He funded the 1990 Afghan coup d'état attempt and also lobbied the Parliament of Pakistan to carry out an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on August 2, 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the royal family at risk. With Iraqi forces on the Saudi border, Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism was potentially inciting internal dissent. One week after King Fahd agreed to U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's offer of American military assistance, Bin Laden met with King Fahd and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the United States and others and offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion. When Sultan asked how bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam used Iraqi chemical and biological weapons against them he replied "We will fight him with faith." Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi territory.
Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. forces, arguing that the Quran prohibited non-Muslims from setting foot in the Arabian Peninsula and that two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the prophet Muhammad received and recited Allah's message, should only be defended by Muslims. Bin Laden tried to convince the Saudi ulama to issue a fatwa condemning the American military deployment but senior clerics refused out of fear of repression. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to try to silence him. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in the north-eastern Saudi city of Dhahran and was deployed in the desert barely 400 miles from Medina.
Meanwhile, on November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed. They discovered copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked the earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries. Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and later admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on November 5, 1990.
Move to Sudan
In 1991, bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia by its government after repeatedly criticizing the Saudi alliance with the United States. He and his followers moved first to Afghanistan and then relocated to Sudan by 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed. Bin Laden's personal security detail consisted of bodyguards personally selected by him. Their arsenal included SA-7, Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs, and PK machine guns. Meanwhile, in March–April 1992, bin Laden tried to play a pacifying role in the escalating civil war in Afghanistan, by urging warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to join the other mujahideen leaders negotiating a coalition government instead of trying to conquer Kabul for himself.
US intelligence monitored bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house and signals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves.
Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile. During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in agriculture and businesses. He was the Sudan agent for the British firm Hunting Surveys, and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union. He was generous to the poor and popular with the people. He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In response, in 1994 Fahd stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his family to cut off his $7 million a year stipend.
By that time, bin Laden was being linked with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and Sudan expelled the EIJ.
The US State Department accused Sudan of being a sponsor of international terrorism and bin Laden of operating terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. However, according to Sudan officials, this stance became obsolete as the Islamist political leader Hassan al-Turabi lost influence in their country. The Sudanese wanted to engage with the US but American officials refused to meet with them even after they had expelled bin Laden. It was not until 2000 that the State Department authorized US intelligence officials to visit Sudan.
The 9/11 Commission Report states:
In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against bin Laden in any country.
The 9/11 Commission Report further states:
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, and paid for by the CIA.
Due to the increasing pressure on Sudan from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden was permitted to leave for a country of his choice. He chose to return to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight on May 18, 1996; there he forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar. According to the 9/11 Commission, the expulsion from Sudan significantly weakened bin Laden and his organization. Some African intelligence sources have argued that the expulsion left bin Laden without an option other than becoming a full-time radical, and that most of the 300 Afghan Arabs who left with him subsequently became terrorists. Various sources report that bin Laden lost between $20 million and $300 million in Sudan; the government seized his construction equipment, and bin Laden was forced to liquidate his businesses, land, and even his horses.
1996 Declaration of war and 1998 fatwa
In August 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. Despite the assurance of President George H. W. Bush to King Fahd in 1990, that all US forces based in Saudi Arabia would be withdrawn once the Iraqi threat had been dealt with, by 1996 the Americans were still there. Bush cited the necessity of dealing with the remnants of Saddam's regime (which Bush had chosen not to destroy). Bin Laden's view was that "the 'evils' of the Middle East arose from America's attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into an American colony".
In 1998 he issued a fatwā against the United States, which was first published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper. It was entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam. The reference to occupation in the fatwā referred to US forces based in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq, known as Operation Southern Watch.
In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from donors from the days of the Soviet jihad, and from the Pakistani ISI to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters. Bin Laden effectively took over Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash, and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, as well as provided false identifications to members of bin Laden's terrorist network. The arms smuggler Viktor Bout helped to run the airline, maintaining planes and loading cargo. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, concluded that Ariana was being used as a terrorist taxi service.
Early attacks and aid for attacks
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.
After this bombing, al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going to Jannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims and to Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s, bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded. The war that followed caused the deaths of 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with the Islamist surrender to the government. In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of its Counterterrorism Center (CTC) called Bin Laden Issue Station, code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against Bin Laden's activities. Bin Laden Issue Station was headed by Michael Scheuer, a veteran of the Islamic Extremism Branch of the CTC.
Late 1990s attacks
It has been claimed that bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians, and outraged the Egyptian public. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his Najim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.
Another successful attack was carried out in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundred Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.
In February 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip. At the public announcement, fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets". He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. The 1998 US embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the attention of the United States public for the first time. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the bombings.
In retaliation for the embassy bombings, President Bill Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on bin Laden-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998. In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the United States of America, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft. On June 7, 1999, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation placed bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000, which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, tourists at Mount Nebo, and a site on the Jordan River, as well as the sinking of the destroyer in Yemen, and an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.
Yugoslav Wars
A former US State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, and asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, had reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an all-mujahedeen unit called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall.
According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canada–United States border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.
A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former Mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived in the area north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites. A second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997 report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.
In 1999, the press reported that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. The Bosnian government denied this information following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.
The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
The head of Albania's State Intelligence Service (SHISH), Fatos Klosi, said that Osama was running a terror network in Albania to take part in the Kosovo War under the guise of a humanitarian organisation and it was reported to have been started in 1994. Claude Kader, who was a member, testified its existence during his trial. By 1998, four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt. The mujahideen fighters were organised by Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to him and Zawihiri.
During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army. He claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe. He claimed that they had informed Richard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the US decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with Osama despite the 1998 United States embassy bombings earlier. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists, which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
September 11 attacks
After his initial denial, in the wake of the attacks, bin Laden announced, "what the United States is tasting today is nothing compared to what we have tasted for decades. Our umma has known this humiliation and contempt for over eighty years. Its sons are killed, its blood is spilled, its holy sites are attacked, and it is not governed according to Allah's command. Despite this, no one cares". In response to the attacks, the United States launched the War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report noted that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient to prosecute the case.
Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack. In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
In the 2004 video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he said he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence in the hijacking of the planes on September 11. According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. ... I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers ... with the raids" (May 23, 2006). In the tapes he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006). Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the US military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the US enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.
Criminal charges
On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on March 10, 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by a grand jury of the United States on June 8, 1998, on a charges of conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent Ziyad Khaleel in the United States. However the Taliban ruled not to extradite Bin Laden on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence published in the indictments and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims.
Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure before the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.
On October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. However, they did offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial in return for the United States ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by President Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable, with Bush responding "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
On June 15, 2011, federal prosecutors of the United States of America officially dropped all criminal charges against Osama bin Laden following his death in May.
Pursuit by the United States
Clinton administration
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (and specifically their elite Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état; in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.
In 2000, before the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as correctly focused on bin Laden, while Robert Oakley criticized their obsession with Osama.
Bush administration
Immediately after the September 11 attacks, US government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million, although the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.
Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the White Mountains (Spin Ghar) in Afghanistan's east, near the Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post, the US government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough US ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.
US and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Obama administration
On October 7, 2008, in the second presidential debate, on foreign policy, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, then President-elect Obama expressed his plans to renew US commitment to finding al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers in an effort to ratchet up the hunt for the terrorist. President Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on bin Laden that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah, replacing it with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaeda and its spawn.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda would not be defeated unless its leader, Osama bin Laden, were captured or killed. Testifying to the US Congress, he said that bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of bin Laden. According to him, killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large.
In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, the White House announced that SEAL Team Six had successfully carried out the operation, killing him in his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
While referring to Osama bin Laden in a CNN film clip on September 17, 2001, then-President George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or alive'". Subsequently, bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods. None were ever definitively proven. After military offensives in Afghanistan failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place. Some of the conflicting reports regarding bin Laden's whereabouts and mistaken claims about his death follow:
On December 11, 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Atiyah instructs Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership. Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are weak and have many of their own problems. The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post.
Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally verified videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival, including in August 2007. Bin Laden claimed sole responsibility for the September 11 attacks and specifically denied any prior knowledge of them by the Taliban or the Afghan people.
In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.
In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author Rohan Gunaratna stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral.
In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee reported that in January or February (2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on December 6, 2009, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
On December 9, 2009, BBC News reported that US Army General Stanley A. McChrystal (Commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010) emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus indicating that the US high command believed that bin Laden was still alive.
On February 2, 2010, Afghan president Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included a discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai's plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden.
On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Sabzevar, in northeastern Iran. On June 9, The Australian's online edition repeated the claim. This report turned out to be false.
On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was alive, well, and living comfortably in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said that the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States.
On March 29, 2012, Pakistani newspaper Dawn acquired a report produced by Pakistani security officials, based on interrogation of his three surviving wives, that detailed his movements while living underground in Pakistan.
In a 2010 letter, bin Laden chastised followers who had reinterpreted al-tatarrus—an Islamic doctrine meant to excuse the unintended killing of non-combatants in unusual circumstances—to justify routine massacres of Muslim civilians, which had turned Muslims against the extremist movement. Of the groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, Bin Laden condemned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for an attack on members of a hostile tribe, declaring that the operation is not justified, as there were casualties of noncombatants. Bin Laden wrote that the tatarrus doctrine needs to be revisited based on the modern-day context and clear boundaries established. He asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties. In Yemen, Bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability or would at least show the people that we are careful in keeping the Muslims safe on the basis of peace. In Somalia, he called attention to the extreme poverty caused by constant warfare, and he advised al-Shabab to pursue economic development. He instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.
Whereabouts just before his death
In April 2011, various US intelligence outlets were able to pinpoint Bin Laden's suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was previously believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found away in a three-story windowless mansion in Abbottabad at . Bin Laden's mansion was located southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy. Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but it was present in images taken in 2005.
Death and aftermath
Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 AM local time (4:00 PM eastern time) by a United States military special operations unit.
The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, reports at the time stated that US forces had taken bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death. Subsequent reporting has called this account into question—citing, for example, the absence of evidence that there was an imam on board the , where the burial was said to have taken place.
Pakistani authorities later demolished the compound in February 2012 to prevent it from becoming a neo-Islamist shrine. In February 2013, Pakistan announced plans to build a ₨265 million PKR ($30 million USD) amusement park in the area, including the property of the former hideout.
In an interview in 2019, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan claimed that Pakistani intelligence led the CIA to Osama bin Laden.
It was widely reported by the press that bin Laden was fatally wounded by Robert J. O'Neill, however, it has also been widely discredited by witnesses, who claim that bin Laden was possibly already dead by the time O'Neill arrived, having been injured by an anonymous SEAL Team Six member referred to under the pseudonym "Red". According to Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, bin Laden was struck by two suppressed shots to the side of the head from around ten feet away after leaning out of his bedroom doorway to survey Bissonnette and a point man, once the Navy SEALs entered the bedroom, his body began convulsing and Bissonnette and another SEAL responded by firing multiple shots into his chest.
Allegations of Pakistan-support protection of bin Laden
Bin Laden was killed within the fortified complex of buildings that were probably built for him, and had reportedly been his home for at least five years. The compound was located less than a mile from Pakistan Military Academy and less than 100 kilometers' drive from Pakistan's capital. While the United States and Pakistan governments both claimed, and later maintained, that no Pakistani officials, including senior military leaders, knew bin Laden's whereabouts or had prior knowledge of the US strike, Carlotta Gall, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, reported that ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. In a 2015 London Review of Books article, investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh asserted—citing US sources—that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Pasha knew of the US mission in advance, and authorized the helicopters delivering the SEALs to enter Pakistani airspace; and that the CIA learned of bin Laden's whereabouts from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who was paid an estimated $25 million for the information. Both stories were denied by US and Pakistani officials.
Mosharraf Zia, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's United States envoy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services could have failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound so close to Islamabad. "Obviously bin Laden did have a support system", he said. "The issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan, or within the society of Pakistan?"
Others argued that bin Laden lived in the compound with a local family, and never used the internet or a mobile phone, which would have made him much easier to locate. Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government baseless speculation. Government officials said that the country's limited resources had been committed to its war against the Pakistan Taliban, and other insurgents who posed an active threat to it, rather than to finding or sheltering bin Laden. Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
See also
Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
The Golden Chain
Islamic extremism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic terrorism
Islamism
List of assassinations by the United States
Osama bin Laden in popular culture
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism
Tere Bin Laden
War on terror
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (2006) – Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004
External links
Osama bin Laden collected news and commentary at Dawn
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America', The Observer, November 24, 2002
Hunting Bin Laden, PBS Frontline, (November 2002)
"5 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Osama bin Laden", Dainik Bhaskar, (May 2016)
Young Osama, Steve Coll, The New Yorker, December 12, 2005
How the World Sees Osama bin Laden, slideshow by Life
The Osama bin Laden File from the National Security Archive, posted May 2, 2011
Letters from Abbottabad from Combating Terrorism Center
FBI Records: The Vault - Osama Bin Laden
1957 births
2011 deaths
20th-century criminals
20th-century Muslims
21st-century criminals
21st-century Muslims
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam
Afghanistan conflict (1978–present)
Al-Qaeda founders
Al-Qaeda propagandists
Anti-Americanism
Anti-imperialism in Africa
Anti-imperialism in Asia
Antisemitism in Africa
Antisemitism in Asia
Antisemitism in Saudi Arabia
Anti-Zionism in the Arab world
Assassinated al-Qaeda leaders
Assassinations by the United States
Assassinations in Pakistan
Atharis
Osama bin Laden
Burials at sea
Civil engineers
Deaths by firearm in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Extrajudicial killings
FBI Most Wanted Terrorists
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
Fugitives
Individuals designated as terrorists by the United States government
Islamist mass murderers
Leaders of Islamic terror groups
Mujahideen members of the Soviet–Afghan War
People associated with the September 11 attacks
People designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee
People from Riyadh
People of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
Saudi Arabian al-Qaeda members
Saudi Arabian anti-communists
Saudi Arabian criminals
Saudi Arabian emigrants to Pakistan
Saudi Arabian expatriates in Afghanistan
Saudi Arabian expatriates in Sudan
Saudi Arabian mass murderers
Saudi Arabian people of Syrian descent
Saudi Arabian people of Yemeni descent
Saudi Arabian poets
Saudi Arabian propagandists
Saudi Arabian Salafis
Saudi Arabian Wahhabists
War on terror | false | [
"The Fraser Commando School (FCS) was the main Services Reconnaissance Department training facility after training operations were transferred from the Z Experimental Station in October 1943.\n\nThe FCS was located on Fraser Island in Southeast Queensland, near to the McKenzies Jetty, 1.6 km south of what is now the Kingfisher Bay Resort. The site was selected due to its seclusion and sparse habitation. At the time of the establishment of the FCS, Fraser Island was virtually uninhabited apart from a small Forestry establishment at Central Station and a Royal Australian Air Force Radar Station at Sandy Cape, on the northern tip of the island. Fraser Island also has rainforest areas which were utilised for jungle warfare training and a series of freshwater lakes. The largest of these, Lake McKenzie, was used for parachute water jump training by night and day.\n\nThe FCS was used by over 900 army personnel and was preparing soldiers for their deadly missions behind the Japanese front lines in the jungles of south-east Asia. The soldiers were trained to lay explosives underneath several enemy canoes, eventually blowing up the Japanese forces.\n\nFCS was the basic Special Operations training facility for the Services Reconnaissance Department, Far Eastern Liaison Office and also hosted students from the Philippines Regional Section. Students received instruction in weapons, demolitions, advanced parachuting, water operations using folboats and rubber boats, as well as extensive signals, physical fitness, ships and plane recognition, and unarmed combat training.\n\nMajor H.A. Campbell, one of the architects of Operation Jaywick was in command of the FCS until January 1944, when he was succeeded by Lt. Davidson RNVR, Major L. McGuinn and later, Major S.R. Leach.\n\nOperations at the FCS ceased in December 1945 and the training camp was shut down in early 1946. Later in the 1960s builders and woodworkers used the site to construct building. The reminisce of the training camp is spare and the debris of concrete slabs and pipes are prohibited to touch for tourist.\n\nReferences \n Official History of Special Operations Australia Volume 1 - Organisation (Copy 1)\n\nSpecial forces of Australia\nFraser Island",
"Flughafensee is a lake near Tegel Airport in the borough of Reinickendorf in Berlin, Germany. Its surface area is . It was formed by gravel quarrying operations in the period after the second world war. After operations were shut down in 1978, it was gradually taken over by the local population as a recreational lake with beaches and an angling club. The lake is surrounded by woodland, part of the Jungfernheide area.\n\nReferences\n\nLakes of Berlin\nReinickendorf"
]
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[
"Osama bin Laden",
"Bush administration",
"When did the Bush administration learn about him?",
"Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects",
"How did they conclude he was involved?",
"I don't know.",
"what was did the bush administration do about him?",
"offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death.",
"Did he ever get captured?",
"I don't know.",
"what was the administrations role in the events that happened?",
"the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.",
"What happened after the special operations were shut down?",
"U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007."
]
| C_b5267abce9974ff5b5cd078779e1c660_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 7 | Other than Osama bin Laden, Are there any other interesting aspects about this article on bush's administration? | Osama bin Laden | Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million though the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri. CANNOTANSWER | The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. | Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian terrorist and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization . The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries. Under bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States, and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.
He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. Bin Ladens father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until US pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings.
Bin Laden is most well known for his role in masterminding the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and prompted the United States, on the orders of President George W. Bush, to initiate the "War on Terror" and the subsequent War in Afghanistan. He subsequently became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the United States, as the FBI offered a $25 million bounty in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALs inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan. The covert operation was conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of President Barack Obama.
Name
There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English; however, bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other US governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of bin is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions, articles, and patronymics uncapitalized in surnames; the nasab bin means "son of". The spellings with o and e come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.
Osama bin Laden's full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". "Mohammed" refers to bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden; "Awad" refers to his grandfather, Awad bin Aboud bin Laden, a Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" refers not to bin Laden's great-grandfather, who was named Aboud, but to Aboud's father, Laden Ali al-Qahtani.
The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father, Mohammed bin Laden, never officially registered the name.
Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah "Abū 'Abdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الأمير, al-Amīr), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, aš-Šaykh), the "Jihadist Sheik" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, Šaykh al-Mujāhid), "Hajj" (حج, Ḥajj), and the "Director". The word usāmah (أسامة) means "lion", earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".
Early life and education
Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Yemeni Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Syrian Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957. Despite it being generally accepted that bin Laden was born in Riyadh, his birthplace was listed as Jeddah in the initial FBI and Interpol documents.
Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the elite Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Bin Laden attended an English-language course in Oxford, England during 1971. One source described him as "hard working"; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and association football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the English club Arsenal.
Personal life
At age 17 in 1974, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria; but they were later separated and she left Afghanistan on September 9, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s); Khairiah Sabar (married 1985); Siham Sabar (married 1987); and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony. Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives. Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and , Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movements.
Nasser al-Bahri, who was bin Laden's personal bodyguard from 1997 to 2001, details bin Laden's personal life in his memoir. He describes him as a frugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert.
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot Jim Harrington misjudged a landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas, in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between and in height and weighing about , although the author Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, writes that a number of bin Laden's close friends confirmed that reports of his height were greatly exaggerated, and that bin Laden was actually "just over tall". Eventually, after his death, he was measured to be roughly . Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white keffiyeh. Bin Laden had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male keffiyeh and instead wore the traditional Yemeni male keffiyeh. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.
Beliefs and ideology
A major component of bin Laden's ideology was the concept that civilians from enemy countries, including women and children, were legitimate targets for jihadists to kill. According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that US foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East. As such, the threat to US national security arises not from al-Qaeda being offended by what America is but rather by what America does, or in the words of Scheuer, "They (al-Qaeda) hate us (Americans) for what we do, not who we are." Nonetheless, bin Laden criticized the US for its secular form of governance, calling upon Americans to convert to Islam and reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury, in a letter published in late 2002.
Bin Laden believed that the Islamic world was in crisis and that the complete restoration of Sharia law would be the only way to set things right in the Muslim world. He opposed such alternatives as secular government, as well as pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, and democracy. He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology.
These beliefs, in conjunction with violent jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states. He also called for the elimination of Israel, and called upon the United States to withdraw all of its civilians and military personnel from the Middle East, as well as from every Islamic country of the world.
His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars, journalists from The New York Times, the BBC, and Qatari news station Al Jazeera, analysts such as Peter Bergen, Michael Scheuer, Marc Sageman, and Bruce Hoffman. He was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.
In 1997, he condemned the United States for its hypocrisy in not labeling the bombing of Hiroshima as terrorism. In November 2001, he maintained that the revenge killing of Americans was justified because he claimed that Islamic law allows believers to attack invaders even when the enemy uses human shields. However, according to Rodenbeck, "this classical position was originally intended as a legal justification for the accidental killings of civilians under very limited circumstances — not as a basis for the intentional targeting of noncombatants." A few months later in a 2002 letter, he made no mention of this justification but claimed "that since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for its government's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets."
Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and United States was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry. Al-Qaeda manuals express this strategy. In a 2004 tape broadcast by Al Jazeera, bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy".
A number of errors and inconsistencies in bin Laden's arguments have been alleged by authors such as Max Rodenbeck and Noah Feldman. He invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence of Western political system—American law being "the law of the rich and wealthy"—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions and so can be lawfully punished by death. He denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable. Rodenbeck states, "Evidently, [bin Laden] has never heard theological justifications for democracy, based on the notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God."
Bin Laden was heavily anti-Semitic, stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions. In a December 1998 interview with Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden stated that Operation Desert Fox was proof that Israeli Jews controlled the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could. In a letter released in late 2002, he stated that Jews controlled the civilian media outlets, politics, and economic institutions of the United States. In a May 1998 interview with ABC's John Miller, bin Laden stated that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a "Greater Israel". He stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along and that war was "inevitable" between them, and further accused the US of stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment. He claimed that the US State Department and US Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving the Israeli state's goals. He often delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Shia Muslims have been listed along with heretics, America, and Israel as the four principal enemies of Islam at ideology classes of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.
Bin Laden was opposed to music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants on the one hand, but rejected chilled water on the other.
Bin Laden also believed climate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with President Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny".
Militant and political career
Mujahideen in Afghanistan
After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan, joined Abdullah Azzam and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen resistance in the Soviet–Afghan War. He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan." From 1979 to 1992, the United States (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan, specifically Operation Cyclone), Saudi Arabia, and China provided between $6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). British journalist Jason Burke wrote that "He did not receive any direct funding or training from the US during the 1980s. Nor did his followers. The Afghan mujahideen, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, received large amounts of both. Some bled to the Arabs fighting the Soviets but nothing significant." Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI. According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, bin Laden acted as a liaison between the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords, but no evidence of contact between the CIA and Bin Laden exists in the CIA archives. Steve Coll states that although bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." Bin Laden's first trainer was U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed.
By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat, which funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own Arab soldiers. From this base, bin Laden participated in some combat activity against the Soviets, such as the Battle of Jaji in 1987. Despite its little strategic significance, the battle was lionized in the mainstream Arab press. It was during this time that he became idolised by many Arabs.
1988 Gilgit massacre
In May 1988, responding to rumours of a massacre of Sunnis by Shias, large numbers of Shias from in and around Gilgit, Pakistan were killed in a massacre. Shia civilians were also subjected to rape.
The massacre is alleged by B. Raman, a founder of India's Research and Analysis Wing, to have been in response to a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit during the rule of military dictator Zia-ul Haq. He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.
Formation and structuring of al-Qaeda
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force. Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.
According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because its existence was still a closely held secret. His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.
Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad. Along with his Arab legion, he was thought to have brought down the mighty superpower of the Soviet Union. After his return to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden engaged in opposition movements to the Saudi monarchy while working for his family business. He offered to send al-Qaeda to overthrow the Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party government in South Yemen but was rebuffed by Prince Turki bin Faisal. He then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd. He was also angered by the internecine tribal fighting among the Afghans. However, he continued working with the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI. He funded the 1990 Afghan coup d'état attempt and also lobbied the Parliament of Pakistan to carry out an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on August 2, 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the royal family at risk. With Iraqi forces on the Saudi border, Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism was potentially inciting internal dissent. One week after King Fahd agreed to U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's offer of American military assistance, Bin Laden met with King Fahd and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the United States and others and offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion. When Sultan asked how bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam used Iraqi chemical and biological weapons against them he replied "We will fight him with faith." Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi territory.
Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. forces, arguing that the Quran prohibited non-Muslims from setting foot in the Arabian Peninsula and that two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the prophet Muhammad received and recited Allah's message, should only be defended by Muslims. Bin Laden tried to convince the Saudi ulama to issue a fatwa condemning the American military deployment but senior clerics refused out of fear of repression. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to try to silence him. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in the north-eastern Saudi city of Dhahran and was deployed in the desert barely 400 miles from Medina.
Meanwhile, on November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed. They discovered copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked the earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries. Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and later admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on November 5, 1990.
Move to Sudan
In 1991, bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia by its government after repeatedly criticizing the Saudi alliance with the United States. He and his followers moved first to Afghanistan and then relocated to Sudan by 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed. Bin Laden's personal security detail consisted of bodyguards personally selected by him. Their arsenal included SA-7, Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs, and PK machine guns. Meanwhile, in March–April 1992, bin Laden tried to play a pacifying role in the escalating civil war in Afghanistan, by urging warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to join the other mujahideen leaders negotiating a coalition government instead of trying to conquer Kabul for himself.
US intelligence monitored bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house and signals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves.
Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile. During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in agriculture and businesses. He was the Sudan agent for the British firm Hunting Surveys, and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union. He was generous to the poor and popular with the people. He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In response, in 1994 Fahd stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his family to cut off his $7 million a year stipend.
By that time, bin Laden was being linked with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and Sudan expelled the EIJ.
The US State Department accused Sudan of being a sponsor of international terrorism and bin Laden of operating terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. However, according to Sudan officials, this stance became obsolete as the Islamist political leader Hassan al-Turabi lost influence in their country. The Sudanese wanted to engage with the US but American officials refused to meet with them even after they had expelled bin Laden. It was not until 2000 that the State Department authorized US intelligence officials to visit Sudan.
The 9/11 Commission Report states:
In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against bin Laden in any country.
The 9/11 Commission Report further states:
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, and paid for by the CIA.
Due to the increasing pressure on Sudan from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden was permitted to leave for a country of his choice. He chose to return to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight on May 18, 1996; there he forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar. According to the 9/11 Commission, the expulsion from Sudan significantly weakened bin Laden and his organization. Some African intelligence sources have argued that the expulsion left bin Laden without an option other than becoming a full-time radical, and that most of the 300 Afghan Arabs who left with him subsequently became terrorists. Various sources report that bin Laden lost between $20 million and $300 million in Sudan; the government seized his construction equipment, and bin Laden was forced to liquidate his businesses, land, and even his horses.
1996 Declaration of war and 1998 fatwa
In August 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. Despite the assurance of President George H. W. Bush to King Fahd in 1990, that all US forces based in Saudi Arabia would be withdrawn once the Iraqi threat had been dealt with, by 1996 the Americans were still there. Bush cited the necessity of dealing with the remnants of Saddam's regime (which Bush had chosen not to destroy). Bin Laden's view was that "the 'evils' of the Middle East arose from America's attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into an American colony".
In 1998 he issued a fatwā against the United States, which was first published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper. It was entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam. The reference to occupation in the fatwā referred to US forces based in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq, known as Operation Southern Watch.
In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from donors from the days of the Soviet jihad, and from the Pakistani ISI to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters. Bin Laden effectively took over Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash, and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, as well as provided false identifications to members of bin Laden's terrorist network. The arms smuggler Viktor Bout helped to run the airline, maintaining planes and loading cargo. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, concluded that Ariana was being used as a terrorist taxi service.
Early attacks and aid for attacks
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.
After this bombing, al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going to Jannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims and to Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s, bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded. The war that followed caused the deaths of 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with the Islamist surrender to the government. In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of its Counterterrorism Center (CTC) called Bin Laden Issue Station, code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against Bin Laden's activities. Bin Laden Issue Station was headed by Michael Scheuer, a veteran of the Islamic Extremism Branch of the CTC.
Late 1990s attacks
It has been claimed that bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians, and outraged the Egyptian public. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his Najim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.
Another successful attack was carried out in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundred Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.
In February 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip. At the public announcement, fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets". He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. The 1998 US embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the attention of the United States public for the first time. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the bombings.
In retaliation for the embassy bombings, President Bill Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on bin Laden-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998. In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the United States of America, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft. On June 7, 1999, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation placed bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000, which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, tourists at Mount Nebo, and a site on the Jordan River, as well as the sinking of the destroyer in Yemen, and an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.
Yugoslav Wars
A former US State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, and asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, had reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an all-mujahedeen unit called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall.
According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canada–United States border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.
A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former Mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived in the area north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites. A second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997 report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.
In 1999, the press reported that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. The Bosnian government denied this information following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.
The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
The head of Albania's State Intelligence Service (SHISH), Fatos Klosi, said that Osama was running a terror network in Albania to take part in the Kosovo War under the guise of a humanitarian organisation and it was reported to have been started in 1994. Claude Kader, who was a member, testified its existence during his trial. By 1998, four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt. The mujahideen fighters were organised by Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to him and Zawihiri.
During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army. He claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe. He claimed that they had informed Richard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the US decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with Osama despite the 1998 United States embassy bombings earlier. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists, which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
September 11 attacks
After his initial denial, in the wake of the attacks, bin Laden announced, "what the United States is tasting today is nothing compared to what we have tasted for decades. Our umma has known this humiliation and contempt for over eighty years. Its sons are killed, its blood is spilled, its holy sites are attacked, and it is not governed according to Allah's command. Despite this, no one cares". In response to the attacks, the United States launched the War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report noted that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient to prosecute the case.
Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack. In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
In the 2004 video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he said he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence in the hijacking of the planes on September 11. According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. ... I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers ... with the raids" (May 23, 2006). In the tapes he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006). Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the US military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the US enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.
Criminal charges
On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on March 10, 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by a grand jury of the United States on June 8, 1998, on a charges of conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent Ziyad Khaleel in the United States. However the Taliban ruled not to extradite Bin Laden on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence published in the indictments and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims.
Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure before the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.
On October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. However, they did offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial in return for the United States ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by President Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable, with Bush responding "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
On June 15, 2011, federal prosecutors of the United States of America officially dropped all criminal charges against Osama bin Laden following his death in May.
Pursuit by the United States
Clinton administration
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (and specifically their elite Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état; in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.
In 2000, before the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as correctly focused on bin Laden, while Robert Oakley criticized their obsession with Osama.
Bush administration
Immediately after the September 11 attacks, US government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million, although the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.
Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the White Mountains (Spin Ghar) in Afghanistan's east, near the Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post, the US government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough US ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.
US and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Obama administration
On October 7, 2008, in the second presidential debate, on foreign policy, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, then President-elect Obama expressed his plans to renew US commitment to finding al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers in an effort to ratchet up the hunt for the terrorist. President Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on bin Laden that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah, replacing it with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaeda and its spawn.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda would not be defeated unless its leader, Osama bin Laden, were captured or killed. Testifying to the US Congress, he said that bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of bin Laden. According to him, killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large.
In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, the White House announced that SEAL Team Six had successfully carried out the operation, killing him in his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
While referring to Osama bin Laden in a CNN film clip on September 17, 2001, then-President George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or alive'". Subsequently, bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods. None were ever definitively proven. After military offensives in Afghanistan failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place. Some of the conflicting reports regarding bin Laden's whereabouts and mistaken claims about his death follow:
On December 11, 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Atiyah instructs Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership. Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are weak and have many of their own problems. The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post.
Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally verified videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival, including in August 2007. Bin Laden claimed sole responsibility for the September 11 attacks and specifically denied any prior knowledge of them by the Taliban or the Afghan people.
In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.
In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author Rohan Gunaratna stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral.
In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee reported that in January or February (2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on December 6, 2009, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
On December 9, 2009, BBC News reported that US Army General Stanley A. McChrystal (Commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010) emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus indicating that the US high command believed that bin Laden was still alive.
On February 2, 2010, Afghan president Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included a discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai's plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden.
On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Sabzevar, in northeastern Iran. On June 9, The Australian's online edition repeated the claim. This report turned out to be false.
On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was alive, well, and living comfortably in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said that the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States.
On March 29, 2012, Pakistani newspaper Dawn acquired a report produced by Pakistani security officials, based on interrogation of his three surviving wives, that detailed his movements while living underground in Pakistan.
In a 2010 letter, bin Laden chastised followers who had reinterpreted al-tatarrus—an Islamic doctrine meant to excuse the unintended killing of non-combatants in unusual circumstances—to justify routine massacres of Muslim civilians, which had turned Muslims against the extremist movement. Of the groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, Bin Laden condemned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for an attack on members of a hostile tribe, declaring that the operation is not justified, as there were casualties of noncombatants. Bin Laden wrote that the tatarrus doctrine needs to be revisited based on the modern-day context and clear boundaries established. He asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties. In Yemen, Bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability or would at least show the people that we are careful in keeping the Muslims safe on the basis of peace. In Somalia, he called attention to the extreme poverty caused by constant warfare, and he advised al-Shabab to pursue economic development. He instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.
Whereabouts just before his death
In April 2011, various US intelligence outlets were able to pinpoint Bin Laden's suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was previously believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found away in a three-story windowless mansion in Abbottabad at . Bin Laden's mansion was located southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy. Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but it was present in images taken in 2005.
Death and aftermath
Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 AM local time (4:00 PM eastern time) by a United States military special operations unit.
The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, reports at the time stated that US forces had taken bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death. Subsequent reporting has called this account into question—citing, for example, the absence of evidence that there was an imam on board the , where the burial was said to have taken place.
Pakistani authorities later demolished the compound in February 2012 to prevent it from becoming a neo-Islamist shrine. In February 2013, Pakistan announced plans to build a ₨265 million PKR ($30 million USD) amusement park in the area, including the property of the former hideout.
In an interview in 2019, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan claimed that Pakistani intelligence led the CIA to Osama bin Laden.
It was widely reported by the press that bin Laden was fatally wounded by Robert J. O'Neill, however, it has also been widely discredited by witnesses, who claim that bin Laden was possibly already dead by the time O'Neill arrived, having been injured by an anonymous SEAL Team Six member referred to under the pseudonym "Red". According to Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, bin Laden was struck by two suppressed shots to the side of the head from around ten feet away after leaning out of his bedroom doorway to survey Bissonnette and a point man, once the Navy SEALs entered the bedroom, his body began convulsing and Bissonnette and another SEAL responded by firing multiple shots into his chest.
Allegations of Pakistan-support protection of bin Laden
Bin Laden was killed within the fortified complex of buildings that were probably built for him, and had reportedly been his home for at least five years. The compound was located less than a mile from Pakistan Military Academy and less than 100 kilometers' drive from Pakistan's capital. While the United States and Pakistan governments both claimed, and later maintained, that no Pakistani officials, including senior military leaders, knew bin Laden's whereabouts or had prior knowledge of the US strike, Carlotta Gall, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, reported that ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. In a 2015 London Review of Books article, investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh asserted—citing US sources—that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Pasha knew of the US mission in advance, and authorized the helicopters delivering the SEALs to enter Pakistani airspace; and that the CIA learned of bin Laden's whereabouts from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who was paid an estimated $25 million for the information. Both stories were denied by US and Pakistani officials.
Mosharraf Zia, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's United States envoy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services could have failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound so close to Islamabad. "Obviously bin Laden did have a support system", he said. "The issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan, or within the society of Pakistan?"
Others argued that bin Laden lived in the compound with a local family, and never used the internet or a mobile phone, which would have made him much easier to locate. Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government baseless speculation. Government officials said that the country's limited resources had been committed to its war against the Pakistan Taliban, and other insurgents who posed an active threat to it, rather than to finding or sheltering bin Laden. Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
See also
Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
The Golden Chain
Islamic extremism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic terrorism
Islamism
List of assassinations by the United States
Osama bin Laden in popular culture
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism
Tere Bin Laden
War on terror
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (2006) – Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004
External links
Osama bin Laden collected news and commentary at Dawn
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America', The Observer, November 24, 2002
Hunting Bin Laden, PBS Frontline, (November 2002)
"5 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Osama bin Laden", Dainik Bhaskar, (May 2016)
Young Osama, Steve Coll, The New Yorker, December 12, 2005
How the World Sees Osama bin Laden, slideshow by Life
The Osama bin Laden File from the National Security Archive, posted May 2, 2011
Letters from Abbottabad from Combating Terrorism Center
FBI Records: The Vault - Osama Bin Laden
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War on terror | 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"
]
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[
"Osama bin Laden",
"Bush administration",
"When did the Bush administration learn about him?",
"Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects",
"How did they conclude he was involved?",
"I don't know.",
"what was did the bush administration do about him?",
"offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death.",
"Did he ever get captured?",
"I don't know.",
"what was the administrations role in the events that happened?",
"the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.",
"What happened after the special operations were shut down?",
"U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members."
]
| C_b5267abce9974ff5b5cd078779e1c660_0 | Did he ever pop up on the radar after the special operations ended? | 8 | Did Osama bin Laden ever pop up on the radar after the bush administrations' special operations ended? | Osama bin Laden | Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million though the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14-16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian terrorist and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization . The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries. Under bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States, and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.
He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. Bin Ladens father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until US pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings.
Bin Laden is most well known for his role in masterminding the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and prompted the United States, on the orders of President George W. Bush, to initiate the "War on Terror" and the subsequent War in Afghanistan. He subsequently became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the United States, as the FBI offered a $25 million bounty in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALs inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan. The covert operation was conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of President Barack Obama.
Name
There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English; however, bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other US governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of bin is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions, articles, and patronymics uncapitalized in surnames; the nasab bin means "son of". The spellings with o and e come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.
Osama bin Laden's full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". "Mohammed" refers to bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden; "Awad" refers to his grandfather, Awad bin Aboud bin Laden, a Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" refers not to bin Laden's great-grandfather, who was named Aboud, but to Aboud's father, Laden Ali al-Qahtani.
The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father, Mohammed bin Laden, never officially registered the name.
Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah "Abū 'Abdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الأمير, al-Amīr), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, aš-Šaykh), the "Jihadist Sheik" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, Šaykh al-Mujāhid), "Hajj" (حج, Ḥajj), and the "Director". The word usāmah (أسامة) means "lion", earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".
Early life and education
Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Yemeni Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Syrian Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957. Despite it being generally accepted that bin Laden was born in Riyadh, his birthplace was listed as Jeddah in the initial FBI and Interpol documents.
Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the elite Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Bin Laden attended an English-language course in Oxford, England during 1971. One source described him as "hard working"; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and association football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the English club Arsenal.
Personal life
At age 17 in 1974, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria; but they were later separated and she left Afghanistan on September 9, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s); Khairiah Sabar (married 1985); Siham Sabar (married 1987); and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony. Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives. Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and , Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movements.
Nasser al-Bahri, who was bin Laden's personal bodyguard from 1997 to 2001, details bin Laden's personal life in his memoir. He describes him as a frugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert.
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot Jim Harrington misjudged a landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas, in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between and in height and weighing about , although the author Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, writes that a number of bin Laden's close friends confirmed that reports of his height were greatly exaggerated, and that bin Laden was actually "just over tall". Eventually, after his death, he was measured to be roughly . Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white keffiyeh. Bin Laden had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male keffiyeh and instead wore the traditional Yemeni male keffiyeh. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.
Beliefs and ideology
A major component of bin Laden's ideology was the concept that civilians from enemy countries, including women and children, were legitimate targets for jihadists to kill. According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that US foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East. As such, the threat to US national security arises not from al-Qaeda being offended by what America is but rather by what America does, or in the words of Scheuer, "They (al-Qaeda) hate us (Americans) for what we do, not who we are." Nonetheless, bin Laden criticized the US for its secular form of governance, calling upon Americans to convert to Islam and reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury, in a letter published in late 2002.
Bin Laden believed that the Islamic world was in crisis and that the complete restoration of Sharia law would be the only way to set things right in the Muslim world. He opposed such alternatives as secular government, as well as pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, and democracy. He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology.
These beliefs, in conjunction with violent jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states. He also called for the elimination of Israel, and called upon the United States to withdraw all of its civilians and military personnel from the Middle East, as well as from every Islamic country of the world.
His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars, journalists from The New York Times, the BBC, and Qatari news station Al Jazeera, analysts such as Peter Bergen, Michael Scheuer, Marc Sageman, and Bruce Hoffman. He was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.
In 1997, he condemned the United States for its hypocrisy in not labeling the bombing of Hiroshima as terrorism. In November 2001, he maintained that the revenge killing of Americans was justified because he claimed that Islamic law allows believers to attack invaders even when the enemy uses human shields. However, according to Rodenbeck, "this classical position was originally intended as a legal justification for the accidental killings of civilians under very limited circumstances — not as a basis for the intentional targeting of noncombatants." A few months later in a 2002 letter, he made no mention of this justification but claimed "that since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for its government's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets."
Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and United States was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry. Al-Qaeda manuals express this strategy. In a 2004 tape broadcast by Al Jazeera, bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy".
A number of errors and inconsistencies in bin Laden's arguments have been alleged by authors such as Max Rodenbeck and Noah Feldman. He invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence of Western political system—American law being "the law of the rich and wealthy"—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions and so can be lawfully punished by death. He denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable. Rodenbeck states, "Evidently, [bin Laden] has never heard theological justifications for democracy, based on the notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God."
Bin Laden was heavily anti-Semitic, stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions. In a December 1998 interview with Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden stated that Operation Desert Fox was proof that Israeli Jews controlled the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could. In a letter released in late 2002, he stated that Jews controlled the civilian media outlets, politics, and economic institutions of the United States. In a May 1998 interview with ABC's John Miller, bin Laden stated that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a "Greater Israel". He stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along and that war was "inevitable" between them, and further accused the US of stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment. He claimed that the US State Department and US Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving the Israeli state's goals. He often delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Shia Muslims have been listed along with heretics, America, and Israel as the four principal enemies of Islam at ideology classes of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.
Bin Laden was opposed to music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants on the one hand, but rejected chilled water on the other.
Bin Laden also believed climate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with President Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny".
Militant and political career
Mujahideen in Afghanistan
After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan, joined Abdullah Azzam and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen resistance in the Soviet–Afghan War. He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan." From 1979 to 1992, the United States (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan, specifically Operation Cyclone), Saudi Arabia, and China provided between $6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). British journalist Jason Burke wrote that "He did not receive any direct funding or training from the US during the 1980s. Nor did his followers. The Afghan mujahideen, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, received large amounts of both. Some bled to the Arabs fighting the Soviets but nothing significant." Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI. According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, bin Laden acted as a liaison between the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords, but no evidence of contact between the CIA and Bin Laden exists in the CIA archives. Steve Coll states that although bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." Bin Laden's first trainer was U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed.
By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat, which funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own Arab soldiers. From this base, bin Laden participated in some combat activity against the Soviets, such as the Battle of Jaji in 1987. Despite its little strategic significance, the battle was lionized in the mainstream Arab press. It was during this time that he became idolised by many Arabs.
1988 Gilgit massacre
In May 1988, responding to rumours of a massacre of Sunnis by Shias, large numbers of Shias from in and around Gilgit, Pakistan were killed in a massacre. Shia civilians were also subjected to rape.
The massacre is alleged by B. Raman, a founder of India's Research and Analysis Wing, to have been in response to a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit during the rule of military dictator Zia-ul Haq. He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.
Formation and structuring of al-Qaeda
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force. Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.
According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because its existence was still a closely held secret. His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.
Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad. Along with his Arab legion, he was thought to have brought down the mighty superpower of the Soviet Union. After his return to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden engaged in opposition movements to the Saudi monarchy while working for his family business. He offered to send al-Qaeda to overthrow the Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party government in South Yemen but was rebuffed by Prince Turki bin Faisal. He then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd. He was also angered by the internecine tribal fighting among the Afghans. However, he continued working with the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI. He funded the 1990 Afghan coup d'état attempt and also lobbied the Parliament of Pakistan to carry out an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on August 2, 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the royal family at risk. With Iraqi forces on the Saudi border, Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism was potentially inciting internal dissent. One week after King Fahd agreed to U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's offer of American military assistance, Bin Laden met with King Fahd and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the United States and others and offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion. When Sultan asked how bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam used Iraqi chemical and biological weapons against them he replied "We will fight him with faith." Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi territory.
Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. forces, arguing that the Quran prohibited non-Muslims from setting foot in the Arabian Peninsula and that two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the prophet Muhammad received and recited Allah's message, should only be defended by Muslims. Bin Laden tried to convince the Saudi ulama to issue a fatwa condemning the American military deployment but senior clerics refused out of fear of repression. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to try to silence him. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in the north-eastern Saudi city of Dhahran and was deployed in the desert barely 400 miles from Medina.
Meanwhile, on November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed. They discovered copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked the earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries. Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and later admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on November 5, 1990.
Move to Sudan
In 1991, bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia by its government after repeatedly criticizing the Saudi alliance with the United States. He and his followers moved first to Afghanistan and then relocated to Sudan by 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed. Bin Laden's personal security detail consisted of bodyguards personally selected by him. Their arsenal included SA-7, Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs, and PK machine guns. Meanwhile, in March–April 1992, bin Laden tried to play a pacifying role in the escalating civil war in Afghanistan, by urging warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to join the other mujahideen leaders negotiating a coalition government instead of trying to conquer Kabul for himself.
US intelligence monitored bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house and signals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves.
Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile. During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in agriculture and businesses. He was the Sudan agent for the British firm Hunting Surveys, and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union. He was generous to the poor and popular with the people. He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In response, in 1994 Fahd stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his family to cut off his $7 million a year stipend.
By that time, bin Laden was being linked with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and Sudan expelled the EIJ.
The US State Department accused Sudan of being a sponsor of international terrorism and bin Laden of operating terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. However, according to Sudan officials, this stance became obsolete as the Islamist political leader Hassan al-Turabi lost influence in their country. The Sudanese wanted to engage with the US but American officials refused to meet with them even after they had expelled bin Laden. It was not until 2000 that the State Department authorized US intelligence officials to visit Sudan.
The 9/11 Commission Report states:
In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against bin Laden in any country.
The 9/11 Commission Report further states:
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, and paid for by the CIA.
Due to the increasing pressure on Sudan from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden was permitted to leave for a country of his choice. He chose to return to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight on May 18, 1996; there he forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar. According to the 9/11 Commission, the expulsion from Sudan significantly weakened bin Laden and his organization. Some African intelligence sources have argued that the expulsion left bin Laden without an option other than becoming a full-time radical, and that most of the 300 Afghan Arabs who left with him subsequently became terrorists. Various sources report that bin Laden lost between $20 million and $300 million in Sudan; the government seized his construction equipment, and bin Laden was forced to liquidate his businesses, land, and even his horses.
1996 Declaration of war and 1998 fatwa
In August 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. Despite the assurance of President George H. W. Bush to King Fahd in 1990, that all US forces based in Saudi Arabia would be withdrawn once the Iraqi threat had been dealt with, by 1996 the Americans were still there. Bush cited the necessity of dealing with the remnants of Saddam's regime (which Bush had chosen not to destroy). Bin Laden's view was that "the 'evils' of the Middle East arose from America's attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into an American colony".
In 1998 he issued a fatwā against the United States, which was first published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper. It was entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam. The reference to occupation in the fatwā referred to US forces based in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq, known as Operation Southern Watch.
In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from donors from the days of the Soviet jihad, and from the Pakistani ISI to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters. Bin Laden effectively took over Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash, and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, as well as provided false identifications to members of bin Laden's terrorist network. The arms smuggler Viktor Bout helped to run the airline, maintaining planes and loading cargo. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, concluded that Ariana was being used as a terrorist taxi service.
Early attacks and aid for attacks
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.
After this bombing, al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going to Jannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims and to Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s, bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded. The war that followed caused the deaths of 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with the Islamist surrender to the government. In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of its Counterterrorism Center (CTC) called Bin Laden Issue Station, code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against Bin Laden's activities. Bin Laden Issue Station was headed by Michael Scheuer, a veteran of the Islamic Extremism Branch of the CTC.
Late 1990s attacks
It has been claimed that bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians, and outraged the Egyptian public. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his Najim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.
Another successful attack was carried out in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundred Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.
In February 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip. At the public announcement, fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets". He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. The 1998 US embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the attention of the United States public for the first time. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the bombings.
In retaliation for the embassy bombings, President Bill Clinton ordered a series of cruise missile strikes on bin Laden-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998. In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the United States of America, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft. On June 7, 1999, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation placed bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000, which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, tourists at Mount Nebo, and a site on the Jordan River, as well as the sinking of the destroyer in Yemen, and an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.
Yugoslav Wars
A former US State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, and asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, had reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an all-mujahedeen unit called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall.
According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canada–United States border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.
A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former Mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived in the area north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites. A second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997 report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.
In 1999, the press reported that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. The Bosnian government denied this information following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.
The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
The head of Albania's State Intelligence Service (SHISH), Fatos Klosi, said that Osama was running a terror network in Albania to take part in the Kosovo War under the guise of a humanitarian organisation and it was reported to have been started in 1994. Claude Kader, who was a member, testified its existence during his trial. By 1998, four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt. The mujahideen fighters were organised by Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to him and Zawihiri.
During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army. He claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe. He claimed that they had informed Richard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the US decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with Osama despite the 1998 United States embassy bombings earlier. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists, which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
September 11 attacks
After his initial denial, in the wake of the attacks, bin Laden announced, "what the United States is tasting today is nothing compared to what we have tasted for decades. Our umma has known this humiliation and contempt for over eighty years. Its sons are killed, its blood is spilled, its holy sites are attacked, and it is not governed according to Allah's command. Despite this, no one cares". In response to the attacks, the United States launched the War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report noted that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient to prosecute the case.
Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack. In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
In the 2004 video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he said he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence in the hijacking of the planes on September 11. According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. ... I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers ... with the raids" (May 23, 2006). In the tapes he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006). Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the US military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the US enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.
Criminal charges
On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on March 10, 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by a grand jury of the United States on June 8, 1998, on a charges of conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent Ziyad Khaleel in the United States. However the Taliban ruled not to extradite Bin Laden on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence published in the indictments and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims.
Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure before the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.
On October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. However, they did offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial in return for the United States ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by President Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable, with Bush responding "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
On June 15, 2011, federal prosecutors of the United States of America officially dropped all criminal charges against Osama bin Laden following his death in May.
Pursuit by the United States
Clinton administration
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (and specifically their elite Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état; in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.
In 2000, before the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as correctly focused on bin Laden, while Robert Oakley criticized their obsession with Osama.
Bush administration
Immediately after the September 11 attacks, US government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million, although the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.
Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the White Mountains (Spin Ghar) in Afghanistan's east, near the Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post, the US government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough US ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.
US and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Obama administration
On October 7, 2008, in the second presidential debate, on foreign policy, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, then President-elect Obama expressed his plans to renew US commitment to finding al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers in an effort to ratchet up the hunt for the terrorist. President Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on bin Laden that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah, replacing it with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaeda and its spawn.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda would not be defeated unless its leader, Osama bin Laden, were captured or killed. Testifying to the US Congress, he said that bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of bin Laden. According to him, killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large.
In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, the White House announced that SEAL Team Six had successfully carried out the operation, killing him in his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
While referring to Osama bin Laden in a CNN film clip on September 17, 2001, then-President George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or alive'". Subsequently, bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods. None were ever definitively proven. After military offensives in Afghanistan failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place. Some of the conflicting reports regarding bin Laden's whereabouts and mistaken claims about his death follow:
On December 11, 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Atiyah instructs Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership. Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are weak and have many of their own problems. The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post.
Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally verified videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival, including in August 2007. Bin Laden claimed sole responsibility for the September 11 attacks and specifically denied any prior knowledge of them by the Taliban or the Afghan people.
In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.
In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author Rohan Gunaratna stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral.
In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee reported that in January or February (2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on December 6, 2009, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
On December 9, 2009, BBC News reported that US Army General Stanley A. McChrystal (Commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010) emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus indicating that the US high command believed that bin Laden was still alive.
On February 2, 2010, Afghan president Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included a discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai's plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden.
On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Sabzevar, in northeastern Iran. On June 9, The Australian's online edition repeated the claim. This report turned out to be false.
On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was alive, well, and living comfortably in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said that the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States.
On March 29, 2012, Pakistani newspaper Dawn acquired a report produced by Pakistani security officials, based on interrogation of his three surviving wives, that detailed his movements while living underground in Pakistan.
In a 2010 letter, bin Laden chastised followers who had reinterpreted al-tatarrus—an Islamic doctrine meant to excuse the unintended killing of non-combatants in unusual circumstances—to justify routine massacres of Muslim civilians, which had turned Muslims against the extremist movement. Of the groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, Bin Laden condemned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for an attack on members of a hostile tribe, declaring that the operation is not justified, as there were casualties of noncombatants. Bin Laden wrote that the tatarrus doctrine needs to be revisited based on the modern-day context and clear boundaries established. He asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties. In Yemen, Bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability or would at least show the people that we are careful in keeping the Muslims safe on the basis of peace. In Somalia, he called attention to the extreme poverty caused by constant warfare, and he advised al-Shabab to pursue economic development. He instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.
Whereabouts just before his death
In April 2011, various US intelligence outlets were able to pinpoint Bin Laden's suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was previously believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found away in a three-story windowless mansion in Abbottabad at . Bin Laden's mansion was located southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy. Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but it was present in images taken in 2005.
Death and aftermath
Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 AM local time (4:00 PM eastern time) by a United States military special operations unit.
The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, reports at the time stated that US forces had taken bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death. Subsequent reporting has called this account into question—citing, for example, the absence of evidence that there was an imam on board the , where the burial was said to have taken place.
Pakistani authorities later demolished the compound in February 2012 to prevent it from becoming a neo-Islamist shrine. In February 2013, Pakistan announced plans to build a ₨265 million PKR ($30 million USD) amusement park in the area, including the property of the former hideout.
In an interview in 2019, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan claimed that Pakistani intelligence led the CIA to Osama bin Laden.
It was widely reported by the press that bin Laden was fatally wounded by Robert J. O'Neill, however, it has also been widely discredited by witnesses, who claim that bin Laden was possibly already dead by the time O'Neill arrived, having been injured by an anonymous SEAL Team Six member referred to under the pseudonym "Red". According to Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, bin Laden was struck by two suppressed shots to the side of the head from around ten feet away after leaning out of his bedroom doorway to survey Bissonnette and a point man, once the Navy SEALs entered the bedroom, his body began convulsing and Bissonnette and another SEAL responded by firing multiple shots into his chest.
Allegations of Pakistan-support protection of bin Laden
Bin Laden was killed within the fortified complex of buildings that were probably built for him, and had reportedly been his home for at least five years. The compound was located less than a mile from Pakistan Military Academy and less than 100 kilometers' drive from Pakistan's capital. While the United States and Pakistan governments both claimed, and later maintained, that no Pakistani officials, including senior military leaders, knew bin Laden's whereabouts or had prior knowledge of the US strike, Carlotta Gall, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, reported that ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. In a 2015 London Review of Books article, investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh asserted—citing US sources—that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Pasha knew of the US mission in advance, and authorized the helicopters delivering the SEALs to enter Pakistani airspace; and that the CIA learned of bin Laden's whereabouts from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who was paid an estimated $25 million for the information. Both stories were denied by US and Pakistani officials.
Mosharraf Zia, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's United States envoy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services could have failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound so close to Islamabad. "Obviously bin Laden did have a support system", he said. "The issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan, or within the society of Pakistan?"
Others argued that bin Laden lived in the compound with a local family, and never used the internet or a mobile phone, which would have made him much easier to locate. Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government baseless speculation. Government officials said that the country's limited resources had been committed to its war against the Pakistan Taliban, and other insurgents who posed an active threat to it, rather than to finding or sheltering bin Laden. Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
See also
Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
The Golden Chain
Islamic extremism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic terrorism
Islamism
List of assassinations by the United States
Osama bin Laden in popular culture
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism
Tere Bin Laden
War on terror
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (2006) – Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004
External links
Osama bin Laden collected news and commentary at Dawn
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America', The Observer, November 24, 2002
Hunting Bin Laden, PBS Frontline, (November 2002)
"5 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Osama bin Laden", Dainik Bhaskar, (May 2016)
Young Osama, Steve Coll, The New Yorker, December 12, 2005
How the World Sees Osama bin Laden, slideshow by Life
The Osama bin Laden File from the National Security Archive, posted May 2, 2011
Letters from Abbottabad from Combating Terrorism Center
FBI Records: The Vault - Osama Bin Laden
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Saudi Arabian Wahhabists
War on terror | false | [
"The 19th Space Operations Squadron is an Air Force Reserve space operations unit, located at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado.\n\nMission\nThe 19th Space Operations Squadron is a reserve associate unit with the 2d Space Operations Squadron of the 50th Space Wing. It performs launch, early-orbit, anomaly resolution and disposal operations for the Global Positioning System. The squadron provides navigation, timing and nuclear detonation information to users worldwide. It supports daily operations while also maintaining a reserve force available for mobilization.\n\nHistory\n\nSpace detection operations in Turkey\n Background\nIn October 1954, the US and Turkey began construction of Dyarbakir Air Station, Turkey. Construction began on a developmental radar designated the AN/FPS-17, a state-of-the art radar (for the time) with a 175-foot-high antenna. The radar detected the first Soviet launch missile in June 1955 and the world's first man-made satellite, Sputnik-1, in its initial orbit on 4 October 1957. In 1964 the Air Force added the first AN/FPS-79 tracking radar, with an 84-foot parabolic antenna, to provide accurate metric data on both missiles and satellites. If a new space object was sensed by the detection radar's fans, then the tracking radar could be oriented to achieve lock-on and tracking of the object. The radars were operated by the 6935th Radio Squadron, Mobile of USAF Security Service until 1964, when responsibility for the radars was transferred to Air Defense Command (ADC).\n\n Squadron activation\n\nADC organized the 19th Surveillance Squadron on 1 January 1967 to operate the Dyarbakir radars. The unit operated detection and tracking radar units to provide data on missile launches, deep space surveillance and tactical warning. The Diyabakir site closed on 27 July 1975 and was placed in caretaker status. During this time, the squadron did not conduct operations, but maintained the radar site in readiness for future operations. In October 1978, the radars were returned to operational status. By this time, ADC had been disestablished and the squadron was an element of Strategic Air Command, which had assumed ADC's space mission. The mission and squadron were again transferred when the Air Force established Air Force Space Command in 1987.\n\nDuring Operation Desert Storm the radar alerted American troops to incoming SCUD missiles. In 1992, the unit was redesignated the 19th Space Surveillance Squadron. The radars at what was now called Pirinclik Air Station functioned as a satellite monitor and launch and missile detection radar until the radars were decommissioned in December 1995, and the subsequent closure of the site in 1997.\n\nReserve associate operation\nThe squadron was redesignated the 19th Space Operations Squadron and activated in October 2000 at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado in the reserve as an associate unit of the regular 2d Space Operations Squadron, operating the same equipment to manage the Global Positioning System alongside members of the 2d Squadron.\n\nLineage\n Constituted as the 19th Surveillance Squadron and activated on 1 November 1966 (not organized)\n Organized on 1 January 1967\n Redesignated 19th Space Surveillance Squadron on 15 May 1992\n Inactivated on 16 June 1997\n Redesignated 19th Space Operations Squadron on 1 May 2000\n Activated in the reserve on 1 October 2000\n\nAssignments\n Air Defense Command, 1 November 1966 (not organized)\n 73d Aerospace Surveillance Wing, 1 January 1967\n Fourteenth Aerospace Force, 30 April 1971\n 21st Air Division, 1 October 1976\n 7th Air Division, 1 December 1979\n 1st Space Wing, 1 May 1983\n 73d Space Surveillance Group (later 73 Space Group), 1 October 1991\n 21st Operations Group, 26 April 1995 – 16 June 1997\n 310th Space Group, 1 October 2000\n 310th Operations Group, 7 March 2008 – present\n\nStations\n Dyarbakir Air Station (later Pirinclik Air Station), Turkey, 1 January 1967 – 16 June 1997\n Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, 1 October 2000 – present\n\nAwards\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n Explanatory notes\n\n Citations\n\nBibliography\n\n \n\nSpace Operations 0019\nMilitary units and formations in Colorado",
"Oakdale Air Force Station (ADC ID: RP-62, NORAD ID: Z-62) is a United States Air Force General Surveillance Radar station. It is located east of the Pittsburgh suburb of Oakdale, Pennsylvania. It was closed in 1969.\n\nHistory\nOakdale Air Force Station was established in 1959 at the Oakdale Army Installation near Pittsburgh and activated in August 1960 with the transfer of the 662d Radar Squadron from Brookfield Air Force Station, Ohio, which was closed. Oakdale was designated RP-62, reflecting the replacement (R) of P-62 site at Brookfield. The move of the 662d Radar Squadron was part of a consolidation of Army and Air Force Radar units for budget considerations.\n\nThe United States Army had established Army Air-Defense Command Post (AADCP) P-70DC for the Nike Missile air-defense system, Pittsburgh Defense Area. The site had an FAA ARSR-lA search radar providing air-traffic-control data, as well as a pair of AN/FPS-6B height-finder radars, and initially the station functioned as a Ground-Control Intercept (GCI) and warning station. As a GCI station, the squadron's role was to guide interceptor aircraft toward unidentified intruders picked up on the unit's radar scopes.\n\nDuring 1960 Oakdale AFS joined the Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system, initially feeding data to DC-03 at Syracuse AFS, New York. After joining, the squadron was re-designated as the 662d Radar Squadron (SAGE) on 15 July 1960. The radar squadron provided information 24/7 the SAGE Direction Center where it was analyzed to determine range, direction altitude speed and whether or not aircraft were friendly or hostile.\n\nAn AN/FPS-20 search radar was installed in 1962. On 31 July 1963, the site was redesignated as NORAD ID Z-62. In 1963 this radar operated with AN/FPS-24 search radar as well as AN/FPS-26A and AN/FPS-90 height-finder radars (the Army also operated a pair of height-finder radars for a while, in support of Nike missile defense operations). The AN/FPS-20 was retired in 1966.\n\nIn addition to the main facility, Oakdale operated two unmanned AN/FPS-14 (RP-62B/G) and AN/FPS-18 (P-62A/E) Gap Filler sites\n Thompson, OH (RP-62A) \n Lewisville, OH (RP-62B) \n Brookfield, OH (RP-62E) \n Thomas, WV (RP-62G) \nThe Thompson and Lewisville sites, along with the former Brookfield AFS were transferred to Oakdale when Brookfield AFS was deactivated in 1960. The Thomas site was reassigned to Oakdale with the closure of Manassas AFS, VA in 1958. All Gap filler sites ere closed in June 1968.\n\nAir Force operations ended with 662nd Radar Squadron (SAGE) inactivating on 31 December 1969. Army operations ended in 1974. The FAA retained the radar site, and replaced the AN/FPS-24 with an AN/FPS-67B search radar, still in use today on the old FPS-24 tower.\n\nAir Force units and assignments \n\nUnits:\n 662d Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, moved from Brookfield AFS, PA on 1 November 1959.\n Redesignated: 662d Radar Squadron (SAGE), 15 July 1960\n Inactivated: 31 December 1969\n\nAssignments:\n Detroit Air Defense Sector, 1 November 1959\n Syracuse Air Defense Sector, 15 June 1960\n Detroit Air Defense Sector, 4 September 1963\n 34th Air Division, 1 April 1966\n 33d Air Division, 16 September-31 December 1969\n\nSee also\n List of USAF Aerospace Defense Command General Surveillance Radar Stations\n Pittsburgh Defense Area (Nike missiles)\n\nReferences\n\n A Handbook of Aerospace Defense Organization 1946 - 1980, by Lloyd H. Cornett and Mildred W. Johnson, Office of History, Aerospace Defense Center, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado\n Winkler, David F. (1997), Searching the skies: the legacy of the United States Cold War defense radar program. Prepared for United States Air Force Headquarters Air Combat Command.\n for Oakdale AFS, PA\n\nExternal links\n\nInstallations of the United States Air Force in Pennsylvania\nSemi-Automatic Ground Environment sites\nAerospace Defense Command military installations\n1959 establishments in Pennsylvania\n1969 disestablishments in Pennsylvania\nMilitary installations established in 1959\nMilitary installations closed in 1969"
]
|
[
"Jesse Ventura",
"Governor of Minnesota"
]
| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | When did he become governor | 1 | When did Jesse Ventura become governor? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
|-
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Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | false | [
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"Vicki Risch is the former first lady of Idaho and the wife of U.S. senator Jim Risch, who served as governor of Idaho in 2006. She became first lady on May 26, 2006, when her husband succeeded former governor, Dirk Kempthorne, who resigned to become United States Secretary of the Interior. Risch succeeded former first lady, Patricia Kempthorne, who had held the post for over seven years. Risch served as first lady until January 2007, as her husband did not seek a full term as governor, but rather was reelected to his old post as lieutenant governor.\n\nReferences\n\nFirst Ladies and Gentlemen of Idaho\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
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"He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican)"
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| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | How did the campaigns go | 2 | How did Jesse Ventura's campaigns go? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
|-
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Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | true | [
"TechPresident is a nonpartisan political website founded by Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry with the idea of tracking how the Internet is impacting U.S. political campaigns. It was launched on February 12, 2007 to monitor the United States presidential election of 2008. The site follows how the campaigns are utilizing new Internet-based strategies and how citizens are creating content, such as YouTube videos and Facebook groups, using the social media technologies.\n\nTechPresident is an extension of Personal Democracy Forum, an annual conference and online magazine which focuses on the broader topic of how technology is changing politics and advocacy.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nAmerican political websites",
"Things Don't Go Smooth is the third title published for Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd's Firefly Role-Playing Game. It utilizes the Cortex Plus system.\n\nContents\nThings Don't Go Smooth introduces 4 new types of non-player characters for Firefly campaigns, and offers advice on how to handle Reaver encounters using the Cortex Plus system. It also includes new rules introducing scene Triggers, a random adventure generator, and two new adventures.\n\nIncluded Adventures\n Merciless\n Thieves in Heaven\n\nReviews\n Casus Belli (v4, Issue 16 - Sep/Oct 2015)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Product information at RPGGeek\n Product review at Geek Native\n Product review at The Black Campbell\n Fan reviews at EN World\n\nFirefly Role-Playing Game adventures"
]
|
[
"Jesse Ventura",
"Governor of Minnesota",
"When did he become governor",
"He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican)",
"How did the campaigns go",
"After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan \"My governor can beat up your governor\" appeared in Minnesota."
]
| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | Was there anything else interesting about his election | 3 | Was there anything else interesting about Jesse Ventura's election besides his slogan? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
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Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | true | [
"\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" is a 2010 science fiction/magical realism short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in Realms of Fantasy.\n\nPlot summary\nA scientist creates a tiny man. The tiny man is initially very popular, but then draws the hatred of the world, and so the tiny man must flee, together with the scientist (who is now likewise hated, for having created the tiny man).\n\nReception\n\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, tied with Kij Johnson's \"Ponies\". It was Ellison's final Nebula nomination and win, of his record-setting eight nominations and three wins.\n\nTor.com calls the story \"deceptively simple\", with \"execution (that) is flawless\" and a \"Geppetto-like\" narrator, while Publishers Weekly describes it as \"memorably depict(ing) humanity's smallness of spirit\". The SF Site, however, felt it was \"contrived and less than profound\".\n\nNick Mamatas compared \"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" negatively to Ellison's other Nebula-winning short stories, and stated that the story's two mutually exclusive endings (in one, the tiny man is killed; in the other, he becomes God) are evocative of the process of writing short stories. Ben Peek considered it to be \"more allegory than (...) anything else\", and interpreted it as being about how the media \"give(s) everyone a voice\", and also about how Ellison was treated by science fiction fandom.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAudio version of ''How Interesting: A Tiny Man, at StarShipSofa\nHow Interesting: A Tiny Man, at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database\n\nNebula Award for Best Short Story-winning works\nShort stories by Harlan Ellison",
"\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" is a song written by Billy Livsey and Don Schlitz, and recorded by American country music artist George Strait. It was released in February 2001 as the third and final single from his self-titled album. The song reached number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in July 2001. It also peaked at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.\n\nContent\nThe song is about man who is giving his woman the option to leave him. He gives her many different options for all the things she can do. At the end he gives her the option to stay with him if she really can’t find anything else to do. He says he will be alright if she leaves, but really it seems he wants her to stay.\n\nChart performance\n\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" debuted at number 60 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of March 3, 2001.\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\n2000 songs\nGeorge Strait songs\nSongs written by Billy Livsey\nSongs written by Don Schlitz\nSong recordings produced by Tony Brown (record producer)\nMCA Nashville Records singles"
]
|
[
"Jesse Ventura",
"Governor of Minnesota",
"When did he become governor",
"He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican)",
"How did the campaigns go",
"After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan \"My governor can beat up your governor\" appeared in Minnesota.",
"Was there anything else interesting about his election",
"The nickname \"Jesse 'The Mind'\" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically"
]
| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | What else was fun about this time? | 4 | What else was fun about 1998 for Jesse Ventura along with the election? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | ) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
|-
1951 births
20th-century American male actors
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American politicians
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21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
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American color commentators
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American political writers
American talk radio hosts
American television sports announcers
Critics of religions
Former Lutherans
Governors of Minnesota
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Independent state governors of the United States
John F. Kennedy conspiracy theorists
Living people
MSNBC people
Male actors from Minneapolis
Mayors of places in Minnesota
Military personnel from Minneapolis
Minnesota Greens
Minnesota Independents
Minnesota Vikings announcers
Mongols Motorcycle Club
National Football League announcers
Non-interventionism
People from Maple Grove, Minnesota
Politicians from Minneapolis
Professional wrestlers from Minnesota
Professional wrestling announcers
Radical centrist writers
Radio personalities from Minneapolis
Reform Party of the United States of America politicians
Researchers of the assassination of John F. Kennedy
Tampa Bay Buccaneers announcers
United States Navy non-commissioned officers
WWE Hall of Fame inductees
Writers from Minneapolis
XFL (2001) announcers
Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | false | [
"City Fun was a magazine/fanzine documenting the music scene in Manchester, England between 1977 and 1984 and sold up to 2000 copies per issue via gigs, music stores, and selected news agents across Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds. The magazine was started by Andy Waide (Zero), Neil Hargreaves, Martin Heywood (X) and 'JC'. On the day it was decided to write & publish the first issue Andy Waide adopted the name Andy Zero and Martin Heywood became Martin X. The first edition was dedicated to The Distractions, and City Fun went on to document and inform the music scene in Manchester in the late 70's and early 80s. No one else at the time was writing about what was happening as it happened, and when others did write about Manchester music and culture it was from the outside not the inside. City Fun invited its readers to contribute articles and reviews and to tell people what was going on, or what they felt about life at the time.\n\nCity Fun went through various stages of evolution, Series 1 was anarchic and inclusive trying to include the submissions from all contributors. Series 2 was more structured and selective, Neil, Martin and JC left the 'day to day' operations and a new editorial team of Andy Zero, Cath Carroll, Liz Naylor and Bob Dickenson became the core editors. Andy Zero left in 1982 and publication/editorship was continued by Liz, Cath and latterly (vol 3 which lasted 4 issues), Nigel Chatfield. During the beginning of Volume 2, City Fun operated from an office in Lower Broughton in the building where The Fall had rehearsal rooms. Later this was produced from Liz Naylor and Cath Carroll's flat in Hulme.\n\nMany people contributed articles including Ray Lowry (every edition of series 1 and 2), Tony Wilson, Mark E Smith, Claude Bessey, Steve Morrissey and many others.\n\nCity Fun periodically promoted benefit concerts to top up the funds needed for publication, The Distractions, Joy Division, and The Fall all performed. \"Stuff The Superstars\" all day festival (which include The Distractions, The Fall, Joy Division, The Hamsters, the Frantic Elevators among the dozen bands) attracted about 2000 people and a later benefit \"Dr Fun's Carnival Chance\" at Manchester Polytechnic (also with The Fall) featured John Peel as DJ.\n\nThe film No City Fun, by Charles Salem, was based on a City Fun article by Liz Naylor. This was used as a basis for the film Factory Flick with music by Joy Division. This super 8 film was referenced in the Joy Division film of 2010.\n\nAn online exhibition of scanned articles from City Fun was curated by Abigail Ward, Dave Haslam and David Wilkinson and appears on the Manchester District Music Archive website. The permanent exhibition includes an introduction from Haslam.\n\nReferences\n\n1977 establishments in the United Kingdom\n1984 disestablishments in the United Kingdom\nMusic magazines published in the United Kingdom\nFanzines\nDefunct magazines published in the United Kingdom\nMagazines established in 1977\nMagazines disestablished in 1984\nMagazines published in Manchester",
"Newsfail: Climate Change, Feminism, Gun Control, and Other Fun Stuff We Talk About Because Nobody Else Will is a book written by Jamie Kilstein and Allison Kilkenny, hosts of internet radio show Citizen Radio. The book was published by Simon & Schuster in 2014.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nPublisher book page\n\nBooks about media bias\nBooks about politics of the United States"
]
|
[
"Jesse Ventura",
"Governor of Minnesota",
"When did he become governor",
"He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican)",
"How did the campaigns go",
"After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan \"My governor can beat up your governor\" appeared in Minnesota.",
"Was there anything else interesting about his election",
"The nickname \"Jesse 'The Mind'\" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically",
"What else was fun about this time?",
") began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name \"Jesse 'The Body'\" (sometimes adapted to \"Jesse 'The Governing Body'\")"
]
| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | What other things arose during this campaign | 5 | What other things arose for Jesse Ventura during the 1998 campaign besides "Jesse the Governing Body"? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
|-
1951 births
20th-century American male actors
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American politicians
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American actor-politicians
American anti-war activists
American anti–Iraq War activists
American atheists
American athlete-politicians
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American color commentators
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American game show hosts
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American humanists
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American political writers
American talk radio hosts
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Critics of religions
Former Lutherans
Governors of Minnesota
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Living people
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers announcers
United States Navy non-commissioned officers
WWE Hall of Fame inductees
Writers from Minneapolis
XFL (2001) announcers
Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | true | [
"Dragonlance Campaign Setting is an accessory for the Dragonlance campaign setting, for the 3.5 edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.\n\nContents\nThe Dragonlance Campaign Setting hardcover updated the Dragonlance setting for the 3.5 edition.\n\nPublication history\nDragonlance Campaign Setting was designed by Margaret Weis, Don Perrin, Jamie Chambers, and Christopher Coyle. Weis explained that the designers \"wanted to begin with the beginning, which was Tracy [Hickman]'s original vision for Dragonlance. That made me the \"keeper of the flame\" when questions arose. I also worked with the book department editors and the other Dragonlance authors to incorporate their visions into the original. Tracy always said that Krynn was real to those who entered it and that we all saw the same things, just from different perspectives.\"\n\nReception\n\nReferences\n\nDragonlance",
"httpRange-14 is a long-running logical conundrum or design problem in the semantic web. The problem arises because when HTTP is extended from referring only to documents to talking about real-world things (planets, flowers, emotions, Platonic forms, etc) the domain of HTTP GET becomes undefined.\n\nHistory \n\nThe HTTP protocol was originally designed to transfer information objects, specifically Hypertext such as HTML. The GET request was issued by a client to retrieve data at a particular URL. Retrieving non-HTML information objects (images, flash files, CSS files, streaming video, etc) was not a problem, since all of these could be streamed across the network using standard approaches developed by earlier protocols.\n\nThe semantic web was invented, spearheaded by the W3C and Tim Berners-Lee, which used URLs to refer to real world things (planets, flowers, emotions, Platonic forms, etc) which could not be reduced to network streams. The question of what web servers should do when asked for one of these things arose.\n\nUse of # \n\nURIs of real world things can be limited to 'hash URIs', that is URIs containing a fragment identifier. These URIs cannot be directly deferenced via HTTP so the protocol does not need to worry about the conflict. In this approach a URI not ending in a hash is understood to refer to a document, whereas the same URI with a '#' appended can refer to an abstract concept.\n\nUse of HTTP Status Code 303 See Other \n\nThe HTTP Status Code 303 See Other is to be interpreted as follows:\n A 303 response to a GET request indicates that the origin server does not have a representation of the target resource that can be transferred by the server over HTTP. However, the Location field value refers to a resource that is descriptive of the target resource, such that making a retrieval request on that other resource might result in a representation that is useful to recipients without implying that it represents the original target resource. Note that answers to the questions of what can be represented, what representations are adequate, and what might be a useful description are outside the scope of HTTP.\nBy sending a 303 when asked for a non-information resource and redirecting to an information resource about the non-information resource, the server answers the requesters information need without having to supply the actual thing This is recommended as good practice by the W3C August 2007 draft.\n\nResolution \n\nThe W3C's Cool URIs for the Semantic Web document recommends using one or other of these two methods, depending on the requirements of the project.\n\nImplications \n\nThe impact of the issue (more correctly the impact of confusion around the issue) is greatest in semantic web communities whose models involve large numbers of abstract concepts which cannot be serialised, such as the FRBR community.\n\nFurther reading \n http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/group/track/issues/14\n http://www.w3.org/wiki/HttpRange14Webography\n http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin/homepage/notes/uri.html\n\nReferences\n\nSemantic Web"
]
|
[
"Jesse Ventura",
"Governor of Minnesota",
"When did he become governor",
"He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican)",
"How did the campaigns go",
"After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan \"My governor can beat up your governor\" appeared in Minnesota.",
"Was there anything else interesting about his election",
"The nickname \"Jesse 'The Mind'\" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically",
"What else was fun about this time?",
") began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name \"Jesse 'The Body'\" (sometimes adapted to \"Jesse 'The Governing Body'\")",
"What other things arose during this campaign",
"After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term,"
]
| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | Why did he decide not to run | 6 | Why did Jesse Ventura decide not to run for a second term? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
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XFL (2001) announcers
Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | false | [
"Family Troubles is a one-reel comedy short subject and is an episode of the Our Gang series. It was released to theatres on April 3, 1943, produced and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was the 212th Our Gang short (213th episode, 124th talking short, 125th talking episode, and 44th MGM produced episode) that was released.\n\nPlot\nJanet feels that her parents don't love her anymore because they made her older sister the definite center of attention during her aunt's visit. Filled with anger and despair, she decides to run away. The gang volunteers to look for a family or couple who will \"adapt\" Janet. After naming off potential candidates, they decide on the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Tom and Mary Jones and escort Janet to their home. A neighbor boy, who witnessed them, runs over to the Burstons' house with a report that Janet was kidnapped by a gang whose leader has a heavy voice (referring to Froggy). Mary and Jasper quickly call the police.\n\nWhen the gang pay the Jones a visit and offer Janet to them, the Jones quickly realize that Janet is a runaway and decide to teach her and the gang a lesson. They agree to adopt her but make her life a living hell by forcing her to scrub the kitchen floor (which causes Janet to wail, \"Why did I ever leave home?\") and show where she will sleep (which is under the kitchen table). When Mrs. Jones decides that Janet is unhappy enough, she walks out of the kitchen to phone Janet's parents, believing that Janet will happily run to them with open arms. But once Mrs. Jones leaves, Janet (with the help of the gang) runs away again.\n\nThe gang soon discover that the police are searching for them, so they run and hide in a cave. While trying to cook some food, they burn it and create heavy smoke, which leaves their faces covered with soot and ashes. Once they see that the smoke will hide their true identities, they bring Janet back home and tell Janet's parents why she wanted to run away.\n\nJanet's family now realize how fortunate they are to have her. Mary apologizes for her unfeeling behavior and assures that it will never happen again. With everything happy, Froggy says, \"All's well that ends well, I always say.\" Jasper corrects him, saying that the phrase was originally made by Shakespeare. \"He did? Shucks!\" answers a disappointed Froggy.\n\nCast\n\nThe Gang\n Janet Burston as Janet Burston\n Bobby Blake as Mickey\n Billy Laughlin as Froggy\n Billie Thomas as Buckwheat\n Mickey Laughlin as Happy\n\nAdditional cast\n Dickie Hall as Kid informing Janet's family\n Beverly Hudson as Aurelia Burston\n Barbara Bedford as Mary Burston\n Harry C. Bradley as Tom Jones\n Elspeth Dudgeon as Aunt Aurelia\n Sarah Padden as Mary Jones\n Byron Shores as Jasper Burston\n\nSee also\n Our Gang filmography\n\nNotes\nThe song that Janet's sister sings for her aunt is entitled \"She May Have Seen Better Days.\" It was written by James Thornton and published in 1894 and was a hit in 1896 for George J. Gaskin. The short shows a net profit of $4,927.00 during the 1942-43 release season in MGM records.\n\nSources\nDemoss, Robert: Family Troubles\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1943 films\nAmerican films\nAmerican black-and-white films\nFilms directed by Herbert Glazer\nMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer short films\n1943 comedy films\nOur Gang films\nAmerican comedy films",
"\"Why did the chicken cross the road?\" is a common riddle joke, with the answer being \"To get to the other side\". It is commonly seen as an example of anti-humor, in that the curious setup of the joke leads the listener to expect a traditional punchline, but they are instead given a simple statement of fact. Some also see the phrase \"other side\" as the afterlife, suggesting that it is not anti-humor. \"Why did the chicken cross the road?\" has become iconic as an exemplary generic joke to which most people know the answer, and has been repeated and changed numerous times over the course of history.\n\nHistory \n\nThe riddle appeared in an 1847 edition of The Knickerbocker, a New York City monthly magazine:\n\nThere are 'quips and quillets' which seem actual conundrums, but yet are none. Of such is this: 'Why does a chicken cross the street?['] Are you 'out of town?' Do you 'give it up?' Well, then: 'Because it wants to get on the other side!'\n\nAccording to music critic Gary Giddins in the Ken Burns documentary Jazz, the joke was spread through the United States, to large cities and small towns, by minstrel shows beginning in the 1840s as one of the first national jokes, which endures as a part of American culture to this day. \n\nIn the 1890s, a pun variant version appeared in the magazine Potter's American Monthly:\nWhy should not a chicken cross the road?\nIt would be a fowl proceeding.\n\nVariations \n\nThere are many riddles that assume a familiarity with this well-known riddle and its answer. For example, an alternate punchline can be used for the riddle, such as \"it was too far to walk around\". One class of variations enlists a creature other than the chicken to cross the road, in order to refer back to the original riddle. For example, a duck (or turkey) crosses \"because it was the chicken's day off,\" and a dinosaur crosses \"because chickens didn't exist yet.\" Some variants are both puns and references to the original, such as \"Why did the duck cross the road?\" \"To prove he's no chicken\".\n\nOther variations replace side with another word often to form a pun. Some examples are:\n 'Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the idiot's house'. Knock knock',\n\n 'Who's there?' \n\n 'The chicken'\n\n\"Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide\"\n\n\"Why did the chewing gum cross the road? It was stuck to the chicken's foot\"\n\n\"Why did the whale cross the ocean? To get to the other tide.\"\n\nA mathematical version asks, \"Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?\" \"To get to the same side.\"\n\nAs with the lightbulb joke, variants on these themes are widespread.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading \n Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: \n\nJoke cycles\nChickens\n1840s neologisms\nQuotations from literature\nRiddles\nWorks originally published in The Knickerbocker"
]
|
[
"Jesse Ventura",
"Governor of Minnesota",
"When did he become governor",
"He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican)",
"How did the campaigns go",
"After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan \"My governor can beat up your governor\" appeared in Minnesota.",
"Was there anything else interesting about his election",
"The nickname \"Jesse 'The Mind'\" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically",
"What else was fun about this time?",
") began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name \"Jesse 'The Body'\" (sometimes adapted to \"Jesse 'The Governing Body'\")",
"What other things arose during this campaign",
"After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term,",
"Why did he decide not to run",
"constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues."
]
| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | Did he have any other reasons | 7 | Did Jesse Ventura have any other reasons not to run for a second term besides the attacks on his family by the media? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
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1951 births
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Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | false | [
"For this list of abandoned and unfinished films, an unfinished film is defined as one in which production began but did not finish. An abandoned film is defined as one in which production was cancelled during pre-production before any footage was shot, though a script exists and film crew including performers, directors and other positions have been hired.\n\nFilms may not be completed for several reasons, with some being shelved during different stages of the production. Some films have been shut down days into production. Other unfinished films have been shot in their entirety but have not completed post-production where the film is edited and sound and score added. This is different from unreleased films which are finished but have not yet been released and shown in theatres or released on DVD. In some instances these films cannot be shown due to legal reasons. Withdrawn films are similar except they did have brief showings but cannot be shown again, also usually for legal reasons.\n\nAccording to the Film Yearbook, \"history has shown that the unfinished film is with few exceptions designed to remain that way.\" Exceptions do exist: these include Gulliver's Travels and The Jigsaw Man, both of which shut down when they ran out of funds but after a year or more found new financing and were able to finish shooting.\n\nUnfinished films\n\nAbandoned film projects: a partial list of more notable projects\n\nSee also\n List of lost films\n List of incomplete or partially lost films\n List of rediscovered films\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography",
"Epistemic conservatism is a view in epistemology about the structure of reasons or justification for belief. While there are various forms, epistemic conservatism is generally the view that a person's believing some claim is a reason in support of the claim, at least on the face of it. Others formulate epistemic conservatism as the view that one is, to some degree, justified in believing something simply because one believes it.\n\nExpanding the thesis, epistemic conservatism implies that it is unreasonable to revise or alter our personal beliefs and ideologies without good reasons to do so. This action of revising would cause an unnecessary use of resources/energy by the individual, and it would not offer the individual any epistemic value. Epistemic conservatism sees an epistemic value in just holding one's beliefs stable.\n\nThere have been some critics of the thesis but several important methodologies assume that this thesis holds true.\n\nKevin McCain's Epistemic Conservatism \n‘Properly Formulated Epistemic Conservatism’ (PEC): “If S believes that p and p is not incoherent, then S is justified in retaining the belief that p and S remains justified in believing that p so long as p is not defeated for S.”“Defeat Condition 1 (DC1): If S has better reasons for believing that ∼ p than S’s reasons for believing that p, then S is no longer justified in believing that p.”“Defeat Condition 2 (DC2): If S has reasons for believing that∼p which are as good as S’s reasons for believing that p and the belief that ∼p coheres equally as well or better than the belief that p does with S’s other beliefs, then S is no longer justified in believing that p.”This above thesis hits upon several common themes when discussing epistemic conservatism. PEC addresses the idea that when revising a belief system, individuals would seek to correct the errors piece by piece, rather than completely overhauling their ideologies. In other words, it is ideal to hold on to as many original beliefs as possible.Furthermore, PEC addresses spontaneous beliefs based on memories. It is hard to justify memory beliefs given that they are not drawn through distinct experiences, but regardless if they are/aren’t supported, individuals would still have the intuition that they are justified in holding these beliefs. According to PEC, as long as a specific memory belief is not defeated for the individual, the individual would be justified in holding this belief in virtue of previously holding the memory belief. As for forgotten evidence, PEC also makes sense of this phenomenon. An example would be where someone learned about relativity theory and came to hold the belief “E=mc^2”. After a long time, this person might have lost evidence supporting this specific belief, but we are intuitively drawn to claiming that they are still justified. PEC allows for this because the individual is justified in holding “E=mc^2” because they hold that belief.\n\nCriticisms of Epistemic Conservatism\n\nRichard Foley's Criticism \nIn his objections, Foley describes a situation where epistemic conservatism makes irrational beliefs rational, where a contradiction exists. In his example, an individual believes “x”, however they possess better reasons to believe “~x”. In terms of PEC, the individual is justified in believing “x” as long as “x” is not defeated for them. In Foley's example, “x” is defeated for the individual so Defeat Condition 1 was met, thus PEC leads to the individual not being justified in believing “x”, thus no contradiction exists.\n\nRichard Feldman's \"Lefty-Righty\" Case \n“Detective Jones has definitively narrowed down the suspects in a crime to two individuals, Lefty and Righty. There are good reasons to think that Lefty did it, but there are equally good reasons to think that Righty did it. There is conclusive reason to think that no one other than Lefty or Righty did it.”In this example, Feldman questions what Detective Jones would do in the situation, as the intuition points out that Jones can not believe that Righty did the crime and Lefty did not and vice versa. He supposes that Jones came upon the belief that Lefty did it first, possibly getting Lefty's evidence first. Feldman draws the conclusion that epistemic conservatism forces our intuition away, forcing us to have Jones believe that Lefty did it. However, PEC allows for this because Jones's belief that Lefty is the culprit is defeated since he now has equal evidence to believe that Righty committed the crime. By having the two equal beliefs of “Lefty is the culprit” and “Righty is the culprit”, Defeat Condition 2 was met. With PEC, Jones should withhold his belief from either of the two, thus PEC does not disagree with our natural intuitions.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences and further reading\n Christensen, David. (1994). \"Conservatism in Epistemology\", Noûs, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Mar.), pp. 69–89.\n Fumerton, Richard. (2007). \"Epistemic Conservatism: Theft or Honest Toil?\", Oxford Studies in Epistemology: Vol. 2, ed. by Tamar Szabo Gendler, and John Hawthorne. Oxford University Press.\n\nExternal links\n \n\nEpistemological theories"
]
|
[
"Jesse Ventura",
"Governor of Minnesota",
"When did he become governor",
"He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican)",
"How did the campaigns go",
"After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan \"My governor can beat up your governor\" appeared in Minnesota.",
"Was there anything else interesting about his election",
"The nickname \"Jesse 'The Mind'\" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically",
"What else was fun about this time?",
") began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name \"Jesse 'The Body'\" (sometimes adapted to \"Jesse 'The Governing Body'\")",
"What other things arose during this campaign",
"After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term,",
"Why did he decide not to run",
"constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues.",
"Did he have any other reasons",
"The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life."
]
| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | Were there any other reasons he chose not to run for reelection | 8 | Were there any other reasons Jesse Ventura chose not to run for reelection besides the media's effect on his family life? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
|-
1951 births
20th-century American male actors
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American politicians
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
9/11 conspiracy theorists
American actor-politicians
American anti-war activists
American anti–Iraq War activists
American atheists
American athlete-politicians
American cannabis activists
American color commentators
American conspiracy theorists
American expatriates in Mexico
American former Protestants
American game show hosts
American gun rights activists
American humanists
American male film actors
American male non-fiction writers
American male professional wrestlers
20th-century American memoirists
American libertarians
United States Navy personnel of the Vietnam War
American people of German descent
American people of Slovak descent
American political commentators
American political writers
American talk radio hosts
American television sports announcers
Critics of religions
Former Lutherans
Governors of Minnesota
Independence Party of Minnesota politicians
Independent state governors of the United States
John F. Kennedy conspiracy theorists
Living people
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Military personnel from Minneapolis
Minnesota Greens
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Non-interventionism
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Politicians from Minneapolis
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Professional wrestling announcers
Radical centrist writers
Radio personalities from Minneapolis
Reform Party of the United States of America politicians
Researchers of the assassination of John F. Kennedy
Tampa Bay Buccaneers announcers
United States Navy non-commissioned officers
WWE Hall of Fame inductees
Writers from Minneapolis
XFL (2001) announcers
Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | false | [
"The Congressional Constitution Caucus is a congressional caucus made up of 41 members of the United States Congress. The caucus was founded in 2005; it had 37 members the first year it was founded.\n\nThe group was founded and formerly led by Republican U.S. Representative Scott Garrett of New Jersey, who sought to push the Republican Party leadership to move increasingly to the right.\n\nElectoral results\n\nHouse of Representatives\n\nHistory\nThe Caucus was informally created by Representatives J. D. Hayworth, John Shadegg, Sam Brownback, Bob Barr, and Richard Pombo in the 104th Congress. According to the group, its purpose was to encourage constitutional debate in Congress and the nation and, in time, to restore constitutional government.\n\nThe Caucus was officially registered as a Congressional Member Organization in 2005 by Congressmen Scott Garrett, Virginia Foxx, and Rob Bishop. In a 2006 interview, the three described themselves as leading \"...a team dedicated to downsizing the amount of power usurped from the states by the federal government.\"\n\nIn 2011, the group's membership grew rapidly following the entrance of new Tea Party-aligned members elected in the 2010 elections. In 2011, the Caucus and the Tea Party Caucus jointly sponsored a closed-door speech to the caucuses by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on the topic of \"separation of powers.\"\n\nAt its peak in the 113th Congress, the Congressional Constitution Caucus had 76 members. However, the caucus possessed over 100 members when it existed informally in the 104th Congress.\n\nIdeology and political issues\nThe members of the Caucus are strongly opposed to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and are outspoken opponents of the individual health mandate. The group has supported constitutional challenges to the ACA. In 2014, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected one such challenge in the case Sissel v. United States Department of Health & Human Services (ruling that the ACA did not violate the Origination Clause of the Constitution), the Caucus issued a statement saying \"The judges got it wrong.\"\n\nAccording to the founders of the Caucus, the main focus of the Caucus is to \"ensure the federal government is operating under the intent of the 10th Amendment of our Bill of Rights.\" The Caucus has worked towards this goal through sponsoring legislation like H.R. 3449, H.R. 1227, and H.R. 1229.\n\nMembership\n\nAs of the 117th Congress, the Congressional Constitution Caucus has 41 members. 41 in the House, and 0 in the Senate. The current members of the Caucus are listed below, listed by state.\n\nLeadership\n\nNone\n\nCurrent members\n\nLast updated: January 4, 2021\n\nFormer members\nFmr. Rep. John Shadegg (AZ-03) - Chose not to run for reelection in 2010, saying he will \"pursue [his] commitment to fight for freedom in a different venue.\" \nFmr. Co-Chair Rep. Marlin Stutzman (IN-03) - Was defeated in the 2016 Republican primary for Indiana's Class 3 Senate seat.\nFmr. Rep. Rodney Alexander (LA-05) - Was appointed to be Louisiana's Secretary of Veteran's Affairs.\nFmr. Rep. Steve Southerland (FL-02) - Lost Re-election in 2014.\nFmr. Rep. Spencer Bachus (AL-06) - Chose not to run for reelection in 2014.\nFmr. Rep. Paul Broun (GA-10) - Lost the Republican Primary for Georgia's 10th congressional district.\nFmr. Rep. John B.T. Campbell III (CA-48) - Retired from Congress.\nFmr. Rep. Renee Ellmers (NC-02) - Defeated in the 2016 Republican Primary.\nFmr. Rep. John Fleming (LA-04) - Chose to run for Louisiana Senate. Nominated by Donald Trump to be the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Technology\nFmr. Rep. Phil Gingrey (GA-11) - Ran for Georgia Senate in 2014.\nFmr. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (KS-01) - Defeated in the 2016 Republican Primary.\nFmr. Rep. David Jolly (Fl-13) - Vacated his seat to run for Florida Senate. Then dropped out of Senate race to rerun for House seat that he vacated, citing \"unfinished business.\" Then was defeated in the 2016 general election.\nFmr. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (WY) - Chose not to seek reelection in 2016.\nFmr. Rep. Mike McIntyre (NC-07) - Retired from Congress.\nFmr. Rep. Steve Stockman (TX-36) - Ran for the Texas Senate in 2014. Did not defend his Seat.\nFmr. Rep. John Runyan (NJ-03) - Chose not to run for reelection in 2014, citing frustration with his fellow Republicans over the government shutdown. Was hired by the NFL to be their Vice President of the Policy and Rules Administration.\nFmr. Rep. Scott Rigell (VA-02) - Retired from Congress.\nFmr. Rep. Alan Nunnelee (MS-01) - Died in office after undergoing surgery for a brain tumor.\nFmr. Rep. Curt Clawson (FL-19) - Chose not to run for reelection in 2016, citing the death of his mother as the main cause.\nFmr. Rep. John Kline (MN-02) - Chose not to run for reelection in 2016.\nFmr. Rep. Joe Pitts (PA-16) - Chose not to run for reelection in 2016.\nFmr. Rep. Rich Nugent (FL-05) - Chose not to run for reelection in 2016.\nFmr. Rep. Randy Neugebauer (TX-19) - Chose not to run for reelection in 2016.\nFmr. Rep. Jeff Miller (FL-01) - Chose not to run for reelection in 2016.\nFmr. Rep. Candice Miller (MI-10) - Did not seek re-election in 2016 and resigned her seat in the House on December 31, 2016, in order to take office as Macomb County Public Works Commissioner the next day.\nFmr. Rep. Mike Pompeo (KS-04) - Nominated by Donald Trump to be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.\nFmr. Rep. Tom Price (GA-06) - Nominated by Donald Trump to be the 23rd Secretary of Health and Human Services.\nFmr. Rep. Mick Mulvaney (SC-05) - Nominated by Donald Trump to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.\nFmr. Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) - Lost re-election in 2016; nominated by Donald Trump to be the head of the Export-Import Bank.\nFmr. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (UT-03) - Resigned on June 30, 2017.\nFmr. Rep. Scott Rigell (VA-02)\nFmr. Rep. Lynn Jenkins (KS-02) - Chose not to run for re-election in 2018.\nFmr. Co-Chair Rep. Rob Bishop (UT-01) Chose not to run for re-election in 2018.\nSen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) – only caucus member in the United States Senate and he lost reelection\nRep. Steve Southerland (FL-02)\nRep. Mike McIntyre (NC-07)\nRep. Randy Neugebauer (TX-19)\nRep. Pete Olson (TX-22)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\n\nIdeological caucuses of the United States Congress\nUnited States House of Representatives\nConservative organizations in the United States",
"The 2020 San Francisco Board of Supervisors elections were held on November 3, 2020 though many voted early by mail due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Six of the eleven seats on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors were contested. One incumbent was termed out of office, another incumbent chose to retire, and four ran for reelection. The election was conducted with ranked-choice voting.\n\nResults\n\nDistrict 1 \nIncumbent Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer was eligible to stand for reelection but decided against it, citing a desire to focus on personal matters.\n\nDistrict 3 \nIncumbent Supervisor Aaron Peskin was eligible for reelection.\n\nDistrict 5 \nIncumbent Supervisor Dean Preston was eligible to run for reelection. The 2020 election was a rematch of the prior year's special election, with former Supervisor Vallie Brown aiming to win back her seat after narrowly losing by 0.8%.\n\nDistrict 7 \nIncumbent Supervisor Norman Yee was ineligible to run due to term limits.\n\nDistrict 9 \nIncumbent Supervisor Hillary Ronen was eligible to run for reelection. She ran unopposed.\n\nDistrict 11 \nIncumbent Supervisor Ahsha Safaí was eligible for reelection. The race was notable as Safaí's primary opponent was former Supervisor and 2011 San Francisco mayoralcandidate John Avalos. San Francisco law states that Supervisors may serve a maximum of two continuous terms, meaning Avalos, out of office since 2017, was eligible to run for another two terms.\n\nReferences \n\nSan Francisco Board of Supervisors\nSan Francisco Board of Supervisors\nBoard of Supervisors 2020\n2020 in San Francisco"
]
|
[
"Jesse Ventura",
"Governor of Minnesota",
"When did he become governor",
"He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican)",
"How did the campaigns go",
"After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan \"My governor can beat up your governor\" appeared in Minnesota.",
"Was there anything else interesting about his election",
"The nickname \"Jesse 'The Mind'\" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically",
"What else was fun about this time?",
") began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name \"Jesse 'The Body'\" (sometimes adapted to \"Jesse 'The Governing Body'\")",
"What other things arose during this campaign",
"After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term,",
"Why did he decide not to run",
"constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues.",
"Did he have any other reasons",
"The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.",
"Were there any other reasons he chose not to run for reelection",
"Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early"
]
| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | Why did he want to resign | 9 | Why did Jesse Ventura want to resign as Governer? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
|-
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Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | true | [
"\"Why Don't You Want My Love?\" is a single by American singer La Toya Jackson. After recording her sixth studio album Bad Girl, which would be distributed in 1991, Jackson signed a deal with BCM Records in Germany.\n\nThe song was intended to be the lead single for a new album under the BCM label, but the company went bankrupt before the album could be completed. \"Why Don't You Want My Love?\" was originally scheduled for a release in fall 1990 but was delayed several times until its release in January 1991. The single was released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.\n\nBCM started a huge print campaign for the CD single, advertising the single with the caption \"A fresh new start with BCM\", and there is even a short message for all DJs at the end of the CD single with Jackson's soft voice asking, \"Now DJs, why don't you want my love?\".\n\nThe single was released on 7\", 12\" and CD formats, but failed to reach the charts. In 1993, the song was licensed to the German label \"Legend\", who released a remix of the song along with the 12 tracks from Jackson's Bad Girl album. The compilation was titled Why Don't You Want My Love?.\n\nJackson quickly signed a new record deal with Pump Records in the Netherlands and released a new single and album only 10 months later.\n\nTrack listings\nWhy Don't You Want My Love? (Radio Version) \t \t\nWhy Don't You Want My Love? (Original Version) \t\t\nWhy Don't You Want My Love? (Bruce Forest Remix) \t\t\nWhy Don't You Want My Love? (Instrumental Remix - Hot Mix D.J. Drop In)\n\nReferences \n\nLa Toya Jackson songs\n1990 songs",
"Stop the World – I Want to Get Off is a 1961 musical by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.\n\nStop the World – I Want to Get Off may also refer to:\n\n Stop the World I Want to Get Off (album), a 1962 album by Victor Feldman\n Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, a 1966 film adaptation of the musical directed by Philip Saville\n Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, a 1996 TV film adaptation of the musical starring Peter Scolari\n \"Stop the World I Want to Get Off\", a song by Gorky Park from their 1996 album Stare\n\nSee also\n Stop the World (disambiguation)\n \"Stop the World I Wanna Get Off With You\", a 2013 B-side to the Arctic Monkeys single, \"Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?\""
]
|
[
"Jesse Ventura",
"Governor of Minnesota",
"When did he become governor",
"He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican)",
"How did the campaigns go",
"After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan \"My governor can beat up your governor\" appeared in Minnesota.",
"Was there anything else interesting about his election",
"The nickname \"Jesse 'The Mind'\" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically",
"What else was fun about this time?",
") began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name \"Jesse 'The Body'\" (sometimes adapted to \"Jesse 'The Governing Body'\")",
"What other things arose during this campaign",
"After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term,",
"Why did he decide not to run",
"constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues.",
"Did he have any other reasons",
"The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.",
"Were there any other reasons he chose not to run for reelection",
"Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early",
"Why did he want to resign",
"he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor."
]
| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | Why did he want Mae to be governor | 10 | Why did Jesse Ventura want Mae Schunk to be governor? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
|-
1951 births
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Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | false | [
"Anna Mae He ( or He Sijia, born January 28, 1999 in the United States), was the subject of a custody battle between her Chinese biological parents, Shaoqiang (Jack) He (S: 贺绍强, T: 賀紹強, P: Hè Shàoqiáng) and Qin Luo \"Casey\" He (S: 罗秦, T: 羅秦, Luó Qín), and her foster parents, Jerry and Louise Baker. The case received United States national media attention for years and revolved around the claim of Jerry and Louise Baker that Jack and Casey He abandoned their rights to the child when they signed a temporary custody order.\n\nBackground\nAnna Mae He's father, Jack, came to the United States in 1995 on a student visa and attended Arizona State. In 1997 he enrolled in University of Memphis, receiving a scholarship and a stipend for work as a graduate assistant. Anna Mae's mother, Casey, obtained a visa as Jack's wife and shortly after coming to the United States became pregnant with Anna Mae. During the pregnancy, Jack was accused of sexual assault by a fellow student six days after the reported event in October 1998. The University conducted an investigation of the alleged assault and determined that no one saw Jack or the alleged victim together at the time and location in question. Despite the lack of incriminating evidence, Jack He's graduate assistant position was terminated by the University, resulting in the loss of his stipend and health insurance. Jack He was charged with attempted rape, but was acquitted by a jury in February 2002. Later during the pregnancy, the couple was involved in an altercation with the alleged rape victim and the alleged victim's husband in a grocery store. Casey was knocked down and suffered vaginal bleeding. Her condition worsened afterward until Anna was delivered by Caesarean section two months later. Faced with a $12,000 hospital bill and a criminal charge with no stable income, the couple sought help from Mid-South Christian Services which agreed to place the baby in a foster home with Jerry and Louise Baker for three months. During this time Jack He was arrested for the previous sexual assault accusation, which caused the loss of his new job. With only Casey's income as a waitress to survive on, the Hes searched for someone to take Anna Mae back to China to be cared for by relatives but were unable to find anyone. Jack, at the time, also suspected that he was not Anna Mae's biological father as he met and married Casey rather abruptly, and Anna was conceived soon after. It was unknown whether his suspicion had contributed to the couple's decision.\n\nDisagreement\nUnable to financially care for Anna Mae, the Hes decided to let her remain in the Bakers' custody. The Bakers expressed interest in adopting Anna Mae but the Hes were unwilling. An agreement was reached that would give the Bakers temporary custody and let the Hes retain parental rights. The Bakers claim there was also an oral agreement that the Bakers would raise Anna Mae until she is eighteen years old. But the Hes contend that they did not agree to this and that the arrangement was only temporary. A juvenile court officer's testimony supports the Hes' claim.\n\nOn June 2, 1999, Jack He and the Bakers met with a Mid-South Christian Services attorney. In the meeting, the attorney told Jack it would be necessary to go to court to regain custody if all parties did not agree to a change in custody.\n\nOn June 4, 1999, the Hes and the Bakers went to the Shelby County Juvenile Court to obtain the consent order transferring custody to the Bakers. Without the knowledge of either party, the juvenile court officer typed a guardianship provision into the consent order. Because Casey He did not speak or read English very well, she was unable to read the documents and had to rely on an interpreter for their meaning. Three witnesses, including the interpreter, reported that Casey was very concerned that the Bakers' custody of Anna Mae be temporary. The juvenile court officer testified that she was \"adamant that at some point she wanted her child back.\" She was told that signing the consent order was necessary for Anna Mae to obtain health insurance and the interpreter testified that she signed the order believing custody to be temporary.\n\nThe Hes continued to visit Anna Mae regularly for about an hour a week. Louise Baker began to keep a diary in which she documented the Hes' visits to Anna Mae, writing down when the visits were, how long they lasted, how the Hes interacted with Anna Mae, and what gifts they gave her. In October 1999, friction began when the Hes wanted to take Anna Mae out of the Bakers' home and the Bakers refused. Louise Baker wrote \"We would like to get visits to every other week. We feel like they would wean away, but the last 2 visits we could see Casey is wanting to come more.\" In November 1999, Jack He told Jerry Baker they wanted to regain custody of Anna Mae. Jerry replied that they did not want to give up Anna Mae and that Louise was pregnant and he didn't want her to miscarry. The Hes contacted the juvenile court officer several times during these months complaining about problems with visitation and talking about wanting to get custody back.\n\nIn May 2000, the Hes petitioned the Juvenile Court for custody. The petition was denied.\n\nJack found work in Georgia and Casey continued to visit Anna Mae until one day she refused to leave the Bakers' home. The police were called. Jack quit his job in Georgia after the Bakers told him that Casey was not allowed to visit Anna Mae by herself.\n\nThe Hes continued to visit Anna Mae until January 28, 2001 when an argument occurred at the Bakers' home. The Hes wanted to take Anna Mae to a photography studio for a family portrait on her second birthday, but the Bakers refused. The Bakers subsequently called the police. The Hes were told that they could not return to the Bakers' home. The police officer later testified that he said they could not return to the Bakers' house that day but the Hes believed they were being told that they could not return to the Bakers' home at all. The Hes did not see Anna Mae again for years.\n\nThe Hes contacted the Juvenile Court about regaining custody and in April 2001 filed to regain custody, but since only Casey signed, the petition was refiled on May 29. A hearing was set for June 6 but was rescheduled to June 22 so that the Bakers' lawyer could attend. Meanwhile, the Bakers were advised by their attorney to file to revoke the Hes' parental rights. On June 20, 2001, four months and five days after the January argument, they filed a petition for adoption and termination of parental rights in the Chancery Court of Shelby County. This halted the Hes' petition in juvenile court and transferred the case to chancery court.\n\nCase history\nIn May 2000, Hes petition Juvenile Court for custody of Anna Mae. The petition was denied.\n\nIn April 2001, Hes petition Juvenile Court for custody of Anna Mae.\n\nIn June 2001, Bakers petition Chancery Court to adopt Anna Mae citing abandonment and lack of financial support from Hes.\n\nIn May 2004 after a 10-day trial, Judge Robert L. Childers, a Tennessee circuit judge, terminated Hes' parental rights on grounds of willful abandonment, despite Hes' persistent effort to get custody back via Juvenile Court. This decision was later affirmed by a majority in the Tennessee Court of Appeals on 2005-11-23. Hes subsequently appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court.\n\nIn October 2006, Hes argue at the Tennessee Supreme Court that the trial court erred in terminating their parental rights. They contend that the facts do not support a finding of willful abandonment, as their repeated effort to seek custody via juvenile court was a clear attempt to visit Anna Mae. After the oral argument, the Hes submitted a motion pro se to the Tennessee Supreme Court, asking the high Court to rule on the custody issue directly. On how to interpret the word \"temporary\", in their pro se motion to the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Hes maintained that the temporary nature of the custody arrangement hinged on the temporary nature of the hardship they experienced at the time of the arrangement. Therefore, the Hes argue that they have superior parental rights over the custody dispute, as the exception laid out in a landmark Tennessee Supreme Court decision (Blair v. Badenhope) should apply.\n\nIn January 2007, the Tennessee Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, authored by Chief Justice William M. Barker, reversed the ruling by the state Court of Appeals and ordered that Anna Mae He be returned to her biological parents. In its ruling, the Court said, \"We hold that the parents of Anna Mae He did not voluntarily transfer custody and guardianship of Anna Mae He to the Bakers with knowledge of the consequences and, therefore are entitled to superior rights to custody.\" and \"the evidence does not support a 'willful failure to visit' as a ground for abandonment.\" The case must now cycle back through the Shelby County Chancery Court as the process of returning the child to her biological parents begins. The Bakers will have to pay all legal fees, according to the opinion.\n\nAfter the judgment was entered, on 2007-02-02, the Bakers motioned the Tennessee Supreme Court to rehear the case and stay the custody transfer. The Tennessee Supreme Court promptly denied both motions on 2007-02-09 and ordered the Bakers to pay costs \"for which execution may issue if necessary\". Immediately thereafter, the Bakers petitioned to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the transfer of custody. The U.S. Supreme Court denied Bakers' requests on 2007-02-12.\n\nThe Bakers then petitioned for habeas corpus relief as \"friend\" of Anna Mae in U.S. Federal District Court, claiming that Anna Mae was under the custody of Tennessee state. The federal judge denied the petition.\n\nThe U.S. Supreme Court denied Bakers' petition for writ of certiorari in mid-2007, thus ending the legal battle.\n\nTransfer of custody\nAfter the final decision of the Tennessee Supreme Court, Anna Mae He was returned to her biological parents. The Bakers do not have any residual rights over Anna Mae. The Bakers petitioned for appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court. They also twice sought to stop the custody transfer. The Court denied Bakers' petition and their applications for stay of custody transfer. Bakers then filed a lawsuit in Federal district court against the juvenile court and the attorney general of Tennessee. The U.S. district court dismissed Bakers' suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. With legal recourse exhausted, the Bakers finally gave up.\n\nOn February 21, 2007, the Bakers released videos of Anna Mae, showing what they explained as Anna Mae He's rejection of her Chinese heritage, saying she would rather live in the United States over China, would not eat Chinese food anymore, and told people that she was Mexican. According to a report from USA Today dated February 21, 2007, Jerry Baker paid Anna Mae US$5 for each question she answered, such as \"Where do you want to grow up United States or China?\" and \"What do you want your last name to be, Baker or He?\" The USA Today article noted that she refused to answer the question about her last name. Juvenile Court Judge Curtis Person expressed displeasure that Anna Mae was exposed to this media coverage in the Bakers' home, and threatened to issue a gag order if it continued.\n\nAnna Mae had her first visit with the He family on March 15, 2007, in a two-hour visit at an undisclosed location that included a court-appointed psychologist. Judge Curtis Person has said that the psychologist will be responsible for arranging a series of meetings over a period of four weeks, with the visits increasing in duration and frequency. According to Jack He, the first meeting proceeded much better than he and Casey He expected, and that Anna Mae was not crying, upset, or hostile. A second meeting took place on March 18, 2007, also at an undisclosed location. A court-appointed guardian went to Jerry and Louise Bakers' Memphis home on Friday, July 20, 2007 to pick up Anna Mae He. Anna Mae was fully reunited with her biological parents on Monday, July 23, 2007.\n\nChild advocacy specialist, Debbie Grabarkiewicz, working with A Child's Best Interest, a national child advocacy organization, argued for Anna Mae to stay with the Bakers and for Anna Mae to remain in the U.S., Anna Mae was \"inconsolable\" when she was moved and felt she had lost all control over her life. The Hes said she was initially hostile to them. She seemed angry and withdrawn, refused to eat or sleep in her own bed, and was afraid her parents were going to poison her. She was afraid of going to China, which she thought was remote and strange. Her parents say she began to warm up to them after her mother said they never agreed to give her up. Later her parents agreed to let her play with the Bakers' daughter, Aimee, who had always been her closest companion. She then began calling the Hes \"Baba\" — Chinese for \"Daddy\" — and \"Mama\". The Hes invited the Bakers to attend Anna's ninth birthday party on January 28, 2008 on the condition that the Bakers not cry and that they not call themselves \"Mommy\" and \"Daddy\" when they talked to Anna. While Louise and Jerry Baker attended the party, Jerry Baker's father did not attend because he didn't think he could refrain from crying.\n\nThe He family's legal residence in the U.S. was based on Jack He's student visa, which has long since expired. They were allowed to stay in the U.S. during the custody battle. When the legal fight was over, the He family agreed to go back to China to avoid deportation, although Anna Mae had lived in the U.S. her entire life and cannot speak Chinese. The He family boarded a plane to China on February 9, 2008 and had arrived in China by February 11, 2008. The Hes told Anna that they were going on vacation—when the family was interviewed by an ABC News crew in an airport in China and asked how long they would be staying there, Anna blurted out, \"Two days!\" before her father could respond and said her father's new job in Hunan was in Tennessee. Jack He corrected her. Jack He looked forward to introducing his children to his parents for the first time.\n\nLife in China\nThe Hes hoped to enroll Anna in an international school that teaches in English. Jack He became an associate professor in the Hunan Vocational College of Science and Technology. He was also appointed director of the college's international exchange program. He was later forced to resign due to sexual assault allegations.\n\nOn July 31, 2008, local Memphis television station WMC-TV published an article stating that Jack He wanted to move back to the U.S. with his family, and that his children were not happy in China. However, in an interview with Chinese newspaper Y Weekend, He said that he did not want to go back to the U.S., that WMC-TV took what he said \"out of context,\" and that it \"could not get a good show\" from the interview, so it \"deliberately made things up.\" The reporter involved has denied these accusations. In an issued statement, she claimed that Jack He had asked for help returning to the United States \"several times.\"\n\nIn the interview, Jack He further elaborated on Anna's upbringing with the Bakers. He said that while he felt the Bakers \"subjectively love\" Anna, the \"actual effect\" of her being with the Bakers \"[has] not been good.\" He alleged that the Bakers told Anna that her parents were \"illegal aliens who crossed...from...Mexican border and who [had] disappeared since,\" and that they told a USA Today reporter that Anna was \"abandoned by her natural parents\" whereas they \"saved this abandoned child or else she would be sent back to the horrible place known as China.\"\n\nIn October 2008, local Memphis television Fox 13 reported that friends confirmed the separation of Jack and Casey He, with Casey having sole custody of the children, including Anna Mae. Radio station 600 WREC in Memphis reported that Jack left the family in July after the two argued. Casey said that Jack wanted money from her family, offering her the three children for one hundred thousand dollars. She now lives near her family and said that she and the children are happy; all three of the children are in private schools where both Chinese and English are spoken. Casey does not know where Jack is and does not have his contact information.\n\nA November 29, 2008, Associated Press story indicated that Anna Mae and her siblings attend a boarding school in Chongqing, China, during the week and visit their mother on weekends, when they also receive extra lessons in Chinese, art and piano. Their maternal uncle pays the tuition for the children's boarding school and also owns the two-bedroom apartment where the children live with their mother. Casey He told the reporter that sending the children to boarding school was a difficult decision, but her brother persuaded her it would be too difficult to manage the children's schoolwork and daily schedule if she did not. She visits them at the school three times a week in addition to seeing them on weekends. Anna Mae, who is a year behind in school because of her limited Chinese, told the reporter she doesn't like living at her boarding school and doesn't talk to her teachers or classmates because they can't understand her. She couldn't think of anything she liked about China, but said the best thing about school is going home to her mother. Anna Mae told the reporter she doesn't miss her father. Jack He told the reporter he hopes to reconcile with his wife, but he has filed for divorce and custody of all three of the children. As of November 2008, he hadn't seen Anna Mae or her siblings since July. Anna Mae speaks with her former foster parents, the Bakers, on the telephone once a week and they also send her packages filled with some of her favorite foods. Casey He spoke to the reporter about returning to the United States with the children, but said it would be difficult for her to find work there because of her limited English. She hopes that she might be able to eventually afford to send the children to an international day school in Chongqing.\n\nIn February 2010, Anna told an American ABC News reporter that she misses her classmates in Tennessee. She is still attending boarding school during the week with her brother and sister and reported having trouble with a recent test. She said she now considers herself both American and Chinese. In China she tells everyone that her mother is Casey He and doesn't mention Louise Baker because it is too complicated to explain her relationship to the Bakers, whom she still talks to regularly via telephone and over the Internet. Anna said \"I would say it's fair and it's not fair\" when the reporter asked if it was fair she had to move to China.\n\nIn the summer of 2011, Anna and her two siblings went to the US for summer vacation without their parents. They stayed at the Bakers' house. On August 15, 2011, Anna and her siblings returned to China.\n\nIn November 2017, Local 24 News reported that Anna and her biological sister were back in US living with the Bakers after their mother decided it was the best for the kids.\n\nSee also\n\n Interracial adoption\n\nReferences\n\nAsian-American issues\nAdoption history\nTrials regarding custody of children",
"The Demon's Covenant is a 2010 novel by Irish author Sarah Rees Brennan. It is published by Simon & Schuster. It is the second book in \"The Demon's ...\" trilogy, the first being The Demon's Lexicon, released in 2010, and the third, The Demon's Surrender, released in June 2011.\n\nPlot summary \nMae has learned that her brother, Jamie, has magic powers. Gerald, the leader of the Obsidian Circle, is trying to persuade Jamie to join the magicians that tried to kill Mae and Jamie before. Mae tries to get Nick and Alan to rescue Jamie, but they themselves are in trouble. Nick has a new power that makes every magician in England want him dead. Mae knows she cannot trust anyone so she makes her own plan to save everyone.\n\nCharacter List\nNick Ryves - Protective of friends and family. Likes knives and fighting. He is a demon in a human's body. He is not Alan's real brother. He does not have feelings like humans.\nAlan Ryves - Nick's older brother, a red head who wears glasses. Has a crippled leg and is described as half Nick's size. While he is deadly with guns, he is also kind and always tries to help other people. When dealing with hard situations, he likes to tell gruesome facts as entertainment.\nMae Crawford - Headstrong and loud, she is the big sister of Jamie Crawford. She has pink hair and dresses outrageously. Likes being in control.\nJamie Crawford - Mae's younger brother. A powerful magician whom many magicians' circles want. Always protected by Nick. At first he is scared of Nick, but at the end of the book he becomes friends with Nick. Hates Seb and does not approve of Seb dating his sister. Tries to act tough. Caring and comforts people. Does not like Mae to worry. He is in love with Gerald.\nSeb - He is dating Mae Crawford. Liked by many girls. Appears to dislike Jamie because he likes intimidating and bullying Jamie. Wears long sleeves all the time. Likes drawing people.\nMerris Cromwell - Mysterious, unofficial leader of the Goblin Market. Very rich, she earns her money by running Mezentius House, a hospital/prison for bodies possessed by demons. Gerald revealed she has bone cancer.\nSin - A beautiful dancer at the Goblin Market. Has many admirers. Doesn't like Alan because they have clashing personalities. Friends with Mae. Has a younger brother named Toby. Used to like Nick when they did not know he was a demon.\nBlack Arthur - Magician, leader of the Obsidian Circle. He is dead in this book.\nGerald - Magician in the Obsidian Circle. He is the current leader of the Obsidian Circle in this book. Befriends Jamie.\nAnzu - Demon, who usually takes the form of an eagle/human. He has marked Jamie and Alan.\nAnnabel- Mae and Jamie's mom. Not a natural mother. Athletic. Does not believe in magic.\nLiannan - An icy demon, succubus, who thinks that Nick is her past lover. She is commonly known as \"Yuki Onna\" in Japan.\n\nReferences\n\n2010 Irish novels\n2010 children's books\nYoung adult fantasy novels\nIrish young adult novels\nIrish fantasy novels\nContemporary fantasy novels"
]
|
[
"Jesse Ventura",
"Governor of Minnesota",
"When did he become governor",
"He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican)",
"How did the campaigns go",
"After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan \"My governor can beat up your governor\" appeared in Minnesota.",
"Was there anything else interesting about his election",
"The nickname \"Jesse 'The Mind'\" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically",
"What else was fun about this time?",
") began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name \"Jesse 'The Body'\" (sometimes adapted to \"Jesse 'The Governing Body'\")",
"What other things arose during this campaign",
"After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term,",
"Why did he decide not to run",
"constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues.",
"Did he have any other reasons",
"The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.",
"Were there any other reasons he chose not to run for reelection",
"Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early",
"Why did he want to resign",
"he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor.",
"Why did he want Mae to be governor",
"He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors."
]
| C_8594aa7fd5814f8d94570ba97f336e42_1 | Did he resign | 11 | Did Jesse Ventura resign as Governer? | Jesse Ventura | Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He won the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly) defeating the major-party candidates, St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity. After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, stating that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job to run again as well as what he viewed were constant attacks on his family by the media. Ventura accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a reporter for The Boston Globe that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life. Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. CANNOTANSWER | Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea. | Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, military veteran, actor, television presenter, political commentator, author, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he served as the 38th governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. He was elected governor with the Reform Party and is the party's only candidate to win a major government office.
Ventura was a member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team during the Vietnam War. After leaving the military, he embarked on a professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking the ring name "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura". He had a lengthy tenure in the WWF/WWE as a performer and color commentator and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004. In addition to wrestling, Ventura pursued an acting career, appearing in films such as Predator and The Running Man (both 1987).
Ventura entered politics in 1991 when he was elected mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a position he held until 1995. He was the Reform Party candidate in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". In a major upset, Ventura defeated both the Democratic and Republican nominees. Amid internal fights for control over the party, Ventura left the Reform Party a year after taking office and served the remainder of his governship with the Independence Party of Minnesota. Since holding public office, Ventura has called himself a "statesman" rather than a politician.
As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives he took included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area and income tax cuts. Ventura did not run for reelection. After leaving office in 2003, he became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has since hosted a number of television shows and written several books. Ventura remains politically active, having hosted political shows on RT America and Ora TV, and has repeatedly floated the idea of running for president of the United States as a third-party or independent candidate.
In late April 2020, Ventura endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 presidential election and showed interest in running for its nomination. He officially joined the Green Party of Minnesota on May 2. On May 7, he confirmed he would not run. The Alaskan division of the Green Party nominated Ventura without his involvement, causing the national party to disown it for abandoning its nominee Howie Hawkins.
Early life
Ventura was born James George Janos on July 15, 1951 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of George William Janos and his wife, Bernice Martha (née Lenz). Both his parents were World War II veterans. Ventura has an older brother who served in the Vietnam War. Ventura has described himself as Slovak since his father's parents were from Kingdom of Hungary; his mother was of German descent. Ventura was raised as a Lutheran. Born in South Minneapolis "by the Lake Street bridge," he attended Cooper Elementary School, Sanford Junior High School, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1969. Roosevelt High School inducted Ventura into its first hall of fame in September 2014.
Ventura served in the United States Navy from December 1, 1969, to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat. He graduated in BUD/S class 58 in December 1970 and was part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.
Ventura has frequently referred to his military career in public statements and debates. He was criticized by hunters and conservationists for saying in a 2001 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."
Post-Navy
Near the end of his Navy service, Ventura began to spend time with the "South Bay" chapter of the Mongols motorcycle club in San Diego. He would ride onto Naval Base Coronado on his Harley-Davidson wearing his Mongol colors. According to Ventura, he was a full-patch member of the club and third-in-command of his chapter, but never had any problems with the authorities. In the fall of 1974, Ventura left the bike club to return to the Twin Cities. Shortly after that, the Mongols entered into open warfare with their biker rivals, the Hells Angels.
Ventura attended North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in suburban Minneapolis during the mid-1970s. At the same time, he began weightlifting and wrestling. He was a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones for a time before he entered professional wrestling and adopted the wrestling name Jesse Ventura.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
Ventura created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California" gimmick. As a wrestler, Ventura performed as a heel and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!", a motto he emblazoned on his t-shirts. Much of his flamboyant persona was adapted from Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s. Years later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of claiming that Graham stole all his ring attire ideas from him.
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory, before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for promoter Don Owen as Jesse "The Great" Ventura. During his stay in Portland, Oregon, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once from each wrestler) and the tag team title five times (twice each with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with Jerry Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in 1979. In his RF Video shoot in 2012, he revealed that shortly after he arrived in the AWA he was given the nickname "the Body" by Verne Gagne. The duo won the AWA World Tag Team Championship on July 20, 1980, on a forfeit when Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title defense in Denver, Colorado. The duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers" (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell).
Move to the WWF, retirement, and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the World Wrestling Federation, where they were managed by Freddie Blassie. Although the duo was unable to capture the World Tag Team Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title contenders, each earning several title shots at World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984 after 3 back-to-back losses to world champion Hulk Hogan, when blood clots in his lungs effectively ended his in-ring career. He claimed that the clots were a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Ventura returned to the ring in 1985, forming a tag-team with Randy Savage and Savage's manager (and real-life wife) Miss Elizabeth. Often after their televised matches Ventura taunted and challenged fellow commentator Bruno Sammartino, but nothing ever came of this.
Ventura participated in a six-man tag-team match in December 1985 when he, Roddy Piper, and Bob Orton defeated Hillbilly Jim, Uncle Elmer, and Cousin Luke in a match broadcast on Saturday Night's Main Event IV. The tag match against the Hillbillies came about after Piper and Orton interrupted Elmer's wedding ceremony on the previous edition of the show; Ventura, who later claimed that he was under instruction from fellow commentator and WWF owner Vince McMahon to "bury them", insulted Elmer and his wife during commentary of a real wedding ceremony at the Meadowlands Arena, by proclaiming when they kissed: "It looks like two carp in the middle of the Mississippi River going after the same piece of corn." According to Ventura, the wedding was real, for at that time the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not allow the WWF to stage a fake wedding in the state of New Jersey, so Stan Frazier (Uncle Elmer) and his fiancee had agreed to have a real in-ring wedding.
After a failed comeback bid, Ventura hosted his own talk segment on the WWF's Superstars of Wrestling called "The Body Shop", in much the same heel style as "Piper's Pit", though the setting was a mock gym (when Ventura was unavailable, "The Body Shop" was often hosted by Don Muraco). He began to do color commentary on television for All-Star Wrestling, replacing Angelo Mosca, and later Superstars of Wrestling, initially alongside Vince McMahon and the semi-retired Sammartino, and then just with McMahon after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in early 1988. Ventura most notably co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with McMahon, the first six WrestleManias (five of which were alongside Gorilla Monsoon), and most of the WWF's pay-per-views at the time with Monsoon, with the lone exception for Ventura being the first SummerSlam, in which he served as the guest referee during the main event.
Ventura's entertaining commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, i.e. a "heel", as he was partial to the villains, something new and different at the time. McMahon, who was always looking for ways of jazzing things up, came up with the idea of Ventura doing heel commentary at a time when most commentators, including McMahon himself, openly favored the fan favorites.
But Ventura still occasionally gave credit where it was due, praising the athleticism of fan favorites such as Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage, who was championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a face, a point Ventura regularly made on-air to McMahon and Monsoon. Occasionally he would even acknowledge mistakes made by the heels, including those made by his personal favorites such as Savage or wrestlers managed by heels Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart.
One notable exception to this rule was the WrestleMania VI Ultimate Challenge title for title match between WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and the WWF Intercontinental Champion, The Ultimate Warrior. Since they were both fan favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his commentary, even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship belt to the Warrior after he lost the title, stating that Hogan was going out like a true champion. During the match, however, which was also the last match at Wrestlemania he called, Ventura did voice his pleasure when both broke the rules, at one point claiming, "This is what I like. Let the two goody two-shoes throw the rule book out and get nasty." Ventura's praise of Hogan's action was unusual for him, because he regularly rooted against Hogan during his matches, usually telling fellow commentator Monsoon after Hogan had won a championship match at a Wrestlemania that he might "come out of retirement and take this dude out".
Hogan and Ventura were at one point close friends, but Ventura abruptly ended the friendship in 1994 after he discovered, during his lawsuit against McMahon, that Hogan was the one who had told McMahon about Ventura's attempt to form a labor union in 1984. Following a dispute with McMahon over the use of his image for promoting a Sega product, while McMahon had a contract with rival company Nintendo at the time, the promoter released Ventura from the company in August 1990.
Ventura later served as a radio announcer for a few National Football League teams, among them the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In February 1992 at SuperBrawl II, Ventura joined World Championship Wrestling as a commentator. WCW President Eric Bischoff ultimately released him for allegedly falling asleep during a WCW Worldwide TV taping at Disney MGM Studios in July 1994, but it has been speculated that the move may have had more to do with Hogan's arrival shortly before.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a WWF commentator, Ventura waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties. In November 1991, having discovered that other non-feature performers received royalties, Ventura brought an action for fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and quantum meruit in Minnesota state court against Titan Sports, asking for $2 million in royalties based on a fair market value share. Titan moved the case to federal court, and Ventura won an $801,333 jury verdict on the last claim. In addition, the judge awarded him $8,625 in back pay for all non-video WWF merchandising featuring Ventura. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is an important result in the law of restitution. As a result, Ventura's commentary is removed on most releases from WWE Home Video.
Return to the WWF/WWE
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term as governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for main event of SummerSlam held in Minneapolis. Ventura continued his relationship with the WWF by performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived XFL. On the June 4, 2001, episode of Raw which aired live from Minnesota, Ventura appeared to overrule McMahon's authority and approve a WWF Championship match between then-champion Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho. On the March 20, 2003, episode of SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a taped interview to talk about the match between McMahon and Hogan at WrestleMania XIX. On March 13, 2004, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and the following night at WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to interview Donald Trump, who had a front-row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter politics. Alluding to the 2008 election, Ventura boldly announced, "I think we oughta put a wrestler in the White House in 2008!". Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009, episode of Raw, during which he retained his heel persona by siding with the number one contender Sheamus over WWE Champion John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the WWE, while Ventura never did during his WWE career. After that, Sheamus attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the match a Table match at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years, McMahon joined Ventura ringside to provide match commentary together.
Acting career
Near the end of his wrestling career, Ventura began an acting career. He appeared in the movie Predator (1987), whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Sonny Landham. Ventura became close friends with Schwarzenegger during the production of Predator. He appeared in two episodes of Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain, in 1991. He had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. He had supporting roles in The Running Man, Thunderground, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which he steals the Liberty Bell), and Batman & Robin—the first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger. Ventura made a cameo appearance in Major League II as "White Lightning". He appeared as a self-help guru (voice only) in The Ringer, trying to turn Johnny Knoxville into a more confident worker. Ventura had a cameo in The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" as a Man in Black alongside fellow 'MiB' Alex Trebek. In 2008, Ventura was in the independent comedy Woodshop, starring as high school shop teacher Mr. Madson. The film was released September 7, 2010.
Filmography
Other media
Ventura was a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s and '80s. Mick Jagger said of Ventura, "He's done us proud, hasn't he? He's been fantastic."
In the late '80s, Ventura appeared in a series of Miller Lite commercials.
In 1989, Ventura co-hosted the four episodes of the DiC Entertainment children's program Record Breakers: World of Speed along with Gary Apple. In 1991, the pilot episode for Tag Team, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Ventura and Roddy Piper.
Ventura also co-hosted the short-lived syndicated game show The Grudge Match alongside sportscaster Steve Albert.
Between 1995 and 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on KFAN 1130 and KSTP 1500 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. He also had a brief role on the television soap opera The Young and the Restless in 1999.
Ventura has been criticized by the press for profiting from his heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the failed XFL football league in 2001, served as a referee at a WWF SummerSlam match in 1999, and published several books during his tenure as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the media for focusing on these deals rather than his policy proposals.
From 2009 to 2012, TruTV aired three seasons of the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.
Ventura had a guest spot on an episode of the 2012 rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series on Nickelodeon.
In 2013, Ventura announced a new show, Jesse Ventura: Uncensored, which launched on January 27, 2014, and later renamed Off the Grid, and aired until 2016 on Ora TV, an online video on demand network founded by Larry King.
Since 2017, he has been the host of the show The World According to Jesse on RT America.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990. He defeated the city's 25-year incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the Reform Party of Minnesota nominee (he later joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted of a combination of aggressive grassroots events organized in part by his campaign manager Doug Friedline and original television spots, designed by quirky adman Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign.
He won the election in November 1998, narrowly and unexpectedly defeating the major-party candidates, Republican St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III. During his victory speech, Ventura famously declared, "We shocked the world!" After his election, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's Thinker) began to resurface sarcastically in reference to his often controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'" (sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued to appear with some regularity.
After a trade mission to China in 2002, Ventura announced that he would not run for a second term, saying that he no longer felt dedicated enough to his job and accusing the media of hounding him and his family for personal behavior and beliefs while neglecting coverage of important policy issues. He later told a Boston Globe reporter that he would have run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's effect on his family life.
Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to allow his lieutenant governor, Mae Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further said that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other governors'. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he was just floating an idea.
Political positions as governor
In political debates, Ventura often admitted that he had not formed an opinion on certain policy questions. He often called himself as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." He selected teacher Mae Schunk as his running mate.
Lacking a party base in the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate, Ventura's policy ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills. He vetoed 45 bills in his first year, only three of which were overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes from his fourth and final year, when six of his nine vetoes were overturned. Nevertheless, Ventura succeeded with some of his initiatives. One of the most notable was the rebate on sales tax; each year of his administration, Minnesotans received a tax-free check in the late summer. The state was running a budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed the money should be returned to the public.
Later, Ventura came to support a unicameral (one-house) legislature, property tax reform, gay rights, medical marijuana, and abortion rights. While funding public school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union, and did not have a high regard for public funding of higher education institutions.
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, he reaffirmed his support of gay rights, including marriage and military service, humorously stating he would have gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was in the Navy as they would have provided less competition for women. Later, on the subject of a 2012 referendum on amending the Minnesota Constitution to limit marriage to male-female couples, Ventura said, "I certainly hope that people don't amend our constitution to stop gay marriage because, number one, the constitution is there to protect people, not oppress them", and related a story from his wrestling days of a friend who was denied hospital visitation to his same-sex partner.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly advocated for land-use reform and substantial mass transit improvements, such as light rail.
During another trade mission to Cuba in the summer of 2002, he denounced the United States embargo against Cuba, saying the embargo affected the Cuban public more than it did its government.
Ventura, who ran on a Reform Party ticket and advocated for a greater role for third parties in American politics, is highly critical of both Democrats and Republicans. He has called both parties "monsters that are out of control", concerned only with "their own agendas and their pork."
In his book Independent Nation, political analyst John Avlon describes Ventura as a radical centrist thinker and activist.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place at the 2002 memorial for Senator Paul Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that the memorial ceremony turned into a political rally". He left halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best friend, Rick Kahn. Ventura had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat, but instead appointed Dean Barkley to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in January 2003. Barkley was succeeded by Norm Coleman, who won the seat against Walter Mondale, who replaced Wellstone as the Democratic nominee a few days before the election.
Criticisms of tenure as governor
After the legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and stay at his home in Maple Grove.
In 1999, a group of disgruntled citizens petitioned to recall Governor Ventura, alleging, among other things, that "the use of state security personnel to protect the governor on a book promotion tour constituted illegal use of state property for personal gain." The proposed petition was dismissed by order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. Under Minnesota law, the Chief Justice must review recall petitions for legal sufficiency, and, upon such review, the Chief Justice determined that it did not allege the commission of any act that violated Minnesota law. Ventura sought attorney's fees as a sanction for the filing of a frivolous petition for recall, but that request was denied on the ground that there was no statutory authority for such an award.
Ventura was also criticized for mishandling the Minnesota state budget, with Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson noting that the statewide capital gain fell from $9 billion to $4 billion between 2000 and 2001. In 2002, Ventura's poor handling of the Minnesota state budget was also exploited at the national level by CNN journalist Matthew Cooper. When Ventura left office in 2003, Minnesota had a $4.2 billion budget deficit, compared to the $3 billion budget surplus when Ventura took office in 1999.
In November 2011, Ventura held a press conference in relation to a lawsuit he had filed against the Transportation Security Administration. During the press conference, he said he would "never stand for a national anthem again. I will turn my back and raise a fist the same way Tommy Smith and John Carlos did in the '68 Olympics. Jesse Ventura will do that today."
During his tenure as governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the Twin Cities press. He called reporters "media jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to enter the his press area. Shortly after Ventura's election as governor, author and humorist Garrison Keillor wrote a satirical book about him, Me: Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente, depicting a self-aggrandizing former "Navy W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned professional wrestler turned politician. Ventura initially responded angrily to the satire, but later said Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which he responded controversially to the following question: "So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St. Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized for the remark, saying it was not intended to be taken seriously.
Consideration of bids for other political offices
While Ventura has not held public office since the end of his term as governor in 2003, he has remained politically active and occasionally hinted at running for political office. In an April 7, 2008, interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Ventura said he was considering entering the race for the United States Senate seat then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998 gubernatorial race. A Twin Cities station Fox 9 poll put him at 24%, behind Democratic candidate Al Franken at 32% and Coleman at 39% in a hypothetical three-way race. On Larry King Live on July 14, 2008, Ventura said he would not run, partly out of concern for his family's privacy. Franken won the election by a very narrow margin.
In his 1999 autobiography I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura suggested that he did not plan to run for president of the United States but did not rule it out. In 2003, he expressed interest in running for president while accepting an award from the International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Newton, Iowa. He spoke at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's "Rally for the Republic", organized by the Campaign for Liberty, on September 2, 2008, and implied a possible future run for president. At the end of his speech, Ventura announced if he saw that the public was willing to see a change in the direction of the country, then "in 2012 we'll give them a race they'll never forget!" In 2011, Ventura expressed interest in running with Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election if Paul would run as an independent. On November 4, 2011, Ventura said at a press conference about the dismissal of his court case against the Transportation Security Administration for what he claimed were illegal searches of air travelers that he was "thinking about" running for president. There were reports that the Libertarian Party officials had tried to persuade Ventura to run for president on a Libertarian ticket, but party chairman Mark Hinkle said, "Jesse is more interested in 2016 than he is in 2012. But I think he's serious. If Ron Paul ran as a Libertarian, I think he definitely would be interested in running as a vice presidential candidate. He's thinking, 'If I run as the vice presidential candidate under Ron Paul in 2012, I could run as a presidential candidate in 2016'."
David Gewirtz of ZDNet wrote in a November 2011 article that he thought Ventura could win if he declared his intention to run at that point and ran a serious campaign, but that it would be a long shot.
In late 2015, Ventura publicly flirted with the idea of running for president in 2016 as a Libertarian but allowed his self-imposed deadline of May 1 to pass. He also expressed an openness to be either Donald Trump's running mate or Bernie Sanders's running mate in 2016. Ventura tried to officially endorse Sanders but his endorsement was rejected. Ventura then endorsed former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, saying, "Johnson is a very viable alternative" and "This is the year for a third-party candidate to rise if there ever was one." But in the general election he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee.
Unauthorized 2020 presidential campaign
Ventura expressed interest in running for president again in 2020, but said he would do so only under the Green Party banner. "The [Green Party] has shown some interest. I haven't made a decision yet because it's a long time off. If I do do it, Trump will not have a chance. For one, Trump knows wrestling. He participated in two WrestleManias. He knows he can never out-talk a wrestler, and he knows I'm the greatest talker wrestling's ever had."
On April 27, 2020, Ventura submitted a letter of interest to the Green Party Presidential Support Committee, the first step to seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. In May, he announced that he would not run for health reasons, explaining that he would lose his employer-provided health insurance.
Ventura said he would write in his own name in the presidential election, but would support Green candidates in down-ballot races. He said he "refuse[s] to vote for 'the lesser of two evils' because in the end, that's still choosing evil." Ventura received seven presidential delegate votes at the 2020 Green National Convention, having been awarded them through write-in votes in the 2020 Green primaries. Despite the national Green Party nominating Howie Hawkins for president and Angela Nicole Walker for vice president, the Green Party of Alaska nominated Ventura and former representative Cynthia McKinney without Ventura's consent. Ventura and McKinney received 0.7% of the Alaska popular vote.
Political views
Bush Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009, interview with Larry King, Ventura twice said that George W. Bush was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura added:
Questions about 9/11
In April and May 2008, in several radio interviews for his new book Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, Ventura expressed concern about what he called unanswered questions about 9/11. His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were repeated in newspaper and television stories after some of the interviews.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by Sean Hannity of Fox News how George W. Bush could have avoided the September 11 attacks, Ventura answered, "And there it is again—you pay attention to memos on August 6th that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do."
On April 9, 2011, when Piers Morgan of CNN asked Ventura for his official view of the events of 9/11, Ventura said, "My theory of 9/11 is that we certainly—at the best we knew it was going to happen. They allowed it to happen to further their agenda in the Middle East and go to these wars."
Other endeavors
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in office on January 6, 2003, by Republican Tim Pawlenty.
In October 2003 he began a weekly MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura's America; the show was canceled after a couple of months. Ventura has alleged it was canceled because he opposed the Iraq War. MSNBC honored the balance of his three-year contract, legally preventing him from doing any other TV or news shows.
On October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine Governor Angus King endorsed John Kerry for president at the Minnesota state capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press conference. When prodded for a statement, King responded, "He plans to vote for John Kerry, but he doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender mercies of the Minnesota press". In the 2012 Senate elections, Ventura endorsed King in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Maine, which King won.
In November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura, in which he voiced his opposition to then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies regarding Native American casinos. Ventura served as an advisory board member for a group called Operation Truth, a nonprofit organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in Iraq." "The current use of the National Guard is wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations".
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for BetUS, an online sportsbook.
On December 29, 2011, Ventura announced his support for Ron Paul on The Alex Jones Show in the 2012 presidential election as "the only anti-war candidate." Like Paul, Ventura is known for supporting a less interventionist foreign policy. But after Mitt Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2012, Ventura gave his support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on June 12, 2012, whom Ventura argued was the choice for voters who "really want to rebel."
In September 2012, Ventura and his wife appeared in an advertisement calling for voters to reject a referendum to be held in Minnesota during the November elections that amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The referendum was defeated.
Books
Ventura wrote several other books after leaving office. On April 1, 2008, his Don't Start the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is an independent candidate for president of the United States in 2008. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time of the book's release, Ventura denied any plans for a presidential bid, saying that the scenario was only imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz, said of the book, "[Ventura is revealing] why he left politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our two-party system as corrupt, and what Fidel Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy."
Ventura also wrote DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government, which was released on June 11, 2012. The book expresses Ventura's opposition to the two-party system and calls for political parties to be abolished.
On September 6, 2016, Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto was released, making the case for the legalization of cannabis and detailing the various special interests that benefit from keeping it illegal.
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura
In December 2009, Ventura hosted TruTV's new show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. "Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. On the program, Ventura traveled the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity. According to TruTV, the first episode drew 1.6 million viewers, a record for a new series on the network.
The first season was followed by a second in 2010 and a third in 2012. After three seasons, the show was discontinued in 2013, but as of 2017 it is still shown worldwide on satellite TV.
We The People podcast
On July 31, 2014, Ventura launched a weekly podcast, We The People, distributed by Adam Carolla's "Carolla Digital", which ran until March 4, 2015. Guests included Larry King, Bill Goldberg, Chris Jericho, Roddy Piper, Donald Trump, Mark Dice, and leading members of the 9/11 Truth movement.
Disputes
Navy SEAL background
Bill Salisbury, an attorney in San Diego and a former Navy SEAL officer, has accused Ventura of "pretending" to be a SEAL. He wrote that Ventura blurred an important distinction by claiming to be a SEAL when he was actually a frogman with the UDT. Compared to SEAL teams, UDTs saw less combat and took fewer casualties.
Salisbury described Ventura's Navy training thus:[Ventura] took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for...Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training...Those who completed BUD/S, when [Ventura] was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.Ventura underwent BUD/S training and was assigned to a UDT team. He received the NEC 5321/22 UDT designation given after a six-month probationary period completed with Underwater Demolition Team 12. He was never granted the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) 5326 Combatant Swimmer (SEAL) designation, which requires a six-month probationary period with SEAL TEAM ONE or TWO. In 1983, eight years after Ventura left the Navy, the UDTs were disbanded and those operators were retrained and retasked as SEALs.
Responding to the controversy, Ventura's office confirmed that he was a member of the UDT. His spokesman said that Ventura has never tried to convince people otherwise. Ventura said, "Today we refer to all of us as SEALs. That's all it is." He dismissed the accusations of lying about being a SEAL as "much ado about nothing".
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, the editor of the website SOFREP.com, wrote in a column on the site, "Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status." He disagreed with the argument that Ventura was a UDT and not a SEAL, saying "try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day." "The UDTs and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S", Webb wrote.
Lawsuit against the TSA
In January 2011, Ventura filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration, seeking a declaration that the agency's new controversial pat-down policy violated citizens' Fourth Amendment rights and an injunction to bar the TSA from subjecting him to the pat-down procedures. Ventura received a titanium hip replacement in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints.
The U.S. district court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction in November 2011, ruling that "challenges to TSA orders, policies and procedures" must be brought only in the U.S. courts of appeals. After the court's ruling, Ventura held a press conference in which he called the federal judges cowards; said he no longer felt patriotic and would henceforth refer to the U.S. as the "Fascist States of America"; said he would never take commercial flights again; said he would seek dual citizenship in Mexico; and said he would "never stand for a national anthem again" and would instead raise a fist.
Chris Kyle dispute
During an interview on Opie and Anthony in January 2012 to promote his book American Sniper, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle said he had punched Ventura in 2006 at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a fellow SEAL who had been killed in Iraq. According to Kyle, Ventura was vocally expressing opposition to the War in Iraq. Kyle, who wrote about the alleged incident in his book but did not mention Ventura by name, said he approached Ventura and asked him to tone down his voice because the families of SEAL personnel were present, but that Ventura responded that the SEALs "deserved to lose a few guys." Kyle said he then punched Ventura. Ventura denied the event occurred.
Lawsuit
In January 2012, after Kyle declined to retract his statement, Ventura sued Kyle for defamation in federal court. In a motion filed by Kyle's attorney in August 2012 to dismiss two of the suit's three counts, declarations by five former SEALs and the mothers of two others supported Kyle's account. But in a motion filed by Ventura, Bill DeWitt, a close friend of Ventura and former SEAL who was present with him at the bar, suggested that Ventura interacted with a few SEALs but was involved in no confrontation with Kyle and that Kyle's claims were false. DeWitt's wife also said she witnessed no fight between Kyle and Ventura.
In 2013, while the lawsuit was ongoing, Kyle was murdered in an unrelated incident, and Ventura substituted Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow and the executorix of his estate, as the defendant. After a three-week trial in federal court in St. Paul in July 2014, the jury reached an 8–2 divided verdict in Ventura's favor, and awarded him $1.85 million, $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. Ventura testified at the trial. On August 2014, U.S. District Judge Richard H. Kyle (no relation to Chris Kyle) upheld the jury's award, finding it "reasonable and supported by a preponderance of the evidence." Attorneys for Kyle's estate said that the defamation damages would be covered by HarperCollins's libel insurance. The unjust enrichment award was not covered by insurance. After the verdict, HarperCollins announced that it would remove the sub-chapter "Punching out Scruff Face" from all future editions of Kyle's book. Kyle's estate moved for either judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. In November 2014, the district court denied the motions.
Kyle's estate appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Oral argument was held in October 2015, and on June 13, 2016, the appeals court vacated and reversed the unjust-enrichment judgment, and vacated and remanded the defamation judgment for a new trial, holding that "We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law. Ventura's unjust-enrichment claim fails as a matter of law." Ventura sought to appeal the circuit court's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in January 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
In December 2014, Ventura sued publisher HarperCollins over the same statement in American Sniper. In December 2017, Ventura and HarperCollins settled the dispute on undisclosed terms, and Ventura dropped his lawsuit against both the publisher and Kyle's estate.
Personal life
Family
On July 18, 1975, three days after his 24th birthday, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two children: a son, Tyrel, who is a film and television director and producer, and a daughter, Jade. With the exception of the first two WrestleManias, Ventura always said hello to "Terry, Tyrel and Jade back in Minneapolis" during his commentary at the annual event. Tyrel also had the honor of inducting his father into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004, and worked on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, including as an investigator in the show's third season.
Ventura and his wife split their time between White Bear Lake, Minnesota and Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Regarding his life in Mexico, Ventura has said:
Health
During his wrestling days, Ventura used anabolic steroids. He admitted this after retiring from competition, and went on to make public service announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling career.
Religion
Ventura has said that he was baptized a Lutheran.
In 1999, Ventura said in an NBC News interview that he was baptized a Lutheran but came out as an atheist on The Joe Rogan Experience. In a Playboy interview, Ventura said, "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live." In his 1999 bestselling memoir I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion:
In April 2011, Ventura said on The Howard Stern Show that he is an atheist and that his beliefs could disqualify him for office in the future, saying, "I don't believe you can be an atheist and admit it and get elected in our country." In an October 2010 CNN interview, Ventura stated religion as being the "root of all evil", remarking that "you notice every war is fought over religion."
As governor, Ventura endorsed equal rights for religious minorities, as well as people who do not believe in God, by declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day". He inadvertently proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 "Christian Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Championships and accomplishments
American Wrestling Association
AWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Adrian Adonis
Cauliflower Alley Club
Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1999)
Central States Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Central States version) (1 time) – with Tank Patton
Continental Wrestling Association
AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Frank Gotch Award (2003)
NWA Hawaii
NWA Hawaii Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Steve Strong
Pacific Northwest Wrestling
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Bull Ramos (2), Buddy Rose (2) and Jerry Oates (1)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Ranked No. 239 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
Ranked No. 67 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Adrian Adonis
Ring Around The Northwest Newsletter
Wrestler of the Year (1976)
World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards
Best Color Commentator (1987–1990)
Electoral history
Bibliography
I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up (May 18, 1999)
Do I Stand Alone? Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (September 1, 2000)
Jesse Ventura Tells it Like it Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (August 1, 2002, co-authored with Heron Marquez)
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (April 1, 2008, co-authored with Dick Russell)
American Conspiracies (March 8, 2010, co-authored with Dick Russell) . Updated and revised edition (October 6, 2015, co-authored with Dick Russell)
63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read (April 4, 2011, co-authored with Dick Russell)
DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (June 11, 2012, co-authored with Dick Russell)
They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (October 1, 2013, with Dick Russell & David Wayne)
Sh*t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Ever Uttered By Our "Leaders" (July 12, 2016)
Marijuana Manifesto (September 6, 2016)
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
References
Further reading
deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting". Star Tribune July 22, 1999: 1A+.
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+.
Kahn, Joseph P. "The Body Politic". The Boston Globe February 25, 2004. Accessed April 28, 2004.
Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset". Minneapolis Star-Tribune October 31, 2002: 1A+.
External links
Minnesota Historical Society
Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
Fact-checking at PolitiFact.com
Off The Grid with Jesse Ventura
|-
1951 births
20th-century American male actors
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20th-century American politicians
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American political writers
American talk radio hosts
American television sports announcers
Critics of religions
Former Lutherans
Governors of Minnesota
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John F. Kennedy conspiracy theorists
Living people
MSNBC people
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Roosevelt High School (Minnesota) alumni | true | [
"A leadership election was held in the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan on 28 September 2009 after the incumbent party leader and outgoing Prime Minister of Japan Tarō Asō announced that he would resign after losing badly in the general election held on 30 August 2009. Asō announced on 8 September he would resign on 16 September 2009, which he did as planned.\n\nCandidates\nEndorsement by at least twenty LDP lawmakers is necessary to become a candidate in the election. Since there are 387 LDP Diet members and 141 prefectural LDP representatives (three for each of the 47 prefectural chapters), there is a total of 528 votes.\n\nFormer finance minister Sadakazu Tanigaki announced on 13 September 2009 he would stand in the election. Tanigaki had also been a candidate in the 2006 leadership election, where he came in third place behind Shinzō Abe and Tarō Asō. Yasutoshi Nishimura and Tarō Kōno (son of former LDP leader Yōhei Kōno) are the other two announced candidates.\n\nFarm minister Shigeru Ishiba was also considered a possible candidate, but he did not stand.\n\nCampaign\nA public debate was held on 19 September 2009. Tanigaki was elected with 300 of 498 ballots.\n\nResults\n\n 1 invalid vote\n\nReferences\n\n2009 elections in Japan\nPolitical party leadership elections in Japan\nLiberal Democratic Party (Japan)\nIndirect elections\nLiberal Democratic Party (Japan) leadership election",
"The East Moreton colonial by-election, 1870 was a by-election held on 19 February 1870 in the electoral district of East Moreton for the Queensland Legislative Assembly.\n\nHistory\nOn 17 February 1870, Arthur Francis, member for East Moreton, resigned due to insolvency. On the nomination day for the by-election, 19 February 1870, there were two candidatesRobert Travers Atkin and Robert Cribb (who had previously represented the electorate from 1863 to 1867). In his nomination speech, Atkin made accusations against Cribb, who replied vigorously defending himself. The somewhat unexpected outcome of this verbal exchange was that Cribb announced he would withdraw his nomination. Cribb said that if Atkin believed he could represent them so well, the best thing they could do would be to let him try, predicting that Atkin would either resign or be asked to resign within six months. Being the only remaining candidate, Atkin was declared elected.\n\nCribb's six-month prediction did not come true. However, Atkin did not complete his term, as he resigned on 7 March 1872 due to serious ill health (pulmonary tuberculosis) and died soon after.\n\nSee also\n Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, 1868–1870\n\nReferences\n\n1870 elections in Australia\nQueensland state by-elections\n1870s in Queensland"
]
|
[
"Bill James",
"The Bill James Baseball Abstracts"
]
| C_4246b6ef2f7e4d15a95bcea0ab7cffad_1 | When were the Bill James Baseball Abstracts written? | 1 | When were the Bill James Baseball Abstracts written? | Bill James | An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis written in a lively, insightful, and witty style that offered an answer. Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984. The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions. While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day. CANNOTANSWER | self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977. | George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. In 2003, James was hired as senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox and worked for the team for 17 years during which they won four World Series championships.
Early life
James was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas (KU) residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971. He was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there. Instead, he spent two years stationed in South Korea, during which time he wrote to KU about taking his final class. He was told he actually had met all his graduation requirements, so he returned to Lawrence in 1973 with degrees in English and economics. He also finished an Education degree in 1975, likewise from the University of Kansas.
Career
The Bill James Baseball Abstracts
An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis that offered an answer.
Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.
The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions.
While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day.
Post-Abstracts work
In 1988, James ceased writing the Abstract, citing workload-related burnout and concern about the volume of statistics on the market. He has continued to publish hardcover books about baseball history, which have sold well and received admiring reviews. These books include three editions of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985, 1988, 2001, the last entitled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract).
James has also written several series of new annuals:
The Baseball Book (1990–1992) was a loosely organized collection of commentary, profiles, historical articles, and occasional pieces of research. James's assistant Rob Neyer was responsible for much of the research, and wrote several short pieces. Neyer went on to become a featured baseball columnist at ESPN and SB Nation.
The Player Ratings Book (1993–95) offered statistics and 50-word profiles aimed at the fantasy baseball enthusiast.
The Bill James Handbook (2003–present) provides past-season statistics and next-season projections for Major League players and teams, and career data for all current Major League players. Results for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Awards voted on by a 10-person panel that includes James, are also included.
The Bill James Gold Mine (2008–2010) was a collection of new essays and never-before-seen statistics, as well as profiles of players and teams.
Playing off the name of the earlier series, Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom (2011) was a mixed collection of both baseball-related and miscellaneous pieces, culled from the Bill James Online archives (see below).
In 2008, James launched Bill James Online. Subscribers can read James's new, original writing and interact with one another —- as well as with James —- in a question-and-answer format. The web site also offers new "profiles" of teams and players full of facts and statistics that hope to one day map what James has termed "the lost island of baseball statistics."
STATS, Inc.
In an essay published in the 1984 Abstract, James vented his frustration about Major League Baseball's refusal to publish play-by-play accounts of every game. James proposed the creation of Project Scoresheet, a network of fans that would work together to collect and distribute this information.
While the resulting non-profit organization never functioned smoothly, it worked well enough to collect accounts of every game from 1984 through 1991. James's publisher agreed to distribute two annuals of essays and data – the 1987 and 1988 editions of Bill James Presents The Great American Baseball Statbook (though only the first of these featured writing by James).
The organization was eventually disbanded, but many of its members went on to form for-profit companies with similar goals and structure. STATS, Inc., the company James joined, provided data and analysis to every major media outlet before being acquired by Fox Sports in 2001.
Innovations
Among the statistical innovations attributable to James are:
Runs created. A statistic intended to quantify a player's contribution to runs scored, as well as a team's expected number of runs scored. Runs created is calculated from other offensive statistics. James's first version of it was:
Applied to an entire team or league, the statistic correlates closely (usually within 5%) to that team's or league's actual runs scored. Since James first created the statistic, sabermetricians have refined it to make it more accurate, and it is now used in many different variations.
Range factor. A statistic that quantifies the defensive contribution of a player, calculated in its simplest form as (A is an assist, PO is a putout):
The statistic is premised on the notion that the total number of outs that a player participates in is more relevant in evaluating his defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic fielding percentage.
Defensive Efficiency Rating. A statistic that shows the percentage of balls in play a defense turns into an out. It is used to help determine a team's defensive ability. The formula is:
Win shares. A unifying statistic intended to allow the comparison of players at different positions, as well as players of different eras. Win Shares incorporates a variety of pitching, hitting and fielding statistics. One drawback of Win Shares is the difficulty of computing it.
Pythagorean Winning Percentage. A statistic explaining the relationship of wins and losses to runs scored and runs allowed. The statistic correlates closely to a team's actual winning percentage. Its simplest formula is:
Game score is a metric to determine the strength of a pitcher in any particular baseball game. It has since been improved by Tom Tango.
Major League Equivalency. A metric that uses minor league statistics to predict how a player is likely to perform at the major league level.
The Brock2 System. A system for projecting a player's performance over the remainder of his career based on past performance and the aging process.
Similarity scores. Scoring a player's statistical similarity to other players, providing a frame of reference for players of the distant past. Examples: Lou Gehrig comparable to Don Mattingly; Joe Jackson to Tony Oliva.
Secondary average. A statistic that attempts to measure a player's contribution to an offense in ways not reflected in batting average. Secondary averages tend to be similar to batting averages, but can vary wildly, from less than .100 to more than .500 in extreme cases. The formula is (ISO is isolated power):
Power/Speed Number. A statistic that attempts to consolidate the various "clubs" of players with impressive numbers of both home runs and stolen bases (e.g., the 30–30 club (Bobby Bonds was well known for being a member), the 40–40 club (Jose Canseco was the first to perform this feat), and even the 25–65 club (Joe Morgan in the '70s)). The formula is:
Approximate Value. A system of cutoffs designed to estimate the value a player contributed to various category groups (including his team) to study broad questions such as "how do players age over time".
"Temperature gauge" to determine how "hot" a player is, based on recent performance. The gauge has been used in NESN Red Sox telecasts and has provoked mixed reactions from critics.
Although James may be best known as an inventor of statistical tools, he has often written on the limitations of statistics and urged humility concerning their place amid other kinds of information about baseball. To James, context is paramount: he was among the first to emphasize the importance of adjusting traditional statistics for park factors and to stress the role of luck in a pitcher's win-loss record. Many of his statistical innovations are arguably less important than the underlying ideas. When he introduced the notion of secondary average, it was as a vehicle for the then-counterintuitive concept that batting average represents only a fraction of a player's offensive contribution. (The runs-created statistic plays a similar role vis-à-vis the traditional RBI.) Some of his contributions to the language of baseball, like the idea of the "defensive spectrum", border on being entirely non-statistical.
Acceptance and employment in mainstream baseball
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane began applying sabermetric principles to running his low-budget team in the early 2000s, to notable effect, as chronicled in Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.
In 2003, James was hired by a former reader, John Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.
One point of controversy was in handling the relief pitching of the Red Sox. James had previously published analysis of the use of the closer in baseball, and had concluded that the traditional use of the closer both overrated the abilities of that individual and used him in suboptimal circumstances. He wrote that it is "far better to use your relief ace when the score is tied, even if that is the seventh inning, than in the ninth inning with a lead of two or more runs." The Red Sox in 2003 staffed their bullpen with several marginally talented relievers. Red Sox manager Grady Little was never fully comfortable with the setup, and designated unofficial closers and reshuffled roles after a bad outing. When Boston lost a number of games due to bullpen failures, Little reverted to a traditional closer approach and moved Byung-hyun Kim from being a starting pitcher to a closer. The Red Sox did not follow James's idea of a bullpen with no closer, but with consistent overall talent that would allow the responsibilities to be shared. Red Sox reliever Alan Embree thought the plan could have worked if the bullpen had not suffered injuries. During the 2004 regular season Keith Foulke was used primarily as a closer in the conventional model; however, Foulke's usage in the 2004 postseason was along the lines of a relief ace with multiple inning appearances at pivotal times of the game. Houston Astros manager Phil Garner also employed a relief ace model with his use of Brad Lidge in the 2004 postseason.
During his tenure with the Red Sox, James published several new sabermetric books (see #Bibliography below). Indeed, although James was typically tight-lipped about his activities on behalf of the Red Sox, he is credited with advocating some of the moves that led to the team's first World Series championship in 86 years, including the signing of non-tendered free agent David Ortiz, the trade for Mark Bellhorn, and the team's increased emphasis on on-base percentage.
After the Red Sox suffered through a disastrous 2012 season, Henry stated that James had fallen "out of favor [in the front office] over the last few years for reasons I really don't understand. We've gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly."
On October 24, 2019, James announced his retirement from the Red Sox, saying that he had "fallen out of step with the organization" and added that he hadn't earned his paycheck with the Red Sox for the last couple of years. During his time with the team, Bill James received four World Series rings for the team's 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 World Series titles.
In culture
Michael Lewis, in his 2003 book Moneyball, dedicates a chapter to James's career and sabermetrics as background for his portrayal of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics' unlikely success.
James was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2007.
James was profiled on 60 Minutes on March 30, 2008, in his role as a sabermetric pioneer and Red Sox advisor. In 2010, he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
James made a guest appearance on The Simpsons 2010 episode "MoneyBART". He claimed "I've made baseball as fun as doing your taxes."
Steven Soderbergh's planned film adaptation of Moneyball would have featured an animated version of James as a "host". This script was discarded when director Bennett Miller and writer Aaron Sorkin succeeded Soderbergh on the project. Ultimately, the 2011 film mentions James several times. His bio is briefly recapped, and Billy Beane is depicted telling John Henry that Henry's hiring of James is the reason Beane is interested in the Red Sox general manager job.
Controversies
Dowd Report controversy
In his Baseball Book 1990, James heavily criticized the methodology of the Dowd Report, which was an investigation (commissioned by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti) on the gambling activities of Pete Rose. James reproached commissioner Giamatti and his successor, Fay Vincent, for their acceptance of the Dowd Report as the final word on Rose's gambling. (James's attitude on the matter surprised many fans, especially after the writer had been deeply critical of Rose in the past, especially what James considered to be Rose's selfish pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time record for base hits.)
James expanded his defense of Rose in his 2001 book The New Historical Baseball Abstract, with a detailed explanation of why he found the case against Rose flimsy. James wrote "I would characterize the evidence that Rose bet on baseball as...well, not quite non-existent. It is extremely weak." This countered the popular opinion that the case against Rose was a slam dunk, and several critics claimed that James misstated some of the evidence in his defense of Rose. Derek Zumsteg of Baseball Prospectus wrote an exhaustive review of the case James made and concluded: "James' defense of Rose is filled with oversights, errors in judgment, failures in research, and is a great disservice to the many people who have looked to him for a balanced and fair take on this complicated and important issue."
In 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct. James remained steadfast, continuing to insist that the evidence available to Dowd at the time was insufficient to reach the conclusion that it did.
Paterno controversy
On November 4, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was indicted for committing sex crimes against young boys, which brought the Penn State child sex abuse scandal to national attention. On December 11, 2011, James published an article called "The Trial of Penn State", depicting an imaginary trial in which Penn State defended itself against charges of "acting rashly and irresponsibly in the matter of Joe Paterno, in such a manner that [they] defamed, libeled and slandered Paterno, unfairly demolishing his reputation."
On July 12, 2012, the Freeh report was released, charging Paterno and three other University officials with covering up reports of sexual assaults and enabling the attacker to prey on other children for more than a decade, often in Penn State facilities. Soon afterwards, during an interview on ESPN radio, James claimed that the Freeh report's characterizations of Paterno as a powerful figure were wrong, and that it was not Paterno's responsibility to report allegations of child molestation to the police. "[Paterno] had very few allies. He was isolated and he was not nearly as powerful as people imagine him to have been." When asked if he knew anyone who had showered with a boy they were not related to, James said it was a common practice when he was growing up. "That was actually quite common in the town I grew up in. That was quite common in America 40 years ago."
The July 2012 interview comments were widely criticized. Rob Neyer wrote in defense of James. James's employer, the Boston Red Sox, issued a statement disavowing the comments James made and saying that he had been asked not to make further public comments on the matter.
Personal life
James is a fan of the University of Kansas men's basketball team and has written about basketball. He has created a formula for what he calls a "safe lead" in the sport.
James has written two true crime books, Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (2011) and The Man from the Train (2017), the latter with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. In The Man From the Train, published in 2017, the Jameses attempt to link scores of murders of entire families in the early 20th century United States to a single perpetrator. Those murders include the Villisca axe murders. The Jameses propose a solution to the murders based on the signature elements these killings share in common with each other.
Bibliography
Bill James Baseball Abstract (annual editions published 1977–1988)
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985; revised edition 1988)
This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones (1989) (selection of comments from Abstracts and articles)
The Bill James Baseball Book (annual editions published 1990–1992)
The Politics of Glory (1994) (revised as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?),
The Bill James Player Ratings Book (annual editions published 1993–1996)
The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers (1997)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Handbook (1998; 2nd ed. 2000)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Sourcebook (1998)
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001)
Win Shares (2002)
Win Shares Digital Update (2002) (PDF form only)
The Bill James Handbook (annual editions published 2003–present)
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (2004, with co-author Rob Neyer)
The Bill James Gold Mine (annual editions published 2008–2010, , )
Popular Crime – Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (, published 2011)
Solid Fool's Gold (2011), (articles from Bill James Online website)
Fools Rush Inn (2014), (more articles from Bill James Online website)
The Man From the Train (2017),
Books about James
The Mind of Bill James (2006) ISBN
How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball: by Colleagues, Critics, Competitors and Just Plain Fans (2007)
See also
Baseball Prospectus
Defensive spectrum
Keltner list
Similarity score
Win shares
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Bill James Online –interactions with James through statistics, articles, conversations and more
Works of Bill James
Audio interview by Jesse Thorn, public radio program The Sound of Young America (April 29, 2008)
Chronister, Levi (April 25, 2004). "Grassroots Guru". Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, KS).
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part I, Baseball Digest
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part II
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part III
McGrath, Ben (July 14, 2003). "The Professor of Baseball". The New Yorker
Wall Street Journal profile
[ Does Bill James Belong in the Hall of Fame?]
– contrary to James
Schwarz, Alan (July 18, 2006). "25 For 25: Don Fehr, Peter Gammons, Pat Gillick, Bo Jackson, Bill James". 25 for 25: Stars in the Baseball America Universe. Baseball America.
Henry, John (May 8, 2006). "Scientists & Thinkers: Bill James". The 2006 Time 100. Time.
Surowiecki, James (June 10, 2003). "Moneyball Redux: Slate talks to the man who revolutionized baseball.". Slate.
Lederer, Bill (February 28, 2005). "Breakfast with Bill James". Baseball Analysts (baseballanalysts.com).
1949 births
Living people
American sportswriters
American statisticians
Baseball statisticians
Baseball writers
People from Holton, Kansas
United States Army soldiers
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers | false | [
"George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.\n\nIn 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. In 2003, James was hired as senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox and worked for the team for 17 years during which they won four World Series championships.\n\nEarly life\nJames was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas (KU) residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971. He was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there. Instead, he spent two years stationed in South Korea, during which time he wrote to KU about taking his final class. He was told he actually had met all his graduation requirements, so he returned to Lawrence in 1973 with degrees in English and economics. He also finished an Education degree in 1975, likewise from the University of Kansas.\n\nCareer\n\nThe Bill James Baseball Abstracts\nAn aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., \"Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?\"), and then presented data and analysis that offered an answer.\n\nEditors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.\n\nThe first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions.\n\nWhile writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day.\n\nPost-Abstracts work\nIn 1988, James ceased writing the Abstract, citing workload-related burnout and concern about the volume of statistics on the market. He has continued to publish hardcover books about baseball history, which have sold well and received admiring reviews. These books include three editions of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985, 1988, 2001, the last entitled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract).\n\nJames has also written several series of new annuals:\n The Baseball Book (1990–1992) was a loosely organized collection of commentary, profiles, historical articles, and occasional pieces of research. James's assistant Rob Neyer was responsible for much of the research, and wrote several short pieces. Neyer went on to become a featured baseball columnist at ESPN and SB Nation.\n The Player Ratings Book (1993–95) offered statistics and 50-word profiles aimed at the fantasy baseball enthusiast.\n The Bill James Handbook (2003–present) provides past-season statistics and next-season projections for Major League players and teams, and career data for all current Major League players. Results for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Awards voted on by a 10-person panel that includes James, are also included.\n The Bill James Gold Mine (2008–2010) was a collection of new essays and never-before-seen statistics, as well as profiles of players and teams.\n Playing off the name of the earlier series, Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom (2011) was a mixed collection of both baseball-related and miscellaneous pieces, culled from the Bill James Online archives (see below).\n\nIn 2008, James launched Bill James Online. Subscribers can read James's new, original writing and interact with one another —- as well as with James —- in a question-and-answer format. The web site also offers new \"profiles\" of teams and players full of facts and statistics that hope to one day map what James has termed \"the lost island of baseball statistics.\"\n\nSTATS, Inc.\nIn an essay published in the 1984 Abstract, James vented his frustration about Major League Baseball's refusal to publish play-by-play accounts of every game. James proposed the creation of Project Scoresheet, a network of fans that would work together to collect and distribute this information.\n\nWhile the resulting non-profit organization never functioned smoothly, it worked well enough to collect accounts of every game from 1984 through 1991. James's publisher agreed to distribute two annuals of essays and data – the 1987 and 1988 editions of Bill James Presents The Great American Baseball Statbook (though only the first of these featured writing by James).\n\nThe organization was eventually disbanded, but many of its members went on to form for-profit companies with similar goals and structure. STATS, Inc., the company James joined, provided data and analysis to every major media outlet before being acquired by Fox Sports in 2001.\n\nInnovations\nAmong the statistical innovations attributable to James are:\n Runs created. A statistic intended to quantify a player's contribution to runs scored, as well as a team's expected number of runs scored. Runs created is calculated from other offensive statistics. James's first version of it was:\n\nApplied to an entire team or league, the statistic correlates closely (usually within 5%) to that team's or league's actual runs scored. Since James first created the statistic, sabermetricians have refined it to make it more accurate, and it is now used in many different variations.\n Range factor. A statistic that quantifies the defensive contribution of a player, calculated in its simplest form as (A is an assist, PO is a putout):\n\nThe statistic is premised on the notion that the total number of outs that a player participates in is more relevant in evaluating his defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic fielding percentage.\n Defensive Efficiency Rating. A statistic that shows the percentage of balls in play a defense turns into an out. It is used to help determine a team's defensive ability. The formula is:\n\n Win shares. A unifying statistic intended to allow the comparison of players at different positions, as well as players of different eras. Win Shares incorporates a variety of pitching, hitting and fielding statistics. One drawback of Win Shares is the difficulty of computing it.\n Pythagorean Winning Percentage. A statistic explaining the relationship of wins and losses to runs scored and runs allowed. The statistic correlates closely to a team's actual winning percentage. Its simplest formula is:\n\n Game score is a metric to determine the strength of a pitcher in any particular baseball game. It has since been improved by Tom Tango.\n Major League Equivalency. A metric that uses minor league statistics to predict how a player is likely to perform at the major league level.\n The Brock2 System. A system for projecting a player's performance over the remainder of his career based on past performance and the aging process.\n Similarity scores. Scoring a player's statistical similarity to other players, providing a frame of reference for players of the distant past. Examples: Lou Gehrig comparable to Don Mattingly; Joe Jackson to Tony Oliva.\n Secondary average. A statistic that attempts to measure a player's contribution to an offense in ways not reflected in batting average. Secondary averages tend to be similar to batting averages, but can vary wildly, from less than .100 to more than .500 in extreme cases. The formula is (ISO is isolated power):\n\n Power/Speed Number. A statistic that attempts to consolidate the various \"clubs\" of players with impressive numbers of both home runs and stolen bases (e.g., the 30–30 club (Bobby Bonds was well known for being a member), the 40–40 club (Jose Canseco was the first to perform this feat), and even the 25–65 club (Joe Morgan in the '70s)). The formula is:\n\n Approximate Value. A system of cutoffs designed to estimate the value a player contributed to various category groups (including his team) to study broad questions such as \"how do players age over time\".\n \"Temperature gauge\" to determine how \"hot\" a player is, based on recent performance. The gauge has been used in NESN Red Sox telecasts and has provoked mixed reactions from critics.\n\nAlthough James may be best known as an inventor of statistical tools, he has often written on the limitations of statistics and urged humility concerning their place amid other kinds of information about baseball. To James, context is paramount: he was among the first to emphasize the importance of adjusting traditional statistics for park factors and to stress the role of luck in a pitcher's win-loss record. Many of his statistical innovations are arguably less important than the underlying ideas. When he introduced the notion of secondary average, it was as a vehicle for the then-counterintuitive concept that batting average represents only a fraction of a player's offensive contribution. (The runs-created statistic plays a similar role vis-à-vis the traditional RBI.) Some of his contributions to the language of baseball, like the idea of the \"defensive spectrum\", border on being entirely non-statistical.\n\nAcceptance and employment in mainstream baseball\nOakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane began applying sabermetric principles to running his low-budget team in the early 2000s, to notable effect, as chronicled in Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.\n\nIn 2003, James was hired by a former reader, John Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.\n\nOne point of controversy was in handling the relief pitching of the Red Sox. James had previously published analysis of the use of the closer in baseball, and had concluded that the traditional use of the closer both overrated the abilities of that individual and used him in suboptimal circumstances. He wrote that it is \"far better to use your relief ace when the score is tied, even if that is the seventh inning, than in the ninth inning with a lead of two or more runs.\" The Red Sox in 2003 staffed their bullpen with several marginally talented relievers. Red Sox manager Grady Little was never fully comfortable with the setup, and designated unofficial closers and reshuffled roles after a bad outing. When Boston lost a number of games due to bullpen failures, Little reverted to a traditional closer approach and moved Byung-hyun Kim from being a starting pitcher to a closer. The Red Sox did not follow James's idea of a bullpen with no closer, but with consistent overall talent that would allow the responsibilities to be shared. Red Sox reliever Alan Embree thought the plan could have worked if the bullpen had not suffered injuries. During the 2004 regular season Keith Foulke was used primarily as a closer in the conventional model; however, Foulke's usage in the 2004 postseason was along the lines of a relief ace with multiple inning appearances at pivotal times of the game. Houston Astros manager Phil Garner also employed a relief ace model with his use of Brad Lidge in the 2004 postseason.\n\nDuring his tenure with the Red Sox, James published several new sabermetric books (see #Bibliography below). Indeed, although James was typically tight-lipped about his activities on behalf of the Red Sox, he is credited with advocating some of the moves that led to the team's first World Series championship in 86 years, including the signing of non-tendered free agent David Ortiz, the trade for Mark Bellhorn, and the team's increased emphasis on on-base percentage.\n\nAfter the Red Sox suffered through a disastrous 2012 season, Henry stated that James had fallen \"out of favor [in the front office] over the last few years for reasons I really don't understand. We've gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly.\"\n\nOn October 24, 2019, James announced his retirement from the Red Sox, saying that he had \"fallen out of step with the organization\" and added that he hadn't earned his paycheck with the Red Sox for the last couple of years. During his time with the team, Bill James received four World Series rings for the team's 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 World Series titles.\n\nIn culture\nMichael Lewis, in his 2003 book Moneyball, dedicates a chapter to James's career and sabermetrics as background for his portrayal of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics' unlikely success.\n\nJames was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2007.\n\nJames was profiled on 60 Minutes on March 30, 2008, in his role as a sabermetric pioneer and Red Sox advisor. In 2010, he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.\n\nJames made a guest appearance on The Simpsons 2010 episode \"MoneyBART\". He claimed \"I've made baseball as fun as doing your taxes.\"\n\nSteven Soderbergh's planned film adaptation of Moneyball would have featured an animated version of James as a \"host\". This script was discarded when director Bennett Miller and writer Aaron Sorkin succeeded Soderbergh on the project. Ultimately, the 2011 film mentions James several times. His bio is briefly recapped, and Billy Beane is depicted telling John Henry that Henry's hiring of James is the reason Beane is interested in the Red Sox general manager job.\n\nControversies\n\nDowd Report controversy\nIn his Baseball Book 1990, James heavily criticized the methodology of the Dowd Report, which was an investigation (commissioned by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti) on the gambling activities of Pete Rose. James reproached commissioner Giamatti and his successor, Fay Vincent, for their acceptance of the Dowd Report as the final word on Rose's gambling. (James's attitude on the matter surprised many fans, especially after the writer had been deeply critical of Rose in the past, especially what James considered to be Rose's selfish pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time record for base hits.)\n\nJames expanded his defense of Rose in his 2001 book The New Historical Baseball Abstract, with a detailed explanation of why he found the case against Rose flimsy. James wrote \"I would characterize the evidence that Rose bet on baseball as...well, not quite non-existent. It is extremely weak.\" This countered the popular opinion that the case against Rose was a slam dunk, and several critics claimed that James misstated some of the evidence in his defense of Rose. Derek Zumsteg of Baseball Prospectus wrote an exhaustive review of the case James made and concluded: \"James' defense of Rose is filled with oversights, errors in judgment, failures in research, and is a great disservice to the many people who have looked to him for a balanced and fair take on this complicated and important issue.\"\n\nIn 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct. James remained steadfast, continuing to insist that the evidence available to Dowd at the time was insufficient to reach the conclusion that it did.\n\nPaterno controversy\nOn November 4, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was indicted for committing sex crimes against young boys, which brought the Penn State child sex abuse scandal to national attention. On December 11, 2011, James published an article called \"The Trial of Penn State\", depicting an imaginary trial in which Penn State defended itself against charges of \"acting rashly and irresponsibly in the matter of Joe Paterno, in such a manner that [they] defamed, libeled and slandered Paterno, unfairly demolishing his reputation.\"\n\nOn July 12, 2012, the Freeh report was released, charging Paterno and three other University officials with covering up reports of sexual assaults and enabling the attacker to prey on other children for more than a decade, often in Penn State facilities. Soon afterwards, during an interview on ESPN radio, James claimed that the Freeh report's characterizations of Paterno as a powerful figure were wrong, and that it was not Paterno's responsibility to report allegations of child molestation to the police. \"[Paterno] had very few allies. He was isolated and he was not nearly as powerful as people imagine him to have been.\" When asked if he knew anyone who had showered with a boy they were not related to, James said it was a common practice when he was growing up. \"That was actually quite common in the town I grew up in. That was quite common in America 40 years ago.\"\n\nThe July 2012 interview comments were widely criticized. Rob Neyer wrote in defense of James. James's employer, the Boston Red Sox, issued a statement disavowing the comments James made and saying that he had been asked not to make further public comments on the matter.\n\nPersonal life\nJames is a fan of the University of Kansas men's basketball team and has written about basketball. He has created a formula for what he calls a \"safe lead\" in the sport.\n\nJames has written two true crime books, Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (2011) and The Man from the Train (2017), the latter with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. In The Man From the Train, published in 2017, the Jameses attempt to link scores of murders of entire families in the early 20th century United States to a single perpetrator. Those murders include the Villisca axe murders. The Jameses propose a solution to the murders based on the signature elements these killings share in common with each other.\n\nBibliography\n Bill James Baseball Abstract (annual editions published 1977–1988)\n The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985; revised edition 1988) \n This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones (1989) (selection of comments from Abstracts and articles)\n The Bill James Baseball Book (annual editions published 1990–1992)\n The Politics of Glory (1994) (revised as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?), \n The Bill James Player Ratings Book (annual editions published 1993–1996)\n The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers (1997) \n Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Handbook (1998; 2nd ed. 2000) \n Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Sourcebook (1998) \n The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001) \n Win Shares (2002)\n Win Shares Digital Update (2002) (PDF form only)\n The Bill James Handbook (annual editions published 2003–present)\n The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (2004, with co-author Rob Neyer) \n The Bill James Gold Mine (annual editions published 2008–2010, , )\n Popular Crime – Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (, published 2011)\n Solid Fool's Gold (2011), (articles from Bill James Online website)\n Fools Rush Inn (2014), (more articles from Bill James Online website)\n The Man From the Train (2017),\n\nBooks about James\n\n The Mind of Bill James (2006) ISBN\n How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball: by Colleagues, Critics, Competitors and Just Plain Fans (2007)\n\nSee also\n\n Baseball Prospectus\n Defensive spectrum\n Keltner list\n Similarity score\n Win shares\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\n\n Bill James Online –interactions with James through statistics, articles, conversations and more\n Works of Bill James \n Audio interview by Jesse Thorn, public radio program The Sound of Young America (April 29, 2008)\n Chronister, Levi (April 25, 2004). \"Grassroots Guru\". Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, KS).\n Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part I, Baseball Digest \n Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part II \n Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part III \n McGrath, Ben (July 14, 2003). \"The Professor of Baseball\". The New Yorker\n Wall Street Journal profile \n [ Does Bill James Belong in the Hall of Fame?] \n \n – contrary to James\n Schwarz, Alan (July 18, 2006). \"25 For 25: Don Fehr, Peter Gammons, Pat Gillick, Bo Jackson, Bill James\". 25 for 25: Stars in the Baseball America Universe. Baseball America.\n Henry, John (May 8, 2006). \"Scientists & Thinkers: Bill James\". The 2006 Time 100. Time.\n Surowiecki, James (June 10, 2003). \"Moneyball Redux: Slate talks to the man who revolutionized baseball.\". Slate.\n Lederer, Bill (February 28, 2005). \"Breakfast with Bill James\". Baseball Analysts (baseballanalysts.com).\n \n\n \n1949 births\nLiving people\nAmerican sportswriters\nAmerican statisticians\nBaseball statisticians\nBaseball writers\nPeople from Holton, Kansas\nUnited States Army soldiers\n20th-century American writers\n21st-century American non-fiction writers",
"The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is a reference-type book written by Bill James featuring an overview of professional baseball decade by decade, along with rankings of the top 100 players at each position. The original edition was published in 1985 by Villard Books, updated in paperback in 1988, then followed by The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract in 2001. In the 2001 edition, James introduced his win shares system, an attempt to quantify a player's overall contributions to his team, which he used as part of his player ranking system. A revised edition was published in paperback in 2003.\n\nSee also\n Casey Award\n\nReferences\n\nBooks by Bill James\n1985 non-fiction books\nBaseball books\nVillard (imprint) books"
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"Bill James",
"The Bill James Baseball Abstracts",
"When were the Bill James Baseball Abstracts written?",
"self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977."
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| C_4246b6ef2f7e4d15a95bcea0ab7cffad_1 | What was in the abstract? | 2 | What was in the abstract of Bill James annual book titled the Bill James Baseball Abstract?? | Bill James | An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis written in a lively, insightful, and witty style that offered an answer. Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984. The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions. While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day. CANNOTANSWER | 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics | George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. In 2003, James was hired as senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox and worked for the team for 17 years during which they won four World Series championships.
Early life
James was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas (KU) residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971. He was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there. Instead, he spent two years stationed in South Korea, during which time he wrote to KU about taking his final class. He was told he actually had met all his graduation requirements, so he returned to Lawrence in 1973 with degrees in English and economics. He also finished an Education degree in 1975, likewise from the University of Kansas.
Career
The Bill James Baseball Abstracts
An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis that offered an answer.
Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.
The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions.
While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day.
Post-Abstracts work
In 1988, James ceased writing the Abstract, citing workload-related burnout and concern about the volume of statistics on the market. He has continued to publish hardcover books about baseball history, which have sold well and received admiring reviews. These books include three editions of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985, 1988, 2001, the last entitled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract).
James has also written several series of new annuals:
The Baseball Book (1990–1992) was a loosely organized collection of commentary, profiles, historical articles, and occasional pieces of research. James's assistant Rob Neyer was responsible for much of the research, and wrote several short pieces. Neyer went on to become a featured baseball columnist at ESPN and SB Nation.
The Player Ratings Book (1993–95) offered statistics and 50-word profiles aimed at the fantasy baseball enthusiast.
The Bill James Handbook (2003–present) provides past-season statistics and next-season projections for Major League players and teams, and career data for all current Major League players. Results for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Awards voted on by a 10-person panel that includes James, are also included.
The Bill James Gold Mine (2008–2010) was a collection of new essays and never-before-seen statistics, as well as profiles of players and teams.
Playing off the name of the earlier series, Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom (2011) was a mixed collection of both baseball-related and miscellaneous pieces, culled from the Bill James Online archives (see below).
In 2008, James launched Bill James Online. Subscribers can read James's new, original writing and interact with one another —- as well as with James —- in a question-and-answer format. The web site also offers new "profiles" of teams and players full of facts and statistics that hope to one day map what James has termed "the lost island of baseball statistics."
STATS, Inc.
In an essay published in the 1984 Abstract, James vented his frustration about Major League Baseball's refusal to publish play-by-play accounts of every game. James proposed the creation of Project Scoresheet, a network of fans that would work together to collect and distribute this information.
While the resulting non-profit organization never functioned smoothly, it worked well enough to collect accounts of every game from 1984 through 1991. James's publisher agreed to distribute two annuals of essays and data – the 1987 and 1988 editions of Bill James Presents The Great American Baseball Statbook (though only the first of these featured writing by James).
The organization was eventually disbanded, but many of its members went on to form for-profit companies with similar goals and structure. STATS, Inc., the company James joined, provided data and analysis to every major media outlet before being acquired by Fox Sports in 2001.
Innovations
Among the statistical innovations attributable to James are:
Runs created. A statistic intended to quantify a player's contribution to runs scored, as well as a team's expected number of runs scored. Runs created is calculated from other offensive statistics. James's first version of it was:
Applied to an entire team or league, the statistic correlates closely (usually within 5%) to that team's or league's actual runs scored. Since James first created the statistic, sabermetricians have refined it to make it more accurate, and it is now used in many different variations.
Range factor. A statistic that quantifies the defensive contribution of a player, calculated in its simplest form as (A is an assist, PO is a putout):
The statistic is premised on the notion that the total number of outs that a player participates in is more relevant in evaluating his defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic fielding percentage.
Defensive Efficiency Rating. A statistic that shows the percentage of balls in play a defense turns into an out. It is used to help determine a team's defensive ability. The formula is:
Win shares. A unifying statistic intended to allow the comparison of players at different positions, as well as players of different eras. Win Shares incorporates a variety of pitching, hitting and fielding statistics. One drawback of Win Shares is the difficulty of computing it.
Pythagorean Winning Percentage. A statistic explaining the relationship of wins and losses to runs scored and runs allowed. The statistic correlates closely to a team's actual winning percentage. Its simplest formula is:
Game score is a metric to determine the strength of a pitcher in any particular baseball game. It has since been improved by Tom Tango.
Major League Equivalency. A metric that uses minor league statistics to predict how a player is likely to perform at the major league level.
The Brock2 System. A system for projecting a player's performance over the remainder of his career based on past performance and the aging process.
Similarity scores. Scoring a player's statistical similarity to other players, providing a frame of reference for players of the distant past. Examples: Lou Gehrig comparable to Don Mattingly; Joe Jackson to Tony Oliva.
Secondary average. A statistic that attempts to measure a player's contribution to an offense in ways not reflected in batting average. Secondary averages tend to be similar to batting averages, but can vary wildly, from less than .100 to more than .500 in extreme cases. The formula is (ISO is isolated power):
Power/Speed Number. A statistic that attempts to consolidate the various "clubs" of players with impressive numbers of both home runs and stolen bases (e.g., the 30–30 club (Bobby Bonds was well known for being a member), the 40–40 club (Jose Canseco was the first to perform this feat), and even the 25–65 club (Joe Morgan in the '70s)). The formula is:
Approximate Value. A system of cutoffs designed to estimate the value a player contributed to various category groups (including his team) to study broad questions such as "how do players age over time".
"Temperature gauge" to determine how "hot" a player is, based on recent performance. The gauge has been used in NESN Red Sox telecasts and has provoked mixed reactions from critics.
Although James may be best known as an inventor of statistical tools, he has often written on the limitations of statistics and urged humility concerning their place amid other kinds of information about baseball. To James, context is paramount: he was among the first to emphasize the importance of adjusting traditional statistics for park factors and to stress the role of luck in a pitcher's win-loss record. Many of his statistical innovations are arguably less important than the underlying ideas. When he introduced the notion of secondary average, it was as a vehicle for the then-counterintuitive concept that batting average represents only a fraction of a player's offensive contribution. (The runs-created statistic plays a similar role vis-à-vis the traditional RBI.) Some of his contributions to the language of baseball, like the idea of the "defensive spectrum", border on being entirely non-statistical.
Acceptance and employment in mainstream baseball
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane began applying sabermetric principles to running his low-budget team in the early 2000s, to notable effect, as chronicled in Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.
In 2003, James was hired by a former reader, John Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.
One point of controversy was in handling the relief pitching of the Red Sox. James had previously published analysis of the use of the closer in baseball, and had concluded that the traditional use of the closer both overrated the abilities of that individual and used him in suboptimal circumstances. He wrote that it is "far better to use your relief ace when the score is tied, even if that is the seventh inning, than in the ninth inning with a lead of two or more runs." The Red Sox in 2003 staffed their bullpen with several marginally talented relievers. Red Sox manager Grady Little was never fully comfortable with the setup, and designated unofficial closers and reshuffled roles after a bad outing. When Boston lost a number of games due to bullpen failures, Little reverted to a traditional closer approach and moved Byung-hyun Kim from being a starting pitcher to a closer. The Red Sox did not follow James's idea of a bullpen with no closer, but with consistent overall talent that would allow the responsibilities to be shared. Red Sox reliever Alan Embree thought the plan could have worked if the bullpen had not suffered injuries. During the 2004 regular season Keith Foulke was used primarily as a closer in the conventional model; however, Foulke's usage in the 2004 postseason was along the lines of a relief ace with multiple inning appearances at pivotal times of the game. Houston Astros manager Phil Garner also employed a relief ace model with his use of Brad Lidge in the 2004 postseason.
During his tenure with the Red Sox, James published several new sabermetric books (see #Bibliography below). Indeed, although James was typically tight-lipped about his activities on behalf of the Red Sox, he is credited with advocating some of the moves that led to the team's first World Series championship in 86 years, including the signing of non-tendered free agent David Ortiz, the trade for Mark Bellhorn, and the team's increased emphasis on on-base percentage.
After the Red Sox suffered through a disastrous 2012 season, Henry stated that James had fallen "out of favor [in the front office] over the last few years for reasons I really don't understand. We've gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly."
On October 24, 2019, James announced his retirement from the Red Sox, saying that he had "fallen out of step with the organization" and added that he hadn't earned his paycheck with the Red Sox for the last couple of years. During his time with the team, Bill James received four World Series rings for the team's 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 World Series titles.
In culture
Michael Lewis, in his 2003 book Moneyball, dedicates a chapter to James's career and sabermetrics as background for his portrayal of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics' unlikely success.
James was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2007.
James was profiled on 60 Minutes on March 30, 2008, in his role as a sabermetric pioneer and Red Sox advisor. In 2010, he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
James made a guest appearance on The Simpsons 2010 episode "MoneyBART". He claimed "I've made baseball as fun as doing your taxes."
Steven Soderbergh's planned film adaptation of Moneyball would have featured an animated version of James as a "host". This script was discarded when director Bennett Miller and writer Aaron Sorkin succeeded Soderbergh on the project. Ultimately, the 2011 film mentions James several times. His bio is briefly recapped, and Billy Beane is depicted telling John Henry that Henry's hiring of James is the reason Beane is interested in the Red Sox general manager job.
Controversies
Dowd Report controversy
In his Baseball Book 1990, James heavily criticized the methodology of the Dowd Report, which was an investigation (commissioned by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti) on the gambling activities of Pete Rose. James reproached commissioner Giamatti and his successor, Fay Vincent, for their acceptance of the Dowd Report as the final word on Rose's gambling. (James's attitude on the matter surprised many fans, especially after the writer had been deeply critical of Rose in the past, especially what James considered to be Rose's selfish pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time record for base hits.)
James expanded his defense of Rose in his 2001 book The New Historical Baseball Abstract, with a detailed explanation of why he found the case against Rose flimsy. James wrote "I would characterize the evidence that Rose bet on baseball as...well, not quite non-existent. It is extremely weak." This countered the popular opinion that the case against Rose was a slam dunk, and several critics claimed that James misstated some of the evidence in his defense of Rose. Derek Zumsteg of Baseball Prospectus wrote an exhaustive review of the case James made and concluded: "James' defense of Rose is filled with oversights, errors in judgment, failures in research, and is a great disservice to the many people who have looked to him for a balanced and fair take on this complicated and important issue."
In 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct. James remained steadfast, continuing to insist that the evidence available to Dowd at the time was insufficient to reach the conclusion that it did.
Paterno controversy
On November 4, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was indicted for committing sex crimes against young boys, which brought the Penn State child sex abuse scandal to national attention. On December 11, 2011, James published an article called "The Trial of Penn State", depicting an imaginary trial in which Penn State defended itself against charges of "acting rashly and irresponsibly in the matter of Joe Paterno, in such a manner that [they] defamed, libeled and slandered Paterno, unfairly demolishing his reputation."
On July 12, 2012, the Freeh report was released, charging Paterno and three other University officials with covering up reports of sexual assaults and enabling the attacker to prey on other children for more than a decade, often in Penn State facilities. Soon afterwards, during an interview on ESPN radio, James claimed that the Freeh report's characterizations of Paterno as a powerful figure were wrong, and that it was not Paterno's responsibility to report allegations of child molestation to the police. "[Paterno] had very few allies. He was isolated and he was not nearly as powerful as people imagine him to have been." When asked if he knew anyone who had showered with a boy they were not related to, James said it was a common practice when he was growing up. "That was actually quite common in the town I grew up in. That was quite common in America 40 years ago."
The July 2012 interview comments were widely criticized. Rob Neyer wrote in defense of James. James's employer, the Boston Red Sox, issued a statement disavowing the comments James made and saying that he had been asked not to make further public comments on the matter.
Personal life
James is a fan of the University of Kansas men's basketball team and has written about basketball. He has created a formula for what he calls a "safe lead" in the sport.
James has written two true crime books, Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (2011) and The Man from the Train (2017), the latter with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. In The Man From the Train, published in 2017, the Jameses attempt to link scores of murders of entire families in the early 20th century United States to a single perpetrator. Those murders include the Villisca axe murders. The Jameses propose a solution to the murders based on the signature elements these killings share in common with each other.
Bibliography
Bill James Baseball Abstract (annual editions published 1977–1988)
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985; revised edition 1988)
This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones (1989) (selection of comments from Abstracts and articles)
The Bill James Baseball Book (annual editions published 1990–1992)
The Politics of Glory (1994) (revised as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?),
The Bill James Player Ratings Book (annual editions published 1993–1996)
The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers (1997)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Handbook (1998; 2nd ed. 2000)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Sourcebook (1998)
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001)
Win Shares (2002)
Win Shares Digital Update (2002) (PDF form only)
The Bill James Handbook (annual editions published 2003–present)
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (2004, with co-author Rob Neyer)
The Bill James Gold Mine (annual editions published 2008–2010, , )
Popular Crime – Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (, published 2011)
Solid Fool's Gold (2011), (articles from Bill James Online website)
Fools Rush Inn (2014), (more articles from Bill James Online website)
The Man From the Train (2017),
Books about James
The Mind of Bill James (2006) ISBN
How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball: by Colleagues, Critics, Competitors and Just Plain Fans (2007)
See also
Baseball Prospectus
Defensive spectrum
Keltner list
Similarity score
Win shares
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Bill James Online –interactions with James through statistics, articles, conversations and more
Works of Bill James
Audio interview by Jesse Thorn, public radio program The Sound of Young America (April 29, 2008)
Chronister, Levi (April 25, 2004). "Grassroots Guru". Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, KS).
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part I, Baseball Digest
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part II
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part III
McGrath, Ben (July 14, 2003). "The Professor of Baseball". The New Yorker
Wall Street Journal profile
[ Does Bill James Belong in the Hall of Fame?]
– contrary to James
Schwarz, Alan (July 18, 2006). "25 For 25: Don Fehr, Peter Gammons, Pat Gillick, Bo Jackson, Bill James". 25 for 25: Stars in the Baseball America Universe. Baseball America.
Henry, John (May 8, 2006). "Scientists & Thinkers: Bill James". The 2006 Time 100. Time.
Surowiecki, James (June 10, 2003). "Moneyball Redux: Slate talks to the man who revolutionized baseball.". Slate.
Lederer, Bill (February 28, 2005). "Breakfast with Bill James". Baseball Analysts (baseballanalysts.com).
1949 births
Living people
American sportswriters
American statisticians
Baseball statisticians
Baseball writers
People from Holton, Kansas
United States Army soldiers
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers | true | [
"American Abstract Artists (AAA) was formed in 1936 in New York City, to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. American Abstract Artists exhibitions, publications, and lectures helped to establish the organization as a major forum for the exchange and discussion of ideas, and for presenting abstract art to a broader public. The American Abstract Artists group contributed to the development and acceptance of abstract art in the United States and has a historic role in its avant-garde. It is one of the few artists’ organizations to survive from the Great Depression and continue into the 21st century.\n\nHistory\n\nDuring the 1930s, abstract art was viewed with critical opposition and there was little support from art galleries and museums. The American Abstract Artists group was established in 1936 as a forum for discussion and debate of abstract art and to provide exhibition opportunities when few other possibilities existed. In 1937 AAA issued a “General Prospectus.” It outlined the purpose of the organization and the importance of exhibitions in promoting the growth and acceptance of abstract art in the United States.\n\nAAA held its first exhibition in 1937 at the Squibb Gallery in New York City. This was the most extensive and widely attended exhibition of American abstract painting and sculpture outside of a museum during the 1930s. For the 1937 exhibition AAA produced its first print portfolio of original zinc plate lithographs, instead of documenting the exhibit with a catalog. Future exhibitions and publications would establish AAA as a major forum for the discussion and presentation of new abstract and non-objective art.\n\nThe most influential critics dismissed American abstract art as too European and therefore “un-American”. There was extensive hostile criticism of AAA exhibits in New York City newspapers and art magazines of the time. American abstract art was struggling to win acceptance and AAA personified this. The 1938 Yearbook addressed criticisms levied against abstract art by the press and public. It also featured essays related to principles behind and the practice of making abstract art. In 1940, AAA printed a broadside titled “How Modern is the Museum of Modern Art?” which was handed out at a protest in front of MOMA. At the time the Museum of Modern Art had a policy of featuring European abstraction while endorsing American regionalism and scene painting. This policy helped entrench the notion that abstraction was foreign to the American experience.\n\nLater that year AAA produced a 12-page pamphlet: “The Art Critics – ! How Do They Serve the Public? What Do They Say? How Much Do They Know? Let’s Look at the Record.” The AAA publication quoted critics, highlighting misstatements and contradictions in the press. The pamphlet excoriated notable New York Herald Tribune critic Royal Cortissoz for his rigid loyalty to traditionalism, his patent distaste for abstract and modern art, and generally for what the pamphlet regarded as his \"resistance to knowledge\". It also characterized the aesthetic vacillations of Thomas Craven, critic of the New York American, as opportunistic. In 1936, Craven labeled Picasso's work \"Bohemian infantilism\". The ensuing years would see a growing public appreciation for abstract art until, in 1939, the critic made an about-face and lauded Picasso for his \"unrivaled inventiveness\". The pamphlet applauded Henry McBride of the New York Sun and Robert Coates of the New Yorker for their critical efforts regarding abstract art. \"The Art Critics\" showed the lack of knowledge the critics from New York City newspapers and art publications had about developments in 20th-century art.\n\nAAA combated prevailing hostile attitudes toward abstraction and prepared the way for its acceptance after World War II. AAA was a precursor to abstract expressionism by helping abstract art discover its identity in the United States.\n\nDuring the early 1940s the New York School gained momentum and throughout the mid-1940s and 1950s Abstract Expressionism dominated the American avant-garde. American Abstract Artists continued its mandate as an advocate for abstract art.\n\nAmerican Abstract Artists is active today. To date the organization has produced over 75 exhibitions of its membership in museums and galleries across the United States. AAA has published 5 Journals, in addition to brochures, books, catalogs, and has hosted critical panels and symposia. AAA distributes its published materials internationally to cultural organizations. American Abstract Artist produces print portfolios by its membership. AAA print portfolios are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Tate in London, and the Archives of American Art.\n\nIn 2014 Harry Holtzman and George L.K. Morris, founding members of the American Abstract Artists were paired in an intimate 2-man exhibit, curated by Kinney Frelinghuysen and Madalena Holtzman, and designed to evoke an informal conversation between the two artists. This exhibition marked also the beginning of a collaboration between the Estates of George L.K. Morris and Harry Holtzman, with support of the Netherlands Institute for Art History. The collaboration aims at sharing, editing and exhibiting new historical materials related and connected to the world of abstract art of the seminal period of the 1930s and 1940s in Europe and in the USA. For this reason in this first show will be present also the works of other European protagonists of the time like Jean Hélion, Cesar Domela, and Ben Nicholson.\nA project, that duly enlarged and in the details curated will be evolving into a wider exhibition initiative.\n\nFounding members\nThe following artists are considered founding members:\n\nFootnotes\n\nReferences \n American Abstract Artists, The Language of Abstraction, exhibition catalog. Betty Parsons Gallery, Marilyn Pearl Gallery, 1979. Text by Susan Larson.\n Larsen, Susan C. “The American Abstract Artists: A Documentary History 1936–1941”, Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1974), p 2-7.\n Pioneers of Abstract Art: American Abstract Artists, 1936–1996, exhibition catalog. Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, 1996. Text by Sandra Kraskin.\n Continuum: In Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of AAA, exhibition press release. St. Peter's College Art Gallery, O'Toole Library, Jersey City, NJ (March 21 – April 25, 2007).\n\nExternal links\nAmerican Abstract Artists\nAmerican Abstract Artists records, 1935–1982 in the collection of the Archives of American Art\n\nAmerican artist groups and collectives\nArts organizations based in New York City\nAbstract art\nAbstract expressionism\nAmerican contemporary art\nAmerican art movements\nArts organizations established in 1936\n1936 establishments in the United States",
"An Abstract of a Book lately Published, full title An Abstract of a Book lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is farther Illustrated and Explained is a summary of the main doctrines of David Hume's work A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in 1740. There has been speculation about the authorship of the work. Some scholars believe it was written by Hume's friend, the economist Adam Smith. Most believe it was written by Hume himself, in an attempt to popularise the Treatise.\n\nIn The Philosophical Quarterly in 1976, and again in Hume Studies 1991, J. O. Nelson challenged the received view that Hume wrote the Abstract, arguing that Adam Smith wrote it. His case depends on the identity of the 'Mr Smith' referred\nto in a letter of 4 March, 1740 from Hume at Ninewells to Francis Hutcheson at Glasgow. \n\nMy Bookseller has sent to Mr Smith a Copy of my Book, which I hope he has receiv‘d, as well as your Letter. I have not yet heard what he has done with the Abstract. Perhaps you have. I have got it printed in London; but not in the Works of the Learned; there having been an article with regard to my Book, somewhat abusive, printed in that Work, before I sent up the Abstract?\n\nKeynes and Sraffa argued that the \"Mr Smith\" was John Smith, Hutcheson’s Dublin publisher, and that Hume wrote the Abstract (as all the internal evidence suggests). Norman Kemp Smith, in a review of the Keynes and Sraffa edition, also accepted this, as well as pointing out the entry on Hume in Watkins Biographical Dictionary attributing authorship of the Abstract to Hume, suggesting that the author of the entry possessed inside information about Hume’s motives in publishing the Abstract. Nelson has argued that \"Mr Smith\" was Adam Smith (at that time, still a student). David Raynor has argued that all of the presently available internal and external evidence suggests that Hume wrote the Abstract.\n\nReferences\n\nR.W.Connon, M. Pollard, \"On the authorship of Hume's Abstract\", The Philosophical Quarterly 1977 .\n John O. Nelson, \"The Authorship of the Abstract Revisited,\" Hume Studies 17, no. 1 (April 1991): 83-86.\n John O. Nelson, \"Has the Authorship of An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature Really Been Decided?\" The Philosophical Quarterly 26, no. 102 (January 1976): 91.\n \"New Books\", Norman Kemp Smith, Mind 1938 XLVII(188):522-524,\n An Abstract of a Book lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is farther Illustrated and Explained, (London, 1740). \n \"The Authorship of the Abstract Revisited\" David Raynor, Hume Studies, Volume XIX, Number 1 (April, 1993) 213-215 .\n\n1740 books\nDavid Hume\nPhilosophy books\nWorks published anonymously\nTreatises"
]
|
[
"Bill James",
"The Bill James Baseball Abstracts",
"When were the Bill James Baseball Abstracts written?",
"self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977.",
"What was in the abstract?",
"18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics"
]
| C_4246b6ef2f7e4d15a95bcea0ab7cffad_1 | Who read it? | 3 | Who read Bill James's annual book called the Bill James Baseball Abstract? | Bill James | An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis written in a lively, insightful, and witty style that offered an answer. Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984. The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions. While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day. CANNOTANSWER | Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. | George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. In 2003, James was hired as senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox and worked for the team for 17 years during which they won four World Series championships.
Early life
James was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas (KU) residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971. He was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there. Instead, he spent two years stationed in South Korea, during which time he wrote to KU about taking his final class. He was told he actually had met all his graduation requirements, so he returned to Lawrence in 1973 with degrees in English and economics. He also finished an Education degree in 1975, likewise from the University of Kansas.
Career
The Bill James Baseball Abstracts
An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis that offered an answer.
Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.
The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions.
While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day.
Post-Abstracts work
In 1988, James ceased writing the Abstract, citing workload-related burnout and concern about the volume of statistics on the market. He has continued to publish hardcover books about baseball history, which have sold well and received admiring reviews. These books include three editions of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985, 1988, 2001, the last entitled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract).
James has also written several series of new annuals:
The Baseball Book (1990–1992) was a loosely organized collection of commentary, profiles, historical articles, and occasional pieces of research. James's assistant Rob Neyer was responsible for much of the research, and wrote several short pieces. Neyer went on to become a featured baseball columnist at ESPN and SB Nation.
The Player Ratings Book (1993–95) offered statistics and 50-word profiles aimed at the fantasy baseball enthusiast.
The Bill James Handbook (2003–present) provides past-season statistics and next-season projections for Major League players and teams, and career data for all current Major League players. Results for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Awards voted on by a 10-person panel that includes James, are also included.
The Bill James Gold Mine (2008–2010) was a collection of new essays and never-before-seen statistics, as well as profiles of players and teams.
Playing off the name of the earlier series, Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom (2011) was a mixed collection of both baseball-related and miscellaneous pieces, culled from the Bill James Online archives (see below).
In 2008, James launched Bill James Online. Subscribers can read James's new, original writing and interact with one another —- as well as with James —- in a question-and-answer format. The web site also offers new "profiles" of teams and players full of facts and statistics that hope to one day map what James has termed "the lost island of baseball statistics."
STATS, Inc.
In an essay published in the 1984 Abstract, James vented his frustration about Major League Baseball's refusal to publish play-by-play accounts of every game. James proposed the creation of Project Scoresheet, a network of fans that would work together to collect and distribute this information.
While the resulting non-profit organization never functioned smoothly, it worked well enough to collect accounts of every game from 1984 through 1991. James's publisher agreed to distribute two annuals of essays and data – the 1987 and 1988 editions of Bill James Presents The Great American Baseball Statbook (though only the first of these featured writing by James).
The organization was eventually disbanded, but many of its members went on to form for-profit companies with similar goals and structure. STATS, Inc., the company James joined, provided data and analysis to every major media outlet before being acquired by Fox Sports in 2001.
Innovations
Among the statistical innovations attributable to James are:
Runs created. A statistic intended to quantify a player's contribution to runs scored, as well as a team's expected number of runs scored. Runs created is calculated from other offensive statistics. James's first version of it was:
Applied to an entire team or league, the statistic correlates closely (usually within 5%) to that team's or league's actual runs scored. Since James first created the statistic, sabermetricians have refined it to make it more accurate, and it is now used in many different variations.
Range factor. A statistic that quantifies the defensive contribution of a player, calculated in its simplest form as (A is an assist, PO is a putout):
The statistic is premised on the notion that the total number of outs that a player participates in is more relevant in evaluating his defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic fielding percentage.
Defensive Efficiency Rating. A statistic that shows the percentage of balls in play a defense turns into an out. It is used to help determine a team's defensive ability. The formula is:
Win shares. A unifying statistic intended to allow the comparison of players at different positions, as well as players of different eras. Win Shares incorporates a variety of pitching, hitting and fielding statistics. One drawback of Win Shares is the difficulty of computing it.
Pythagorean Winning Percentage. A statistic explaining the relationship of wins and losses to runs scored and runs allowed. The statistic correlates closely to a team's actual winning percentage. Its simplest formula is:
Game score is a metric to determine the strength of a pitcher in any particular baseball game. It has since been improved by Tom Tango.
Major League Equivalency. A metric that uses minor league statistics to predict how a player is likely to perform at the major league level.
The Brock2 System. A system for projecting a player's performance over the remainder of his career based on past performance and the aging process.
Similarity scores. Scoring a player's statistical similarity to other players, providing a frame of reference for players of the distant past. Examples: Lou Gehrig comparable to Don Mattingly; Joe Jackson to Tony Oliva.
Secondary average. A statistic that attempts to measure a player's contribution to an offense in ways not reflected in batting average. Secondary averages tend to be similar to batting averages, but can vary wildly, from less than .100 to more than .500 in extreme cases. The formula is (ISO is isolated power):
Power/Speed Number. A statistic that attempts to consolidate the various "clubs" of players with impressive numbers of both home runs and stolen bases (e.g., the 30–30 club (Bobby Bonds was well known for being a member), the 40–40 club (Jose Canseco was the first to perform this feat), and even the 25–65 club (Joe Morgan in the '70s)). The formula is:
Approximate Value. A system of cutoffs designed to estimate the value a player contributed to various category groups (including his team) to study broad questions such as "how do players age over time".
"Temperature gauge" to determine how "hot" a player is, based on recent performance. The gauge has been used in NESN Red Sox telecasts and has provoked mixed reactions from critics.
Although James may be best known as an inventor of statistical tools, he has often written on the limitations of statistics and urged humility concerning their place amid other kinds of information about baseball. To James, context is paramount: he was among the first to emphasize the importance of adjusting traditional statistics for park factors and to stress the role of luck in a pitcher's win-loss record. Many of his statistical innovations are arguably less important than the underlying ideas. When he introduced the notion of secondary average, it was as a vehicle for the then-counterintuitive concept that batting average represents only a fraction of a player's offensive contribution. (The runs-created statistic plays a similar role vis-à-vis the traditional RBI.) Some of his contributions to the language of baseball, like the idea of the "defensive spectrum", border on being entirely non-statistical.
Acceptance and employment in mainstream baseball
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane began applying sabermetric principles to running his low-budget team in the early 2000s, to notable effect, as chronicled in Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.
In 2003, James was hired by a former reader, John Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.
One point of controversy was in handling the relief pitching of the Red Sox. James had previously published analysis of the use of the closer in baseball, and had concluded that the traditional use of the closer both overrated the abilities of that individual and used him in suboptimal circumstances. He wrote that it is "far better to use your relief ace when the score is tied, even if that is the seventh inning, than in the ninth inning with a lead of two or more runs." The Red Sox in 2003 staffed their bullpen with several marginally talented relievers. Red Sox manager Grady Little was never fully comfortable with the setup, and designated unofficial closers and reshuffled roles after a bad outing. When Boston lost a number of games due to bullpen failures, Little reverted to a traditional closer approach and moved Byung-hyun Kim from being a starting pitcher to a closer. The Red Sox did not follow James's idea of a bullpen with no closer, but with consistent overall talent that would allow the responsibilities to be shared. Red Sox reliever Alan Embree thought the plan could have worked if the bullpen had not suffered injuries. During the 2004 regular season Keith Foulke was used primarily as a closer in the conventional model; however, Foulke's usage in the 2004 postseason was along the lines of a relief ace with multiple inning appearances at pivotal times of the game. Houston Astros manager Phil Garner also employed a relief ace model with his use of Brad Lidge in the 2004 postseason.
During his tenure with the Red Sox, James published several new sabermetric books (see #Bibliography below). Indeed, although James was typically tight-lipped about his activities on behalf of the Red Sox, he is credited with advocating some of the moves that led to the team's first World Series championship in 86 years, including the signing of non-tendered free agent David Ortiz, the trade for Mark Bellhorn, and the team's increased emphasis on on-base percentage.
After the Red Sox suffered through a disastrous 2012 season, Henry stated that James had fallen "out of favor [in the front office] over the last few years for reasons I really don't understand. We've gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly."
On October 24, 2019, James announced his retirement from the Red Sox, saying that he had "fallen out of step with the organization" and added that he hadn't earned his paycheck with the Red Sox for the last couple of years. During his time with the team, Bill James received four World Series rings for the team's 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 World Series titles.
In culture
Michael Lewis, in his 2003 book Moneyball, dedicates a chapter to James's career and sabermetrics as background for his portrayal of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics' unlikely success.
James was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2007.
James was profiled on 60 Minutes on March 30, 2008, in his role as a sabermetric pioneer and Red Sox advisor. In 2010, he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
James made a guest appearance on The Simpsons 2010 episode "MoneyBART". He claimed "I've made baseball as fun as doing your taxes."
Steven Soderbergh's planned film adaptation of Moneyball would have featured an animated version of James as a "host". This script was discarded when director Bennett Miller and writer Aaron Sorkin succeeded Soderbergh on the project. Ultimately, the 2011 film mentions James several times. His bio is briefly recapped, and Billy Beane is depicted telling John Henry that Henry's hiring of James is the reason Beane is interested in the Red Sox general manager job.
Controversies
Dowd Report controversy
In his Baseball Book 1990, James heavily criticized the methodology of the Dowd Report, which was an investigation (commissioned by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti) on the gambling activities of Pete Rose. James reproached commissioner Giamatti and his successor, Fay Vincent, for their acceptance of the Dowd Report as the final word on Rose's gambling. (James's attitude on the matter surprised many fans, especially after the writer had been deeply critical of Rose in the past, especially what James considered to be Rose's selfish pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time record for base hits.)
James expanded his defense of Rose in his 2001 book The New Historical Baseball Abstract, with a detailed explanation of why he found the case against Rose flimsy. James wrote "I would characterize the evidence that Rose bet on baseball as...well, not quite non-existent. It is extremely weak." This countered the popular opinion that the case against Rose was a slam dunk, and several critics claimed that James misstated some of the evidence in his defense of Rose. Derek Zumsteg of Baseball Prospectus wrote an exhaustive review of the case James made and concluded: "James' defense of Rose is filled with oversights, errors in judgment, failures in research, and is a great disservice to the many people who have looked to him for a balanced and fair take on this complicated and important issue."
In 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct. James remained steadfast, continuing to insist that the evidence available to Dowd at the time was insufficient to reach the conclusion that it did.
Paterno controversy
On November 4, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was indicted for committing sex crimes against young boys, which brought the Penn State child sex abuse scandal to national attention. On December 11, 2011, James published an article called "The Trial of Penn State", depicting an imaginary trial in which Penn State defended itself against charges of "acting rashly and irresponsibly in the matter of Joe Paterno, in such a manner that [they] defamed, libeled and slandered Paterno, unfairly demolishing his reputation."
On July 12, 2012, the Freeh report was released, charging Paterno and three other University officials with covering up reports of sexual assaults and enabling the attacker to prey on other children for more than a decade, often in Penn State facilities. Soon afterwards, during an interview on ESPN radio, James claimed that the Freeh report's characterizations of Paterno as a powerful figure were wrong, and that it was not Paterno's responsibility to report allegations of child molestation to the police. "[Paterno] had very few allies. He was isolated and he was not nearly as powerful as people imagine him to have been." When asked if he knew anyone who had showered with a boy they were not related to, James said it was a common practice when he was growing up. "That was actually quite common in the town I grew up in. That was quite common in America 40 years ago."
The July 2012 interview comments were widely criticized. Rob Neyer wrote in defense of James. James's employer, the Boston Red Sox, issued a statement disavowing the comments James made and saying that he had been asked not to make further public comments on the matter.
Personal life
James is a fan of the University of Kansas men's basketball team and has written about basketball. He has created a formula for what he calls a "safe lead" in the sport.
James has written two true crime books, Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (2011) and The Man from the Train (2017), the latter with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. In The Man From the Train, published in 2017, the Jameses attempt to link scores of murders of entire families in the early 20th century United States to a single perpetrator. Those murders include the Villisca axe murders. The Jameses propose a solution to the murders based on the signature elements these killings share in common with each other.
Bibliography
Bill James Baseball Abstract (annual editions published 1977–1988)
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985; revised edition 1988)
This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones (1989) (selection of comments from Abstracts and articles)
The Bill James Baseball Book (annual editions published 1990–1992)
The Politics of Glory (1994) (revised as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?),
The Bill James Player Ratings Book (annual editions published 1993–1996)
The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers (1997)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Handbook (1998; 2nd ed. 2000)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Sourcebook (1998)
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001)
Win Shares (2002)
Win Shares Digital Update (2002) (PDF form only)
The Bill James Handbook (annual editions published 2003–present)
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (2004, with co-author Rob Neyer)
The Bill James Gold Mine (annual editions published 2008–2010, , )
Popular Crime – Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (, published 2011)
Solid Fool's Gold (2011), (articles from Bill James Online website)
Fools Rush Inn (2014), (more articles from Bill James Online website)
The Man From the Train (2017),
Books about James
The Mind of Bill James (2006) ISBN
How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball: by Colleagues, Critics, Competitors and Just Plain Fans (2007)
See also
Baseball Prospectus
Defensive spectrum
Keltner list
Similarity score
Win shares
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Bill James Online –interactions with James through statistics, articles, conversations and more
Works of Bill James
Audio interview by Jesse Thorn, public radio program The Sound of Young America (April 29, 2008)
Chronister, Levi (April 25, 2004). "Grassroots Guru". Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, KS).
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part I, Baseball Digest
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part II
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part III
McGrath, Ben (July 14, 2003). "The Professor of Baseball". The New Yorker
Wall Street Journal profile
[ Does Bill James Belong in the Hall of Fame?]
– contrary to James
Schwarz, Alan (July 18, 2006). "25 For 25: Don Fehr, Peter Gammons, Pat Gillick, Bo Jackson, Bill James". 25 for 25: Stars in the Baseball America Universe. Baseball America.
Henry, John (May 8, 2006). "Scientists & Thinkers: Bill James". The 2006 Time 100. Time.
Surowiecki, James (June 10, 2003). "Moneyball Redux: Slate talks to the man who revolutionized baseball.". Slate.
Lederer, Bill (February 28, 2005). "Breakfast with Bill James". Baseball Analysts (baseballanalysts.com).
1949 births
Living people
American sportswriters
American statisticians
Baseball statisticians
Baseball writers
People from Holton, Kansas
United States Army soldiers
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers | true | [
"John Read may refer to:\n\nPoliticians\nJohn Read (Mississippi politician) (born 1941), member of the Mississippi House of Representatives\nJohn Read (Connecticut politician) (1633–1730), member of the Connecticut House of Representatives from Norwalk\nJohn Read (Australian politician) (born 1939), member of the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia\nJohn Read (New Zealand politician) (1874–1942), local body politician and trade unionist\nJ. Meredith Read (1837–1896), United States diplomat\nJohn Kingsley Read (1936–1985), chairman of the British National Front and a founder of the National Party\nJohn Milton Read (1842–1881), American printer and politician\n\nOthers\nJohn Read (pirate) (fl. 1683–1688), British privateer, buccaneer, and pirate\nJohn Read (chemist) (1884–1963), British chemist\nJohn M. Read (1797–1874), American lawyer\nJohn Read (British Army officer) (1917–1987)\nJohn Read (businessman) (1918–2015), British businessman\nJohn Read (lawyer) (1769–1854), United States lawyer and banker\nJohn Read (producer) (1920–2006), collaborator with Gerry Anderson\nJohn Read (surgeon) (fl. 1588), English medical writer\nJohn Read (art film maker) (1923–2011), producer of art documentaries for the BBC from 1951 to 1983\nJohn Read (psychologist), psychologist and mental health researcher\nJohn Read (skier) (born 1961), British Olympic skier\nJohn Erskine Read (1888–1973), Canadian lawyer, academic, civil servant, and judge\nJohn Read (inventor), inventor who developed a rotating doubler electrostatic generator\nJohn Dawson Read, English singer-songwriter\nJohn Read (snooker player), English snooker player\nJohn Read (bobsleigh) (born 1926), British bobsledder\nJohn D. Read (1814–1864), American abolitionist and lay preacher\n\nJack Read\nJack Read (coastwatcher) (1905–1992), coastwatcher during World War II\nJack Read (rugby) (fl. 1925–1936), rugby union and rugby league footballer\n\nSee also\nJohn Reed (disambiguation)\nJohn Reid (disambiguation)\nJohn Reade (disambiguation)\nJohn Rede (disambiguation)",
"Simon Read may refer to:\n\nSimon Read (footballer) in 1989–90 Football Conference\nSimon Read (artist) who worked with Jock McFadyen\nSimon Read, founder of New Star Games\n\nSee also\nSimon Reed (disambiguation)"
]
|
[
"Bill James",
"The Bill James Baseball Abstracts",
"When were the Bill James Baseball Abstracts written?",
"self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977.",
"What was in the abstract?",
"18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics",
"Who read it?",
"Seventy-five people purchased the booklet."
]
| C_4246b6ef2f7e4d15a95bcea0ab7cffad_1 | What was an example of the statistical information in the abstract? | 4 | What was an example of the statistical information contained in the abstract called the Bill James Baseball Abstract? | Bill James | An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis written in a lively, insightful, and witty style that offered an answer. Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984. The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions. While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. In 2003, James was hired as senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox and worked for the team for 17 years during which they won four World Series championships.
Early life
James was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas (KU) residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971. He was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there. Instead, he spent two years stationed in South Korea, during which time he wrote to KU about taking his final class. He was told he actually had met all his graduation requirements, so he returned to Lawrence in 1973 with degrees in English and economics. He also finished an Education degree in 1975, likewise from the University of Kansas.
Career
The Bill James Baseball Abstracts
An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis that offered an answer.
Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.
The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions.
While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day.
Post-Abstracts work
In 1988, James ceased writing the Abstract, citing workload-related burnout and concern about the volume of statistics on the market. He has continued to publish hardcover books about baseball history, which have sold well and received admiring reviews. These books include three editions of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985, 1988, 2001, the last entitled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract).
James has also written several series of new annuals:
The Baseball Book (1990–1992) was a loosely organized collection of commentary, profiles, historical articles, and occasional pieces of research. James's assistant Rob Neyer was responsible for much of the research, and wrote several short pieces. Neyer went on to become a featured baseball columnist at ESPN and SB Nation.
The Player Ratings Book (1993–95) offered statistics and 50-word profiles aimed at the fantasy baseball enthusiast.
The Bill James Handbook (2003–present) provides past-season statistics and next-season projections for Major League players and teams, and career data for all current Major League players. Results for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Awards voted on by a 10-person panel that includes James, are also included.
The Bill James Gold Mine (2008–2010) was a collection of new essays and never-before-seen statistics, as well as profiles of players and teams.
Playing off the name of the earlier series, Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom (2011) was a mixed collection of both baseball-related and miscellaneous pieces, culled from the Bill James Online archives (see below).
In 2008, James launched Bill James Online. Subscribers can read James's new, original writing and interact with one another —- as well as with James —- in a question-and-answer format. The web site also offers new "profiles" of teams and players full of facts and statistics that hope to one day map what James has termed "the lost island of baseball statistics."
STATS, Inc.
In an essay published in the 1984 Abstract, James vented his frustration about Major League Baseball's refusal to publish play-by-play accounts of every game. James proposed the creation of Project Scoresheet, a network of fans that would work together to collect and distribute this information.
While the resulting non-profit organization never functioned smoothly, it worked well enough to collect accounts of every game from 1984 through 1991. James's publisher agreed to distribute two annuals of essays and data – the 1987 and 1988 editions of Bill James Presents The Great American Baseball Statbook (though only the first of these featured writing by James).
The organization was eventually disbanded, but many of its members went on to form for-profit companies with similar goals and structure. STATS, Inc., the company James joined, provided data and analysis to every major media outlet before being acquired by Fox Sports in 2001.
Innovations
Among the statistical innovations attributable to James are:
Runs created. A statistic intended to quantify a player's contribution to runs scored, as well as a team's expected number of runs scored. Runs created is calculated from other offensive statistics. James's first version of it was:
Applied to an entire team or league, the statistic correlates closely (usually within 5%) to that team's or league's actual runs scored. Since James first created the statistic, sabermetricians have refined it to make it more accurate, and it is now used in many different variations.
Range factor. A statistic that quantifies the defensive contribution of a player, calculated in its simplest form as (A is an assist, PO is a putout):
The statistic is premised on the notion that the total number of outs that a player participates in is more relevant in evaluating his defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic fielding percentage.
Defensive Efficiency Rating. A statistic that shows the percentage of balls in play a defense turns into an out. It is used to help determine a team's defensive ability. The formula is:
Win shares. A unifying statistic intended to allow the comparison of players at different positions, as well as players of different eras. Win Shares incorporates a variety of pitching, hitting and fielding statistics. One drawback of Win Shares is the difficulty of computing it.
Pythagorean Winning Percentage. A statistic explaining the relationship of wins and losses to runs scored and runs allowed. The statistic correlates closely to a team's actual winning percentage. Its simplest formula is:
Game score is a metric to determine the strength of a pitcher in any particular baseball game. It has since been improved by Tom Tango.
Major League Equivalency. A metric that uses minor league statistics to predict how a player is likely to perform at the major league level.
The Brock2 System. A system for projecting a player's performance over the remainder of his career based on past performance and the aging process.
Similarity scores. Scoring a player's statistical similarity to other players, providing a frame of reference for players of the distant past. Examples: Lou Gehrig comparable to Don Mattingly; Joe Jackson to Tony Oliva.
Secondary average. A statistic that attempts to measure a player's contribution to an offense in ways not reflected in batting average. Secondary averages tend to be similar to batting averages, but can vary wildly, from less than .100 to more than .500 in extreme cases. The formula is (ISO is isolated power):
Power/Speed Number. A statistic that attempts to consolidate the various "clubs" of players with impressive numbers of both home runs and stolen bases (e.g., the 30–30 club (Bobby Bonds was well known for being a member), the 40–40 club (Jose Canseco was the first to perform this feat), and even the 25–65 club (Joe Morgan in the '70s)). The formula is:
Approximate Value. A system of cutoffs designed to estimate the value a player contributed to various category groups (including his team) to study broad questions such as "how do players age over time".
"Temperature gauge" to determine how "hot" a player is, based on recent performance. The gauge has been used in NESN Red Sox telecasts and has provoked mixed reactions from critics.
Although James may be best known as an inventor of statistical tools, he has often written on the limitations of statistics and urged humility concerning their place amid other kinds of information about baseball. To James, context is paramount: he was among the first to emphasize the importance of adjusting traditional statistics for park factors and to stress the role of luck in a pitcher's win-loss record. Many of his statistical innovations are arguably less important than the underlying ideas. When he introduced the notion of secondary average, it was as a vehicle for the then-counterintuitive concept that batting average represents only a fraction of a player's offensive contribution. (The runs-created statistic plays a similar role vis-à-vis the traditional RBI.) Some of his contributions to the language of baseball, like the idea of the "defensive spectrum", border on being entirely non-statistical.
Acceptance and employment in mainstream baseball
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane began applying sabermetric principles to running his low-budget team in the early 2000s, to notable effect, as chronicled in Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.
In 2003, James was hired by a former reader, John Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.
One point of controversy was in handling the relief pitching of the Red Sox. James had previously published analysis of the use of the closer in baseball, and had concluded that the traditional use of the closer both overrated the abilities of that individual and used him in suboptimal circumstances. He wrote that it is "far better to use your relief ace when the score is tied, even if that is the seventh inning, than in the ninth inning with a lead of two or more runs." The Red Sox in 2003 staffed their bullpen with several marginally talented relievers. Red Sox manager Grady Little was never fully comfortable with the setup, and designated unofficial closers and reshuffled roles after a bad outing. When Boston lost a number of games due to bullpen failures, Little reverted to a traditional closer approach and moved Byung-hyun Kim from being a starting pitcher to a closer. The Red Sox did not follow James's idea of a bullpen with no closer, but with consistent overall talent that would allow the responsibilities to be shared. Red Sox reliever Alan Embree thought the plan could have worked if the bullpen had not suffered injuries. During the 2004 regular season Keith Foulke was used primarily as a closer in the conventional model; however, Foulke's usage in the 2004 postseason was along the lines of a relief ace with multiple inning appearances at pivotal times of the game. Houston Astros manager Phil Garner also employed a relief ace model with his use of Brad Lidge in the 2004 postseason.
During his tenure with the Red Sox, James published several new sabermetric books (see #Bibliography below). Indeed, although James was typically tight-lipped about his activities on behalf of the Red Sox, he is credited with advocating some of the moves that led to the team's first World Series championship in 86 years, including the signing of non-tendered free agent David Ortiz, the trade for Mark Bellhorn, and the team's increased emphasis on on-base percentage.
After the Red Sox suffered through a disastrous 2012 season, Henry stated that James had fallen "out of favor [in the front office] over the last few years for reasons I really don't understand. We've gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly."
On October 24, 2019, James announced his retirement from the Red Sox, saying that he had "fallen out of step with the organization" and added that he hadn't earned his paycheck with the Red Sox for the last couple of years. During his time with the team, Bill James received four World Series rings for the team's 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 World Series titles.
In culture
Michael Lewis, in his 2003 book Moneyball, dedicates a chapter to James's career and sabermetrics as background for his portrayal of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics' unlikely success.
James was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2007.
James was profiled on 60 Minutes on March 30, 2008, in his role as a sabermetric pioneer and Red Sox advisor. In 2010, he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
James made a guest appearance on The Simpsons 2010 episode "MoneyBART". He claimed "I've made baseball as fun as doing your taxes."
Steven Soderbergh's planned film adaptation of Moneyball would have featured an animated version of James as a "host". This script was discarded when director Bennett Miller and writer Aaron Sorkin succeeded Soderbergh on the project. Ultimately, the 2011 film mentions James several times. His bio is briefly recapped, and Billy Beane is depicted telling John Henry that Henry's hiring of James is the reason Beane is interested in the Red Sox general manager job.
Controversies
Dowd Report controversy
In his Baseball Book 1990, James heavily criticized the methodology of the Dowd Report, which was an investigation (commissioned by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti) on the gambling activities of Pete Rose. James reproached commissioner Giamatti and his successor, Fay Vincent, for their acceptance of the Dowd Report as the final word on Rose's gambling. (James's attitude on the matter surprised many fans, especially after the writer had been deeply critical of Rose in the past, especially what James considered to be Rose's selfish pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time record for base hits.)
James expanded his defense of Rose in his 2001 book The New Historical Baseball Abstract, with a detailed explanation of why he found the case against Rose flimsy. James wrote "I would characterize the evidence that Rose bet on baseball as...well, not quite non-existent. It is extremely weak." This countered the popular opinion that the case against Rose was a slam dunk, and several critics claimed that James misstated some of the evidence in his defense of Rose. Derek Zumsteg of Baseball Prospectus wrote an exhaustive review of the case James made and concluded: "James' defense of Rose is filled with oversights, errors in judgment, failures in research, and is a great disservice to the many people who have looked to him for a balanced and fair take on this complicated and important issue."
In 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct. James remained steadfast, continuing to insist that the evidence available to Dowd at the time was insufficient to reach the conclusion that it did.
Paterno controversy
On November 4, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was indicted for committing sex crimes against young boys, which brought the Penn State child sex abuse scandal to national attention. On December 11, 2011, James published an article called "The Trial of Penn State", depicting an imaginary trial in which Penn State defended itself against charges of "acting rashly and irresponsibly in the matter of Joe Paterno, in such a manner that [they] defamed, libeled and slandered Paterno, unfairly demolishing his reputation."
On July 12, 2012, the Freeh report was released, charging Paterno and three other University officials with covering up reports of sexual assaults and enabling the attacker to prey on other children for more than a decade, often in Penn State facilities. Soon afterwards, during an interview on ESPN radio, James claimed that the Freeh report's characterizations of Paterno as a powerful figure were wrong, and that it was not Paterno's responsibility to report allegations of child molestation to the police. "[Paterno] had very few allies. He was isolated and he was not nearly as powerful as people imagine him to have been." When asked if he knew anyone who had showered with a boy they were not related to, James said it was a common practice when he was growing up. "That was actually quite common in the town I grew up in. That was quite common in America 40 years ago."
The July 2012 interview comments were widely criticized. Rob Neyer wrote in defense of James. James's employer, the Boston Red Sox, issued a statement disavowing the comments James made and saying that he had been asked not to make further public comments on the matter.
Personal life
James is a fan of the University of Kansas men's basketball team and has written about basketball. He has created a formula for what he calls a "safe lead" in the sport.
James has written two true crime books, Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (2011) and The Man from the Train (2017), the latter with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. In The Man From the Train, published in 2017, the Jameses attempt to link scores of murders of entire families in the early 20th century United States to a single perpetrator. Those murders include the Villisca axe murders. The Jameses propose a solution to the murders based on the signature elements these killings share in common with each other.
Bibliography
Bill James Baseball Abstract (annual editions published 1977–1988)
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985; revised edition 1988)
This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones (1989) (selection of comments from Abstracts and articles)
The Bill James Baseball Book (annual editions published 1990–1992)
The Politics of Glory (1994) (revised as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?),
The Bill James Player Ratings Book (annual editions published 1993–1996)
The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers (1997)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Handbook (1998; 2nd ed. 2000)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Sourcebook (1998)
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001)
Win Shares (2002)
Win Shares Digital Update (2002) (PDF form only)
The Bill James Handbook (annual editions published 2003–present)
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (2004, with co-author Rob Neyer)
The Bill James Gold Mine (annual editions published 2008–2010, , )
Popular Crime – Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (, published 2011)
Solid Fool's Gold (2011), (articles from Bill James Online website)
Fools Rush Inn (2014), (more articles from Bill James Online website)
The Man From the Train (2017),
Books about James
The Mind of Bill James (2006) ISBN
How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball: by Colleagues, Critics, Competitors and Just Plain Fans (2007)
See also
Baseball Prospectus
Defensive spectrum
Keltner list
Similarity score
Win shares
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Bill James Online –interactions with James through statistics, articles, conversations and more
Works of Bill James
Audio interview by Jesse Thorn, public radio program The Sound of Young America (April 29, 2008)
Chronister, Levi (April 25, 2004). "Grassroots Guru". Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, KS).
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part I, Baseball Digest
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part II
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part III
McGrath, Ben (July 14, 2003). "The Professor of Baseball". The New Yorker
Wall Street Journal profile
[ Does Bill James Belong in the Hall of Fame?]
– contrary to James
Schwarz, Alan (July 18, 2006). "25 For 25: Don Fehr, Peter Gammons, Pat Gillick, Bo Jackson, Bill James". 25 for 25: Stars in the Baseball America Universe. Baseball America.
Henry, John (May 8, 2006). "Scientists & Thinkers: Bill James". The 2006 Time 100. Time.
Surowiecki, James (June 10, 2003). "Moneyball Redux: Slate talks to the man who revolutionized baseball.". Slate.
Lederer, Bill (February 28, 2005). "Breakfast with Bill James". Baseball Analysts (baseballanalysts.com).
1949 births
Living people
American sportswriters
American statisticians
Baseball statisticians
Baseball writers
People from Holton, Kansas
United States Army soldiers
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers | false | [
"Information geometry is an interdisciplinary field that applies the techniques of differential geometry to study probability theory and statistics. It studies statistical manifolds, which are Riemannian manifolds whose points correspond to probability distributions.\n\nIntroduction \n\nHistorically, information geometry can be traced back to the work of C. R. Rao, who was the first to treat the Fisher matrix as a Riemannian metric. The modern theory is largely due to Shun'ichi Amari, whose work has been greatly influential on the development of the field.\n\nClassically, information geometry considered a parametrized statistical model as a Riemannian manifold. For such models, there is a natural choice of Riemannian metric, known as the Fisher information metric. In the special case that the statistical model is an exponential family, it is possible to induce the statistical manifold with a Hessian metric (i.e a Riemannian metric given by the potential of a convex function). In this case, the manifold naturally inherits two flat affine connections, as well as a canonical Bregman divergence. Historically, much of the work was devoted to studying the associated geometry of these examples. In the modern setting, information geometry applies to a much wider context, including non-exponential families, nonparametric statistics, and even abstract statistical manifolds not induced from a known statistical model. The results combine techniques from information theory, affine differential geometry, convex analysis and many other fields.\n\nThe standard references in the field are Shun’ichi Amari and Hiroshi Nagaoka's book, Methods of Information Geometry, and the more recent book by Nihat Ay and others. A gentle introduction is given in the survey by Frank Nielsen. In 2018, the journal Information Geometry was released, which is devoted to the field.\n\nContributors \n\nThe history of information geometry is associated with the discoveries of at least the following people, and many others.\n\n Ronald Fisher\n Harald Cramér\n Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao\n Harold Jeffreys \n Solomon Kullback\n Jean-Louis Koszul\n Richard Leibler\n Claude Shannon\n Imre Csiszár\n N. N. Cencov (also written as Chentsov)\n Bradley Efron\n Shun'ichi Amari\n Ole Barndorff-Nielsen\n Frank Nielsen \n Damiano Brigo\n A. W. F. Edwards\n Grant Hillier\n Kees Jan Van Garderen\n\nApplications \n\nAs an interdisciplinary field, information geometry has been used in various applications.\n\nHere an incomplete list:\n Statistical inference\n Time series and linear systems\n Quantum systems\n Neural networks\n Machine learning\n Statistical mechanics\n Biology\n Statistics\n Mathematical finance\n\nSee also\n Ruppeiner geometry\n Kullback–Leibler divergence\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n Information Geometry journal by Springer\n Information Geometry overview by Cosma Rohilla Shalizi, July 2010\n Information Geometry notes by John Baez, November 2012\n Information geometry for neural networks(pdf ), by Daniel Wagenaar",
"The Central Statistical Agency (CSA; Amharic: ማዕከላዊ ስታቲስቲክስ ኤጀንሲ) is an agency of the government of Ethiopia designated to provide all surveys and censuses for that country used to monitor economic and social growth, as well as to act as an official training center in that field. It is part of the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. The Director General of the CSA is Samia Zekaria. Before 9 March 1989 the CSA was known as the Central Statistical Office (CSO).\n\nThe CSA has 25 branch offices. Besides the capital city of Addis Ababa, the cities and towns with offices are: Ambo, Arba Minch, chiro, Asayita, Assosa, Awasa, Bahir Dar, Debre Berhan, Dessie, Dire Dawa, Gambela, Goba, Gondar, Harar, Hosaena, Inda Selassie, Jijiga, Jimma, Mek'ele, Mizan Teferi, Adama, Negele Borana, Nekemte, and Sodo.\n\nNational censuses of the population and housing have been taken in 1984, 1994, and 2007. Information from the 1994 and 2007 censuses are available online.\n\nHistory of statistical reporting in Ethiopia\nWhile the practice of keeping statistical information in Ethiopia has been traced back as far as the sixteenth century, the need for systematic statistical information that could be used for economic management was recognized as a priority in 1957. In 1960 compiling statistical information became a regular government activity as a result of the Addis Ababa conference of the African Statisticians from UNECA member countries in 1960.\n\nAt first the collection of statistics was the responsibility of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, then in 1963, this activity became the function of the CSO, which was an autonomous unit under the Ministry of Planning and Development. In 1972 the CSO was reorganized in Proclamation 303/1972, and was responsible for the Planning Commission. The CSO was once again restructured on 9 March 1989, when it was renamed as the CSA and was directly responsible to the Council of Ministers. It was once again placed under a Ministry, the Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation in October 1996, and transferred to its present position in September 2001, under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development.\n\nOn November 21, 2006 the CSA announced that it had been recognized by the World Bank's Information Development team for being the best government agency in statistical information development in Sub-Saharan Africa.\n\nSee also\nList of national and international statistical services\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n \nCensus Commission Establishment Proclamation No. 180/1999 (Amharic and English)\n\nGovernment agencies of Ethiopia\nEthiopia"
]
|
[
"Bill James",
"The Bill James Baseball Abstracts",
"When were the Bill James Baseball Abstracts written?",
"self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977.",
"What was in the abstract?",
"18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics",
"Who read it?",
"Seventy-five people purchased the booklet.",
"What was an example of the statistical information in the abstract?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_4246b6ef2f7e4d15a95bcea0ab7cffad_1 | When was the last abstract published? | 5 | When was the last Bill James Baseball Abstract published? | Bill James | An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis written in a lively, insightful, and witty style that offered an answer. Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984. The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions. While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day. CANNOTANSWER | James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984. | George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. In 2003, James was hired as senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox and worked for the team for 17 years during which they won four World Series championships.
Early life
James was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas (KU) residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971. He was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there. Instead, he spent two years stationed in South Korea, during which time he wrote to KU about taking his final class. He was told he actually had met all his graduation requirements, so he returned to Lawrence in 1973 with degrees in English and economics. He also finished an Education degree in 1975, likewise from the University of Kansas.
Career
The Bill James Baseball Abstracts
An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis that offered an answer.
Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.
The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions.
While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day.
Post-Abstracts work
In 1988, James ceased writing the Abstract, citing workload-related burnout and concern about the volume of statistics on the market. He has continued to publish hardcover books about baseball history, which have sold well and received admiring reviews. These books include three editions of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985, 1988, 2001, the last entitled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract).
James has also written several series of new annuals:
The Baseball Book (1990–1992) was a loosely organized collection of commentary, profiles, historical articles, and occasional pieces of research. James's assistant Rob Neyer was responsible for much of the research, and wrote several short pieces. Neyer went on to become a featured baseball columnist at ESPN and SB Nation.
The Player Ratings Book (1993–95) offered statistics and 50-word profiles aimed at the fantasy baseball enthusiast.
The Bill James Handbook (2003–present) provides past-season statistics and next-season projections for Major League players and teams, and career data for all current Major League players. Results for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Awards voted on by a 10-person panel that includes James, are also included.
The Bill James Gold Mine (2008–2010) was a collection of new essays and never-before-seen statistics, as well as profiles of players and teams.
Playing off the name of the earlier series, Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom (2011) was a mixed collection of both baseball-related and miscellaneous pieces, culled from the Bill James Online archives (see below).
In 2008, James launched Bill James Online. Subscribers can read James's new, original writing and interact with one another —- as well as with James —- in a question-and-answer format. The web site also offers new "profiles" of teams and players full of facts and statistics that hope to one day map what James has termed "the lost island of baseball statistics."
STATS, Inc.
In an essay published in the 1984 Abstract, James vented his frustration about Major League Baseball's refusal to publish play-by-play accounts of every game. James proposed the creation of Project Scoresheet, a network of fans that would work together to collect and distribute this information.
While the resulting non-profit organization never functioned smoothly, it worked well enough to collect accounts of every game from 1984 through 1991. James's publisher agreed to distribute two annuals of essays and data – the 1987 and 1988 editions of Bill James Presents The Great American Baseball Statbook (though only the first of these featured writing by James).
The organization was eventually disbanded, but many of its members went on to form for-profit companies with similar goals and structure. STATS, Inc., the company James joined, provided data and analysis to every major media outlet before being acquired by Fox Sports in 2001.
Innovations
Among the statistical innovations attributable to James are:
Runs created. A statistic intended to quantify a player's contribution to runs scored, as well as a team's expected number of runs scored. Runs created is calculated from other offensive statistics. James's first version of it was:
Applied to an entire team or league, the statistic correlates closely (usually within 5%) to that team's or league's actual runs scored. Since James first created the statistic, sabermetricians have refined it to make it more accurate, and it is now used in many different variations.
Range factor. A statistic that quantifies the defensive contribution of a player, calculated in its simplest form as (A is an assist, PO is a putout):
The statistic is premised on the notion that the total number of outs that a player participates in is more relevant in evaluating his defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic fielding percentage.
Defensive Efficiency Rating. A statistic that shows the percentage of balls in play a defense turns into an out. It is used to help determine a team's defensive ability. The formula is:
Win shares. A unifying statistic intended to allow the comparison of players at different positions, as well as players of different eras. Win Shares incorporates a variety of pitching, hitting and fielding statistics. One drawback of Win Shares is the difficulty of computing it.
Pythagorean Winning Percentage. A statistic explaining the relationship of wins and losses to runs scored and runs allowed. The statistic correlates closely to a team's actual winning percentage. Its simplest formula is:
Game score is a metric to determine the strength of a pitcher in any particular baseball game. It has since been improved by Tom Tango.
Major League Equivalency. A metric that uses minor league statistics to predict how a player is likely to perform at the major league level.
The Brock2 System. A system for projecting a player's performance over the remainder of his career based on past performance and the aging process.
Similarity scores. Scoring a player's statistical similarity to other players, providing a frame of reference for players of the distant past. Examples: Lou Gehrig comparable to Don Mattingly; Joe Jackson to Tony Oliva.
Secondary average. A statistic that attempts to measure a player's contribution to an offense in ways not reflected in batting average. Secondary averages tend to be similar to batting averages, but can vary wildly, from less than .100 to more than .500 in extreme cases. The formula is (ISO is isolated power):
Power/Speed Number. A statistic that attempts to consolidate the various "clubs" of players with impressive numbers of both home runs and stolen bases (e.g., the 30–30 club (Bobby Bonds was well known for being a member), the 40–40 club (Jose Canseco was the first to perform this feat), and even the 25–65 club (Joe Morgan in the '70s)). The formula is:
Approximate Value. A system of cutoffs designed to estimate the value a player contributed to various category groups (including his team) to study broad questions such as "how do players age over time".
"Temperature gauge" to determine how "hot" a player is, based on recent performance. The gauge has been used in NESN Red Sox telecasts and has provoked mixed reactions from critics.
Although James may be best known as an inventor of statistical tools, he has often written on the limitations of statistics and urged humility concerning their place amid other kinds of information about baseball. To James, context is paramount: he was among the first to emphasize the importance of adjusting traditional statistics for park factors and to stress the role of luck in a pitcher's win-loss record. Many of his statistical innovations are arguably less important than the underlying ideas. When he introduced the notion of secondary average, it was as a vehicle for the then-counterintuitive concept that batting average represents only a fraction of a player's offensive contribution. (The runs-created statistic plays a similar role vis-à-vis the traditional RBI.) Some of his contributions to the language of baseball, like the idea of the "defensive spectrum", border on being entirely non-statistical.
Acceptance and employment in mainstream baseball
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane began applying sabermetric principles to running his low-budget team in the early 2000s, to notable effect, as chronicled in Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.
In 2003, James was hired by a former reader, John Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.
One point of controversy was in handling the relief pitching of the Red Sox. James had previously published analysis of the use of the closer in baseball, and had concluded that the traditional use of the closer both overrated the abilities of that individual and used him in suboptimal circumstances. He wrote that it is "far better to use your relief ace when the score is tied, even if that is the seventh inning, than in the ninth inning with a lead of two or more runs." The Red Sox in 2003 staffed their bullpen with several marginally talented relievers. Red Sox manager Grady Little was never fully comfortable with the setup, and designated unofficial closers and reshuffled roles after a bad outing. When Boston lost a number of games due to bullpen failures, Little reverted to a traditional closer approach and moved Byung-hyun Kim from being a starting pitcher to a closer. The Red Sox did not follow James's idea of a bullpen with no closer, but with consistent overall talent that would allow the responsibilities to be shared. Red Sox reliever Alan Embree thought the plan could have worked if the bullpen had not suffered injuries. During the 2004 regular season Keith Foulke was used primarily as a closer in the conventional model; however, Foulke's usage in the 2004 postseason was along the lines of a relief ace with multiple inning appearances at pivotal times of the game. Houston Astros manager Phil Garner also employed a relief ace model with his use of Brad Lidge in the 2004 postseason.
During his tenure with the Red Sox, James published several new sabermetric books (see #Bibliography below). Indeed, although James was typically tight-lipped about his activities on behalf of the Red Sox, he is credited with advocating some of the moves that led to the team's first World Series championship in 86 years, including the signing of non-tendered free agent David Ortiz, the trade for Mark Bellhorn, and the team's increased emphasis on on-base percentage.
After the Red Sox suffered through a disastrous 2012 season, Henry stated that James had fallen "out of favor [in the front office] over the last few years for reasons I really don't understand. We've gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly."
On October 24, 2019, James announced his retirement from the Red Sox, saying that he had "fallen out of step with the organization" and added that he hadn't earned his paycheck with the Red Sox for the last couple of years. During his time with the team, Bill James received four World Series rings for the team's 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 World Series titles.
In culture
Michael Lewis, in his 2003 book Moneyball, dedicates a chapter to James's career and sabermetrics as background for his portrayal of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics' unlikely success.
James was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2007.
James was profiled on 60 Minutes on March 30, 2008, in his role as a sabermetric pioneer and Red Sox advisor. In 2010, he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
James made a guest appearance on The Simpsons 2010 episode "MoneyBART". He claimed "I've made baseball as fun as doing your taxes."
Steven Soderbergh's planned film adaptation of Moneyball would have featured an animated version of James as a "host". This script was discarded when director Bennett Miller and writer Aaron Sorkin succeeded Soderbergh on the project. Ultimately, the 2011 film mentions James several times. His bio is briefly recapped, and Billy Beane is depicted telling John Henry that Henry's hiring of James is the reason Beane is interested in the Red Sox general manager job.
Controversies
Dowd Report controversy
In his Baseball Book 1990, James heavily criticized the methodology of the Dowd Report, which was an investigation (commissioned by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti) on the gambling activities of Pete Rose. James reproached commissioner Giamatti and his successor, Fay Vincent, for their acceptance of the Dowd Report as the final word on Rose's gambling. (James's attitude on the matter surprised many fans, especially after the writer had been deeply critical of Rose in the past, especially what James considered to be Rose's selfish pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time record for base hits.)
James expanded his defense of Rose in his 2001 book The New Historical Baseball Abstract, with a detailed explanation of why he found the case against Rose flimsy. James wrote "I would characterize the evidence that Rose bet on baseball as...well, not quite non-existent. It is extremely weak." This countered the popular opinion that the case against Rose was a slam dunk, and several critics claimed that James misstated some of the evidence in his defense of Rose. Derek Zumsteg of Baseball Prospectus wrote an exhaustive review of the case James made and concluded: "James' defense of Rose is filled with oversights, errors in judgment, failures in research, and is a great disservice to the many people who have looked to him for a balanced and fair take on this complicated and important issue."
In 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct. James remained steadfast, continuing to insist that the evidence available to Dowd at the time was insufficient to reach the conclusion that it did.
Paterno controversy
On November 4, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was indicted for committing sex crimes against young boys, which brought the Penn State child sex abuse scandal to national attention. On December 11, 2011, James published an article called "The Trial of Penn State", depicting an imaginary trial in which Penn State defended itself against charges of "acting rashly and irresponsibly in the matter of Joe Paterno, in such a manner that [they] defamed, libeled and slandered Paterno, unfairly demolishing his reputation."
On July 12, 2012, the Freeh report was released, charging Paterno and three other University officials with covering up reports of sexual assaults and enabling the attacker to prey on other children for more than a decade, often in Penn State facilities. Soon afterwards, during an interview on ESPN radio, James claimed that the Freeh report's characterizations of Paterno as a powerful figure were wrong, and that it was not Paterno's responsibility to report allegations of child molestation to the police. "[Paterno] had very few allies. He was isolated and he was not nearly as powerful as people imagine him to have been." When asked if he knew anyone who had showered with a boy they were not related to, James said it was a common practice when he was growing up. "That was actually quite common in the town I grew up in. That was quite common in America 40 years ago."
The July 2012 interview comments were widely criticized. Rob Neyer wrote in defense of James. James's employer, the Boston Red Sox, issued a statement disavowing the comments James made and saying that he had been asked not to make further public comments on the matter.
Personal life
James is a fan of the University of Kansas men's basketball team and has written about basketball. He has created a formula for what he calls a "safe lead" in the sport.
James has written two true crime books, Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (2011) and The Man from the Train (2017), the latter with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. In The Man From the Train, published in 2017, the Jameses attempt to link scores of murders of entire families in the early 20th century United States to a single perpetrator. Those murders include the Villisca axe murders. The Jameses propose a solution to the murders based on the signature elements these killings share in common with each other.
Bibliography
Bill James Baseball Abstract (annual editions published 1977–1988)
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985; revised edition 1988)
This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones (1989) (selection of comments from Abstracts and articles)
The Bill James Baseball Book (annual editions published 1990–1992)
The Politics of Glory (1994) (revised as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?),
The Bill James Player Ratings Book (annual editions published 1993–1996)
The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers (1997)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Handbook (1998; 2nd ed. 2000)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Sourcebook (1998)
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001)
Win Shares (2002)
Win Shares Digital Update (2002) (PDF form only)
The Bill James Handbook (annual editions published 2003–present)
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (2004, with co-author Rob Neyer)
The Bill James Gold Mine (annual editions published 2008–2010, , )
Popular Crime – Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (, published 2011)
Solid Fool's Gold (2011), (articles from Bill James Online website)
Fools Rush Inn (2014), (more articles from Bill James Online website)
The Man From the Train (2017),
Books about James
The Mind of Bill James (2006) ISBN
How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball: by Colleagues, Critics, Competitors and Just Plain Fans (2007)
See also
Baseball Prospectus
Defensive spectrum
Keltner list
Similarity score
Win shares
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Bill James Online –interactions with James through statistics, articles, conversations and more
Works of Bill James
Audio interview by Jesse Thorn, public radio program The Sound of Young America (April 29, 2008)
Chronister, Levi (April 25, 2004). "Grassroots Guru". Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, KS).
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part I, Baseball Digest
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part II
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part III
McGrath, Ben (July 14, 2003). "The Professor of Baseball". The New Yorker
Wall Street Journal profile
[ Does Bill James Belong in the Hall of Fame?]
– contrary to James
Schwarz, Alan (July 18, 2006). "25 For 25: Don Fehr, Peter Gammons, Pat Gillick, Bo Jackson, Bill James". 25 for 25: Stars in the Baseball America Universe. Baseball America.
Henry, John (May 8, 2006). "Scientists & Thinkers: Bill James". The 2006 Time 100. Time.
Surowiecki, James (June 10, 2003). "Moneyball Redux: Slate talks to the man who revolutionized baseball.". Slate.
Lederer, Bill (February 28, 2005). "Breakfast with Bill James". Baseball Analysts (baseballanalysts.com).
1949 births
Living people
American sportswriters
American statisticians
Baseball statisticians
Baseball writers
People from Holton, Kansas
United States Army soldiers
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers | true | [
"Watkins's Biographical Dictionary, also called The Universal Biographical Dictionary, was originally published in 1800, with a second edition in 1825, as An Historical Account of the lives, characters and works of the most eminent persons in every age and nation, from the earliest times to the present. It was compiled by John Watkins, LL.D., and published by Longman, Rees Orme, Brown and Green.\n\nEntry on Hume\n\nThe dictionary is notable for its entry on the philosopher David Hume, which notes that \"he published [the Treatise] in London in 1738, but its reception not answering his expectations, he printed a small analysis of it, in a sixpenny pamphlet, to make it sell\". Because the pamphlet (An Abstract of the Treatise of Human Nature) was published anonymously, it is not known how the author of the article came by this information. Norman Kemp Smith has speculated that the firm of Longman's, who published both Watkin's Dictionary, and volume III of the A Treatise of Human Nature, was the channel through which the tradition of Hume's authorship of the Abstract was preserved.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nBiography: writing lives By Catherine Neal Parke\n \"New Books\", Norman Kemp Smith, Mind 1938 XLVII(188):522-524,\n An Abstract of a Book lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is farther Illustrated and Explained, (London, 1740). \n \"The Authorship of the Abstract Revisited\" David Raynor, Hume Studies, Volume XIX, Number 1 (April, 1993) 213-215 .\n\nBritish biographical dictionaries\n1800 books",
"An Abstract of a Book lately Published, full title An Abstract of a Book lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is farther Illustrated and Explained is a summary of the main doctrines of David Hume's work A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in 1740. There has been speculation about the authorship of the work. Some scholars believe it was written by Hume's friend, the economist Adam Smith. Most believe it was written by Hume himself, in an attempt to popularise the Treatise.\n\nIn The Philosophical Quarterly in 1976, and again in Hume Studies 1991, J. O. Nelson challenged the received view that Hume wrote the Abstract, arguing that Adam Smith wrote it. His case depends on the identity of the 'Mr Smith' referred\nto in a letter of 4 March, 1740 from Hume at Ninewells to Francis Hutcheson at Glasgow. \n\nMy Bookseller has sent to Mr Smith a Copy of my Book, which I hope he has receiv‘d, as well as your Letter. I have not yet heard what he has done with the Abstract. Perhaps you have. I have got it printed in London; but not in the Works of the Learned; there having been an article with regard to my Book, somewhat abusive, printed in that Work, before I sent up the Abstract?\n\nKeynes and Sraffa argued that the \"Mr Smith\" was John Smith, Hutcheson’s Dublin publisher, and that Hume wrote the Abstract (as all the internal evidence suggests). Norman Kemp Smith, in a review of the Keynes and Sraffa edition, also accepted this, as well as pointing out the entry on Hume in Watkins Biographical Dictionary attributing authorship of the Abstract to Hume, suggesting that the author of the entry possessed inside information about Hume’s motives in publishing the Abstract. Nelson has argued that \"Mr Smith\" was Adam Smith (at that time, still a student). David Raynor has argued that all of the presently available internal and external evidence suggests that Hume wrote the Abstract.\n\nReferences\n\nR.W.Connon, M. Pollard, \"On the authorship of Hume's Abstract\", The Philosophical Quarterly 1977 .\n John O. Nelson, \"The Authorship of the Abstract Revisited,\" Hume Studies 17, no. 1 (April 1991): 83-86.\n John O. Nelson, \"Has the Authorship of An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature Really Been Decided?\" The Philosophical Quarterly 26, no. 102 (January 1976): 91.\n \"New Books\", Norman Kemp Smith, Mind 1938 XLVII(188):522-524,\n An Abstract of a Book lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is farther Illustrated and Explained, (London, 1740). \n \"The Authorship of the Abstract Revisited\" David Raynor, Hume Studies, Volume XIX, Number 1 (April, 1993) 213-215 .\n\n1740 books\nDavid Hume\nPhilosophy books\nWorks published anonymously\nTreatises"
]
|
[
"Bill James",
"The Bill James Baseball Abstracts",
"When were the Bill James Baseball Abstracts written?",
"self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977.",
"What was in the abstract?",
"18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics",
"Who read it?",
"Seventy-five people purchased the booklet.",
"What was an example of the statistical information in the abstract?",
"I don't know.",
"When was the last abstract published?",
"James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984."
]
| C_4246b6ef2f7e4d15a95bcea0ab7cffad_1 | Were they popular? | 6 | Were the annual Bill James Baseball Abstract books popular? | Bill James | An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis written in a lively, insightful, and witty style that offered an answer. Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984. The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions. While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day. CANNOTANSWER | While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. | George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. In 2003, James was hired as senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox and worked for the team for 17 years during which they won four World Series championships.
Early life
James was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas (KU) residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971. He was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there. Instead, he spent two years stationed in South Korea, during which time he wrote to KU about taking his final class. He was told he actually had met all his graduation requirements, so he returned to Lawrence in 1973 with degrees in English and economics. He also finished an Education degree in 1975, likewise from the University of Kansas.
Career
The Bill James Baseball Abstracts
An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis that offered an answer.
Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.
The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions.
While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day.
Post-Abstracts work
In 1988, James ceased writing the Abstract, citing workload-related burnout and concern about the volume of statistics on the market. He has continued to publish hardcover books about baseball history, which have sold well and received admiring reviews. These books include three editions of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985, 1988, 2001, the last entitled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract).
James has also written several series of new annuals:
The Baseball Book (1990–1992) was a loosely organized collection of commentary, profiles, historical articles, and occasional pieces of research. James's assistant Rob Neyer was responsible for much of the research, and wrote several short pieces. Neyer went on to become a featured baseball columnist at ESPN and SB Nation.
The Player Ratings Book (1993–95) offered statistics and 50-word profiles aimed at the fantasy baseball enthusiast.
The Bill James Handbook (2003–present) provides past-season statistics and next-season projections for Major League players and teams, and career data for all current Major League players. Results for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Awards voted on by a 10-person panel that includes James, are also included.
The Bill James Gold Mine (2008–2010) was a collection of new essays and never-before-seen statistics, as well as profiles of players and teams.
Playing off the name of the earlier series, Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom (2011) was a mixed collection of both baseball-related and miscellaneous pieces, culled from the Bill James Online archives (see below).
In 2008, James launched Bill James Online. Subscribers can read James's new, original writing and interact with one another —- as well as with James —- in a question-and-answer format. The web site also offers new "profiles" of teams and players full of facts and statistics that hope to one day map what James has termed "the lost island of baseball statistics."
STATS, Inc.
In an essay published in the 1984 Abstract, James vented his frustration about Major League Baseball's refusal to publish play-by-play accounts of every game. James proposed the creation of Project Scoresheet, a network of fans that would work together to collect and distribute this information.
While the resulting non-profit organization never functioned smoothly, it worked well enough to collect accounts of every game from 1984 through 1991. James's publisher agreed to distribute two annuals of essays and data – the 1987 and 1988 editions of Bill James Presents The Great American Baseball Statbook (though only the first of these featured writing by James).
The organization was eventually disbanded, but many of its members went on to form for-profit companies with similar goals and structure. STATS, Inc., the company James joined, provided data and analysis to every major media outlet before being acquired by Fox Sports in 2001.
Innovations
Among the statistical innovations attributable to James are:
Runs created. A statistic intended to quantify a player's contribution to runs scored, as well as a team's expected number of runs scored. Runs created is calculated from other offensive statistics. James's first version of it was:
Applied to an entire team or league, the statistic correlates closely (usually within 5%) to that team's or league's actual runs scored. Since James first created the statistic, sabermetricians have refined it to make it more accurate, and it is now used in many different variations.
Range factor. A statistic that quantifies the defensive contribution of a player, calculated in its simplest form as (A is an assist, PO is a putout):
The statistic is premised on the notion that the total number of outs that a player participates in is more relevant in evaluating his defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic fielding percentage.
Defensive Efficiency Rating. A statistic that shows the percentage of balls in play a defense turns into an out. It is used to help determine a team's defensive ability. The formula is:
Win shares. A unifying statistic intended to allow the comparison of players at different positions, as well as players of different eras. Win Shares incorporates a variety of pitching, hitting and fielding statistics. One drawback of Win Shares is the difficulty of computing it.
Pythagorean Winning Percentage. A statistic explaining the relationship of wins and losses to runs scored and runs allowed. The statistic correlates closely to a team's actual winning percentage. Its simplest formula is:
Game score is a metric to determine the strength of a pitcher in any particular baseball game. It has since been improved by Tom Tango.
Major League Equivalency. A metric that uses minor league statistics to predict how a player is likely to perform at the major league level.
The Brock2 System. A system for projecting a player's performance over the remainder of his career based on past performance and the aging process.
Similarity scores. Scoring a player's statistical similarity to other players, providing a frame of reference for players of the distant past. Examples: Lou Gehrig comparable to Don Mattingly; Joe Jackson to Tony Oliva.
Secondary average. A statistic that attempts to measure a player's contribution to an offense in ways not reflected in batting average. Secondary averages tend to be similar to batting averages, but can vary wildly, from less than .100 to more than .500 in extreme cases. The formula is (ISO is isolated power):
Power/Speed Number. A statistic that attempts to consolidate the various "clubs" of players with impressive numbers of both home runs and stolen bases (e.g., the 30–30 club (Bobby Bonds was well known for being a member), the 40–40 club (Jose Canseco was the first to perform this feat), and even the 25–65 club (Joe Morgan in the '70s)). The formula is:
Approximate Value. A system of cutoffs designed to estimate the value a player contributed to various category groups (including his team) to study broad questions such as "how do players age over time".
"Temperature gauge" to determine how "hot" a player is, based on recent performance. The gauge has been used in NESN Red Sox telecasts and has provoked mixed reactions from critics.
Although James may be best known as an inventor of statistical tools, he has often written on the limitations of statistics and urged humility concerning their place amid other kinds of information about baseball. To James, context is paramount: he was among the first to emphasize the importance of adjusting traditional statistics for park factors and to stress the role of luck in a pitcher's win-loss record. Many of his statistical innovations are arguably less important than the underlying ideas. When he introduced the notion of secondary average, it was as a vehicle for the then-counterintuitive concept that batting average represents only a fraction of a player's offensive contribution. (The runs-created statistic plays a similar role vis-à-vis the traditional RBI.) Some of his contributions to the language of baseball, like the idea of the "defensive spectrum", border on being entirely non-statistical.
Acceptance and employment in mainstream baseball
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane began applying sabermetric principles to running his low-budget team in the early 2000s, to notable effect, as chronicled in Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.
In 2003, James was hired by a former reader, John Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.
One point of controversy was in handling the relief pitching of the Red Sox. James had previously published analysis of the use of the closer in baseball, and had concluded that the traditional use of the closer both overrated the abilities of that individual and used him in suboptimal circumstances. He wrote that it is "far better to use your relief ace when the score is tied, even if that is the seventh inning, than in the ninth inning with a lead of two or more runs." The Red Sox in 2003 staffed their bullpen with several marginally talented relievers. Red Sox manager Grady Little was never fully comfortable with the setup, and designated unofficial closers and reshuffled roles after a bad outing. When Boston lost a number of games due to bullpen failures, Little reverted to a traditional closer approach and moved Byung-hyun Kim from being a starting pitcher to a closer. The Red Sox did not follow James's idea of a bullpen with no closer, but with consistent overall talent that would allow the responsibilities to be shared. Red Sox reliever Alan Embree thought the plan could have worked if the bullpen had not suffered injuries. During the 2004 regular season Keith Foulke was used primarily as a closer in the conventional model; however, Foulke's usage in the 2004 postseason was along the lines of a relief ace with multiple inning appearances at pivotal times of the game. Houston Astros manager Phil Garner also employed a relief ace model with his use of Brad Lidge in the 2004 postseason.
During his tenure with the Red Sox, James published several new sabermetric books (see #Bibliography below). Indeed, although James was typically tight-lipped about his activities on behalf of the Red Sox, he is credited with advocating some of the moves that led to the team's first World Series championship in 86 years, including the signing of non-tendered free agent David Ortiz, the trade for Mark Bellhorn, and the team's increased emphasis on on-base percentage.
After the Red Sox suffered through a disastrous 2012 season, Henry stated that James had fallen "out of favor [in the front office] over the last few years for reasons I really don't understand. We've gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly."
On October 24, 2019, James announced his retirement from the Red Sox, saying that he had "fallen out of step with the organization" and added that he hadn't earned his paycheck with the Red Sox for the last couple of years. During his time with the team, Bill James received four World Series rings for the team's 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 World Series titles.
In culture
Michael Lewis, in his 2003 book Moneyball, dedicates a chapter to James's career and sabermetrics as background for his portrayal of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics' unlikely success.
James was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2007.
James was profiled on 60 Minutes on March 30, 2008, in his role as a sabermetric pioneer and Red Sox advisor. In 2010, he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
James made a guest appearance on The Simpsons 2010 episode "MoneyBART". He claimed "I've made baseball as fun as doing your taxes."
Steven Soderbergh's planned film adaptation of Moneyball would have featured an animated version of James as a "host". This script was discarded when director Bennett Miller and writer Aaron Sorkin succeeded Soderbergh on the project. Ultimately, the 2011 film mentions James several times. His bio is briefly recapped, and Billy Beane is depicted telling John Henry that Henry's hiring of James is the reason Beane is interested in the Red Sox general manager job.
Controversies
Dowd Report controversy
In his Baseball Book 1990, James heavily criticized the methodology of the Dowd Report, which was an investigation (commissioned by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti) on the gambling activities of Pete Rose. James reproached commissioner Giamatti and his successor, Fay Vincent, for their acceptance of the Dowd Report as the final word on Rose's gambling. (James's attitude on the matter surprised many fans, especially after the writer had been deeply critical of Rose in the past, especially what James considered to be Rose's selfish pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time record for base hits.)
James expanded his defense of Rose in his 2001 book The New Historical Baseball Abstract, with a detailed explanation of why he found the case against Rose flimsy. James wrote "I would characterize the evidence that Rose bet on baseball as...well, not quite non-existent. It is extremely weak." This countered the popular opinion that the case against Rose was a slam dunk, and several critics claimed that James misstated some of the evidence in his defense of Rose. Derek Zumsteg of Baseball Prospectus wrote an exhaustive review of the case James made and concluded: "James' defense of Rose is filled with oversights, errors in judgment, failures in research, and is a great disservice to the many people who have looked to him for a balanced and fair take on this complicated and important issue."
In 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct. James remained steadfast, continuing to insist that the evidence available to Dowd at the time was insufficient to reach the conclusion that it did.
Paterno controversy
On November 4, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was indicted for committing sex crimes against young boys, which brought the Penn State child sex abuse scandal to national attention. On December 11, 2011, James published an article called "The Trial of Penn State", depicting an imaginary trial in which Penn State defended itself against charges of "acting rashly and irresponsibly in the matter of Joe Paterno, in such a manner that [they] defamed, libeled and slandered Paterno, unfairly demolishing his reputation."
On July 12, 2012, the Freeh report was released, charging Paterno and three other University officials with covering up reports of sexual assaults and enabling the attacker to prey on other children for more than a decade, often in Penn State facilities. Soon afterwards, during an interview on ESPN radio, James claimed that the Freeh report's characterizations of Paterno as a powerful figure were wrong, and that it was not Paterno's responsibility to report allegations of child molestation to the police. "[Paterno] had very few allies. He was isolated and he was not nearly as powerful as people imagine him to have been." When asked if he knew anyone who had showered with a boy they were not related to, James said it was a common practice when he was growing up. "That was actually quite common in the town I grew up in. That was quite common in America 40 years ago."
The July 2012 interview comments were widely criticized. Rob Neyer wrote in defense of James. James's employer, the Boston Red Sox, issued a statement disavowing the comments James made and saying that he had been asked not to make further public comments on the matter.
Personal life
James is a fan of the University of Kansas men's basketball team and has written about basketball. He has created a formula for what he calls a "safe lead" in the sport.
James has written two true crime books, Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (2011) and The Man from the Train (2017), the latter with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. In The Man From the Train, published in 2017, the Jameses attempt to link scores of murders of entire families in the early 20th century United States to a single perpetrator. Those murders include the Villisca axe murders. The Jameses propose a solution to the murders based on the signature elements these killings share in common with each other.
Bibliography
Bill James Baseball Abstract (annual editions published 1977–1988)
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985; revised edition 1988)
This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones (1989) (selection of comments from Abstracts and articles)
The Bill James Baseball Book (annual editions published 1990–1992)
The Politics of Glory (1994) (revised as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?),
The Bill James Player Ratings Book (annual editions published 1993–1996)
The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers (1997)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Handbook (1998; 2nd ed. 2000)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Sourcebook (1998)
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001)
Win Shares (2002)
Win Shares Digital Update (2002) (PDF form only)
The Bill James Handbook (annual editions published 2003–present)
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (2004, with co-author Rob Neyer)
The Bill James Gold Mine (annual editions published 2008–2010, , )
Popular Crime – Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (, published 2011)
Solid Fool's Gold (2011), (articles from Bill James Online website)
Fools Rush Inn (2014), (more articles from Bill James Online website)
The Man From the Train (2017),
Books about James
The Mind of Bill James (2006) ISBN
How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball: by Colleagues, Critics, Competitors and Just Plain Fans (2007)
See also
Baseball Prospectus
Defensive spectrum
Keltner list
Similarity score
Win shares
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Bill James Online –interactions with James through statistics, articles, conversations and more
Works of Bill James
Audio interview by Jesse Thorn, public radio program The Sound of Young America (April 29, 2008)
Chronister, Levi (April 25, 2004). "Grassroots Guru". Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, KS).
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part I, Baseball Digest
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part II
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part III
McGrath, Ben (July 14, 2003). "The Professor of Baseball". The New Yorker
Wall Street Journal profile
[ Does Bill James Belong in the Hall of Fame?]
– contrary to James
Schwarz, Alan (July 18, 2006). "25 For 25: Don Fehr, Peter Gammons, Pat Gillick, Bo Jackson, Bill James". 25 for 25: Stars in the Baseball America Universe. Baseball America.
Henry, John (May 8, 2006). "Scientists & Thinkers: Bill James". The 2006 Time 100. Time.
Surowiecki, James (June 10, 2003). "Moneyball Redux: Slate talks to the man who revolutionized baseball.". Slate.
Lederer, Bill (February 28, 2005). "Breakfast with Bill James". Baseball Analysts (baseballanalysts.com).
1949 births
Living people
American sportswriters
American statisticians
Baseball statisticians
Baseball writers
People from Holton, Kansas
United States Army soldiers
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers | true | [
"Two referendums were held in Switzerland on 16 October 1966. Voters were asked whether they approved of an amendment to the constitution on Swiss citizens living abroad and a popular initiative \"for the fight against alcoholism\". The constitutional amendment was approved whilst the popular initiative was rejected.\n\nResults\n\nConstitutional amendment\n\nPopular initiative on alcoholism\n\nReferences\n\n1966 referendums\n1966 in Switzerland\nReferendums in Switzerland",
"Miyazaki Yūzen (宮崎 友禅斎) (1654 July 25, 1736) , also known as Miyazaki Yūzensai or Yūzenzai, was a Japanese fan painter who perfected the yūzen fabric dying technique.\n\nBiography \nMiyazaki was born in Kyoto in 1654. He was originally a fan painter, but is also known for his work with kosode. Miyazaki painted his most popular fan designs on kimono, and they were wildly popular. He used rice paste to resist-dye the cloth in a method that he named yūzen-zome. It later became known as simply yūzen. This technique made it easier for Miyazaki to paint his designs directly on the kimono, making them more expressive.\n\nHis designs were so popular that they were published as a book called the Yuzen-hiinagata in 1688.\n\nReferences \n\n1654 births\n1736 deaths\nJapanese textile artists"
]
|
[
"Bill James",
"The Bill James Baseball Abstracts",
"When were the Bill James Baseball Abstracts written?",
"self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977.",
"What was in the abstract?",
"18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics",
"Who read it?",
"Seventy-five people purchased the booklet.",
"What was an example of the statistical information in the abstract?",
"I don't know.",
"When was the last abstract published?",
"James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.",
"Were they popular?",
"While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience."
]
| C_4246b6ef2f7e4d15a95bcea0ab7cffad_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 7 | Besides Bill James Baseball Abstract reaching a mass audience, what are other interesting aspects about this article? | Bill James | An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis written in a lively, insightful, and witty style that offered an answer. Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984. The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions. While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day. CANNOTANSWER | James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. | George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. In 2003, James was hired as senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox and worked for the team for 17 years during which they won four World Series championships.
Early life
James was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas (KU) residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971. He was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there. Instead, he spent two years stationed in South Korea, during which time he wrote to KU about taking his final class. He was told he actually had met all his graduation requirements, so he returned to Lawrence in 1973 with degrees in English and economics. He also finished an Education degree in 1975, likewise from the University of Kansas.
Career
The Bill James Baseball Abstracts
An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis that offered an answer.
Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.
The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions.
While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day.
Post-Abstracts work
In 1988, James ceased writing the Abstract, citing workload-related burnout and concern about the volume of statistics on the market. He has continued to publish hardcover books about baseball history, which have sold well and received admiring reviews. These books include three editions of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985, 1988, 2001, the last entitled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract).
James has also written several series of new annuals:
The Baseball Book (1990–1992) was a loosely organized collection of commentary, profiles, historical articles, and occasional pieces of research. James's assistant Rob Neyer was responsible for much of the research, and wrote several short pieces. Neyer went on to become a featured baseball columnist at ESPN and SB Nation.
The Player Ratings Book (1993–95) offered statistics and 50-word profiles aimed at the fantasy baseball enthusiast.
The Bill James Handbook (2003–present) provides past-season statistics and next-season projections for Major League players and teams, and career data for all current Major League players. Results for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Awards voted on by a 10-person panel that includes James, are also included.
The Bill James Gold Mine (2008–2010) was a collection of new essays and never-before-seen statistics, as well as profiles of players and teams.
Playing off the name of the earlier series, Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom (2011) was a mixed collection of both baseball-related and miscellaneous pieces, culled from the Bill James Online archives (see below).
In 2008, James launched Bill James Online. Subscribers can read James's new, original writing and interact with one another —- as well as with James —- in a question-and-answer format. The web site also offers new "profiles" of teams and players full of facts and statistics that hope to one day map what James has termed "the lost island of baseball statistics."
STATS, Inc.
In an essay published in the 1984 Abstract, James vented his frustration about Major League Baseball's refusal to publish play-by-play accounts of every game. James proposed the creation of Project Scoresheet, a network of fans that would work together to collect and distribute this information.
While the resulting non-profit organization never functioned smoothly, it worked well enough to collect accounts of every game from 1984 through 1991. James's publisher agreed to distribute two annuals of essays and data – the 1987 and 1988 editions of Bill James Presents The Great American Baseball Statbook (though only the first of these featured writing by James).
The organization was eventually disbanded, but many of its members went on to form for-profit companies with similar goals and structure. STATS, Inc., the company James joined, provided data and analysis to every major media outlet before being acquired by Fox Sports in 2001.
Innovations
Among the statistical innovations attributable to James are:
Runs created. A statistic intended to quantify a player's contribution to runs scored, as well as a team's expected number of runs scored. Runs created is calculated from other offensive statistics. James's first version of it was:
Applied to an entire team or league, the statistic correlates closely (usually within 5%) to that team's or league's actual runs scored. Since James first created the statistic, sabermetricians have refined it to make it more accurate, and it is now used in many different variations.
Range factor. A statistic that quantifies the defensive contribution of a player, calculated in its simplest form as (A is an assist, PO is a putout):
The statistic is premised on the notion that the total number of outs that a player participates in is more relevant in evaluating his defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic fielding percentage.
Defensive Efficiency Rating. A statistic that shows the percentage of balls in play a defense turns into an out. It is used to help determine a team's defensive ability. The formula is:
Win shares. A unifying statistic intended to allow the comparison of players at different positions, as well as players of different eras. Win Shares incorporates a variety of pitching, hitting and fielding statistics. One drawback of Win Shares is the difficulty of computing it.
Pythagorean Winning Percentage. A statistic explaining the relationship of wins and losses to runs scored and runs allowed. The statistic correlates closely to a team's actual winning percentage. Its simplest formula is:
Game score is a metric to determine the strength of a pitcher in any particular baseball game. It has since been improved by Tom Tango.
Major League Equivalency. A metric that uses minor league statistics to predict how a player is likely to perform at the major league level.
The Brock2 System. A system for projecting a player's performance over the remainder of his career based on past performance and the aging process.
Similarity scores. Scoring a player's statistical similarity to other players, providing a frame of reference for players of the distant past. Examples: Lou Gehrig comparable to Don Mattingly; Joe Jackson to Tony Oliva.
Secondary average. A statistic that attempts to measure a player's contribution to an offense in ways not reflected in batting average. Secondary averages tend to be similar to batting averages, but can vary wildly, from less than .100 to more than .500 in extreme cases. The formula is (ISO is isolated power):
Power/Speed Number. A statistic that attempts to consolidate the various "clubs" of players with impressive numbers of both home runs and stolen bases (e.g., the 30–30 club (Bobby Bonds was well known for being a member), the 40–40 club (Jose Canseco was the first to perform this feat), and even the 25–65 club (Joe Morgan in the '70s)). The formula is:
Approximate Value. A system of cutoffs designed to estimate the value a player contributed to various category groups (including his team) to study broad questions such as "how do players age over time".
"Temperature gauge" to determine how "hot" a player is, based on recent performance. The gauge has been used in NESN Red Sox telecasts and has provoked mixed reactions from critics.
Although James may be best known as an inventor of statistical tools, he has often written on the limitations of statistics and urged humility concerning their place amid other kinds of information about baseball. To James, context is paramount: he was among the first to emphasize the importance of adjusting traditional statistics for park factors and to stress the role of luck in a pitcher's win-loss record. Many of his statistical innovations are arguably less important than the underlying ideas. When he introduced the notion of secondary average, it was as a vehicle for the then-counterintuitive concept that batting average represents only a fraction of a player's offensive contribution. (The runs-created statistic plays a similar role vis-à-vis the traditional RBI.) Some of his contributions to the language of baseball, like the idea of the "defensive spectrum", border on being entirely non-statistical.
Acceptance and employment in mainstream baseball
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane began applying sabermetric principles to running his low-budget team in the early 2000s, to notable effect, as chronicled in Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.
In 2003, James was hired by a former reader, John Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.
One point of controversy was in handling the relief pitching of the Red Sox. James had previously published analysis of the use of the closer in baseball, and had concluded that the traditional use of the closer both overrated the abilities of that individual and used him in suboptimal circumstances. He wrote that it is "far better to use your relief ace when the score is tied, even if that is the seventh inning, than in the ninth inning with a lead of two or more runs." The Red Sox in 2003 staffed their bullpen with several marginally talented relievers. Red Sox manager Grady Little was never fully comfortable with the setup, and designated unofficial closers and reshuffled roles after a bad outing. When Boston lost a number of games due to bullpen failures, Little reverted to a traditional closer approach and moved Byung-hyun Kim from being a starting pitcher to a closer. The Red Sox did not follow James's idea of a bullpen with no closer, but with consistent overall talent that would allow the responsibilities to be shared. Red Sox reliever Alan Embree thought the plan could have worked if the bullpen had not suffered injuries. During the 2004 regular season Keith Foulke was used primarily as a closer in the conventional model; however, Foulke's usage in the 2004 postseason was along the lines of a relief ace with multiple inning appearances at pivotal times of the game. Houston Astros manager Phil Garner also employed a relief ace model with his use of Brad Lidge in the 2004 postseason.
During his tenure with the Red Sox, James published several new sabermetric books (see #Bibliography below). Indeed, although James was typically tight-lipped about his activities on behalf of the Red Sox, he is credited with advocating some of the moves that led to the team's first World Series championship in 86 years, including the signing of non-tendered free agent David Ortiz, the trade for Mark Bellhorn, and the team's increased emphasis on on-base percentage.
After the Red Sox suffered through a disastrous 2012 season, Henry stated that James had fallen "out of favor [in the front office] over the last few years for reasons I really don't understand. We've gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly."
On October 24, 2019, James announced his retirement from the Red Sox, saying that he had "fallen out of step with the organization" and added that he hadn't earned his paycheck with the Red Sox for the last couple of years. During his time with the team, Bill James received four World Series rings for the team's 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 World Series titles.
In culture
Michael Lewis, in his 2003 book Moneyball, dedicates a chapter to James's career and sabermetrics as background for his portrayal of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics' unlikely success.
James was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2007.
James was profiled on 60 Minutes on March 30, 2008, in his role as a sabermetric pioneer and Red Sox advisor. In 2010, he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
James made a guest appearance on The Simpsons 2010 episode "MoneyBART". He claimed "I've made baseball as fun as doing your taxes."
Steven Soderbergh's planned film adaptation of Moneyball would have featured an animated version of James as a "host". This script was discarded when director Bennett Miller and writer Aaron Sorkin succeeded Soderbergh on the project. Ultimately, the 2011 film mentions James several times. His bio is briefly recapped, and Billy Beane is depicted telling John Henry that Henry's hiring of James is the reason Beane is interested in the Red Sox general manager job.
Controversies
Dowd Report controversy
In his Baseball Book 1990, James heavily criticized the methodology of the Dowd Report, which was an investigation (commissioned by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti) on the gambling activities of Pete Rose. James reproached commissioner Giamatti and his successor, Fay Vincent, for their acceptance of the Dowd Report as the final word on Rose's gambling. (James's attitude on the matter surprised many fans, especially after the writer had been deeply critical of Rose in the past, especially what James considered to be Rose's selfish pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time record for base hits.)
James expanded his defense of Rose in his 2001 book The New Historical Baseball Abstract, with a detailed explanation of why he found the case against Rose flimsy. James wrote "I would characterize the evidence that Rose bet on baseball as...well, not quite non-existent. It is extremely weak." This countered the popular opinion that the case against Rose was a slam dunk, and several critics claimed that James misstated some of the evidence in his defense of Rose. Derek Zumsteg of Baseball Prospectus wrote an exhaustive review of the case James made and concluded: "James' defense of Rose is filled with oversights, errors in judgment, failures in research, and is a great disservice to the many people who have looked to him for a balanced and fair take on this complicated and important issue."
In 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct. James remained steadfast, continuing to insist that the evidence available to Dowd at the time was insufficient to reach the conclusion that it did.
Paterno controversy
On November 4, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was indicted for committing sex crimes against young boys, which brought the Penn State child sex abuse scandal to national attention. On December 11, 2011, James published an article called "The Trial of Penn State", depicting an imaginary trial in which Penn State defended itself against charges of "acting rashly and irresponsibly in the matter of Joe Paterno, in such a manner that [they] defamed, libeled and slandered Paterno, unfairly demolishing his reputation."
On July 12, 2012, the Freeh report was released, charging Paterno and three other University officials with covering up reports of sexual assaults and enabling the attacker to prey on other children for more than a decade, often in Penn State facilities. Soon afterwards, during an interview on ESPN radio, James claimed that the Freeh report's characterizations of Paterno as a powerful figure were wrong, and that it was not Paterno's responsibility to report allegations of child molestation to the police. "[Paterno] had very few allies. He was isolated and he was not nearly as powerful as people imagine him to have been." When asked if he knew anyone who had showered with a boy they were not related to, James said it was a common practice when he was growing up. "That was actually quite common in the town I grew up in. That was quite common in America 40 years ago."
The July 2012 interview comments were widely criticized. Rob Neyer wrote in defense of James. James's employer, the Boston Red Sox, issued a statement disavowing the comments James made and saying that he had been asked not to make further public comments on the matter.
Personal life
James is a fan of the University of Kansas men's basketball team and has written about basketball. He has created a formula for what he calls a "safe lead" in the sport.
James has written two true crime books, Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (2011) and The Man from the Train (2017), the latter with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. In The Man From the Train, published in 2017, the Jameses attempt to link scores of murders of entire families in the early 20th century United States to a single perpetrator. Those murders include the Villisca axe murders. The Jameses propose a solution to the murders based on the signature elements these killings share in common with each other.
Bibliography
Bill James Baseball Abstract (annual editions published 1977–1988)
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985; revised edition 1988)
This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones (1989) (selection of comments from Abstracts and articles)
The Bill James Baseball Book (annual editions published 1990–1992)
The Politics of Glory (1994) (revised as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?),
The Bill James Player Ratings Book (annual editions published 1993–1996)
The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers (1997)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Handbook (1998; 2nd ed. 2000)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Sourcebook (1998)
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001)
Win Shares (2002)
Win Shares Digital Update (2002) (PDF form only)
The Bill James Handbook (annual editions published 2003–present)
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (2004, with co-author Rob Neyer)
The Bill James Gold Mine (annual editions published 2008–2010, , )
Popular Crime – Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (, published 2011)
Solid Fool's Gold (2011), (articles from Bill James Online website)
Fools Rush Inn (2014), (more articles from Bill James Online website)
The Man From the Train (2017),
Books about James
The Mind of Bill James (2006) ISBN
How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball: by Colleagues, Critics, Competitors and Just Plain Fans (2007)
See also
Baseball Prospectus
Defensive spectrum
Keltner list
Similarity score
Win shares
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Bill James Online –interactions with James through statistics, articles, conversations and more
Works of Bill James
Audio interview by Jesse Thorn, public radio program The Sound of Young America (April 29, 2008)
Chronister, Levi (April 25, 2004). "Grassroots Guru". Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, KS).
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part I, Baseball Digest
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part II
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part III
McGrath, Ben (July 14, 2003). "The Professor of Baseball". The New Yorker
Wall Street Journal profile
[ Does Bill James Belong in the Hall of Fame?]
– contrary to James
Schwarz, Alan (July 18, 2006). "25 For 25: Don Fehr, Peter Gammons, Pat Gillick, Bo Jackson, Bill James". 25 for 25: Stars in the Baseball America Universe. Baseball America.
Henry, John (May 8, 2006). "Scientists & Thinkers: Bill James". The 2006 Time 100. Time.
Surowiecki, James (June 10, 2003). "Moneyball Redux: Slate talks to the man who revolutionized baseball.". Slate.
Lederer, Bill (February 28, 2005). "Breakfast with Bill James". Baseball Analysts (baseballanalysts.com).
1949 births
Living people
American sportswriters
American statisticians
Baseball statisticians
Baseball writers
People from Holton, Kansas
United States Army soldiers
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers | 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"
]
|
[
"Bill James",
"The Bill James Baseball Abstracts",
"When were the Bill James Baseball Abstracts written?",
"self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977.",
"What was in the abstract?",
"18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics",
"Who read it?",
"Seventy-five people purchased the booklet.",
"What was an example of the statistical information in the abstract?",
"I don't know.",
"When was the last abstract published?",
"James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.",
"Were they popular?",
"While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties."
]
| C_4246b6ef2f7e4d15a95bcea0ab7cffad_1 | Where were his first articles published? | 8 | Where were Bill Jame's first articles published? | Bill James | An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis written in a lively, insightful, and witty style that offered an answer. Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984. The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions. While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day. CANNOTANSWER | James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract beginning in 1977. | George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. In 2003, James was hired as senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox and worked for the team for 17 years during which they won four World Series championships.
Early life
James was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas (KU) residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971. He was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there. Instead, he spent two years stationed in South Korea, during which time he wrote to KU about taking his final class. He was told he actually had met all his graduation requirements, so he returned to Lawrence in 1973 with degrees in English and economics. He also finished an Education degree in 1975, likewise from the University of Kansas.
Career
The Bill James Baseball Abstracts
An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question (e.g., "Which pitchers and catchers allow runners to steal the most bases?"), and then presented data and analysis that offered an answer.
Editors considered James's pieces so unusual that few believed them suitable for their readers. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning in 1977. The first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News. Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, and continued to do so through 1984.
The first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a very favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on teams and players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, and a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions.
While writers had published books about baseball statistics before (most notably Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball, in the 1960s), few had ever reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of books and articles that continues to this day.
Post-Abstracts work
In 1988, James ceased writing the Abstract, citing workload-related burnout and concern about the volume of statistics on the market. He has continued to publish hardcover books about baseball history, which have sold well and received admiring reviews. These books include three editions of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985, 1988, 2001, the last entitled The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract).
James has also written several series of new annuals:
The Baseball Book (1990–1992) was a loosely organized collection of commentary, profiles, historical articles, and occasional pieces of research. James's assistant Rob Neyer was responsible for much of the research, and wrote several short pieces. Neyer went on to become a featured baseball columnist at ESPN and SB Nation.
The Player Ratings Book (1993–95) offered statistics and 50-word profiles aimed at the fantasy baseball enthusiast.
The Bill James Handbook (2003–present) provides past-season statistics and next-season projections for Major League players and teams, and career data for all current Major League players. Results for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Awards voted on by a 10-person panel that includes James, are also included.
The Bill James Gold Mine (2008–2010) was a collection of new essays and never-before-seen statistics, as well as profiles of players and teams.
Playing off the name of the earlier series, Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom (2011) was a mixed collection of both baseball-related and miscellaneous pieces, culled from the Bill James Online archives (see below).
In 2008, James launched Bill James Online. Subscribers can read James's new, original writing and interact with one another —- as well as with James —- in a question-and-answer format. The web site also offers new "profiles" of teams and players full of facts and statistics that hope to one day map what James has termed "the lost island of baseball statistics."
STATS, Inc.
In an essay published in the 1984 Abstract, James vented his frustration about Major League Baseball's refusal to publish play-by-play accounts of every game. James proposed the creation of Project Scoresheet, a network of fans that would work together to collect and distribute this information.
While the resulting non-profit organization never functioned smoothly, it worked well enough to collect accounts of every game from 1984 through 1991. James's publisher agreed to distribute two annuals of essays and data – the 1987 and 1988 editions of Bill James Presents The Great American Baseball Statbook (though only the first of these featured writing by James).
The organization was eventually disbanded, but many of its members went on to form for-profit companies with similar goals and structure. STATS, Inc., the company James joined, provided data and analysis to every major media outlet before being acquired by Fox Sports in 2001.
Innovations
Among the statistical innovations attributable to James are:
Runs created. A statistic intended to quantify a player's contribution to runs scored, as well as a team's expected number of runs scored. Runs created is calculated from other offensive statistics. James's first version of it was:
Applied to an entire team or league, the statistic correlates closely (usually within 5%) to that team's or league's actual runs scored. Since James first created the statistic, sabermetricians have refined it to make it more accurate, and it is now used in many different variations.
Range factor. A statistic that quantifies the defensive contribution of a player, calculated in its simplest form as (A is an assist, PO is a putout):
The statistic is premised on the notion that the total number of outs that a player participates in is more relevant in evaluating his defensive play than the percentage of cleanly handled chances as calculated by the conventional statistic fielding percentage.
Defensive Efficiency Rating. A statistic that shows the percentage of balls in play a defense turns into an out. It is used to help determine a team's defensive ability. The formula is:
Win shares. A unifying statistic intended to allow the comparison of players at different positions, as well as players of different eras. Win Shares incorporates a variety of pitching, hitting and fielding statistics. One drawback of Win Shares is the difficulty of computing it.
Pythagorean Winning Percentage. A statistic explaining the relationship of wins and losses to runs scored and runs allowed. The statistic correlates closely to a team's actual winning percentage. Its simplest formula is:
Game score is a metric to determine the strength of a pitcher in any particular baseball game. It has since been improved by Tom Tango.
Major League Equivalency. A metric that uses minor league statistics to predict how a player is likely to perform at the major league level.
The Brock2 System. A system for projecting a player's performance over the remainder of his career based on past performance and the aging process.
Similarity scores. Scoring a player's statistical similarity to other players, providing a frame of reference for players of the distant past. Examples: Lou Gehrig comparable to Don Mattingly; Joe Jackson to Tony Oliva.
Secondary average. A statistic that attempts to measure a player's contribution to an offense in ways not reflected in batting average. Secondary averages tend to be similar to batting averages, but can vary wildly, from less than .100 to more than .500 in extreme cases. The formula is (ISO is isolated power):
Power/Speed Number. A statistic that attempts to consolidate the various "clubs" of players with impressive numbers of both home runs and stolen bases (e.g., the 30–30 club (Bobby Bonds was well known for being a member), the 40–40 club (Jose Canseco was the first to perform this feat), and even the 25–65 club (Joe Morgan in the '70s)). The formula is:
Approximate Value. A system of cutoffs designed to estimate the value a player contributed to various category groups (including his team) to study broad questions such as "how do players age over time".
"Temperature gauge" to determine how "hot" a player is, based on recent performance. The gauge has been used in NESN Red Sox telecasts and has provoked mixed reactions from critics.
Although James may be best known as an inventor of statistical tools, he has often written on the limitations of statistics and urged humility concerning their place amid other kinds of information about baseball. To James, context is paramount: he was among the first to emphasize the importance of adjusting traditional statistics for park factors and to stress the role of luck in a pitcher's win-loss record. Many of his statistical innovations are arguably less important than the underlying ideas. When he introduced the notion of secondary average, it was as a vehicle for the then-counterintuitive concept that batting average represents only a fraction of a player's offensive contribution. (The runs-created statistic plays a similar role vis-à-vis the traditional RBI.) Some of his contributions to the language of baseball, like the idea of the "defensive spectrum", border on being entirely non-statistical.
Acceptance and employment in mainstream baseball
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane began applying sabermetric principles to running his low-budget team in the early 2000s, to notable effect, as chronicled in Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.
In 2003, James was hired by a former reader, John Henry, the new owner of the Boston Red Sox.
One point of controversy was in handling the relief pitching of the Red Sox. James had previously published analysis of the use of the closer in baseball, and had concluded that the traditional use of the closer both overrated the abilities of that individual and used him in suboptimal circumstances. He wrote that it is "far better to use your relief ace when the score is tied, even if that is the seventh inning, than in the ninth inning with a lead of two or more runs." The Red Sox in 2003 staffed their bullpen with several marginally talented relievers. Red Sox manager Grady Little was never fully comfortable with the setup, and designated unofficial closers and reshuffled roles after a bad outing. When Boston lost a number of games due to bullpen failures, Little reverted to a traditional closer approach and moved Byung-hyun Kim from being a starting pitcher to a closer. The Red Sox did not follow James's idea of a bullpen with no closer, but with consistent overall talent that would allow the responsibilities to be shared. Red Sox reliever Alan Embree thought the plan could have worked if the bullpen had not suffered injuries. During the 2004 regular season Keith Foulke was used primarily as a closer in the conventional model; however, Foulke's usage in the 2004 postseason was along the lines of a relief ace with multiple inning appearances at pivotal times of the game. Houston Astros manager Phil Garner also employed a relief ace model with his use of Brad Lidge in the 2004 postseason.
During his tenure with the Red Sox, James published several new sabermetric books (see #Bibliography below). Indeed, although James was typically tight-lipped about his activities on behalf of the Red Sox, he is credited with advocating some of the moves that led to the team's first World Series championship in 86 years, including the signing of non-tendered free agent David Ortiz, the trade for Mark Bellhorn, and the team's increased emphasis on on-base percentage.
After the Red Sox suffered through a disastrous 2012 season, Henry stated that James had fallen "out of favor [in the front office] over the last few years for reasons I really don't understand. We've gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly."
On October 24, 2019, James announced his retirement from the Red Sox, saying that he had "fallen out of step with the organization" and added that he hadn't earned his paycheck with the Red Sox for the last couple of years. During his time with the team, Bill James received four World Series rings for the team's 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 World Series titles.
In culture
Michael Lewis, in his 2003 book Moneyball, dedicates a chapter to James's career and sabermetrics as background for his portrayal of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics' unlikely success.
James was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2007.
James was profiled on 60 Minutes on March 30, 2008, in his role as a sabermetric pioneer and Red Sox advisor. In 2010, he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
James made a guest appearance on The Simpsons 2010 episode "MoneyBART". He claimed "I've made baseball as fun as doing your taxes."
Steven Soderbergh's planned film adaptation of Moneyball would have featured an animated version of James as a "host". This script was discarded when director Bennett Miller and writer Aaron Sorkin succeeded Soderbergh on the project. Ultimately, the 2011 film mentions James several times. His bio is briefly recapped, and Billy Beane is depicted telling John Henry that Henry's hiring of James is the reason Beane is interested in the Red Sox general manager job.
Controversies
Dowd Report controversy
In his Baseball Book 1990, James heavily criticized the methodology of the Dowd Report, which was an investigation (commissioned by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti) on the gambling activities of Pete Rose. James reproached commissioner Giamatti and his successor, Fay Vincent, for their acceptance of the Dowd Report as the final word on Rose's gambling. (James's attitude on the matter surprised many fans, especially after the writer had been deeply critical of Rose in the past, especially what James considered to be Rose's selfish pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time record for base hits.)
James expanded his defense of Rose in his 2001 book The New Historical Baseball Abstract, with a detailed explanation of why he found the case against Rose flimsy. James wrote "I would characterize the evidence that Rose bet on baseball as...well, not quite non-existent. It is extremely weak." This countered the popular opinion that the case against Rose was a slam dunk, and several critics claimed that James misstated some of the evidence in his defense of Rose. Derek Zumsteg of Baseball Prospectus wrote an exhaustive review of the case James made and concluded: "James' defense of Rose is filled with oversights, errors in judgment, failures in research, and is a great disservice to the many people who have looked to him for a balanced and fair take on this complicated and important issue."
In 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct. James remained steadfast, continuing to insist that the evidence available to Dowd at the time was insufficient to reach the conclusion that it did.
Paterno controversy
On November 4, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was indicted for committing sex crimes against young boys, which brought the Penn State child sex abuse scandal to national attention. On December 11, 2011, James published an article called "The Trial of Penn State", depicting an imaginary trial in which Penn State defended itself against charges of "acting rashly and irresponsibly in the matter of Joe Paterno, in such a manner that [they] defamed, libeled and slandered Paterno, unfairly demolishing his reputation."
On July 12, 2012, the Freeh report was released, charging Paterno and three other University officials with covering up reports of sexual assaults and enabling the attacker to prey on other children for more than a decade, often in Penn State facilities. Soon afterwards, during an interview on ESPN radio, James claimed that the Freeh report's characterizations of Paterno as a powerful figure were wrong, and that it was not Paterno's responsibility to report allegations of child molestation to the police. "[Paterno] had very few allies. He was isolated and he was not nearly as powerful as people imagine him to have been." When asked if he knew anyone who had showered with a boy they were not related to, James said it was a common practice when he was growing up. "That was actually quite common in the town I grew up in. That was quite common in America 40 years ago."
The July 2012 interview comments were widely criticized. Rob Neyer wrote in defense of James. James's employer, the Boston Red Sox, issued a statement disavowing the comments James made and saying that he had been asked not to make further public comments on the matter.
Personal life
James is a fan of the University of Kansas men's basketball team and has written about basketball. He has created a formula for what he calls a "safe lead" in the sport.
James has written two true crime books, Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (2011) and The Man from the Train (2017), the latter with his daughter Rachel McCarthy James. In The Man From the Train, published in 2017, the Jameses attempt to link scores of murders of entire families in the early 20th century United States to a single perpetrator. Those murders include the Villisca axe murders. The Jameses propose a solution to the murders based on the signature elements these killings share in common with each other.
Bibliography
Bill James Baseball Abstract (annual editions published 1977–1988)
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985; revised edition 1988)
This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones (1989) (selection of comments from Abstracts and articles)
The Bill James Baseball Book (annual editions published 1990–1992)
The Politics of Glory (1994) (revised as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?),
The Bill James Player Ratings Book (annual editions published 1993–1996)
The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers (1997)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Handbook (1998; 2nd ed. 2000)
Bill James Present STATS All-Time Major League Sourcebook (1998)
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001)
Win Shares (2002)
Win Shares Digital Update (2002) (PDF form only)
The Bill James Handbook (annual editions published 2003–present)
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (2004, with co-author Rob Neyer)
The Bill James Gold Mine (annual editions published 2008–2010, , )
Popular Crime – Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (, published 2011)
Solid Fool's Gold (2011), (articles from Bill James Online website)
Fools Rush Inn (2014), (more articles from Bill James Online website)
The Man From the Train (2017),
Books about James
The Mind of Bill James (2006) ISBN
How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball: by Colleagues, Critics, Competitors and Just Plain Fans (2007)
See also
Baseball Prospectus
Defensive spectrum
Keltner list
Similarity score
Win shares
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Bill James Online –interactions with James through statistics, articles, conversations and more
Works of Bill James
Audio interview by Jesse Thorn, public radio program The Sound of Young America (April 29, 2008)
Chronister, Levi (April 25, 2004). "Grassroots Guru". Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, KS).
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part I, Baseball Digest
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part II
Interview at Baseball Digest Daily – Part III
McGrath, Ben (July 14, 2003). "The Professor of Baseball". The New Yorker
Wall Street Journal profile
[ Does Bill James Belong in the Hall of Fame?]
– contrary to James
Schwarz, Alan (July 18, 2006). "25 For 25: Don Fehr, Peter Gammons, Pat Gillick, Bo Jackson, Bill James". 25 for 25: Stars in the Baseball America Universe. Baseball America.
Henry, John (May 8, 2006). "Scientists & Thinkers: Bill James". The 2006 Time 100. Time.
Surowiecki, James (June 10, 2003). "Moneyball Redux: Slate talks to the man who revolutionized baseball.". Slate.
Lederer, Bill (February 28, 2005). "Breakfast with Bill James". Baseball Analysts (baseballanalysts.com).
1949 births
Living people
American sportswriters
American statisticians
Baseball statisticians
Baseball writers
People from Holton, Kansas
United States Army soldiers
20th-century American writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers | false | [
"Gujarati was a Gujarati language weekly published from 1880 to 1929 by Ichcharam Desai and his sons.\n\nHistory\nIn late nineteenth century, the majority of Gujarati magazines in Bombay (now Mumbai) were published by Parsi people. With focus of catering Hindu people, the Gujarati weekly was launched. It was the first Gujarati magazine for Hindus. The first issue with eight pages was printed at Kaisar-i-Hind Press and published on 6 June 1880. The name Gujarati was suggested by poet Narmad to its editor Ichchharam Desai. The weekly published articles on political, social and literary subjects. It was also instrumental in spreading the views of the Indian National Congress. It published articles in simple, non-Sanskritized Gujarati language focusing on common people. It became very popular all over Gujarat and Kathiawad.\n\nThe articles by Narmad published later in Dharmavichar were first appeared in Gujarati. Manilal Dwivedi's essay Nari Pratishtha was also first serialized in Gujarati as well as several historical novels by Kanaiyalal Munshi. In 1884, Gujarati Printing Press was established and Gujarati started being printed from there. Desai compiled and published Brihad Kavyadohan volume I—VIII (1886—1913), an anthology on medieval Gujarati poets and poetry, from Gujarati Press. Gujarati also published humour articles while the Gujarati Press published Sanskrit works and its commentaries. They also gifted books to their subscribers. In 1885, when Desai announced to gift his much discussed political novel Hind ane Britannia to each subscriber, the number swelled from 850-900 to 2500 subscribers. The weekly continued its publication between the financial distress and political interventions. After death of Desai, his elder son Manilal Desai edited the weekly. It published its last issue on 15 December 1929. After a brief period, Desai's second son Natwarlal revived the weekly for brief period but it published only religious articles.\n\nSee also\n List of Gujarati-language magazines\n\nReferences\n\n1880 establishments in India\n1929 disestablishments in Asia\nGujarati-language magazines\nWeekly magazines published in India\nMagazines established in 1880\nMagazines disestablished in 1929\nMagazines about spirituality\nMass media in Mumbai\nDefunct magazines published in India",
"Boxiana is the title given to a series of volumes of prizefighting articles written by the English sportswriter and journalist Pierce Egan, and part-published by George Smeeton in the 1810s.\n\nEgan wrote magazine articles about the bareknuckle forerunner of boxing, which at that time was conducted under the London Prize Ring rules, and was outlawed in England. A devoted follower of boxing, Egan called it \"The Sweet Science of Bruising.\" Periodically he would gather his boxing articles in a bound volume and publish them under the title Boxiana; or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism. The first volume was published in 1813 (although the title page reads 1812, due to the arrangement, common at the time, where the book was sent to subscribers in installments before being released to the public.) Five more volumes followed, in 1818, 1821, 1824, 1828, and 1829. The fourth volume (1824) was by 'Jon Bee' (following a legal dispute between Egan and the publishers). The court granted Egan continued use of the Boxiana title provided that he also used the wording 'New Series'. Two volumes of Egan's New Series Boxiana were published in 1828-29.\n\nEgan's writing was brought back to popular attention by the boxing articles published in The New Yorker from 1950–1964 by A.J. Liebling. Liebling referenced Egan frequently and named his own first collection of boxing articles The Sweet Science in Egan's honor. (The other Liebling collection is called A Neutral Corner).\n\nVolumes of Boxiana are hard to find today, though the Folio Society issued a reprint of the first volume in 1976, and in 1998 Nicol Island Publishers of Toronto issued a reprint of the first volume and announced plans to reissue all five volumes. (As of February 2006, Nicol Island has published Volumes One, Two, and Three.)\n\nNotes\n\nFurther reading\nDavid Snowdon, Writing the Prizefight: Pierce Egan's Boxiana World (Bern: 2013)\n\nExternal links\n Boxiana is viewable at Google Book Search\n\nDefunct magazines published in the United Kingdom\nBoxing magazines\nBoxing in England"
]
|
[
"Herbert Sutcliffe",
"Sutcliffe and Hutton"
]
| C_c762f7f31b37415eb25b09830029cbed_1 | Who is Hutton? | 1 | Who is Hutton? | Herbert Sutcliffe | Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career. Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel - the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him". The master-apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle". Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest. Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice. CANNOTANSWER | Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege | Herbert Sutcliffe (24 November 1894 – 22 January 1978) was an English professional cricketer who represented Yorkshire and England as an opening batsman. Apart from one match in 1945, his first-class career spanned the period between the two world wars. His first-class debut was delayed by the First World War until 1919 and his career was effectively terminated in August 1939 when he was called up for military service in the imminent Second World War.
He was the first cricketer to score 16 centuries in Test match cricket.
A right-handed batsman, Sutcliffe was noted for his concentration and determination, qualities which made him invaluable to his teams in adverse batting conditions; and he is remembered as one of the game's finest "bad wicket batsmen". His fame rests mainly in the great opening partnership he formed with Jack Hobbs for England between 1924 and 1930. He also formed notable opening partnerships at Yorkshire with Percy Holmes and, in his last few seasons, the young Len Hutton. During Sutcliffe's career, Yorkshire won the County Championship 12 times. Sutcliffe played in 54 Test matches for England and on three occasions he toured Australia, where he enjoyed outstanding success. His last tour in 1932–33 included the controversial "bodyline" series, in which Sutcliffe is perceived to have been one of Douglas Jardine's main supporters. Although close friends have stated that Sutcliffe did not approve of bodyline, he always acted out of fierce loyalty to his team captain and was committed to his team's cause. In statistical terms, Sutcliffe was one of the most successful Test batsmen ever; his completed career batting average was 60.73 which is the highest by any English batsman and the seventh-highest worldwide (of Test batsmen with 20 completed innings) behind only Don Bradman, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Adam Voges, Graeme Pollock and George Headley.
Sutcliffe became a successful businessman early in his first-class career by using the money he earned as a player to establish a sportswear shop in Leeds. When his playing career ended, he served on the club committee at Yorkshire for 21 years and for three years was an England Test selector. Among the honours accorded him have been the commemoration of a special set of gates in his name at Headingley, home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and his induction into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Early years
Childhood
Herbert Sutcliffe was born in Summerbridge, Nidderdale, West Riding of Yorkshire on 24 November 1894 at his parents' home, a cottage in Gabblegate (now called East View). His parents were Willie and Jane Sutcliffe. Herbert was the second of three sons, his brothers being Arthur and Bob. Willie Sutcliffe, who worked at a sawmill in nearby Dacre Banks, was a keen club cricketer.
When Herbert was still a baby the family moved to Pudsey, where Willie's father was the landlord of the King's Arms. Willie worked in the pub and played cricket for the well-known Pudsey St Lawrence Cricket Club. He also played rugby football, and an injury sustained during a rugby match led to his premature death in 1898.
Jane Sutcliffe moved the family back to Nidderdale, where they lived in Darley, the boys enrolling at Darley School, and she remarried. Jane developed consumption, and she died in January 1904 at the age of 37, when Herbert was nine. Jane's second husband was a bootmaker called Tom Waller but he was not allowed custody of the brothers who moved back to Pudsey to be cared for by the Sutcliffe family. Willie Sutcliffe had three sisters, Sarah, Carrie and Harriet, who ran a bakery. They became the legal guardians of Arthur, Herbert and Bob, respectively.
As the three aunts were devoted members of the local Congregational Church, the three boys received religious instruction there and Herbert became a lifelong committed Christian. He was a Sunday School teacher as a young man and first came to notice as a cricketer when he played for a church team. The boys lived in the family house which contained the bakery and slept in a loft above the bakehouse itself.
Herbert left school in 1908 when he was 13, and was apprenticed to a boot and shoe company as a "clicker" who fastened boot soles to uppers. In 1911, his prowess at cricket earned him an offer of clerical employment in a local textile mill, where he learnt bookkeeping, a skill that served him well when he launched his own business career.
Development as a cricketer
Sutcliffe became seriously interested in cricket at the age of eight, soon after he returned to Pudsey during his mother's final illness. He formed an ambition to follow his father and two uncles and play for Pudsey St Lawrence. His first club was a Wesleyan church team in the neighbouring village of Stanningley, where he was first seen as a bowler rather than a batsman. In one match in 1907, he took all 10 wickets in an innings.
In 1908, now aged 13, he began playing for Pudsey St Lawrence's second team. The following year, Sutcliffe made his first-team debut. Two of his team-mates were Major Booth and Henry Hutton, father of Len Hutton.
In 1911, now aged 16, Sutcliffe switched his allegiance to the rival Pudsey Britannia club where, he is quoted as saying, "my batting improved by leaps and bounds". This move came about because of the offer of clerical employment at the textile mill, which was owned by Ernest Walker who was also the Britannia club captain. Sutcliffe later said that Walker allowed him more time for cricket practice than he could get from his bootmaking job.
The following season, Sutcliffe's progress was noted by Yorkshire County Cricket Club and he was invited to take part in the county team practice sessions at Headingley. He was welcomed by the great George Herbert Hirst, who gave him much encouragement and advice. Soon afterwards, he was invited to play for the Yorkshire 2nd XI team.
Sutcliffe was coached at Headingley by Hirst and the club's 2nd XI coach, Steve Doughty, who placed great emphasis on the importance of pad play (the use of the pads to intercept the ball and prevent it hitting the wicket when this would not risk being out leg before wicket). Although Doughty's approach was criticised by Sutcliffe's colleagues at Pudsey Britannia, Sutcliffe himself had no regrets about the time he spent mastering the technique and later explained that swing bowling had been so well developed by bowlers in every county team that it was impossible for any batsman to keep his wicket by relying on his bat alone. The long-term benefit he derived was a very strong defence that he later used to great effect on treacherous pitches.
By 1914, Sutcliffe had become the most accomplished player in the Bradford League in which Pudsey Britannia played. He was playing both for Yorkshire 2nd XI and Pudsey Britannia at this time. In August, just as the First World War was beginning, he appeared for the 2nd XI at Beverley against an East Riding XI and opened the batting for the first time as a Yorkshire player. He made a half-century in the second innings and the Cricket Argus commented that "he was confident and stylish in... his best performance for the second eleven". The Argus went on to say that Sutcliffe, with youth on his side, "looks every inch a cricketer (with) a variety of good strokes". In the Bradford League, Sutcliffe scored a then-record 727 runs in the season, which was beaten in 1916 by his future England opening partner Jack Hobbs.
Military service and demobilisation
Sutcliffe was called up in 1915 and served first with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, stationed at York, and then with the Sherwood Foresters. He was later commissioned into the Green Howards, now part of the Yorkshire Regiment, as a Second Lieutenant, but he did not see active service and was not posted to France until after the Armistice was signed.
Sutcliffe played cricket during the war for the Officer Cadet Battalion in Scotland, captaining his team in matches against Glasgow University and other Scottish teams. He still managed to play in the Bradford League on occasion, but he said that he sometimes did so under an assumed name after taking unofficial leave.
Sutcliffe was demobilised in 1919 and took a job as a colliery checkweighman at Allerton Bywater in Yorkshire. He was contracted to play for the colliery's cricket team in the Yorkshire Council league, but he was selected at the beginning of the 1919 season to play again for Yorkshire 2nd XI. However he retained the colliery job until he opened his sportswear shop in 1924.
First-class debut
The war had delayed the start of Sutcliffe's first-class career with Yorkshire and he was 24 when his chance finally came. In May 1919, he played for the county's 2nd XI against a full-strength 1st XI and did very well, scoring 51 not out. He received a good report in the Yorkshire Post and never played for the 2nd XI again. Yorkshire's first County Championship fixture after the war took place on 26 and 27 May at Bristol against Gloucestershire and Sutcliffe, batting at number 6, made his first-class debut. Yorkshire batted first, after losing the toss, and Sutcliffe made 11 in a total of 277 (Roy Kilner 112). Despite that seemingly modest score, Yorkshire won by an innings and 63 runs as Gloucestershire were bowled out twice for 125 and 89.
1919 to 1927
Sutcliffe kept his place in the Yorkshire team and continued to bat in the middle of the order for a month until, in the match against Nottinghamshire at Bramall Lane on 27 and 28 June, Wilfred Rhodes decided to drop down the order for the 2nd innings and Sutcliffe went in first with Percy Holmes. After some indifferent scores, he completed his maiden first-class century on 23 and 24 July against Northamptonshire at Northampton when he and Holmes put on 279 for the first wicket, Sutcliffe scoring 145 and Holmes 133. Further success resulted in Holmes and Sutcliffe being awarded their county caps in August 1919. Sutcliffe created a debut season record by scoring 1,839 runs at an average of 44.85 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 174 against Kent at Crabble Athletic Ground in Dover. Holmes and Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries each in 1919 and they shared in 5 century partnerships. Their performances were key to Yorkshire winning the championship that season for the 10th time in all.
As a result of their success in 1919, Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe were both awarded a Wisden Cricketer of the Year title in 1920. In the accompanying review, Wisden commented on Sutcliffe's pre-war development and the benefits that both he and Holmes derived from Steve Doughty's coaching. Sutcliffe's "fine driving" was commended but it was noted that "he may not yet be quite so strong in defence".
By his 1919 standards, Sutcliffe had two quiet years in 1920 and 1921. He was well down the national averages in 1920 with 1,393 runs at 33.16 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 131. In 1921, he did not score a century and made 1,235 runs at 30.12.
In 1922, as Yorkshire regained the County Championship title under new captain Geoffrey Wilson, Sutcliffe lived up to his early promise by scoring 2,020 runs at 46.97 with a highest score of 232 against Surrey at the Oval. He scored 11 half-centuries but only 2 centuries. Sutcliffe was one of seven Yorkshire players who were ever-present, playing in all 30 matches.
Sutcliffe's career advanced in 1923 when he made his first appearances in the North v South and Gentlemen v Players fixtures and in a Test Trial. His overall record in 1923 was 2,220 runs at 41.11 with 3 centuries, 15 fifties and a highest score of 139 against Somerset. The Yorkshire cricket historian Alfred Pullin wrote: "it was recognised long before the season ended that Sutcliffe had established his claim to be considered one of England's first-wicket batsmen".
In the 1924 season, Yorkshire completed a hat-trick of championships under Geoffrey Wilson and Sutcliffe enjoyed probably his best season to date, scoring 2,142 runs at 48.68 with 6 centuries including a highest score of 255 not out against Essex. He made his Test debut on Saturday, 14 June 1924, playing for England against South Africa at Edgbaston and opening the innings with Jack Hobbs. In this First Test, which England won by an innings, they recorded their first century partnership for England by putting on 136 before Sutcliffe was out for 64. In the Second Test at Lord's, Hobbs and Sutcliffe scored 268 before Sutcliffe was out for 122, his maiden Test century; Hobbs went on to make 211 and England again won by an innings. In the whole series, Sutcliffe scored 303 runs at 75.75.
As early as July, Sutcliffe was one of ten players named to tour Australia in the winter of 1924–25 under the leadership of Arthur Gilligan. At first, Hobbs declined the tour but then changed his mind when it was decided his wife would accompany him. The importance of this to Sutcliffe was that his partnership with Hobbs could continue at the very highest level of cricket where the presence of Hobbs was ultimately the key factor in Sutcliffe's major success on the tour, which established him as a world-class player. Sutcliffe said he had some initial difficulty in adjusting to Australian conditions, specifically the strong light which affected his timing. He also reckoned that the pitches were a good four yards faster than in England. His remedy was to play straight and by hitting the ball back down the pitch. He said later that he sacrificed many of his best shots, but "it paid off in the end". This is shown by his overall performance as, although England lost the series 4–1, Sutcliffe scored 734 runs in the five Tests at an average of 81.55 with 4 centuries, 2 half-centuries and a highest score of 176. In the whole tour, he scored 1,250 runs at 69.44 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 188.
In 1925, as Yorkshire won a 4th successive championship, Sutcliffe scored 2,308 runs at 53.67 with 7 centuries and a highest score of 235 against Middlesex at Headingley. During 1925 and 1926, Sutcliffe's skill was a primary factor in Yorkshire having the longest unbeaten run in county cricket: i.e., 70 matches without loss until early 1927. After three defeats in 1927, Yorkshire went a further 58 games without loss until 1929.
The first four Tests of the 1926 England v Australia series were scheduled for just three days and were all curtailed by poor weather. The final Test at the Oval was timeless to ensure a finish. It has become one of the most famous matches in cricket history, not because England regained the Ashes for the first time since 1912 but for the manner it which it was achieved as Hobbs and Sutcliffe produced their most famous partnership in treacherous batting conditions. Australia had a narrow first innings lead of 22 and, at close of play on the second day (a Monday), Hobbs and Sutcliffe had taken the England second innings score to 49–0, a lead of 27. Heavy rain fell overnight and next day, as the sun shone, the pitch soon developed into a "sticky wicket" on which it was generally assumed that England would be bowled out cheaply and so lose both the match and the series. But, in spite of the very difficult batting conditions, Hobbs and Sutcliffe put up a great defence of their wickets and gradually increased their partnership to 172 before Hobbs was out for exactly 100. Sutcliffe went on to make 161 and, in the end, England won the game comfortably, by 289 runs, and regained the Ashes. The tributes paid to Hobbs and Sutcliffe after this partnership are extensive. Pelham Warner perhaps encapsulated them all when he wrote: "Hobbs and Sutcliffe won it for us by their incomparable batting. They did not fail us at a time of most desperate crisis. Never has English cricket known a more dauntless pair".
In the 1926 County Championship, Yorkshire lost the title despite being unbeaten to their close rivals Lancashire by a very narrow margin. Sutcliffe was 2nd in the national batting averages behind Hobbs, scoring 2,528 runs at 66.52 with 8 centuries and a highest score of exactly 200 against Leicestershire. In the 1927 County Championship, Yorkshire finished 3rd but it was another great season for both Holmes and Sutcliffe who scored over 4,500 runs and 12 centuries between them. Sutcliffe scored 2,414 runs at 56.13 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 227 for England versus The Rest.
In the autumn of 1927, the Yorkshire committee decided to appoint Sutcliffe as team captain in succession to Arthur Lupton, who had retired. He would thus have become the first professional to captain the side since 1882 but, as Wisden records, "objection was taken to this action by two different parties". There were those who supported the view that no professional should be captain; and significant opposition also came from a large number of members who argued that, if a professional were to be appointed, it should be Wilfred Rhodes rather than Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe himself was en route to South Africa while most of the furore developed and had to rely on telegrams for his news. When first advised of the appointment, he sent a reply that spoke of the great honour and his desire to serve Yorkshire and England. But he was better apprised of the controversy when he arrived in Cape Town and finally sent a message that he was declining the offer but willing to serve under any other captain.
1928 to 1932
During the five years 1928 to 1932, Sutcliffe played 181 matches (254 innings) in which he was not out 36 times, scoring 15,529 runs for a total average of 70.35.
Sutcliffe made his only tour of South Africa in 1927–28, playing in 14 matches and scoring 1,030 runs at 51.50 with 2 centuries and a highest score of 102. He was able to open the England innings with Holmes, Hobbs having declined the tour, and made his score of 102 in the first innings of the First Test at the Old Wanderers ground in Johannesburg, England winning by 10 wickets.
In 1928, Sutcliffe scored 3,000 runs in a season for the first time, a feat he repeated in 1931 and 1932, becoming the first player to achieve it three times. Only Patsy Hendren and Wally Hammond have equalled the feat. Sutcliffe's 1928 tally was 3,002 at 76.97 with a highest score of 228 among 13 centuries and 13 half-centuries. He played in all three Tests against West Indies in 1928. This was West Indies' inaugural Test series and their batsmen struggled against a strong England attack so that England was able to win all three Tests by an innings. But Sutcliffe was very impressed by the fast bowling of Learie Constantine, George Francis and Herman Griffith and said of them during the Lord's Test that he had "never played finer fast bowling".
Under the leadership of Percy Chapman, Sutcliffe toured Australia again in 1928–29 with Hobbs as his opening partner. England won the first two Tests before Hobbs and Sutcliffe played major roles in one of the most famous Test matches ever at Melbourne. Australia won the toss and batted first, making 397 thanks to centuries by Alan Kippax and Jack Ryder. England scored 417 with 200 by Hammond and 58 by Sutcliffe. Australia then scored 351 with 107 by their captain Bill Woodfull and a maiden Test century by Don Bradman. This left England needing 332 to win. Australia had ended the 5th day of a timeless match on 347–8 and the pitch was showing increasing signs of wear. Overnight, a storm broke and soaked the pitch which, as the sun shone on it through the morning, became what Bradman later described as "the worst sticky I ever saw". Even Wisden admitted that it "may fittingly be described as a beastly wicket". Play on the sixth day did not begin until 12:51 and Australia's last two wickets quickly fell with just 4 runs added to their overnight total. Clem Hill reckoned that the state of the pitch was such that "odds of ten to one against an England success would be generous" and Hugh Trumble reportedly told Jack Hobbs that 70 would be a good total. Wisden recorded that "then it was that the wonderful skill of these two (Hobbs and Sutcliffe) showed itself so prominently for, with the ball turning and getting up almost straight, they put on 105 for the first wicket... the two batsmen rendered England splendid service by an historic stand and made victory probable". Having survived the last 5 minutes before lunch, they added 75 in the afternoon session when "the ball was turning and at other times getting up almost straight". Hobbs had nearly been dismissed early on when a catch was dropped but the two batsmen played with "remarkable footwork, masterly defence and unerring skill in a difficult situation". Hobbs was out when the score had reached 105 and then Sutcliffe added another 94 in partnership with Douglas Jardine as the wicket eased and close of play was safely reached with the total at 171–1 (Sutcliffe 83 not out). Next morning, with conditions much more favourable, Sutcliffe batted on until he was finally out for 135 with the total on 318–4 and only 14 more needed. There was a slight scare as three more wickets fell, including Chapman who was caught at cover when trying for the winning hit. But the runs were obtained and England had won a famous victory against the odds by 3 wickets. Sutcliffe later said that he considered this to have been his finest innings ever. Jardine later wrote about the number of times Hobbs and Sutcliffe were hit "all over the body" during their stand and made the point that, if a batsman is to make runs on an Australian sticky wicket, then being hit by the ball is inevitable.
In 1929, Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries against the South African tourists. The first was 113 for Yorkshire in a drawn match at Bramall Lane He then scored four in the Test series, including two in the same match in the Fifth Test at the Oval. His season aggregate was 2,189 runs at 52.11 with 9 centuries and a highest score of 150 against Northamptonshire.
In 1930, Sutcliffe was the leading Englishman in the first-class batting averages behind Don Bradman (i.e., of batsmen with 10 completed innings). In a summer of hot, thundery weather that produced some exceptionally bad pitches, Sutcliffe averaged 87.61 in the four Tests he played in, scoring 161 in the Fifth Test at the Oval. Sutcliffe's first-class aggregate in 1930 was 2,312 runs at 64.22 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 173 against Sussex.
During the winter of 1930–31, Hobbs and Sutcliffe went on a private tour of India and Ceylon that was organised by the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram (popularly known as "Vizzy"). There is debate in some quarters about the status of matches played on this tour, which are not recognised as first-class by Wisden in contrast to certain other publications. The scores were printed in The Cricketer Spring Annual in 1932 and presented as first-class but escaped general notice at the time and were largely ignored until some statisticians took an interest in them in the 1970s. It is known that neither Hobbs nor Sutcliffe thought they were first-class matches; they regarded them as exhibition games arranged for Vizzy's personal entertainment. Nevertheless, Sutcliffe scored 532 runs and 2 centuries in the disputed matches and this has impacted his first-class statistical record with two versions in circulation.
In all first-class cricket in the 1931 season, Sutcliffe scored four centuries in consecutive innings and averaged 96.96, topping the first-class averages for the first time. He totalled 3,006 runs with a highest score of 230 among 13 centuries. Yorkshire historian Jim Kilburn commented on Sutcliffe's general consistency as "almost past believing" while Sutcliffe himself reckoned that his accomplishments in 1931, which was a wet summer, were the best of his entire career.
When Yorkshire played Gloucestershire at Park Avenue, Bradford, in July 1932, Sutcliffe completed his 100th century. He was the first Yorkshire player and the seventh overall to achieve the feat. Having scored 83 in the first innings, he reached his target with 132 in the second. Yorkshire won the match by 133 runs. Yorkshire honoured the occasion by presenting Sutcliffe with a cheque for 100 guineas, repeating Surrey's reward paid to Jack Hobbs when he scored his 100th century. In Yorkshire's match against Essex at Leyton, Holmes and Sutcliffe set a world record partnership for any wicket of 555. This remained the world record for any wicket till 1945–46 and it was not until 1976–77 that it was beaten for the first wicket. It remains the record partnership for any wicket in England. Sutcliffe's share of the stand was 313, his career highest score. Yorkshire batted first and, at the end of the first day, the score stood at 423–0, with Holmes on 180 and Sutcliffe on 231, already beating their previous best stand of 347 against Hampshire in 1920. Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity then proceeded to bowl Essex out twice and Yorkshire won by an innings and 313 runs.
Sutcliffe scored 3,336 runs in 1932, the highest season total of his career and it included his highest individual score of 313, made in the world record stand at Leyton. He averaged 74.13 with 14 centuries and 9 half-centuries. He became the third batsman after K S Ranjitsinhji and C B Fry to score 1,000 runs in a month twice in the same season, making 1,193 in June and 1,006 in August. His total of 3,336 is the sixth highest season aggregate behind Denis Compton (3,816 in 1947), Bill Edrich (3,539 in 1947), Tom Hayward (3,518 in 1906), Len Hutton (3,429 in 1949) and Frank Woolley (3,352 in 1928). His fourteen centuries in the season have been bettered only by Compton (18 in 1947), Jack Hobbs (16 in 1925) and Wally Hammond (15 in 1938).
1932–33: the "bodyline" tour
In the winter of 1932–33, Sutcliffe was a key member of the England team that toured Australia and New Zealand under the captaincy of Douglas Jardine, taking part in all five Tests of the infamous "bodyline" series. Wisden in its tour summary stated unequivocally that "Jardine, while nothing like the batsman in Australia of four years earlier, captained the side superbly" but he "had one great difficulty which he never successfully overcame". The difficulty was to find a suitable partner for Sutcliffe as opening batsman and Wisden continues by remarking on several experiments tried by Jardine throughout the tour but ends by saying that "no real successor to Hobbs was discovered".
Sutcliffe, who was by now England's senior professional, was part of the England selection committee on the tour along with Jardine, Pelham Warner (team manager), Bob Wyatt (vice-captain) and Wally Hammond. Sutcliffe enjoyed only mixed success with the bat but he did make his career highest Test score of 194 in the First Test at Sydney, which England won by 10 wickets. Overall, he scored 1,318 first-class runs on the Australian leg of the tour at 73.22 with 5 centuries, the highest score being his 194 at Sydney. He was the only English batsman to reach 1,000 runs on this tour. Surprisingly, he had no success in New Zealand where, in 3 appearances, he made just 27 runs.
Australia won the toss at Sydney and decided to bat. Without Bradman, who was ill, they struggled against the pace of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce but, thanks to a brilliant innings of 187 not out by Stan McCabe, they made a creditable 360. England's batsmen had no such troubles and steadily built a total of 524 to claim a first innings lead of 164. Sutcliffe opened with Wyatt and they began with a stand of 112. Wyatt was dismissed for 38 and Sutcliffe then put on 188 for the second wicket with Hammond, who was out at 300–2 for 112. Next man in was Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and he joined Sutcliffe in a third wicket century partnership of 123 before Sutcliffe was finally out for 194 after batting for over 7 hours across the second and third days of the match. The last seven wickets fell for the addition of only 101 more runs. With Larwood taking his second five-wicket haul, Australia could only make 164 to tie the scores and at least make England bat again. Australia was 164–9 at close of play on the fourth day so all that was required on the last day was for Voce to dismiss Bill O'Reilly off the third ball of the morning, without adding to the total, and then Sutcliffe himself to score the solitary run needed to complete an emphatic 10 wicket victory. Wisden recorded that "there were less than a hundred people present to see the finish".
When he had scored 43, he played a ball bowled by O'Reilly onto his stumps but the impact did not shift the bails and so he was not out. Wisden said that "Sutcliffe gave a typical exhibition, being wonderfully sure in defence and certain in his off-driving". There was some criticism of Sutcliffe for scoring slowly at one point in the second half of his innings but Jardine has confirmed that Sutcliffe was playing under his instructions which "right nobly did Sutcliffe carry them out to the letter".
Australia, with Bradman back in their team, won the Second Test at Melbourne by 111 runs. Having been dismissed for 228 in the first innings, they fought back to reduce England to just 169, in which Sutcliffe made the top score of 52. In the second innings, Bradman effectively won the match for Australia by scoring a resilient 103 not out even though his team was dismissed for just 191. Sutcliffe was again England's highest scorer, making 33 of a poor 139 as O'Reilly and Bert Ironmonger took the wickets.
Sutcliffe failed twice in the Third Test at Adelaide, the most controversial match of the tour as it was the one in which the bodyline furore reached its climax. England won by 338 runs but the match was overshadowed by the injuries sustained by Woodfull and Australian wicket-keeper Bert Oldfield and the subsequent heated telegrams and diplomatic row.
England won the Fourth Test at Brisbane by 6 wickets. This time, Sutcliffe opened with Jardine and they put on 114 in the first innings. Sutcliffe scored 86, another top score. England held a narrow lead on first innings and then dismissed Australia for 175. Sutcliffe was out for 2 in the second innings but Leyland held the innings steady and ensured that England won both the match and the series. The Fifth Test at Sydney was therefore academic but England nevertheless won by 8 wickets, Sutcliffe scoring 56 in his only innings.
According to Bob Wyatt, Sutcliffe "backed Jardine to the hilt" on the subject of bowling "bodyline" aka "fast leg theory". Wyatt said that: "Herbert never hesitated in his views about our bowling strategy. He did not see anything wrong about pursuing the tactics". Les Ames agreed with Wyatt's view and said that, though the majority of the England players were morally opposed to Jardine's tactics, Sutcliffe took the pragmatic view that "the ball is there, it's short, so hook it". Sutcliffe himself was an outstanding player of the hook shot but Ames was unsure about how he would have coped with Larwood's accuracy if he had been playing against him. According to Bill O'Reilly, Sutcliffe was the strongest advocate of bodyline and he sometimes acted like an "unofficial captain", even initiating the tactics on his own responsibility. However, a close friend of Sutcliffe insisted that Sutcliffe "was always behind authority" and was absolutely loyal to his captain, but his private views about bodyline were another matter.
1933 to 1939
In 1933, Sutcliffe could not repeat his outstanding form of the 1932 season but he still scored a considerable 2,211 runs at 47.04, although it was his lowest tally in a dry summer since 1921. He completed 7 centuries with a highest score of 205 against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. Sutcliffe scored 304 runs at 50.66 in four Tests against Australia in 1934. His first-class aggregate for the 1934 season was 2,023 runs at 49.34 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 203 against Surrey at the Oval. In 1935, Sutcliffe's Test career ended when he missed the Third Test against South Africa due to a leg injury and then never recovered his place when he was fit again. Wisden's view was that England wished to try out younger players but it pointed out that Sutcliffe "remains a prolific runscorer".
Sutcliffe's record in Test cricket is outstanding. As shown by the adjacent graph, he is the only English batsman who has averaged more than 60 runs per innings in a completed career and his statistical record compares favourably with anyone except Don Bradman. Uniquely, Sutcliffe's batting average never dropped below 60 throughout his entire Test career and Javed Miandad is the only other player whose average never dropped below 50 in a career of at least 20 innings.
The demands of Test cricket behind him, Sutcliffe played in 29 of Yorkshire's 30 County Championship matches in 1936 but his average fell to 33.30, his worst seasonal performance since the early 1920s. His form rallied somewhat in the last three seasons of his career and he formed another outstanding opening partnership with Len Hutton who matured into a Test-class batsman in 1937. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 315 for the first wicket against Leicestershire at Hull in 1937, Sutcliffe scoring 189 and Hutton 153. Sutcliffe faced Australian opposition for the final time in 1938 when he appeared in two matches against the tourists, one in July for Yorkshire at Bramall Lane and the other in September at North Marine Road in a Scarborough Festival match when he played for H D G Leveson Gower's XI.
Yorkshire completed another hat-trick of County Championships in 1939 and, although he was now 44 and certainly a "veteran", Sutcliffe enjoyed a remarkable sequence of four consecutive centuries in May and June which showed any doubters that he was still one of the best opening batsmen around. Sutcliffe was to play one more first-class match in 1945, but his career effectively ended in August 1939 when he played for Yorkshire against Hampshire at Dean Park Cricket Ground, Bournemouth, on Saturday, 26 August and Monday, 28 August. Yorkshire won by an innings and 11 runs in just two days. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 56 before Hutton was out for 37 and Sutcliffe went on to score 51 before he was out at 117–2, leg before wicket to George Heath, who thus took his wicket for the second time in 1939.
Into retirement
As a reservist in the British Army, Sutcliffe was the first Yorkshire player to be called up, in August 1939, as the Second World War became imminent. He missed Yorkshire's final match of the season against Sussex at Hove, which ended on 1 September, the day the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. He rejoined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and attained the rank of major. He did not leave Great Britain during his army service which ended in November 1942. Now aged 48, he was discharged from the army on medical grounds having undergone two operations that year for sinus trouble and a shoulder injury. For the remainder of the war, he divided his time between his sportswear business and charity fundraising.
Like most top-class players, Sutcliffe occasionally played in charity matches during the war, including three to raise money for the Red Cross in 1940. In one of these, he played for a Yorkshire XI against a Bradford League XI at Park Avenue and scored 127, which was his last-ever century. The League team included Eddie Paynter, Manny Martindale and Learie Constantine, who scored a brilliant century in what Sutcliffe described as "a gem of an innings".
Although Alan Gibson described Sutcliffe as "a good public speaker", Sutcliffe himself seems to have been modest about this ability. During the war, he was asked to share a charity event platform with Sir Compton Mackenzie in Bradford. Mackenzie gave a brilliant speech that was well received and Sutcliffe said to him: "Oh, my, how I wish I could speak like you". Mackenzie, who was a keen cricket fan, replied: "You don't wish nearly as much that you could speak like me as I wish I could bat like you".
Sutcliffe had already stated his intention to retire from first-class cricket but nevertheless he returned in August 1945 at the age of 50 for one final match after the war in Europe ended. He captained the Yorkshire team in a match against a Royal Air Force team at North Marine Road in the renewed Scarborough Festival. The match was drawn after being affected by the weather. Sutcliffe batted once, going in at number 5, and scored just 8 runs before being dismissed leg before wicket (lbw) by Bill Edrich.
In 1949, Sutcliffe was accorded honorary membership of MCC and joined what was then a select company of English professionals including George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Jack Hobbs.
Sutcliffe continued to be involved in cricket and his Wisden obituary says: "His repayment to the game which had given him so much was service on the Yorkshire committee, as an England selector, and as sponsor for many good causes in cricket". In a tribute that was published with the obituary, Brian Sellers said: "We served together on the county committee for over 21 years". Sutcliffe was a Test selector for three years from 1959 through 1961, during which England played home series against India, South Africa and Australia.
In February 1963, Yorkshire appointed Sutcliffe a life member of the club and then, in July 1965, his old captain Sir William Worsley, now president of the club, formally opened the Sutcliffe Gates in the St Michael's Lane approach to the Headingley ground. Similar in design to the Hobbs Gates at the Oval, they carry the inscription:
In honour of a great Yorkshire and England cricketer
Sutcliffe retained his interest in cricket for the rest of his life. One of his final public appearances was in 1977 when, in his wheelchair and only a few months before he died, he was photographed at Headingley alongside Len Hutton and Geoff Boycott just after Boycott had emulated Sutcliffe and Hutton by becoming the third Yorkshire batsman to score 100 centuries in his first-class career.
Wisden summarised his career thus:
Herbert Sutcliffe was one of the great cricketers and he brought to cricket as to all his undertakings an assurance and capacity for concentration that positively commanded success. His technical talent matched his character and his achievements were therefore on the highest plane.
On 30 September 2009, Herbert Sutcliffe was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Style and technique
Sutcliffe's approach to cricket
Sutcliffe's approach was essentially to do everything possible to help his team to win the match. His philosophy was that the game was there to be won and not merely to be played. He was determined to keep his wicket intact and, according to Fred Trueman, "he was a terrible man to get out" and "was at his best in a crisis". Sutcliffe's professionalism was reflected in his preparation and off-field demeanour. He took great pride in his appearance and Trueman says he was "always spick and span". Neville Cardus described him thus: "...shiny of hair, black as the raven's, with flannels of fluttering silk, and the confident air of super-Pudsey breeding. A deviation from type, a 'sport' in the evolutionary process!"
Sutcliffe was "unfailingly courteous as a man" and, along with his England colleague Hobbs, "committed to advancing the cause of the professional cricketer". According to Stuart Surridge, "our profession as a respected one started with Jack and Herbert (who) gave us a new status".
One of the main reasons why Yorkshire were prepared to offer the captaincy to Sutcliffe in 1927 was because he was not perceived to be the typical professional. Sutcliffe set high standards for himself and was determined to get on in life, as well as cricket, and make a lot of money. Wally Hammond, who eventually did turn amateur and captained England, was another example. Sutcliffe took pains to modify his accent and, as Neville Cardus commented, Sutcliffe eventually spoke "not with the accents of Yorkshire but of Teddington". Cardus remarked on the Savile Row suits worn by Sutcliffe and Hammond: "The county cricketer has in certain instances become a man of bourgeois profession". But Bill Bowes, an ex-grammar school boy who had benefited from educational reforms that were unavailable to Sutcliffe and the older professionals, regarded Sutcliffe as a hero. Writing about Sutcliffe, Bowes pointed out that Sutcliffe was "no ordinary man" and stressed that "professionalism was very important to him".
Cardus wrote:
[Of his batting] Sutcliffe had style... But it was his eternal vigilance, his keen eye and a mind that could move and anticipate, which were his assets, plus his Yorkshire realism and his Yorkshire tenacity of character. Immaculate in flannels, his hair burnished by the sun, the cynosure of all the women's and girls' eyes, a cricketer of manners, symbol of the new urban social consciousness, none the less he could be fitted into the Yorkshire scheme and body and atmosphere, after all.
In his Wisden obituary, the editor wrote that "...neither Pudsey nor any other nursery could have claimed Herbert Sutcliffe as a typical product. He was a Yorkshireman in his loyalty and training, but he was cosmopolitan in approach and outlook. His manner fitted Lord's as expressively as it fitted Leeds".
Trevor Bailey, writing in the 1981 Wisden about cricketers' hairstyles, said that Sutcliffe's was "black patent-leather glinting in the sun, complete with the straightest of partings".
For his part, Sutcliffe explained to Bowes that "Lord Hawke had lifted professional cricket from knee to shoulder level and even Lord Hawke always wanted it back again". But Hawke never could get it back because professionalism had evolved as society had changed and the likes of Sutcliffe and Hammond were establishing a respectability for their job, as noted by Stuart Surridge, that enabled them and some of their successors to join the establishment.
Batting
Sutcliffe's greatest qualities as an opening batsman were perhaps his even temperament and his penchant for big occasions. It is significant that his Test batting average was substantially better than his overall first-class one. He is especially remembered for his partnerships with Hobbs for England and with Holmes for Yorkshire. One of the main factors in these partnerships was mutual understanding, especially when it came to their judgment of singles, and Sutcliffe was involved in relatively few run outs when batting with either Hobbs or Holmes.
John Arlott wrote that Sutcliffe was a batsman of "immense application and thought". Arlott listed his main qualities as sound defence, powerful offside driving and "arguably the best hooker of his age". But above all, says Arlott, Sutcliffe was "cool, beyond disturbance, the master of survival and the ultimate pragmatist of cricket". Douglas Jardine touched on this point when, describing Sutcliffe's tiredness at the end of the bodyline series, he added that he "feels inclined to think that Sutcliffe rather enjoys appearing to be in difficulties: he so rarely fails to surmount them".
Sutcliffe was noted for his courage when facing the world's fastest bowlers, such as Harold Larwood who paid this tribute to Sutcliffe after his death:
Herbert Sutcliffe needed some getting out. He was a great battler for England and for Yorkshire. He never gave his wicket away unless he was satisfied he had made enough already. With Percy Holmes he formed just about the finest opening partnership I bowled against. I got him out cheaply a few times, but he scored a few hundreds against my bowling, so I reckon we ended up just about square.
Ian Peebles wrote of him:
Where he was unexcelled was in the courage, determination and concentration he brought to the job in hand. Never flustered, and certainly never intimidated, he was at his best on the big or testing occasion.
Sutcliffe told Fred Trueman that, although some batsmen can play fast bowling and some can't, "if everybody told the truth, no one really likes it". Trueman speaks of Sutcliffe's unselfish attitude when batting as "he didn't hog the limelight". Rather, he was a "severely practical performer (who) had to cut out the frills as an opening batsman". Sutcliffe's job was to "lay the foundations" of the innings; his main qualifications were having "the ideal temperament" and being "a magnificent judge of line and length".
Sutcliffe lacked the "polished elegance of Hobbs" as he was "essentially a practical batsman with a superb judgment of length, pace and direction". He stood with the face of the bat very open (i.e., to the bowler) so that he could present its full width to the ball every delivery. He was noted as a firm striker off the front foot who also had efficient use of the pull and hook shots. The 1933 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack said of Sutcliffe, in respect of the record partnership with Percy Holmes in 1932, that "like practically all great batsmen, he was generally at much pains to play himself in, and at all times his cricket – even when well set – proved rather more restrained than the situation warranted". The report goes on to say that Sutcliffe "undoubtedly felt a heavy responsibility rested upon him" but concluded by remarking on "how he could hit when he considered he might set about run-getting in light-hearted fashion".
As with all great players, much of Sutcliffe's success was down to hard work. In a contribution to the 1932 edition of Wisden, Lord Hawke said of Sutcliffe that "nobody I know trained, and trains, harder or more conscientiously than Sutcliffe. I ascribe much of his success to that fact".
In an evaluation of Jack Hobbs, Simon Wilde wrote that, amongst English batsmen, until Wally Hammond came to the fore in the late 1920s:
Second in line was undoubtedly the cool, methodical Sutcliffe, Hobbs's trusted opening partner for England, whose average of 66.85 in Ashes matches is the second-highest amongst batsmen with 1,000 runs, 23 points behind Bradman's and 12 ahead of Hobbs's. In his first series against Australia, in 1924–25, Sutcliffe outscored Hobbs, but Hobbs returned home and reaffirmed his position with a record-breaking season in England. Sutcliffe, who began his days as a stylist, later made the most of his abilities with powers of defence and concentration rarely, if ever, seen before (Bradman said Sutcliffe had the best temperament of any cricketer he saw). But Sutcliffe himself conceded that he did not possess the gifts of Hobbs, Hammond or Hutton.
The late R. C. Robertson-Glasgow had written of Sutcliffe a tribute that Wisden appended to Sutcliffe's obituary:
[He] was the serenest batsman I have known. Whatever may have passed under that calm brow – anger, joy, disagreement, surprise, relief, triumph – no outward sign was betrayed on the field of play. When I first saw him, in 1919, he was a debonair and powerful stylist. As you bowled opening overs to the later Sutcliffe you noticed the entire development of every defensive art; the depressingly straight bat, the astute use of pads (as with Hobbs), the sharp detection of which out-swinger could be left; above all, the consistently safe playing down of a rising or turning ball on leg stump, or thighs.
A. A. Thomson wrote of him:
The fact is that for the whole inter-war period he was England's and Yorkshire's anchor-man, a personality as dependable as fallible human nature will allow, This does not mean that he was slow or stodgy... He lacked the polished artistry of Hobbs or the sheer princely quality of Hammond or the delightful impertinence of Holmes, but he lacked nothing else... His spirit warmed to the fight like that of an ancient warrior. His manner was suave; his hair immaculate; his voice quiet; but he revealed his truest self, after his 161 in the 1926 Oval Test, surely the most truly Sutcliffian innings of his life, when he said: 'Yes, Mr. Warner, I love a dogfight...'
Bowling and fielding
Although Sutcliffe as a boy was thought to have potential as a bowler, he specialised in batting to the extent that he only bowled 993 deliveries, with 31 maiden overs, in his entire first-class career. He bowled a straightforward right-arm medium pace with little success, his best figures being 3–15 while his career average was a very high 40.21.
As a fielder, Sutcliffe generally played in the outfield, where he was a quick retriever of the ball and had a very good throwing arm. As a young man he could throw a cricket ball over 100 yards. He was usually a safe catcher and, in his career, took 23 catches in 54 Tests and 474 in 754 first-class matches.
Famous partnerships
Holmes and Sutcliffe
The 1919 season saw the beginning of a famous Yorkshire opening partnership that endured for 15 seasons until Percy Holmes retired. Holmes and Sutcliffe were eulogised as Yorkshire's "heavenly twins". A flavour of the Holmes-Sutcliffe partnership was captured by The Cricketer in a profile written in 1921:
There is usually a hum of expectancy when Holmes and Sutcliffe appear, their faces wreathed in smiles, and chatting happily together. They seem to be sharing some all-absorbing joke. Holmes, proudly wearing his Yorkshire cap, walks with quick, short steps, shoulders erect and head in the air, doing his best to look as tall as (John) Tunnicliffe. Sutcliffe has dark, glossy hair and usually disdains the valued White Rose cap when batting. He strolls casually along by the side of Percy, keeping his weather eye open for the wicket-keeper's end and the honour of taking the first ball.
Holmes and Sutcliffe shared 74 century stands in all first-class matches including 69 for Yorkshire. 19 of these exceeded 200 and 4 were over 300, including their world record stand of 555 at Leyton in 1932. Yorkshire won the title 8 times in the seasons that Holmes and Sutcliffe opened the innings together.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe
In September 1922, Sutcliffe played in a Scarborough Festival match for C I Thornton's XI against MCC and, for the first time, was paired with Jack Hobbs in an opening partnership. They put on 120 in their only innings until Hobbs was out for 45; Sutcliffe went on to make 111.
Following his successful season with Yorkshire in 1922, Sutcliffe was in contention for a place on the England tour of South Africa in the winter of 1922–23, especially as Jack Hobbs declined to tour. The selectors evidently felt that Sutcliffe was not yet ready but they were, "as events would prove, wise to delay his promotion" as it ensured that Sutcliffe would have Hobbs as his "influential guide on the international stage". Percy Holmes was also overlooked and England's openers in the 1922–23 series were Andy Sandham, Frank Mann and Jack Russell.
The partnership of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, opening the innings together for England from 1924 to 1930, is the most famous in cricket history. With partnerships of 136 and 268 in their first two Test matches together, they were a success from the start and The Cricketer said:
Hobbs is undoubtedly the sauciest run-stealer in the world today. In Sutcliffe, he has found the ideal partner in the felony, for the Yorkshireman unhesitatingly responds to his calls, showing absolute confidence in Hobbs' judgement.
England wicket-keeper Les Ames, himself a top-class batsman, commented on their running together between the wickets by emphasising the placement of the stroke, which was so correct that they could "just play and run". Ames said they were not fast runners and that "Herbert only strolled".
Sutcliffe readily acknowledged his debt to his "influential guide" by naming his eldest son after him and writing, in a booklet published in 1927, that he doubted if Hobbs had an equal and that, as a batsman, "he stands alone (and is) the best I have ever seen". Sutcliffe expressed the view that if W G Grace was as good as Jack Hobbs, "then he must have been wonderful". He said that Hobbs' earliest advice to him had been simply: "Play your own game". Sutcliffe commented: "Four words – they counted for so much. They told me all I wanted to know".
Ian Peebles wrote that Sutcliffe's association with Hobbs "is judged, by results and all-round efficiency in all conditions", the greatest of all first-wicket partnerships and "will probably never be excelled". Peebles said that there lay between the two an "extraordinary understanding, manifested in their perfect and unhesitating judgment of the short single".
The last Test match in which Hobbs and Sutcliffe played together was the final one at The Oval, Hobbs' home ground, in the 1930 series against Australia. But the partnership was revived at the 1931 Scarborough Festival when they produced two double-century stands, first for the Players against the Gentlemen and then for H D G Leveson-Gower's XI against the New Zealand tourists. Their last partnership was for the Players at Lord's in 1932, an innings in which Hobbs carried his bat for 161 not out. Hobbs' biographer Ronald Mason summarised the association of Hobbs and Sutcliffe thus:
Behind them were nine years of wonderful attainment, 26 opening partnerships of 100 or more; a legendary technique and repute unequalled by any other pair; the lean, active quizzical Hobbs and the neat, wiry imperturbable Sutcliffe, who set a standard that can serve as a guide, but defied all attempts at emulation.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe made 15 century opening partnerships for England in Test matches, including 11 against Australia, and 11 in other first-class matches.
Sutcliffe and Hutton
Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career.
Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protégé but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel – the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him".
The master–apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle".
Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest.
Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice.
Noted opponents
As a specialist opening batsman, Sutcliffe's rivals on the field were the opposing bowlers and especially fast bowlers, though he encountered many outstanding spin bowlers too on turning or sticky wickets.
By the time Sutcliffe began his Test career, the formidable fast bowling partnership of Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald had ended, though Sutcliffe faced Gregory in Test matches and was opposed to McDonald in "Roses matches" between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Gregory by 1924–25 was no longer able to "frighten batsmen with sheer speed" but he still commanded respect and Jack Hobbs specifically told Sutcliffe to exercise caution against Gregory at the start of an innings. Sutcliffe regarded McDonald as "one of the best bowlers I ever met". He commented on McDonald's trick of "resting" by making himself seem tired and then "hurling himself into (a very fast delivery) like a demon". As Sutcliffe said, he never knew which ball would be the fast one and McDonald was a dangerous opponent.
But Sutcliffe was quoted as saying that he had "never played finer fast bowling" than that of the West Indians Learie Constantine, George Francis, Herman Griffith and Manny Martindale. Among the best English bowlers he faced in county cricket were some of his colleagues in England teams, such as Harold Larwood, Maurice Tate and Tich Freeman.
One of the toughest competitors he faced was the Australian leg spinner Clarrie Grimmett, "a tiny gnome of a man", who bowled with a roundarm action and made his Test debut at the age of 34, taking 11 wickets in his first match. Grimmett bowled "like a miser" and "begrudged every run", whereas his leg spin partner Arthur Mailey was the type of bowler who would "buy" his wickets by conceding runs and then, having boosted the batsman's confidence, snaring him with a "wrong 'un" (i.e., a googly). On Sutcliffe's first tour of Australia, he commented that he "was troubled most of the time by Arthur Mailey" but eventually he learned how to "differentiate between Mailey's leg breaks and his wrong 'uns".
Records
Fastest in world to reach 1,000 Test runs (later equalled by Everton Weekes) by achieving the feat in the 12th innings of his career.
Personal and business life
Sutcliffe married Emily ("Emmie") Pease at Pudsey Parish Church in September 1921. She had been a personal secretary to Richard Ingham, a mill owner who had introduced Sutcliffe to Pudsey St Lawrence. They had three children, two sons called Billy and John; and a daughter called Barbara. Billy Sutcliffe, whose middle name was Hobbs, played for Yorkshire between 1948 and 1957, captaining the team in the last two seasons of his career.
At the end of the 1924–25 tour of Australia, Sutcliffe and his Yorkshire colleague George Macaulay went into business together as a sports outfitting company with shops in Leeds and Wakefield. However, Macaulay withdrew from the business after a year and it became a Sutcliffe family concern until it folded in the 1990s. The business thrived while Sutcliffe was playing cricket and established itself as one of the leading sports goods retailers in the north of England. Sutcliffe ceased to have an active role in 1948 when he handed over the management to his son Billy.
Sutcliffe became the northern area representative, and eventually a director, of a paper manufacturer called Thomas Owen which was later amalgamated into Wiggins Teape. This firm also employed Douglas Jardine as company secretary, while Maurice Leyland, Bill Edrich and Len Hutton were other area representatives.
Sutcliffe developed severe arthritis in his old age, the disease crippling him to the extent that he needed a wheelchair. He suffered personal tragedy in April 1974 when his wife Emmie, then aged 74, died as result of severe burns following a fire at the family home in Ilkley. He was finally admitted to a Cross Hills nursing home in North Yorkshire where he died in January 1978 at the age of 83.
Footnotes
• a) Note that there are different versions of Sutcliffe's first-class career totals as a result of his participation in the 1930–31 Indian season. See Variations in first-class cricket statistics for more information.
References
Bibliography
John Arlott, Arlott on Cricket (ed. David Rayvern Allen), Collins, 1984
John Arlott, Portrait of the Master, Penguin, 1982
Barclays World of Cricket, 3rd edition, (ed. E. W. Swanton), Willow Books, 1986. Article on Sutcliffe written by Ian Peebles.
Derek Birley, A Social History of English Cricket, Aurum, 1999
Neville Cardus, Close of Play, Sportsmans Book Club edition, 1957, "Sutcliffe and Yorkshire", pp. 1–10
Bill Frindall, The Wisden Book of Cricket Records, Queen Anne Press, 1986,
Alan Gibson, The Cricket Captains of England, Cassell, 1979
Alan Hill, Herbert Sutcliffe: Cricket Maestro, Stadia, 2007 (2nd edition)
Douglas Jardine, In Quest of the Ashes, Methuen, 2005
Ronald Mason, Jack Hobbs, Sportsman's Book Club, 1961
Pelham Warner, Lords: 1787–1945, Harrap, 1946
Pelham Warner, Cricket Between Two Wars, Sporting Handbooks, 1946
Roy Webber, The County Cricket Championship, Sportsman's Book Club, 1958
Simon Wilde, Number One: The World's Best Batsmen and Bowlers, Gollancz, 1998,
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, various editions from 1920 to 1946
Graeme Wright, A Wisden Collection, Wisden, 2004
External links
Notes by the Editor – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1928 (online archive)
Herbert Sutcliffe's obituary – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1979 (online archive)
1894 births
1978 deaths
British Army personnel of World War I
England cricket team selectors
England Test cricketers
English cricketers
English cricketers of 1919 to 1945
Green Howards officers
People from Nidderdale
Players cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Yorkshire cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
North v South cricketers
Cricketers from Pudsey
H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers
Lord Hawke's XI cricketers
C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers
Royal Army Ordnance Corps officers
Sherwood Foresters soldiers
British Army personnel of World War II
Military personnel from Yorkshire
Marylebone Cricket Club Australian Touring Team cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club South African Touring Team cricketers | false | [
"Hutton is an unincorporated community in northern Prairie Creek Township, Vigo County, in the U.S. state of Indiana.\n\nIt is part of the Terre Haute metropolitan area.\n\nHistory\nHutton was founded in 1833, and was named after the Hutton family of settlers. A post office was established at Hutton in 1889, and remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1906.\n\nGeography\nHutton is located at at an elevation of 456 feet.\n\nReferences\n\nUnincorporated communities in Indiana\nUnincorporated communities in Vigo County, Indiana\nTerre Haute metropolitan area",
"Hutton Roof Crags is a hill in south-eastern Cumbria in north-west England, located near to the village of Hutton Roof. It has extensive areas of limestone pavement as well as grassland and woodland. The hill forms the Hutton Roof Crags Site of Special Scientific Interest and is part of the Morecambe Bay Pavements Special Area of Conservation. A significant proportion of the UK's of limestone pavement is to be found on Hutton Roof Crags and the neighbouring Farleton Knott.\n\nAlthough part of the hill is grass grazed by sheep, and part is forested, much remains open common land, and it is here that most of the limestone pavement is to be found. However, much has been removed over the years for many purposes including building, agricultural fertiliser, and production of millstones, but is now protected by law and it is an offence to remove any. The limestone is over thick, and was laid down during the Carboniferous period some 350 million years ago. The limestone pavements here occupy an intermediate position between the low-lying pavements of Gait Barrows some to the west, and those on Ingleborough, to the east.\n\nHutton Roof National Nature Reserve is managed by Cumbria Wildlife Trust, which leases Park Wood and Hutton Roof Common from Natural England and Hutton Roof Parish Council respectively.\n\nPlants including angular Solomon's seal (Polygonatum odoratum), limestone fern (Gymnocarpium robertianum), and dark red helleborine (Epipactis atrorubens) are to be found on the pavement. The nationally scarce rigid buckler-fern (Dryopteris submontana) is abundant on Hutton Roof Crags. Blue moor-grass (Sesleria caerulea) is also nationally scarce but abundant here.\n\nThe name Hutton Roof Crags is believed to derive from the Old English language, and means ‘crags on hill near farmstead of Rolf’.\n\nAccess is possible via the public footpath running across the north of the fell, but is probably easier through the woods to the south-west.\n\nThe extensive low limestone outcrops make the Hutton Roof Crags a popular site for bouldering.\n\nReferences \n\nMarilyns of England\nMountains and hills of Cumbria\nSites of Special Scientific Interest in Cumbria\nNature reserves of the Cumbria Wildlife Trust\nNational nature reserves in England"
]
|
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"Herbert Sutcliffe",
"Sutcliffe and Hutton",
"Who is Hutton?",
"Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege"
]
| C_c762f7f31b37415eb25b09830029cbed_1 | Did they ever play together? | 2 | Did Sutcliffe and Hutton ever play together? | Herbert Sutcliffe | Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career. Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel - the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him". The master-apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle". Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest. Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice. CANNOTANSWER | Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 | Herbert Sutcliffe (24 November 1894 – 22 January 1978) was an English professional cricketer who represented Yorkshire and England as an opening batsman. Apart from one match in 1945, his first-class career spanned the period between the two world wars. His first-class debut was delayed by the First World War until 1919 and his career was effectively terminated in August 1939 when he was called up for military service in the imminent Second World War.
He was the first cricketer to score 16 centuries in Test match cricket.
A right-handed batsman, Sutcliffe was noted for his concentration and determination, qualities which made him invaluable to his teams in adverse batting conditions; and he is remembered as one of the game's finest "bad wicket batsmen". His fame rests mainly in the great opening partnership he formed with Jack Hobbs for England between 1924 and 1930. He also formed notable opening partnerships at Yorkshire with Percy Holmes and, in his last few seasons, the young Len Hutton. During Sutcliffe's career, Yorkshire won the County Championship 12 times. Sutcliffe played in 54 Test matches for England and on three occasions he toured Australia, where he enjoyed outstanding success. His last tour in 1932–33 included the controversial "bodyline" series, in which Sutcliffe is perceived to have been one of Douglas Jardine's main supporters. Although close friends have stated that Sutcliffe did not approve of bodyline, he always acted out of fierce loyalty to his team captain and was committed to his team's cause. In statistical terms, Sutcliffe was one of the most successful Test batsmen ever; his completed career batting average was 60.73 which is the highest by any English batsman and the seventh-highest worldwide (of Test batsmen with 20 completed innings) behind only Don Bradman, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Adam Voges, Graeme Pollock and George Headley.
Sutcliffe became a successful businessman early in his first-class career by using the money he earned as a player to establish a sportswear shop in Leeds. When his playing career ended, he served on the club committee at Yorkshire for 21 years and for three years was an England Test selector. Among the honours accorded him have been the commemoration of a special set of gates in his name at Headingley, home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and his induction into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Early years
Childhood
Herbert Sutcliffe was born in Summerbridge, Nidderdale, West Riding of Yorkshire on 24 November 1894 at his parents' home, a cottage in Gabblegate (now called East View). His parents were Willie and Jane Sutcliffe. Herbert was the second of three sons, his brothers being Arthur and Bob. Willie Sutcliffe, who worked at a sawmill in nearby Dacre Banks, was a keen club cricketer.
When Herbert was still a baby the family moved to Pudsey, where Willie's father was the landlord of the King's Arms. Willie worked in the pub and played cricket for the well-known Pudsey St Lawrence Cricket Club. He also played rugby football, and an injury sustained during a rugby match led to his premature death in 1898.
Jane Sutcliffe moved the family back to Nidderdale, where they lived in Darley, the boys enrolling at Darley School, and she remarried. Jane developed consumption, and she died in January 1904 at the age of 37, when Herbert was nine. Jane's second husband was a bootmaker called Tom Waller but he was not allowed custody of the brothers who moved back to Pudsey to be cared for by the Sutcliffe family. Willie Sutcliffe had three sisters, Sarah, Carrie and Harriet, who ran a bakery. They became the legal guardians of Arthur, Herbert and Bob, respectively.
As the three aunts were devoted members of the local Congregational Church, the three boys received religious instruction there and Herbert became a lifelong committed Christian. He was a Sunday School teacher as a young man and first came to notice as a cricketer when he played for a church team. The boys lived in the family house which contained the bakery and slept in a loft above the bakehouse itself.
Herbert left school in 1908 when he was 13, and was apprenticed to a boot and shoe company as a "clicker" who fastened boot soles to uppers. In 1911, his prowess at cricket earned him an offer of clerical employment in a local textile mill, where he learnt bookkeeping, a skill that served him well when he launched his own business career.
Development as a cricketer
Sutcliffe became seriously interested in cricket at the age of eight, soon after he returned to Pudsey during his mother's final illness. He formed an ambition to follow his father and two uncles and play for Pudsey St Lawrence. His first club was a Wesleyan church team in the neighbouring village of Stanningley, where he was first seen as a bowler rather than a batsman. In one match in 1907, he took all 10 wickets in an innings.
In 1908, now aged 13, he began playing for Pudsey St Lawrence's second team. The following year, Sutcliffe made his first-team debut. Two of his team-mates were Major Booth and Henry Hutton, father of Len Hutton.
In 1911, now aged 16, Sutcliffe switched his allegiance to the rival Pudsey Britannia club where, he is quoted as saying, "my batting improved by leaps and bounds". This move came about because of the offer of clerical employment at the textile mill, which was owned by Ernest Walker who was also the Britannia club captain. Sutcliffe later said that Walker allowed him more time for cricket practice than he could get from his bootmaking job.
The following season, Sutcliffe's progress was noted by Yorkshire County Cricket Club and he was invited to take part in the county team practice sessions at Headingley. He was welcomed by the great George Herbert Hirst, who gave him much encouragement and advice. Soon afterwards, he was invited to play for the Yorkshire 2nd XI team.
Sutcliffe was coached at Headingley by Hirst and the club's 2nd XI coach, Steve Doughty, who placed great emphasis on the importance of pad play (the use of the pads to intercept the ball and prevent it hitting the wicket when this would not risk being out leg before wicket). Although Doughty's approach was criticised by Sutcliffe's colleagues at Pudsey Britannia, Sutcliffe himself had no regrets about the time he spent mastering the technique and later explained that swing bowling had been so well developed by bowlers in every county team that it was impossible for any batsman to keep his wicket by relying on his bat alone. The long-term benefit he derived was a very strong defence that he later used to great effect on treacherous pitches.
By 1914, Sutcliffe had become the most accomplished player in the Bradford League in which Pudsey Britannia played. He was playing both for Yorkshire 2nd XI and Pudsey Britannia at this time. In August, just as the First World War was beginning, he appeared for the 2nd XI at Beverley against an East Riding XI and opened the batting for the first time as a Yorkshire player. He made a half-century in the second innings and the Cricket Argus commented that "he was confident and stylish in... his best performance for the second eleven". The Argus went on to say that Sutcliffe, with youth on his side, "looks every inch a cricketer (with) a variety of good strokes". In the Bradford League, Sutcliffe scored a then-record 727 runs in the season, which was beaten in 1916 by his future England opening partner Jack Hobbs.
Military service and demobilisation
Sutcliffe was called up in 1915 and served first with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, stationed at York, and then with the Sherwood Foresters. He was later commissioned into the Green Howards, now part of the Yorkshire Regiment, as a Second Lieutenant, but he did not see active service and was not posted to France until after the Armistice was signed.
Sutcliffe played cricket during the war for the Officer Cadet Battalion in Scotland, captaining his team in matches against Glasgow University and other Scottish teams. He still managed to play in the Bradford League on occasion, but he said that he sometimes did so under an assumed name after taking unofficial leave.
Sutcliffe was demobilised in 1919 and took a job as a colliery checkweighman at Allerton Bywater in Yorkshire. He was contracted to play for the colliery's cricket team in the Yorkshire Council league, but he was selected at the beginning of the 1919 season to play again for Yorkshire 2nd XI. However he retained the colliery job until he opened his sportswear shop in 1924.
First-class debut
The war had delayed the start of Sutcliffe's first-class career with Yorkshire and he was 24 when his chance finally came. In May 1919, he played for the county's 2nd XI against a full-strength 1st XI and did very well, scoring 51 not out. He received a good report in the Yorkshire Post and never played for the 2nd XI again. Yorkshire's first County Championship fixture after the war took place on 26 and 27 May at Bristol against Gloucestershire and Sutcliffe, batting at number 6, made his first-class debut. Yorkshire batted first, after losing the toss, and Sutcliffe made 11 in a total of 277 (Roy Kilner 112). Despite that seemingly modest score, Yorkshire won by an innings and 63 runs as Gloucestershire were bowled out twice for 125 and 89.
1919 to 1927
Sutcliffe kept his place in the Yorkshire team and continued to bat in the middle of the order for a month until, in the match against Nottinghamshire at Bramall Lane on 27 and 28 June, Wilfred Rhodes decided to drop down the order for the 2nd innings and Sutcliffe went in first with Percy Holmes. After some indifferent scores, he completed his maiden first-class century on 23 and 24 July against Northamptonshire at Northampton when he and Holmes put on 279 for the first wicket, Sutcliffe scoring 145 and Holmes 133. Further success resulted in Holmes and Sutcliffe being awarded their county caps in August 1919. Sutcliffe created a debut season record by scoring 1,839 runs at an average of 44.85 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 174 against Kent at Crabble Athletic Ground in Dover. Holmes and Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries each in 1919 and they shared in 5 century partnerships. Their performances were key to Yorkshire winning the championship that season for the 10th time in all.
As a result of their success in 1919, Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe were both awarded a Wisden Cricketer of the Year title in 1920. In the accompanying review, Wisden commented on Sutcliffe's pre-war development and the benefits that both he and Holmes derived from Steve Doughty's coaching. Sutcliffe's "fine driving" was commended but it was noted that "he may not yet be quite so strong in defence".
By his 1919 standards, Sutcliffe had two quiet years in 1920 and 1921. He was well down the national averages in 1920 with 1,393 runs at 33.16 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 131. In 1921, he did not score a century and made 1,235 runs at 30.12.
In 1922, as Yorkshire regained the County Championship title under new captain Geoffrey Wilson, Sutcliffe lived up to his early promise by scoring 2,020 runs at 46.97 with a highest score of 232 against Surrey at the Oval. He scored 11 half-centuries but only 2 centuries. Sutcliffe was one of seven Yorkshire players who were ever-present, playing in all 30 matches.
Sutcliffe's career advanced in 1923 when he made his first appearances in the North v South and Gentlemen v Players fixtures and in a Test Trial. His overall record in 1923 was 2,220 runs at 41.11 with 3 centuries, 15 fifties and a highest score of 139 against Somerset. The Yorkshire cricket historian Alfred Pullin wrote: "it was recognised long before the season ended that Sutcliffe had established his claim to be considered one of England's first-wicket batsmen".
In the 1924 season, Yorkshire completed a hat-trick of championships under Geoffrey Wilson and Sutcliffe enjoyed probably his best season to date, scoring 2,142 runs at 48.68 with 6 centuries including a highest score of 255 not out against Essex. He made his Test debut on Saturday, 14 June 1924, playing for England against South Africa at Edgbaston and opening the innings with Jack Hobbs. In this First Test, which England won by an innings, they recorded their first century partnership for England by putting on 136 before Sutcliffe was out for 64. In the Second Test at Lord's, Hobbs and Sutcliffe scored 268 before Sutcliffe was out for 122, his maiden Test century; Hobbs went on to make 211 and England again won by an innings. In the whole series, Sutcliffe scored 303 runs at 75.75.
As early as July, Sutcliffe was one of ten players named to tour Australia in the winter of 1924–25 under the leadership of Arthur Gilligan. At first, Hobbs declined the tour but then changed his mind when it was decided his wife would accompany him. The importance of this to Sutcliffe was that his partnership with Hobbs could continue at the very highest level of cricket where the presence of Hobbs was ultimately the key factor in Sutcliffe's major success on the tour, which established him as a world-class player. Sutcliffe said he had some initial difficulty in adjusting to Australian conditions, specifically the strong light which affected his timing. He also reckoned that the pitches were a good four yards faster than in England. His remedy was to play straight and by hitting the ball back down the pitch. He said later that he sacrificed many of his best shots, but "it paid off in the end". This is shown by his overall performance as, although England lost the series 4–1, Sutcliffe scored 734 runs in the five Tests at an average of 81.55 with 4 centuries, 2 half-centuries and a highest score of 176. In the whole tour, he scored 1,250 runs at 69.44 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 188.
In 1925, as Yorkshire won a 4th successive championship, Sutcliffe scored 2,308 runs at 53.67 with 7 centuries and a highest score of 235 against Middlesex at Headingley. During 1925 and 1926, Sutcliffe's skill was a primary factor in Yorkshire having the longest unbeaten run in county cricket: i.e., 70 matches without loss until early 1927. After three defeats in 1927, Yorkshire went a further 58 games without loss until 1929.
The first four Tests of the 1926 England v Australia series were scheduled for just three days and were all curtailed by poor weather. The final Test at the Oval was timeless to ensure a finish. It has become one of the most famous matches in cricket history, not because England regained the Ashes for the first time since 1912 but for the manner it which it was achieved as Hobbs and Sutcliffe produced their most famous partnership in treacherous batting conditions. Australia had a narrow first innings lead of 22 and, at close of play on the second day (a Monday), Hobbs and Sutcliffe had taken the England second innings score to 49–0, a lead of 27. Heavy rain fell overnight and next day, as the sun shone, the pitch soon developed into a "sticky wicket" on which it was generally assumed that England would be bowled out cheaply and so lose both the match and the series. But, in spite of the very difficult batting conditions, Hobbs and Sutcliffe put up a great defence of their wickets and gradually increased their partnership to 172 before Hobbs was out for exactly 100. Sutcliffe went on to make 161 and, in the end, England won the game comfortably, by 289 runs, and regained the Ashes. The tributes paid to Hobbs and Sutcliffe after this partnership are extensive. Pelham Warner perhaps encapsulated them all when he wrote: "Hobbs and Sutcliffe won it for us by their incomparable batting. They did not fail us at a time of most desperate crisis. Never has English cricket known a more dauntless pair".
In the 1926 County Championship, Yorkshire lost the title despite being unbeaten to their close rivals Lancashire by a very narrow margin. Sutcliffe was 2nd in the national batting averages behind Hobbs, scoring 2,528 runs at 66.52 with 8 centuries and a highest score of exactly 200 against Leicestershire. In the 1927 County Championship, Yorkshire finished 3rd but it was another great season for both Holmes and Sutcliffe who scored over 4,500 runs and 12 centuries between them. Sutcliffe scored 2,414 runs at 56.13 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 227 for England versus The Rest.
In the autumn of 1927, the Yorkshire committee decided to appoint Sutcliffe as team captain in succession to Arthur Lupton, who had retired. He would thus have become the first professional to captain the side since 1882 but, as Wisden records, "objection was taken to this action by two different parties". There were those who supported the view that no professional should be captain; and significant opposition also came from a large number of members who argued that, if a professional were to be appointed, it should be Wilfred Rhodes rather than Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe himself was en route to South Africa while most of the furore developed and had to rely on telegrams for his news. When first advised of the appointment, he sent a reply that spoke of the great honour and his desire to serve Yorkshire and England. But he was better apprised of the controversy when he arrived in Cape Town and finally sent a message that he was declining the offer but willing to serve under any other captain.
1928 to 1932
During the five years 1928 to 1932, Sutcliffe played 181 matches (254 innings) in which he was not out 36 times, scoring 15,529 runs for a total average of 70.35.
Sutcliffe made his only tour of South Africa in 1927–28, playing in 14 matches and scoring 1,030 runs at 51.50 with 2 centuries and a highest score of 102. He was able to open the England innings with Holmes, Hobbs having declined the tour, and made his score of 102 in the first innings of the First Test at the Old Wanderers ground in Johannesburg, England winning by 10 wickets.
In 1928, Sutcliffe scored 3,000 runs in a season for the first time, a feat he repeated in 1931 and 1932, becoming the first player to achieve it three times. Only Patsy Hendren and Wally Hammond have equalled the feat. Sutcliffe's 1928 tally was 3,002 at 76.97 with a highest score of 228 among 13 centuries and 13 half-centuries. He played in all three Tests against West Indies in 1928. This was West Indies' inaugural Test series and their batsmen struggled against a strong England attack so that England was able to win all three Tests by an innings. But Sutcliffe was very impressed by the fast bowling of Learie Constantine, George Francis and Herman Griffith and said of them during the Lord's Test that he had "never played finer fast bowling".
Under the leadership of Percy Chapman, Sutcliffe toured Australia again in 1928–29 with Hobbs as his opening partner. England won the first two Tests before Hobbs and Sutcliffe played major roles in one of the most famous Test matches ever at Melbourne. Australia won the toss and batted first, making 397 thanks to centuries by Alan Kippax and Jack Ryder. England scored 417 with 200 by Hammond and 58 by Sutcliffe. Australia then scored 351 with 107 by their captain Bill Woodfull and a maiden Test century by Don Bradman. This left England needing 332 to win. Australia had ended the 5th day of a timeless match on 347–8 and the pitch was showing increasing signs of wear. Overnight, a storm broke and soaked the pitch which, as the sun shone on it through the morning, became what Bradman later described as "the worst sticky I ever saw". Even Wisden admitted that it "may fittingly be described as a beastly wicket". Play on the sixth day did not begin until 12:51 and Australia's last two wickets quickly fell with just 4 runs added to their overnight total. Clem Hill reckoned that the state of the pitch was such that "odds of ten to one against an England success would be generous" and Hugh Trumble reportedly told Jack Hobbs that 70 would be a good total. Wisden recorded that "then it was that the wonderful skill of these two (Hobbs and Sutcliffe) showed itself so prominently for, with the ball turning and getting up almost straight, they put on 105 for the first wicket... the two batsmen rendered England splendid service by an historic stand and made victory probable". Having survived the last 5 minutes before lunch, they added 75 in the afternoon session when "the ball was turning and at other times getting up almost straight". Hobbs had nearly been dismissed early on when a catch was dropped but the two batsmen played with "remarkable footwork, masterly defence and unerring skill in a difficult situation". Hobbs was out when the score had reached 105 and then Sutcliffe added another 94 in partnership with Douglas Jardine as the wicket eased and close of play was safely reached with the total at 171–1 (Sutcliffe 83 not out). Next morning, with conditions much more favourable, Sutcliffe batted on until he was finally out for 135 with the total on 318–4 and only 14 more needed. There was a slight scare as three more wickets fell, including Chapman who was caught at cover when trying for the winning hit. But the runs were obtained and England had won a famous victory against the odds by 3 wickets. Sutcliffe later said that he considered this to have been his finest innings ever. Jardine later wrote about the number of times Hobbs and Sutcliffe were hit "all over the body" during their stand and made the point that, if a batsman is to make runs on an Australian sticky wicket, then being hit by the ball is inevitable.
In 1929, Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries against the South African tourists. The first was 113 for Yorkshire in a drawn match at Bramall Lane He then scored four in the Test series, including two in the same match in the Fifth Test at the Oval. His season aggregate was 2,189 runs at 52.11 with 9 centuries and a highest score of 150 against Northamptonshire.
In 1930, Sutcliffe was the leading Englishman in the first-class batting averages behind Don Bradman (i.e., of batsmen with 10 completed innings). In a summer of hot, thundery weather that produced some exceptionally bad pitches, Sutcliffe averaged 87.61 in the four Tests he played in, scoring 161 in the Fifth Test at the Oval. Sutcliffe's first-class aggregate in 1930 was 2,312 runs at 64.22 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 173 against Sussex.
During the winter of 1930–31, Hobbs and Sutcliffe went on a private tour of India and Ceylon that was organised by the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram (popularly known as "Vizzy"). There is debate in some quarters about the status of matches played on this tour, which are not recognised as first-class by Wisden in contrast to certain other publications. The scores were printed in The Cricketer Spring Annual in 1932 and presented as first-class but escaped general notice at the time and were largely ignored until some statisticians took an interest in them in the 1970s. It is known that neither Hobbs nor Sutcliffe thought they were first-class matches; they regarded them as exhibition games arranged for Vizzy's personal entertainment. Nevertheless, Sutcliffe scored 532 runs and 2 centuries in the disputed matches and this has impacted his first-class statistical record with two versions in circulation.
In all first-class cricket in the 1931 season, Sutcliffe scored four centuries in consecutive innings and averaged 96.96, topping the first-class averages for the first time. He totalled 3,006 runs with a highest score of 230 among 13 centuries. Yorkshire historian Jim Kilburn commented on Sutcliffe's general consistency as "almost past believing" while Sutcliffe himself reckoned that his accomplishments in 1931, which was a wet summer, were the best of his entire career.
When Yorkshire played Gloucestershire at Park Avenue, Bradford, in July 1932, Sutcliffe completed his 100th century. He was the first Yorkshire player and the seventh overall to achieve the feat. Having scored 83 in the first innings, he reached his target with 132 in the second. Yorkshire won the match by 133 runs. Yorkshire honoured the occasion by presenting Sutcliffe with a cheque for 100 guineas, repeating Surrey's reward paid to Jack Hobbs when he scored his 100th century. In Yorkshire's match against Essex at Leyton, Holmes and Sutcliffe set a world record partnership for any wicket of 555. This remained the world record for any wicket till 1945–46 and it was not until 1976–77 that it was beaten for the first wicket. It remains the record partnership for any wicket in England. Sutcliffe's share of the stand was 313, his career highest score. Yorkshire batted first and, at the end of the first day, the score stood at 423–0, with Holmes on 180 and Sutcliffe on 231, already beating their previous best stand of 347 against Hampshire in 1920. Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity then proceeded to bowl Essex out twice and Yorkshire won by an innings and 313 runs.
Sutcliffe scored 3,336 runs in 1932, the highest season total of his career and it included his highest individual score of 313, made in the world record stand at Leyton. He averaged 74.13 with 14 centuries and 9 half-centuries. He became the third batsman after K S Ranjitsinhji and C B Fry to score 1,000 runs in a month twice in the same season, making 1,193 in June and 1,006 in August. His total of 3,336 is the sixth highest season aggregate behind Denis Compton (3,816 in 1947), Bill Edrich (3,539 in 1947), Tom Hayward (3,518 in 1906), Len Hutton (3,429 in 1949) and Frank Woolley (3,352 in 1928). His fourteen centuries in the season have been bettered only by Compton (18 in 1947), Jack Hobbs (16 in 1925) and Wally Hammond (15 in 1938).
1932–33: the "bodyline" tour
In the winter of 1932–33, Sutcliffe was a key member of the England team that toured Australia and New Zealand under the captaincy of Douglas Jardine, taking part in all five Tests of the infamous "bodyline" series. Wisden in its tour summary stated unequivocally that "Jardine, while nothing like the batsman in Australia of four years earlier, captained the side superbly" but he "had one great difficulty which he never successfully overcame". The difficulty was to find a suitable partner for Sutcliffe as opening batsman and Wisden continues by remarking on several experiments tried by Jardine throughout the tour but ends by saying that "no real successor to Hobbs was discovered".
Sutcliffe, who was by now England's senior professional, was part of the England selection committee on the tour along with Jardine, Pelham Warner (team manager), Bob Wyatt (vice-captain) and Wally Hammond. Sutcliffe enjoyed only mixed success with the bat but he did make his career highest Test score of 194 in the First Test at Sydney, which England won by 10 wickets. Overall, he scored 1,318 first-class runs on the Australian leg of the tour at 73.22 with 5 centuries, the highest score being his 194 at Sydney. He was the only English batsman to reach 1,000 runs on this tour. Surprisingly, he had no success in New Zealand where, in 3 appearances, he made just 27 runs.
Australia won the toss at Sydney and decided to bat. Without Bradman, who was ill, they struggled against the pace of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce but, thanks to a brilliant innings of 187 not out by Stan McCabe, they made a creditable 360. England's batsmen had no such troubles and steadily built a total of 524 to claim a first innings lead of 164. Sutcliffe opened with Wyatt and they began with a stand of 112. Wyatt was dismissed for 38 and Sutcliffe then put on 188 for the second wicket with Hammond, who was out at 300–2 for 112. Next man in was Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and he joined Sutcliffe in a third wicket century partnership of 123 before Sutcliffe was finally out for 194 after batting for over 7 hours across the second and third days of the match. The last seven wickets fell for the addition of only 101 more runs. With Larwood taking his second five-wicket haul, Australia could only make 164 to tie the scores and at least make England bat again. Australia was 164–9 at close of play on the fourth day so all that was required on the last day was for Voce to dismiss Bill O'Reilly off the third ball of the morning, without adding to the total, and then Sutcliffe himself to score the solitary run needed to complete an emphatic 10 wicket victory. Wisden recorded that "there were less than a hundred people present to see the finish".
When he had scored 43, he played a ball bowled by O'Reilly onto his stumps but the impact did not shift the bails and so he was not out. Wisden said that "Sutcliffe gave a typical exhibition, being wonderfully sure in defence and certain in his off-driving". There was some criticism of Sutcliffe for scoring slowly at one point in the second half of his innings but Jardine has confirmed that Sutcliffe was playing under his instructions which "right nobly did Sutcliffe carry them out to the letter".
Australia, with Bradman back in their team, won the Second Test at Melbourne by 111 runs. Having been dismissed for 228 in the first innings, they fought back to reduce England to just 169, in which Sutcliffe made the top score of 52. In the second innings, Bradman effectively won the match for Australia by scoring a resilient 103 not out even though his team was dismissed for just 191. Sutcliffe was again England's highest scorer, making 33 of a poor 139 as O'Reilly and Bert Ironmonger took the wickets.
Sutcliffe failed twice in the Third Test at Adelaide, the most controversial match of the tour as it was the one in which the bodyline furore reached its climax. England won by 338 runs but the match was overshadowed by the injuries sustained by Woodfull and Australian wicket-keeper Bert Oldfield and the subsequent heated telegrams and diplomatic row.
England won the Fourth Test at Brisbane by 6 wickets. This time, Sutcliffe opened with Jardine and they put on 114 in the first innings. Sutcliffe scored 86, another top score. England held a narrow lead on first innings and then dismissed Australia for 175. Sutcliffe was out for 2 in the second innings but Leyland held the innings steady and ensured that England won both the match and the series. The Fifth Test at Sydney was therefore academic but England nevertheless won by 8 wickets, Sutcliffe scoring 56 in his only innings.
According to Bob Wyatt, Sutcliffe "backed Jardine to the hilt" on the subject of bowling "bodyline" aka "fast leg theory". Wyatt said that: "Herbert never hesitated in his views about our bowling strategy. He did not see anything wrong about pursuing the tactics". Les Ames agreed with Wyatt's view and said that, though the majority of the England players were morally opposed to Jardine's tactics, Sutcliffe took the pragmatic view that "the ball is there, it's short, so hook it". Sutcliffe himself was an outstanding player of the hook shot but Ames was unsure about how he would have coped with Larwood's accuracy if he had been playing against him. According to Bill O'Reilly, Sutcliffe was the strongest advocate of bodyline and he sometimes acted like an "unofficial captain", even initiating the tactics on his own responsibility. However, a close friend of Sutcliffe insisted that Sutcliffe "was always behind authority" and was absolutely loyal to his captain, but his private views about bodyline were another matter.
1933 to 1939
In 1933, Sutcliffe could not repeat his outstanding form of the 1932 season but he still scored a considerable 2,211 runs at 47.04, although it was his lowest tally in a dry summer since 1921. He completed 7 centuries with a highest score of 205 against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. Sutcliffe scored 304 runs at 50.66 in four Tests against Australia in 1934. His first-class aggregate for the 1934 season was 2,023 runs at 49.34 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 203 against Surrey at the Oval. In 1935, Sutcliffe's Test career ended when he missed the Third Test against South Africa due to a leg injury and then never recovered his place when he was fit again. Wisden's view was that England wished to try out younger players but it pointed out that Sutcliffe "remains a prolific runscorer".
Sutcliffe's record in Test cricket is outstanding. As shown by the adjacent graph, he is the only English batsman who has averaged more than 60 runs per innings in a completed career and his statistical record compares favourably with anyone except Don Bradman. Uniquely, Sutcliffe's batting average never dropped below 60 throughout his entire Test career and Javed Miandad is the only other player whose average never dropped below 50 in a career of at least 20 innings.
The demands of Test cricket behind him, Sutcliffe played in 29 of Yorkshire's 30 County Championship matches in 1936 but his average fell to 33.30, his worst seasonal performance since the early 1920s. His form rallied somewhat in the last three seasons of his career and he formed another outstanding opening partnership with Len Hutton who matured into a Test-class batsman in 1937. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 315 for the first wicket against Leicestershire at Hull in 1937, Sutcliffe scoring 189 and Hutton 153. Sutcliffe faced Australian opposition for the final time in 1938 when he appeared in two matches against the tourists, one in July for Yorkshire at Bramall Lane and the other in September at North Marine Road in a Scarborough Festival match when he played for H D G Leveson Gower's XI.
Yorkshire completed another hat-trick of County Championships in 1939 and, although he was now 44 and certainly a "veteran", Sutcliffe enjoyed a remarkable sequence of four consecutive centuries in May and June which showed any doubters that he was still one of the best opening batsmen around. Sutcliffe was to play one more first-class match in 1945, but his career effectively ended in August 1939 when he played for Yorkshire against Hampshire at Dean Park Cricket Ground, Bournemouth, on Saturday, 26 August and Monday, 28 August. Yorkshire won by an innings and 11 runs in just two days. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 56 before Hutton was out for 37 and Sutcliffe went on to score 51 before he was out at 117–2, leg before wicket to George Heath, who thus took his wicket for the second time in 1939.
Into retirement
As a reservist in the British Army, Sutcliffe was the first Yorkshire player to be called up, in August 1939, as the Second World War became imminent. He missed Yorkshire's final match of the season against Sussex at Hove, which ended on 1 September, the day the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. He rejoined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and attained the rank of major. He did not leave Great Britain during his army service which ended in November 1942. Now aged 48, he was discharged from the army on medical grounds having undergone two operations that year for sinus trouble and a shoulder injury. For the remainder of the war, he divided his time between his sportswear business and charity fundraising.
Like most top-class players, Sutcliffe occasionally played in charity matches during the war, including three to raise money for the Red Cross in 1940. In one of these, he played for a Yorkshire XI against a Bradford League XI at Park Avenue and scored 127, which was his last-ever century. The League team included Eddie Paynter, Manny Martindale and Learie Constantine, who scored a brilliant century in what Sutcliffe described as "a gem of an innings".
Although Alan Gibson described Sutcliffe as "a good public speaker", Sutcliffe himself seems to have been modest about this ability. During the war, he was asked to share a charity event platform with Sir Compton Mackenzie in Bradford. Mackenzie gave a brilliant speech that was well received and Sutcliffe said to him: "Oh, my, how I wish I could speak like you". Mackenzie, who was a keen cricket fan, replied: "You don't wish nearly as much that you could speak like me as I wish I could bat like you".
Sutcliffe had already stated his intention to retire from first-class cricket but nevertheless he returned in August 1945 at the age of 50 for one final match after the war in Europe ended. He captained the Yorkshire team in a match against a Royal Air Force team at North Marine Road in the renewed Scarborough Festival. The match was drawn after being affected by the weather. Sutcliffe batted once, going in at number 5, and scored just 8 runs before being dismissed leg before wicket (lbw) by Bill Edrich.
In 1949, Sutcliffe was accorded honorary membership of MCC and joined what was then a select company of English professionals including George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Jack Hobbs.
Sutcliffe continued to be involved in cricket and his Wisden obituary says: "His repayment to the game which had given him so much was service on the Yorkshire committee, as an England selector, and as sponsor for many good causes in cricket". In a tribute that was published with the obituary, Brian Sellers said: "We served together on the county committee for over 21 years". Sutcliffe was a Test selector for three years from 1959 through 1961, during which England played home series against India, South Africa and Australia.
In February 1963, Yorkshire appointed Sutcliffe a life member of the club and then, in July 1965, his old captain Sir William Worsley, now president of the club, formally opened the Sutcliffe Gates in the St Michael's Lane approach to the Headingley ground. Similar in design to the Hobbs Gates at the Oval, they carry the inscription:
In honour of a great Yorkshire and England cricketer
Sutcliffe retained his interest in cricket for the rest of his life. One of his final public appearances was in 1977 when, in his wheelchair and only a few months before he died, he was photographed at Headingley alongside Len Hutton and Geoff Boycott just after Boycott had emulated Sutcliffe and Hutton by becoming the third Yorkshire batsman to score 100 centuries in his first-class career.
Wisden summarised his career thus:
Herbert Sutcliffe was one of the great cricketers and he brought to cricket as to all his undertakings an assurance and capacity for concentration that positively commanded success. His technical talent matched his character and his achievements were therefore on the highest plane.
On 30 September 2009, Herbert Sutcliffe was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Style and technique
Sutcliffe's approach to cricket
Sutcliffe's approach was essentially to do everything possible to help his team to win the match. His philosophy was that the game was there to be won and not merely to be played. He was determined to keep his wicket intact and, according to Fred Trueman, "he was a terrible man to get out" and "was at his best in a crisis". Sutcliffe's professionalism was reflected in his preparation and off-field demeanour. He took great pride in his appearance and Trueman says he was "always spick and span". Neville Cardus described him thus: "...shiny of hair, black as the raven's, with flannels of fluttering silk, and the confident air of super-Pudsey breeding. A deviation from type, a 'sport' in the evolutionary process!"
Sutcliffe was "unfailingly courteous as a man" and, along with his England colleague Hobbs, "committed to advancing the cause of the professional cricketer". According to Stuart Surridge, "our profession as a respected one started with Jack and Herbert (who) gave us a new status".
One of the main reasons why Yorkshire were prepared to offer the captaincy to Sutcliffe in 1927 was because he was not perceived to be the typical professional. Sutcliffe set high standards for himself and was determined to get on in life, as well as cricket, and make a lot of money. Wally Hammond, who eventually did turn amateur and captained England, was another example. Sutcliffe took pains to modify his accent and, as Neville Cardus commented, Sutcliffe eventually spoke "not with the accents of Yorkshire but of Teddington". Cardus remarked on the Savile Row suits worn by Sutcliffe and Hammond: "The county cricketer has in certain instances become a man of bourgeois profession". But Bill Bowes, an ex-grammar school boy who had benefited from educational reforms that were unavailable to Sutcliffe and the older professionals, regarded Sutcliffe as a hero. Writing about Sutcliffe, Bowes pointed out that Sutcliffe was "no ordinary man" and stressed that "professionalism was very important to him".
Cardus wrote:
[Of his batting] Sutcliffe had style... But it was his eternal vigilance, his keen eye and a mind that could move and anticipate, which were his assets, plus his Yorkshire realism and his Yorkshire tenacity of character. Immaculate in flannels, his hair burnished by the sun, the cynosure of all the women's and girls' eyes, a cricketer of manners, symbol of the new urban social consciousness, none the less he could be fitted into the Yorkshire scheme and body and atmosphere, after all.
In his Wisden obituary, the editor wrote that "...neither Pudsey nor any other nursery could have claimed Herbert Sutcliffe as a typical product. He was a Yorkshireman in his loyalty and training, but he was cosmopolitan in approach and outlook. His manner fitted Lord's as expressively as it fitted Leeds".
Trevor Bailey, writing in the 1981 Wisden about cricketers' hairstyles, said that Sutcliffe's was "black patent-leather glinting in the sun, complete with the straightest of partings".
For his part, Sutcliffe explained to Bowes that "Lord Hawke had lifted professional cricket from knee to shoulder level and even Lord Hawke always wanted it back again". But Hawke never could get it back because professionalism had evolved as society had changed and the likes of Sutcliffe and Hammond were establishing a respectability for their job, as noted by Stuart Surridge, that enabled them and some of their successors to join the establishment.
Batting
Sutcliffe's greatest qualities as an opening batsman were perhaps his even temperament and his penchant for big occasions. It is significant that his Test batting average was substantially better than his overall first-class one. He is especially remembered for his partnerships with Hobbs for England and with Holmes for Yorkshire. One of the main factors in these partnerships was mutual understanding, especially when it came to their judgment of singles, and Sutcliffe was involved in relatively few run outs when batting with either Hobbs or Holmes.
John Arlott wrote that Sutcliffe was a batsman of "immense application and thought". Arlott listed his main qualities as sound defence, powerful offside driving and "arguably the best hooker of his age". But above all, says Arlott, Sutcliffe was "cool, beyond disturbance, the master of survival and the ultimate pragmatist of cricket". Douglas Jardine touched on this point when, describing Sutcliffe's tiredness at the end of the bodyline series, he added that he "feels inclined to think that Sutcliffe rather enjoys appearing to be in difficulties: he so rarely fails to surmount them".
Sutcliffe was noted for his courage when facing the world's fastest bowlers, such as Harold Larwood who paid this tribute to Sutcliffe after his death:
Herbert Sutcliffe needed some getting out. He was a great battler for England and for Yorkshire. He never gave his wicket away unless he was satisfied he had made enough already. With Percy Holmes he formed just about the finest opening partnership I bowled against. I got him out cheaply a few times, but he scored a few hundreds against my bowling, so I reckon we ended up just about square.
Ian Peebles wrote of him:
Where he was unexcelled was in the courage, determination and concentration he brought to the job in hand. Never flustered, and certainly never intimidated, he was at his best on the big or testing occasion.
Sutcliffe told Fred Trueman that, although some batsmen can play fast bowling and some can't, "if everybody told the truth, no one really likes it". Trueman speaks of Sutcliffe's unselfish attitude when batting as "he didn't hog the limelight". Rather, he was a "severely practical performer (who) had to cut out the frills as an opening batsman". Sutcliffe's job was to "lay the foundations" of the innings; his main qualifications were having "the ideal temperament" and being "a magnificent judge of line and length".
Sutcliffe lacked the "polished elegance of Hobbs" as he was "essentially a practical batsman with a superb judgment of length, pace and direction". He stood with the face of the bat very open (i.e., to the bowler) so that he could present its full width to the ball every delivery. He was noted as a firm striker off the front foot who also had efficient use of the pull and hook shots. The 1933 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack said of Sutcliffe, in respect of the record partnership with Percy Holmes in 1932, that "like practically all great batsmen, he was generally at much pains to play himself in, and at all times his cricket – even when well set – proved rather more restrained than the situation warranted". The report goes on to say that Sutcliffe "undoubtedly felt a heavy responsibility rested upon him" but concluded by remarking on "how he could hit when he considered he might set about run-getting in light-hearted fashion".
As with all great players, much of Sutcliffe's success was down to hard work. In a contribution to the 1932 edition of Wisden, Lord Hawke said of Sutcliffe that "nobody I know trained, and trains, harder or more conscientiously than Sutcliffe. I ascribe much of his success to that fact".
In an evaluation of Jack Hobbs, Simon Wilde wrote that, amongst English batsmen, until Wally Hammond came to the fore in the late 1920s:
Second in line was undoubtedly the cool, methodical Sutcliffe, Hobbs's trusted opening partner for England, whose average of 66.85 in Ashes matches is the second-highest amongst batsmen with 1,000 runs, 23 points behind Bradman's and 12 ahead of Hobbs's. In his first series against Australia, in 1924–25, Sutcliffe outscored Hobbs, but Hobbs returned home and reaffirmed his position with a record-breaking season in England. Sutcliffe, who began his days as a stylist, later made the most of his abilities with powers of defence and concentration rarely, if ever, seen before (Bradman said Sutcliffe had the best temperament of any cricketer he saw). But Sutcliffe himself conceded that he did not possess the gifts of Hobbs, Hammond or Hutton.
The late R. C. Robertson-Glasgow had written of Sutcliffe a tribute that Wisden appended to Sutcliffe's obituary:
[He] was the serenest batsman I have known. Whatever may have passed under that calm brow – anger, joy, disagreement, surprise, relief, triumph – no outward sign was betrayed on the field of play. When I first saw him, in 1919, he was a debonair and powerful stylist. As you bowled opening overs to the later Sutcliffe you noticed the entire development of every defensive art; the depressingly straight bat, the astute use of pads (as with Hobbs), the sharp detection of which out-swinger could be left; above all, the consistently safe playing down of a rising or turning ball on leg stump, or thighs.
A. A. Thomson wrote of him:
The fact is that for the whole inter-war period he was England's and Yorkshire's anchor-man, a personality as dependable as fallible human nature will allow, This does not mean that he was slow or stodgy... He lacked the polished artistry of Hobbs or the sheer princely quality of Hammond or the delightful impertinence of Holmes, but he lacked nothing else... His spirit warmed to the fight like that of an ancient warrior. His manner was suave; his hair immaculate; his voice quiet; but he revealed his truest self, after his 161 in the 1926 Oval Test, surely the most truly Sutcliffian innings of his life, when he said: 'Yes, Mr. Warner, I love a dogfight...'
Bowling and fielding
Although Sutcliffe as a boy was thought to have potential as a bowler, he specialised in batting to the extent that he only bowled 993 deliveries, with 31 maiden overs, in his entire first-class career. He bowled a straightforward right-arm medium pace with little success, his best figures being 3–15 while his career average was a very high 40.21.
As a fielder, Sutcliffe generally played in the outfield, where he was a quick retriever of the ball and had a very good throwing arm. As a young man he could throw a cricket ball over 100 yards. He was usually a safe catcher and, in his career, took 23 catches in 54 Tests and 474 in 754 first-class matches.
Famous partnerships
Holmes and Sutcliffe
The 1919 season saw the beginning of a famous Yorkshire opening partnership that endured for 15 seasons until Percy Holmes retired. Holmes and Sutcliffe were eulogised as Yorkshire's "heavenly twins". A flavour of the Holmes-Sutcliffe partnership was captured by The Cricketer in a profile written in 1921:
There is usually a hum of expectancy when Holmes and Sutcliffe appear, their faces wreathed in smiles, and chatting happily together. They seem to be sharing some all-absorbing joke. Holmes, proudly wearing his Yorkshire cap, walks with quick, short steps, shoulders erect and head in the air, doing his best to look as tall as (John) Tunnicliffe. Sutcliffe has dark, glossy hair and usually disdains the valued White Rose cap when batting. He strolls casually along by the side of Percy, keeping his weather eye open for the wicket-keeper's end and the honour of taking the first ball.
Holmes and Sutcliffe shared 74 century stands in all first-class matches including 69 for Yorkshire. 19 of these exceeded 200 and 4 were over 300, including their world record stand of 555 at Leyton in 1932. Yorkshire won the title 8 times in the seasons that Holmes and Sutcliffe opened the innings together.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe
In September 1922, Sutcliffe played in a Scarborough Festival match for C I Thornton's XI against MCC and, for the first time, was paired with Jack Hobbs in an opening partnership. They put on 120 in their only innings until Hobbs was out for 45; Sutcliffe went on to make 111.
Following his successful season with Yorkshire in 1922, Sutcliffe was in contention for a place on the England tour of South Africa in the winter of 1922–23, especially as Jack Hobbs declined to tour. The selectors evidently felt that Sutcliffe was not yet ready but they were, "as events would prove, wise to delay his promotion" as it ensured that Sutcliffe would have Hobbs as his "influential guide on the international stage". Percy Holmes was also overlooked and England's openers in the 1922–23 series were Andy Sandham, Frank Mann and Jack Russell.
The partnership of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, opening the innings together for England from 1924 to 1930, is the most famous in cricket history. With partnerships of 136 and 268 in their first two Test matches together, they were a success from the start and The Cricketer said:
Hobbs is undoubtedly the sauciest run-stealer in the world today. In Sutcliffe, he has found the ideal partner in the felony, for the Yorkshireman unhesitatingly responds to his calls, showing absolute confidence in Hobbs' judgement.
England wicket-keeper Les Ames, himself a top-class batsman, commented on their running together between the wickets by emphasising the placement of the stroke, which was so correct that they could "just play and run". Ames said they were not fast runners and that "Herbert only strolled".
Sutcliffe readily acknowledged his debt to his "influential guide" by naming his eldest son after him and writing, in a booklet published in 1927, that he doubted if Hobbs had an equal and that, as a batsman, "he stands alone (and is) the best I have ever seen". Sutcliffe expressed the view that if W G Grace was as good as Jack Hobbs, "then he must have been wonderful". He said that Hobbs' earliest advice to him had been simply: "Play your own game". Sutcliffe commented: "Four words – they counted for so much. They told me all I wanted to know".
Ian Peebles wrote that Sutcliffe's association with Hobbs "is judged, by results and all-round efficiency in all conditions", the greatest of all first-wicket partnerships and "will probably never be excelled". Peebles said that there lay between the two an "extraordinary understanding, manifested in their perfect and unhesitating judgment of the short single".
The last Test match in which Hobbs and Sutcliffe played together was the final one at The Oval, Hobbs' home ground, in the 1930 series against Australia. But the partnership was revived at the 1931 Scarborough Festival when they produced two double-century stands, first for the Players against the Gentlemen and then for H D G Leveson-Gower's XI against the New Zealand tourists. Their last partnership was for the Players at Lord's in 1932, an innings in which Hobbs carried his bat for 161 not out. Hobbs' biographer Ronald Mason summarised the association of Hobbs and Sutcliffe thus:
Behind them were nine years of wonderful attainment, 26 opening partnerships of 100 or more; a legendary technique and repute unequalled by any other pair; the lean, active quizzical Hobbs and the neat, wiry imperturbable Sutcliffe, who set a standard that can serve as a guide, but defied all attempts at emulation.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe made 15 century opening partnerships for England in Test matches, including 11 against Australia, and 11 in other first-class matches.
Sutcliffe and Hutton
Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career.
Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protégé but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel – the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him".
The master–apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle".
Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest.
Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice.
Noted opponents
As a specialist opening batsman, Sutcliffe's rivals on the field were the opposing bowlers and especially fast bowlers, though he encountered many outstanding spin bowlers too on turning or sticky wickets.
By the time Sutcliffe began his Test career, the formidable fast bowling partnership of Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald had ended, though Sutcliffe faced Gregory in Test matches and was opposed to McDonald in "Roses matches" between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Gregory by 1924–25 was no longer able to "frighten batsmen with sheer speed" but he still commanded respect and Jack Hobbs specifically told Sutcliffe to exercise caution against Gregory at the start of an innings. Sutcliffe regarded McDonald as "one of the best bowlers I ever met". He commented on McDonald's trick of "resting" by making himself seem tired and then "hurling himself into (a very fast delivery) like a demon". As Sutcliffe said, he never knew which ball would be the fast one and McDonald was a dangerous opponent.
But Sutcliffe was quoted as saying that he had "never played finer fast bowling" than that of the West Indians Learie Constantine, George Francis, Herman Griffith and Manny Martindale. Among the best English bowlers he faced in county cricket were some of his colleagues in England teams, such as Harold Larwood, Maurice Tate and Tich Freeman.
One of the toughest competitors he faced was the Australian leg spinner Clarrie Grimmett, "a tiny gnome of a man", who bowled with a roundarm action and made his Test debut at the age of 34, taking 11 wickets in his first match. Grimmett bowled "like a miser" and "begrudged every run", whereas his leg spin partner Arthur Mailey was the type of bowler who would "buy" his wickets by conceding runs and then, having boosted the batsman's confidence, snaring him with a "wrong 'un" (i.e., a googly). On Sutcliffe's first tour of Australia, he commented that he "was troubled most of the time by Arthur Mailey" but eventually he learned how to "differentiate between Mailey's leg breaks and his wrong 'uns".
Records
Fastest in world to reach 1,000 Test runs (later equalled by Everton Weekes) by achieving the feat in the 12th innings of his career.
Personal and business life
Sutcliffe married Emily ("Emmie") Pease at Pudsey Parish Church in September 1921. She had been a personal secretary to Richard Ingham, a mill owner who had introduced Sutcliffe to Pudsey St Lawrence. They had three children, two sons called Billy and John; and a daughter called Barbara. Billy Sutcliffe, whose middle name was Hobbs, played for Yorkshire between 1948 and 1957, captaining the team in the last two seasons of his career.
At the end of the 1924–25 tour of Australia, Sutcliffe and his Yorkshire colleague George Macaulay went into business together as a sports outfitting company with shops in Leeds and Wakefield. However, Macaulay withdrew from the business after a year and it became a Sutcliffe family concern until it folded in the 1990s. The business thrived while Sutcliffe was playing cricket and established itself as one of the leading sports goods retailers in the north of England. Sutcliffe ceased to have an active role in 1948 when he handed over the management to his son Billy.
Sutcliffe became the northern area representative, and eventually a director, of a paper manufacturer called Thomas Owen which was later amalgamated into Wiggins Teape. This firm also employed Douglas Jardine as company secretary, while Maurice Leyland, Bill Edrich and Len Hutton were other area representatives.
Sutcliffe developed severe arthritis in his old age, the disease crippling him to the extent that he needed a wheelchair. He suffered personal tragedy in April 1974 when his wife Emmie, then aged 74, died as result of severe burns following a fire at the family home in Ilkley. He was finally admitted to a Cross Hills nursing home in North Yorkshire where he died in January 1978 at the age of 83.
Footnotes
• a) Note that there are different versions of Sutcliffe's first-class career totals as a result of his participation in the 1930–31 Indian season. See Variations in first-class cricket statistics for more information.
References
Bibliography
John Arlott, Arlott on Cricket (ed. David Rayvern Allen), Collins, 1984
John Arlott, Portrait of the Master, Penguin, 1982
Barclays World of Cricket, 3rd edition, (ed. E. W. Swanton), Willow Books, 1986. Article on Sutcliffe written by Ian Peebles.
Derek Birley, A Social History of English Cricket, Aurum, 1999
Neville Cardus, Close of Play, Sportsmans Book Club edition, 1957, "Sutcliffe and Yorkshire", pp. 1–10
Bill Frindall, The Wisden Book of Cricket Records, Queen Anne Press, 1986,
Alan Gibson, The Cricket Captains of England, Cassell, 1979
Alan Hill, Herbert Sutcliffe: Cricket Maestro, Stadia, 2007 (2nd edition)
Douglas Jardine, In Quest of the Ashes, Methuen, 2005
Ronald Mason, Jack Hobbs, Sportsman's Book Club, 1961
Pelham Warner, Lords: 1787–1945, Harrap, 1946
Pelham Warner, Cricket Between Two Wars, Sporting Handbooks, 1946
Roy Webber, The County Cricket Championship, Sportsman's Book Club, 1958
Simon Wilde, Number One: The World's Best Batsmen and Bowlers, Gollancz, 1998,
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, various editions from 1920 to 1946
Graeme Wright, A Wisden Collection, Wisden, 2004
External links
Notes by the Editor – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1928 (online archive)
Herbert Sutcliffe's obituary – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1979 (online archive)
1894 births
1978 deaths
British Army personnel of World War I
England cricket team selectors
England Test cricketers
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English cricketers of 1919 to 1945
Green Howards officers
People from Nidderdale
Players cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Yorkshire cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
North v South cricketers
Cricketers from Pudsey
H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers
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C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers
Royal Army Ordnance Corps officers
Sherwood Foresters soldiers
British Army personnel of World War II
Military personnel from Yorkshire
Marylebone Cricket Club Australian Touring Team cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club South African Touring Team cricketers | true | [
"Achill GFC is a Gaelic football club which represents Achill Island and the Currane Peninsula. The club was founded in 1941. Although the area was not new to Gaelic games, there never existed a club as such to bring together the footballers of the numerous villages to play as one team and represent the parish itself. The Junior footballers contested their first ever West Mayo Championship in 1942 and not only did they win that, they also proceeded to capture the County title. They have recently announced that they will have won a Junior County title by 2024.\n\nHistory\n\nAchievements\n Mayo Junior Football Championship: (6)\n 1942, 1965, 1983, 1991, 1995, 2007\n West Mayo Junior Football Championship: (9)\n 1942, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1958, 1965, 1983, 1991, 1995\n Mayo Juvenile Football Championship: (1) \n 1964\n\nReferences\n\nExternal sources\nAchill GAA website\n\nAchill Island\nGaelic Athletic Association clubs in County Mayo",
"Stasys Razma (18 July 1898 – 30 July 1960) was a Lithuanian footballer who competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics.\n\nRazma was in the side that played in Lithuania's first ever international in 1923 against Estonia, which they lost 5–0, the following year he was called to play in his national side's first ever Olympic match which was in Paris, France, but the inexperienced side lost 9–0 to Switzerland so did not advance any further in the competition. Razma went on to play three more international matches including a 2–1 victory against Estonia, the country's first ever international win.\n\nReferences\n\n1898 births\n1960 deaths\nSportspeople from Kaunas\nLithuanian footballers\nAssociation football defenders\nLithuania international footballers\nFootballers at the 1924 Summer Olympics\nOlympic footballers of Lithuania"
]
|
[
"Herbert Sutcliffe",
"Sutcliffe and Hutton",
"Who is Hutton?",
"Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege",
"Did they ever play together?",
"Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934"
]
| C_c762f7f31b37415eb25b09830029cbed_1 | Did they win that match? | 3 | Did Sutcliffe and Hutton win the championship match in 1934? | Herbert Sutcliffe | Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career. Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel - the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him". The master-apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle". Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest. Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Herbert Sutcliffe (24 November 1894 – 22 January 1978) was an English professional cricketer who represented Yorkshire and England as an opening batsman. Apart from one match in 1945, his first-class career spanned the period between the two world wars. His first-class debut was delayed by the First World War until 1919 and his career was effectively terminated in August 1939 when he was called up for military service in the imminent Second World War.
He was the first cricketer to score 16 centuries in Test match cricket.
A right-handed batsman, Sutcliffe was noted for his concentration and determination, qualities which made him invaluable to his teams in adverse batting conditions; and he is remembered as one of the game's finest "bad wicket batsmen". His fame rests mainly in the great opening partnership he formed with Jack Hobbs for England between 1924 and 1930. He also formed notable opening partnerships at Yorkshire with Percy Holmes and, in his last few seasons, the young Len Hutton. During Sutcliffe's career, Yorkshire won the County Championship 12 times. Sutcliffe played in 54 Test matches for England and on three occasions he toured Australia, where he enjoyed outstanding success. His last tour in 1932–33 included the controversial "bodyline" series, in which Sutcliffe is perceived to have been one of Douglas Jardine's main supporters. Although close friends have stated that Sutcliffe did not approve of bodyline, he always acted out of fierce loyalty to his team captain and was committed to his team's cause. In statistical terms, Sutcliffe was one of the most successful Test batsmen ever; his completed career batting average was 60.73 which is the highest by any English batsman and the seventh-highest worldwide (of Test batsmen with 20 completed innings) behind only Don Bradman, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Adam Voges, Graeme Pollock and George Headley.
Sutcliffe became a successful businessman early in his first-class career by using the money he earned as a player to establish a sportswear shop in Leeds. When his playing career ended, he served on the club committee at Yorkshire for 21 years and for three years was an England Test selector. Among the honours accorded him have been the commemoration of a special set of gates in his name at Headingley, home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and his induction into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Early years
Childhood
Herbert Sutcliffe was born in Summerbridge, Nidderdale, West Riding of Yorkshire on 24 November 1894 at his parents' home, a cottage in Gabblegate (now called East View). His parents were Willie and Jane Sutcliffe. Herbert was the second of three sons, his brothers being Arthur and Bob. Willie Sutcliffe, who worked at a sawmill in nearby Dacre Banks, was a keen club cricketer.
When Herbert was still a baby the family moved to Pudsey, where Willie's father was the landlord of the King's Arms. Willie worked in the pub and played cricket for the well-known Pudsey St Lawrence Cricket Club. He also played rugby football, and an injury sustained during a rugby match led to his premature death in 1898.
Jane Sutcliffe moved the family back to Nidderdale, where they lived in Darley, the boys enrolling at Darley School, and she remarried. Jane developed consumption, and she died in January 1904 at the age of 37, when Herbert was nine. Jane's second husband was a bootmaker called Tom Waller but he was not allowed custody of the brothers who moved back to Pudsey to be cared for by the Sutcliffe family. Willie Sutcliffe had three sisters, Sarah, Carrie and Harriet, who ran a bakery. They became the legal guardians of Arthur, Herbert and Bob, respectively.
As the three aunts were devoted members of the local Congregational Church, the three boys received religious instruction there and Herbert became a lifelong committed Christian. He was a Sunday School teacher as a young man and first came to notice as a cricketer when he played for a church team. The boys lived in the family house which contained the bakery and slept in a loft above the bakehouse itself.
Herbert left school in 1908 when he was 13, and was apprenticed to a boot and shoe company as a "clicker" who fastened boot soles to uppers. In 1911, his prowess at cricket earned him an offer of clerical employment in a local textile mill, where he learnt bookkeeping, a skill that served him well when he launched his own business career.
Development as a cricketer
Sutcliffe became seriously interested in cricket at the age of eight, soon after he returned to Pudsey during his mother's final illness. He formed an ambition to follow his father and two uncles and play for Pudsey St Lawrence. His first club was a Wesleyan church team in the neighbouring village of Stanningley, where he was first seen as a bowler rather than a batsman. In one match in 1907, he took all 10 wickets in an innings.
In 1908, now aged 13, he began playing for Pudsey St Lawrence's second team. The following year, Sutcliffe made his first-team debut. Two of his team-mates were Major Booth and Henry Hutton, father of Len Hutton.
In 1911, now aged 16, Sutcliffe switched his allegiance to the rival Pudsey Britannia club where, he is quoted as saying, "my batting improved by leaps and bounds". This move came about because of the offer of clerical employment at the textile mill, which was owned by Ernest Walker who was also the Britannia club captain. Sutcliffe later said that Walker allowed him more time for cricket practice than he could get from his bootmaking job.
The following season, Sutcliffe's progress was noted by Yorkshire County Cricket Club and he was invited to take part in the county team practice sessions at Headingley. He was welcomed by the great George Herbert Hirst, who gave him much encouragement and advice. Soon afterwards, he was invited to play for the Yorkshire 2nd XI team.
Sutcliffe was coached at Headingley by Hirst and the club's 2nd XI coach, Steve Doughty, who placed great emphasis on the importance of pad play (the use of the pads to intercept the ball and prevent it hitting the wicket when this would not risk being out leg before wicket). Although Doughty's approach was criticised by Sutcliffe's colleagues at Pudsey Britannia, Sutcliffe himself had no regrets about the time he spent mastering the technique and later explained that swing bowling had been so well developed by bowlers in every county team that it was impossible for any batsman to keep his wicket by relying on his bat alone. The long-term benefit he derived was a very strong defence that he later used to great effect on treacherous pitches.
By 1914, Sutcliffe had become the most accomplished player in the Bradford League in which Pudsey Britannia played. He was playing both for Yorkshire 2nd XI and Pudsey Britannia at this time. In August, just as the First World War was beginning, he appeared for the 2nd XI at Beverley against an East Riding XI and opened the batting for the first time as a Yorkshire player. He made a half-century in the second innings and the Cricket Argus commented that "he was confident and stylish in... his best performance for the second eleven". The Argus went on to say that Sutcliffe, with youth on his side, "looks every inch a cricketer (with) a variety of good strokes". In the Bradford League, Sutcliffe scored a then-record 727 runs in the season, which was beaten in 1916 by his future England opening partner Jack Hobbs.
Military service and demobilisation
Sutcliffe was called up in 1915 and served first with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, stationed at York, and then with the Sherwood Foresters. He was later commissioned into the Green Howards, now part of the Yorkshire Regiment, as a Second Lieutenant, but he did not see active service and was not posted to France until after the Armistice was signed.
Sutcliffe played cricket during the war for the Officer Cadet Battalion in Scotland, captaining his team in matches against Glasgow University and other Scottish teams. He still managed to play in the Bradford League on occasion, but he said that he sometimes did so under an assumed name after taking unofficial leave.
Sutcliffe was demobilised in 1919 and took a job as a colliery checkweighman at Allerton Bywater in Yorkshire. He was contracted to play for the colliery's cricket team in the Yorkshire Council league, but he was selected at the beginning of the 1919 season to play again for Yorkshire 2nd XI. However he retained the colliery job until he opened his sportswear shop in 1924.
First-class debut
The war had delayed the start of Sutcliffe's first-class career with Yorkshire and he was 24 when his chance finally came. In May 1919, he played for the county's 2nd XI against a full-strength 1st XI and did very well, scoring 51 not out. He received a good report in the Yorkshire Post and never played for the 2nd XI again. Yorkshire's first County Championship fixture after the war took place on 26 and 27 May at Bristol against Gloucestershire and Sutcliffe, batting at number 6, made his first-class debut. Yorkshire batted first, after losing the toss, and Sutcliffe made 11 in a total of 277 (Roy Kilner 112). Despite that seemingly modest score, Yorkshire won by an innings and 63 runs as Gloucestershire were bowled out twice for 125 and 89.
1919 to 1927
Sutcliffe kept his place in the Yorkshire team and continued to bat in the middle of the order for a month until, in the match against Nottinghamshire at Bramall Lane on 27 and 28 June, Wilfred Rhodes decided to drop down the order for the 2nd innings and Sutcliffe went in first with Percy Holmes. After some indifferent scores, he completed his maiden first-class century on 23 and 24 July against Northamptonshire at Northampton when he and Holmes put on 279 for the first wicket, Sutcliffe scoring 145 and Holmes 133. Further success resulted in Holmes and Sutcliffe being awarded their county caps in August 1919. Sutcliffe created a debut season record by scoring 1,839 runs at an average of 44.85 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 174 against Kent at Crabble Athletic Ground in Dover. Holmes and Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries each in 1919 and they shared in 5 century partnerships. Their performances were key to Yorkshire winning the championship that season for the 10th time in all.
As a result of their success in 1919, Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe were both awarded a Wisden Cricketer of the Year title in 1920. In the accompanying review, Wisden commented on Sutcliffe's pre-war development and the benefits that both he and Holmes derived from Steve Doughty's coaching. Sutcliffe's "fine driving" was commended but it was noted that "he may not yet be quite so strong in defence".
By his 1919 standards, Sutcliffe had two quiet years in 1920 and 1921. He was well down the national averages in 1920 with 1,393 runs at 33.16 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 131. In 1921, he did not score a century and made 1,235 runs at 30.12.
In 1922, as Yorkshire regained the County Championship title under new captain Geoffrey Wilson, Sutcliffe lived up to his early promise by scoring 2,020 runs at 46.97 with a highest score of 232 against Surrey at the Oval. He scored 11 half-centuries but only 2 centuries. Sutcliffe was one of seven Yorkshire players who were ever-present, playing in all 30 matches.
Sutcliffe's career advanced in 1923 when he made his first appearances in the North v South and Gentlemen v Players fixtures and in a Test Trial. His overall record in 1923 was 2,220 runs at 41.11 with 3 centuries, 15 fifties and a highest score of 139 against Somerset. The Yorkshire cricket historian Alfred Pullin wrote: "it was recognised long before the season ended that Sutcliffe had established his claim to be considered one of England's first-wicket batsmen".
In the 1924 season, Yorkshire completed a hat-trick of championships under Geoffrey Wilson and Sutcliffe enjoyed probably his best season to date, scoring 2,142 runs at 48.68 with 6 centuries including a highest score of 255 not out against Essex. He made his Test debut on Saturday, 14 June 1924, playing for England against South Africa at Edgbaston and opening the innings with Jack Hobbs. In this First Test, which England won by an innings, they recorded their first century partnership for England by putting on 136 before Sutcliffe was out for 64. In the Second Test at Lord's, Hobbs and Sutcliffe scored 268 before Sutcliffe was out for 122, his maiden Test century; Hobbs went on to make 211 and England again won by an innings. In the whole series, Sutcliffe scored 303 runs at 75.75.
As early as July, Sutcliffe was one of ten players named to tour Australia in the winter of 1924–25 under the leadership of Arthur Gilligan. At first, Hobbs declined the tour but then changed his mind when it was decided his wife would accompany him. The importance of this to Sutcliffe was that his partnership with Hobbs could continue at the very highest level of cricket where the presence of Hobbs was ultimately the key factor in Sutcliffe's major success on the tour, which established him as a world-class player. Sutcliffe said he had some initial difficulty in adjusting to Australian conditions, specifically the strong light which affected his timing. He also reckoned that the pitches were a good four yards faster than in England. His remedy was to play straight and by hitting the ball back down the pitch. He said later that he sacrificed many of his best shots, but "it paid off in the end". This is shown by his overall performance as, although England lost the series 4–1, Sutcliffe scored 734 runs in the five Tests at an average of 81.55 with 4 centuries, 2 half-centuries and a highest score of 176. In the whole tour, he scored 1,250 runs at 69.44 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 188.
In 1925, as Yorkshire won a 4th successive championship, Sutcliffe scored 2,308 runs at 53.67 with 7 centuries and a highest score of 235 against Middlesex at Headingley. During 1925 and 1926, Sutcliffe's skill was a primary factor in Yorkshire having the longest unbeaten run in county cricket: i.e., 70 matches without loss until early 1927. After three defeats in 1927, Yorkshire went a further 58 games without loss until 1929.
The first four Tests of the 1926 England v Australia series were scheduled for just three days and were all curtailed by poor weather. The final Test at the Oval was timeless to ensure a finish. It has become one of the most famous matches in cricket history, not because England regained the Ashes for the first time since 1912 but for the manner it which it was achieved as Hobbs and Sutcliffe produced their most famous partnership in treacherous batting conditions. Australia had a narrow first innings lead of 22 and, at close of play on the second day (a Monday), Hobbs and Sutcliffe had taken the England second innings score to 49–0, a lead of 27. Heavy rain fell overnight and next day, as the sun shone, the pitch soon developed into a "sticky wicket" on which it was generally assumed that England would be bowled out cheaply and so lose both the match and the series. But, in spite of the very difficult batting conditions, Hobbs and Sutcliffe put up a great defence of their wickets and gradually increased their partnership to 172 before Hobbs was out for exactly 100. Sutcliffe went on to make 161 and, in the end, England won the game comfortably, by 289 runs, and regained the Ashes. The tributes paid to Hobbs and Sutcliffe after this partnership are extensive. Pelham Warner perhaps encapsulated them all when he wrote: "Hobbs and Sutcliffe won it for us by their incomparable batting. They did not fail us at a time of most desperate crisis. Never has English cricket known a more dauntless pair".
In the 1926 County Championship, Yorkshire lost the title despite being unbeaten to their close rivals Lancashire by a very narrow margin. Sutcliffe was 2nd in the national batting averages behind Hobbs, scoring 2,528 runs at 66.52 with 8 centuries and a highest score of exactly 200 against Leicestershire. In the 1927 County Championship, Yorkshire finished 3rd but it was another great season for both Holmes and Sutcliffe who scored over 4,500 runs and 12 centuries between them. Sutcliffe scored 2,414 runs at 56.13 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 227 for England versus The Rest.
In the autumn of 1927, the Yorkshire committee decided to appoint Sutcliffe as team captain in succession to Arthur Lupton, who had retired. He would thus have become the first professional to captain the side since 1882 but, as Wisden records, "objection was taken to this action by two different parties". There were those who supported the view that no professional should be captain; and significant opposition also came from a large number of members who argued that, if a professional were to be appointed, it should be Wilfred Rhodes rather than Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe himself was en route to South Africa while most of the furore developed and had to rely on telegrams for his news. When first advised of the appointment, he sent a reply that spoke of the great honour and his desire to serve Yorkshire and England. But he was better apprised of the controversy when he arrived in Cape Town and finally sent a message that he was declining the offer but willing to serve under any other captain.
1928 to 1932
During the five years 1928 to 1932, Sutcliffe played 181 matches (254 innings) in which he was not out 36 times, scoring 15,529 runs for a total average of 70.35.
Sutcliffe made his only tour of South Africa in 1927–28, playing in 14 matches and scoring 1,030 runs at 51.50 with 2 centuries and a highest score of 102. He was able to open the England innings with Holmes, Hobbs having declined the tour, and made his score of 102 in the first innings of the First Test at the Old Wanderers ground in Johannesburg, England winning by 10 wickets.
In 1928, Sutcliffe scored 3,000 runs in a season for the first time, a feat he repeated in 1931 and 1932, becoming the first player to achieve it three times. Only Patsy Hendren and Wally Hammond have equalled the feat. Sutcliffe's 1928 tally was 3,002 at 76.97 with a highest score of 228 among 13 centuries and 13 half-centuries. He played in all three Tests against West Indies in 1928. This was West Indies' inaugural Test series and their batsmen struggled against a strong England attack so that England was able to win all three Tests by an innings. But Sutcliffe was very impressed by the fast bowling of Learie Constantine, George Francis and Herman Griffith and said of them during the Lord's Test that he had "never played finer fast bowling".
Under the leadership of Percy Chapman, Sutcliffe toured Australia again in 1928–29 with Hobbs as his opening partner. England won the first two Tests before Hobbs and Sutcliffe played major roles in one of the most famous Test matches ever at Melbourne. Australia won the toss and batted first, making 397 thanks to centuries by Alan Kippax and Jack Ryder. England scored 417 with 200 by Hammond and 58 by Sutcliffe. Australia then scored 351 with 107 by their captain Bill Woodfull and a maiden Test century by Don Bradman. This left England needing 332 to win. Australia had ended the 5th day of a timeless match on 347–8 and the pitch was showing increasing signs of wear. Overnight, a storm broke and soaked the pitch which, as the sun shone on it through the morning, became what Bradman later described as "the worst sticky I ever saw". Even Wisden admitted that it "may fittingly be described as a beastly wicket". Play on the sixth day did not begin until 12:51 and Australia's last two wickets quickly fell with just 4 runs added to their overnight total. Clem Hill reckoned that the state of the pitch was such that "odds of ten to one against an England success would be generous" and Hugh Trumble reportedly told Jack Hobbs that 70 would be a good total. Wisden recorded that "then it was that the wonderful skill of these two (Hobbs and Sutcliffe) showed itself so prominently for, with the ball turning and getting up almost straight, they put on 105 for the first wicket... the two batsmen rendered England splendid service by an historic stand and made victory probable". Having survived the last 5 minutes before lunch, they added 75 in the afternoon session when "the ball was turning and at other times getting up almost straight". Hobbs had nearly been dismissed early on when a catch was dropped but the two batsmen played with "remarkable footwork, masterly defence and unerring skill in a difficult situation". Hobbs was out when the score had reached 105 and then Sutcliffe added another 94 in partnership with Douglas Jardine as the wicket eased and close of play was safely reached with the total at 171–1 (Sutcliffe 83 not out). Next morning, with conditions much more favourable, Sutcliffe batted on until he was finally out for 135 with the total on 318–4 and only 14 more needed. There was a slight scare as three more wickets fell, including Chapman who was caught at cover when trying for the winning hit. But the runs were obtained and England had won a famous victory against the odds by 3 wickets. Sutcliffe later said that he considered this to have been his finest innings ever. Jardine later wrote about the number of times Hobbs and Sutcliffe were hit "all over the body" during their stand and made the point that, if a batsman is to make runs on an Australian sticky wicket, then being hit by the ball is inevitable.
In 1929, Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries against the South African tourists. The first was 113 for Yorkshire in a drawn match at Bramall Lane He then scored four in the Test series, including two in the same match in the Fifth Test at the Oval. His season aggregate was 2,189 runs at 52.11 with 9 centuries and a highest score of 150 against Northamptonshire.
In 1930, Sutcliffe was the leading Englishman in the first-class batting averages behind Don Bradman (i.e., of batsmen with 10 completed innings). In a summer of hot, thundery weather that produced some exceptionally bad pitches, Sutcliffe averaged 87.61 in the four Tests he played in, scoring 161 in the Fifth Test at the Oval. Sutcliffe's first-class aggregate in 1930 was 2,312 runs at 64.22 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 173 against Sussex.
During the winter of 1930–31, Hobbs and Sutcliffe went on a private tour of India and Ceylon that was organised by the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram (popularly known as "Vizzy"). There is debate in some quarters about the status of matches played on this tour, which are not recognised as first-class by Wisden in contrast to certain other publications. The scores were printed in The Cricketer Spring Annual in 1932 and presented as first-class but escaped general notice at the time and were largely ignored until some statisticians took an interest in them in the 1970s. It is known that neither Hobbs nor Sutcliffe thought they were first-class matches; they regarded them as exhibition games arranged for Vizzy's personal entertainment. Nevertheless, Sutcliffe scored 532 runs and 2 centuries in the disputed matches and this has impacted his first-class statistical record with two versions in circulation.
In all first-class cricket in the 1931 season, Sutcliffe scored four centuries in consecutive innings and averaged 96.96, topping the first-class averages for the first time. He totalled 3,006 runs with a highest score of 230 among 13 centuries. Yorkshire historian Jim Kilburn commented on Sutcliffe's general consistency as "almost past believing" while Sutcliffe himself reckoned that his accomplishments in 1931, which was a wet summer, were the best of his entire career.
When Yorkshire played Gloucestershire at Park Avenue, Bradford, in July 1932, Sutcliffe completed his 100th century. He was the first Yorkshire player and the seventh overall to achieve the feat. Having scored 83 in the first innings, he reached his target with 132 in the second. Yorkshire won the match by 133 runs. Yorkshire honoured the occasion by presenting Sutcliffe with a cheque for 100 guineas, repeating Surrey's reward paid to Jack Hobbs when he scored his 100th century. In Yorkshire's match against Essex at Leyton, Holmes and Sutcliffe set a world record partnership for any wicket of 555. This remained the world record for any wicket till 1945–46 and it was not until 1976–77 that it was beaten for the first wicket. It remains the record partnership for any wicket in England. Sutcliffe's share of the stand was 313, his career highest score. Yorkshire batted first and, at the end of the first day, the score stood at 423–0, with Holmes on 180 and Sutcliffe on 231, already beating their previous best stand of 347 against Hampshire in 1920. Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity then proceeded to bowl Essex out twice and Yorkshire won by an innings and 313 runs.
Sutcliffe scored 3,336 runs in 1932, the highest season total of his career and it included his highest individual score of 313, made in the world record stand at Leyton. He averaged 74.13 with 14 centuries and 9 half-centuries. He became the third batsman after K S Ranjitsinhji and C B Fry to score 1,000 runs in a month twice in the same season, making 1,193 in June and 1,006 in August. His total of 3,336 is the sixth highest season aggregate behind Denis Compton (3,816 in 1947), Bill Edrich (3,539 in 1947), Tom Hayward (3,518 in 1906), Len Hutton (3,429 in 1949) and Frank Woolley (3,352 in 1928). His fourteen centuries in the season have been bettered only by Compton (18 in 1947), Jack Hobbs (16 in 1925) and Wally Hammond (15 in 1938).
1932–33: the "bodyline" tour
In the winter of 1932–33, Sutcliffe was a key member of the England team that toured Australia and New Zealand under the captaincy of Douglas Jardine, taking part in all five Tests of the infamous "bodyline" series. Wisden in its tour summary stated unequivocally that "Jardine, while nothing like the batsman in Australia of four years earlier, captained the side superbly" but he "had one great difficulty which he never successfully overcame". The difficulty was to find a suitable partner for Sutcliffe as opening batsman and Wisden continues by remarking on several experiments tried by Jardine throughout the tour but ends by saying that "no real successor to Hobbs was discovered".
Sutcliffe, who was by now England's senior professional, was part of the England selection committee on the tour along with Jardine, Pelham Warner (team manager), Bob Wyatt (vice-captain) and Wally Hammond. Sutcliffe enjoyed only mixed success with the bat but he did make his career highest Test score of 194 in the First Test at Sydney, which England won by 10 wickets. Overall, he scored 1,318 first-class runs on the Australian leg of the tour at 73.22 with 5 centuries, the highest score being his 194 at Sydney. He was the only English batsman to reach 1,000 runs on this tour. Surprisingly, he had no success in New Zealand where, in 3 appearances, he made just 27 runs.
Australia won the toss at Sydney and decided to bat. Without Bradman, who was ill, they struggled against the pace of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce but, thanks to a brilliant innings of 187 not out by Stan McCabe, they made a creditable 360. England's batsmen had no such troubles and steadily built a total of 524 to claim a first innings lead of 164. Sutcliffe opened with Wyatt and they began with a stand of 112. Wyatt was dismissed for 38 and Sutcliffe then put on 188 for the second wicket with Hammond, who was out at 300–2 for 112. Next man in was Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and he joined Sutcliffe in a third wicket century partnership of 123 before Sutcliffe was finally out for 194 after batting for over 7 hours across the second and third days of the match. The last seven wickets fell for the addition of only 101 more runs. With Larwood taking his second five-wicket haul, Australia could only make 164 to tie the scores and at least make England bat again. Australia was 164–9 at close of play on the fourth day so all that was required on the last day was for Voce to dismiss Bill O'Reilly off the third ball of the morning, without adding to the total, and then Sutcliffe himself to score the solitary run needed to complete an emphatic 10 wicket victory. Wisden recorded that "there were less than a hundred people present to see the finish".
When he had scored 43, he played a ball bowled by O'Reilly onto his stumps but the impact did not shift the bails and so he was not out. Wisden said that "Sutcliffe gave a typical exhibition, being wonderfully sure in defence and certain in his off-driving". There was some criticism of Sutcliffe for scoring slowly at one point in the second half of his innings but Jardine has confirmed that Sutcliffe was playing under his instructions which "right nobly did Sutcliffe carry them out to the letter".
Australia, with Bradman back in their team, won the Second Test at Melbourne by 111 runs. Having been dismissed for 228 in the first innings, they fought back to reduce England to just 169, in which Sutcliffe made the top score of 52. In the second innings, Bradman effectively won the match for Australia by scoring a resilient 103 not out even though his team was dismissed for just 191. Sutcliffe was again England's highest scorer, making 33 of a poor 139 as O'Reilly and Bert Ironmonger took the wickets.
Sutcliffe failed twice in the Third Test at Adelaide, the most controversial match of the tour as it was the one in which the bodyline furore reached its climax. England won by 338 runs but the match was overshadowed by the injuries sustained by Woodfull and Australian wicket-keeper Bert Oldfield and the subsequent heated telegrams and diplomatic row.
England won the Fourth Test at Brisbane by 6 wickets. This time, Sutcliffe opened with Jardine and they put on 114 in the first innings. Sutcliffe scored 86, another top score. England held a narrow lead on first innings and then dismissed Australia for 175. Sutcliffe was out for 2 in the second innings but Leyland held the innings steady and ensured that England won both the match and the series. The Fifth Test at Sydney was therefore academic but England nevertheless won by 8 wickets, Sutcliffe scoring 56 in his only innings.
According to Bob Wyatt, Sutcliffe "backed Jardine to the hilt" on the subject of bowling "bodyline" aka "fast leg theory". Wyatt said that: "Herbert never hesitated in his views about our bowling strategy. He did not see anything wrong about pursuing the tactics". Les Ames agreed with Wyatt's view and said that, though the majority of the England players were morally opposed to Jardine's tactics, Sutcliffe took the pragmatic view that "the ball is there, it's short, so hook it". Sutcliffe himself was an outstanding player of the hook shot but Ames was unsure about how he would have coped with Larwood's accuracy if he had been playing against him. According to Bill O'Reilly, Sutcliffe was the strongest advocate of bodyline and he sometimes acted like an "unofficial captain", even initiating the tactics on his own responsibility. However, a close friend of Sutcliffe insisted that Sutcliffe "was always behind authority" and was absolutely loyal to his captain, but his private views about bodyline were another matter.
1933 to 1939
In 1933, Sutcliffe could not repeat his outstanding form of the 1932 season but he still scored a considerable 2,211 runs at 47.04, although it was his lowest tally in a dry summer since 1921. He completed 7 centuries with a highest score of 205 against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. Sutcliffe scored 304 runs at 50.66 in four Tests against Australia in 1934. His first-class aggregate for the 1934 season was 2,023 runs at 49.34 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 203 against Surrey at the Oval. In 1935, Sutcliffe's Test career ended when he missed the Third Test against South Africa due to a leg injury and then never recovered his place when he was fit again. Wisden's view was that England wished to try out younger players but it pointed out that Sutcliffe "remains a prolific runscorer".
Sutcliffe's record in Test cricket is outstanding. As shown by the adjacent graph, he is the only English batsman who has averaged more than 60 runs per innings in a completed career and his statistical record compares favourably with anyone except Don Bradman. Uniquely, Sutcliffe's batting average never dropped below 60 throughout his entire Test career and Javed Miandad is the only other player whose average never dropped below 50 in a career of at least 20 innings.
The demands of Test cricket behind him, Sutcliffe played in 29 of Yorkshire's 30 County Championship matches in 1936 but his average fell to 33.30, his worst seasonal performance since the early 1920s. His form rallied somewhat in the last three seasons of his career and he formed another outstanding opening partnership with Len Hutton who matured into a Test-class batsman in 1937. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 315 for the first wicket against Leicestershire at Hull in 1937, Sutcliffe scoring 189 and Hutton 153. Sutcliffe faced Australian opposition for the final time in 1938 when he appeared in two matches against the tourists, one in July for Yorkshire at Bramall Lane and the other in September at North Marine Road in a Scarborough Festival match when he played for H D G Leveson Gower's XI.
Yorkshire completed another hat-trick of County Championships in 1939 and, although he was now 44 and certainly a "veteran", Sutcliffe enjoyed a remarkable sequence of four consecutive centuries in May and June which showed any doubters that he was still one of the best opening batsmen around. Sutcliffe was to play one more first-class match in 1945, but his career effectively ended in August 1939 when he played for Yorkshire against Hampshire at Dean Park Cricket Ground, Bournemouth, on Saturday, 26 August and Monday, 28 August. Yorkshire won by an innings and 11 runs in just two days. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 56 before Hutton was out for 37 and Sutcliffe went on to score 51 before he was out at 117–2, leg before wicket to George Heath, who thus took his wicket for the second time in 1939.
Into retirement
As a reservist in the British Army, Sutcliffe was the first Yorkshire player to be called up, in August 1939, as the Second World War became imminent. He missed Yorkshire's final match of the season against Sussex at Hove, which ended on 1 September, the day the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. He rejoined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and attained the rank of major. He did not leave Great Britain during his army service which ended in November 1942. Now aged 48, he was discharged from the army on medical grounds having undergone two operations that year for sinus trouble and a shoulder injury. For the remainder of the war, he divided his time between his sportswear business and charity fundraising.
Like most top-class players, Sutcliffe occasionally played in charity matches during the war, including three to raise money for the Red Cross in 1940. In one of these, he played for a Yorkshire XI against a Bradford League XI at Park Avenue and scored 127, which was his last-ever century. The League team included Eddie Paynter, Manny Martindale and Learie Constantine, who scored a brilliant century in what Sutcliffe described as "a gem of an innings".
Although Alan Gibson described Sutcliffe as "a good public speaker", Sutcliffe himself seems to have been modest about this ability. During the war, he was asked to share a charity event platform with Sir Compton Mackenzie in Bradford. Mackenzie gave a brilliant speech that was well received and Sutcliffe said to him: "Oh, my, how I wish I could speak like you". Mackenzie, who was a keen cricket fan, replied: "You don't wish nearly as much that you could speak like me as I wish I could bat like you".
Sutcliffe had already stated his intention to retire from first-class cricket but nevertheless he returned in August 1945 at the age of 50 for one final match after the war in Europe ended. He captained the Yorkshire team in a match against a Royal Air Force team at North Marine Road in the renewed Scarborough Festival. The match was drawn after being affected by the weather. Sutcliffe batted once, going in at number 5, and scored just 8 runs before being dismissed leg before wicket (lbw) by Bill Edrich.
In 1949, Sutcliffe was accorded honorary membership of MCC and joined what was then a select company of English professionals including George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Jack Hobbs.
Sutcliffe continued to be involved in cricket and his Wisden obituary says: "His repayment to the game which had given him so much was service on the Yorkshire committee, as an England selector, and as sponsor for many good causes in cricket". In a tribute that was published with the obituary, Brian Sellers said: "We served together on the county committee for over 21 years". Sutcliffe was a Test selector for three years from 1959 through 1961, during which England played home series against India, South Africa and Australia.
In February 1963, Yorkshire appointed Sutcliffe a life member of the club and then, in July 1965, his old captain Sir William Worsley, now president of the club, formally opened the Sutcliffe Gates in the St Michael's Lane approach to the Headingley ground. Similar in design to the Hobbs Gates at the Oval, they carry the inscription:
In honour of a great Yorkshire and England cricketer
Sutcliffe retained his interest in cricket for the rest of his life. One of his final public appearances was in 1977 when, in his wheelchair and only a few months before he died, he was photographed at Headingley alongside Len Hutton and Geoff Boycott just after Boycott had emulated Sutcliffe and Hutton by becoming the third Yorkshire batsman to score 100 centuries in his first-class career.
Wisden summarised his career thus:
Herbert Sutcliffe was one of the great cricketers and he brought to cricket as to all his undertakings an assurance and capacity for concentration that positively commanded success. His technical talent matched his character and his achievements were therefore on the highest plane.
On 30 September 2009, Herbert Sutcliffe was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Style and technique
Sutcliffe's approach to cricket
Sutcliffe's approach was essentially to do everything possible to help his team to win the match. His philosophy was that the game was there to be won and not merely to be played. He was determined to keep his wicket intact and, according to Fred Trueman, "he was a terrible man to get out" and "was at his best in a crisis". Sutcliffe's professionalism was reflected in his preparation and off-field demeanour. He took great pride in his appearance and Trueman says he was "always spick and span". Neville Cardus described him thus: "...shiny of hair, black as the raven's, with flannels of fluttering silk, and the confident air of super-Pudsey breeding. A deviation from type, a 'sport' in the evolutionary process!"
Sutcliffe was "unfailingly courteous as a man" and, along with his England colleague Hobbs, "committed to advancing the cause of the professional cricketer". According to Stuart Surridge, "our profession as a respected one started with Jack and Herbert (who) gave us a new status".
One of the main reasons why Yorkshire were prepared to offer the captaincy to Sutcliffe in 1927 was because he was not perceived to be the typical professional. Sutcliffe set high standards for himself and was determined to get on in life, as well as cricket, and make a lot of money. Wally Hammond, who eventually did turn amateur and captained England, was another example. Sutcliffe took pains to modify his accent and, as Neville Cardus commented, Sutcliffe eventually spoke "not with the accents of Yorkshire but of Teddington". Cardus remarked on the Savile Row suits worn by Sutcliffe and Hammond: "The county cricketer has in certain instances become a man of bourgeois profession". But Bill Bowes, an ex-grammar school boy who had benefited from educational reforms that were unavailable to Sutcliffe and the older professionals, regarded Sutcliffe as a hero. Writing about Sutcliffe, Bowes pointed out that Sutcliffe was "no ordinary man" and stressed that "professionalism was very important to him".
Cardus wrote:
[Of his batting] Sutcliffe had style... But it was his eternal vigilance, his keen eye and a mind that could move and anticipate, which were his assets, plus his Yorkshire realism and his Yorkshire tenacity of character. Immaculate in flannels, his hair burnished by the sun, the cynosure of all the women's and girls' eyes, a cricketer of manners, symbol of the new urban social consciousness, none the less he could be fitted into the Yorkshire scheme and body and atmosphere, after all.
In his Wisden obituary, the editor wrote that "...neither Pudsey nor any other nursery could have claimed Herbert Sutcliffe as a typical product. He was a Yorkshireman in his loyalty and training, but he was cosmopolitan in approach and outlook. His manner fitted Lord's as expressively as it fitted Leeds".
Trevor Bailey, writing in the 1981 Wisden about cricketers' hairstyles, said that Sutcliffe's was "black patent-leather glinting in the sun, complete with the straightest of partings".
For his part, Sutcliffe explained to Bowes that "Lord Hawke had lifted professional cricket from knee to shoulder level and even Lord Hawke always wanted it back again". But Hawke never could get it back because professionalism had evolved as society had changed and the likes of Sutcliffe and Hammond were establishing a respectability for their job, as noted by Stuart Surridge, that enabled them and some of their successors to join the establishment.
Batting
Sutcliffe's greatest qualities as an opening batsman were perhaps his even temperament and his penchant for big occasions. It is significant that his Test batting average was substantially better than his overall first-class one. He is especially remembered for his partnerships with Hobbs for England and with Holmes for Yorkshire. One of the main factors in these partnerships was mutual understanding, especially when it came to their judgment of singles, and Sutcliffe was involved in relatively few run outs when batting with either Hobbs or Holmes.
John Arlott wrote that Sutcliffe was a batsman of "immense application and thought". Arlott listed his main qualities as sound defence, powerful offside driving and "arguably the best hooker of his age". But above all, says Arlott, Sutcliffe was "cool, beyond disturbance, the master of survival and the ultimate pragmatist of cricket". Douglas Jardine touched on this point when, describing Sutcliffe's tiredness at the end of the bodyline series, he added that he "feels inclined to think that Sutcliffe rather enjoys appearing to be in difficulties: he so rarely fails to surmount them".
Sutcliffe was noted for his courage when facing the world's fastest bowlers, such as Harold Larwood who paid this tribute to Sutcliffe after his death:
Herbert Sutcliffe needed some getting out. He was a great battler for England and for Yorkshire. He never gave his wicket away unless he was satisfied he had made enough already. With Percy Holmes he formed just about the finest opening partnership I bowled against. I got him out cheaply a few times, but he scored a few hundreds against my bowling, so I reckon we ended up just about square.
Ian Peebles wrote of him:
Where he was unexcelled was in the courage, determination and concentration he brought to the job in hand. Never flustered, and certainly never intimidated, he was at his best on the big or testing occasion.
Sutcliffe told Fred Trueman that, although some batsmen can play fast bowling and some can't, "if everybody told the truth, no one really likes it". Trueman speaks of Sutcliffe's unselfish attitude when batting as "he didn't hog the limelight". Rather, he was a "severely practical performer (who) had to cut out the frills as an opening batsman". Sutcliffe's job was to "lay the foundations" of the innings; his main qualifications were having "the ideal temperament" and being "a magnificent judge of line and length".
Sutcliffe lacked the "polished elegance of Hobbs" as he was "essentially a practical batsman with a superb judgment of length, pace and direction". He stood with the face of the bat very open (i.e., to the bowler) so that he could present its full width to the ball every delivery. He was noted as a firm striker off the front foot who also had efficient use of the pull and hook shots. The 1933 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack said of Sutcliffe, in respect of the record partnership with Percy Holmes in 1932, that "like practically all great batsmen, he was generally at much pains to play himself in, and at all times his cricket – even when well set – proved rather more restrained than the situation warranted". The report goes on to say that Sutcliffe "undoubtedly felt a heavy responsibility rested upon him" but concluded by remarking on "how he could hit when he considered he might set about run-getting in light-hearted fashion".
As with all great players, much of Sutcliffe's success was down to hard work. In a contribution to the 1932 edition of Wisden, Lord Hawke said of Sutcliffe that "nobody I know trained, and trains, harder or more conscientiously than Sutcliffe. I ascribe much of his success to that fact".
In an evaluation of Jack Hobbs, Simon Wilde wrote that, amongst English batsmen, until Wally Hammond came to the fore in the late 1920s:
Second in line was undoubtedly the cool, methodical Sutcliffe, Hobbs's trusted opening partner for England, whose average of 66.85 in Ashes matches is the second-highest amongst batsmen with 1,000 runs, 23 points behind Bradman's and 12 ahead of Hobbs's. In his first series against Australia, in 1924–25, Sutcliffe outscored Hobbs, but Hobbs returned home and reaffirmed his position with a record-breaking season in England. Sutcliffe, who began his days as a stylist, later made the most of his abilities with powers of defence and concentration rarely, if ever, seen before (Bradman said Sutcliffe had the best temperament of any cricketer he saw). But Sutcliffe himself conceded that he did not possess the gifts of Hobbs, Hammond or Hutton.
The late R. C. Robertson-Glasgow had written of Sutcliffe a tribute that Wisden appended to Sutcliffe's obituary:
[He] was the serenest batsman I have known. Whatever may have passed under that calm brow – anger, joy, disagreement, surprise, relief, triumph – no outward sign was betrayed on the field of play. When I first saw him, in 1919, he was a debonair and powerful stylist. As you bowled opening overs to the later Sutcliffe you noticed the entire development of every defensive art; the depressingly straight bat, the astute use of pads (as with Hobbs), the sharp detection of which out-swinger could be left; above all, the consistently safe playing down of a rising or turning ball on leg stump, or thighs.
A. A. Thomson wrote of him:
The fact is that for the whole inter-war period he was England's and Yorkshire's anchor-man, a personality as dependable as fallible human nature will allow, This does not mean that he was slow or stodgy... He lacked the polished artistry of Hobbs or the sheer princely quality of Hammond or the delightful impertinence of Holmes, but he lacked nothing else... His spirit warmed to the fight like that of an ancient warrior. His manner was suave; his hair immaculate; his voice quiet; but he revealed his truest self, after his 161 in the 1926 Oval Test, surely the most truly Sutcliffian innings of his life, when he said: 'Yes, Mr. Warner, I love a dogfight...'
Bowling and fielding
Although Sutcliffe as a boy was thought to have potential as a bowler, he specialised in batting to the extent that he only bowled 993 deliveries, with 31 maiden overs, in his entire first-class career. He bowled a straightforward right-arm medium pace with little success, his best figures being 3–15 while his career average was a very high 40.21.
As a fielder, Sutcliffe generally played in the outfield, where he was a quick retriever of the ball and had a very good throwing arm. As a young man he could throw a cricket ball over 100 yards. He was usually a safe catcher and, in his career, took 23 catches in 54 Tests and 474 in 754 first-class matches.
Famous partnerships
Holmes and Sutcliffe
The 1919 season saw the beginning of a famous Yorkshire opening partnership that endured for 15 seasons until Percy Holmes retired. Holmes and Sutcliffe were eulogised as Yorkshire's "heavenly twins". A flavour of the Holmes-Sutcliffe partnership was captured by The Cricketer in a profile written in 1921:
There is usually a hum of expectancy when Holmes and Sutcliffe appear, their faces wreathed in smiles, and chatting happily together. They seem to be sharing some all-absorbing joke. Holmes, proudly wearing his Yorkshire cap, walks with quick, short steps, shoulders erect and head in the air, doing his best to look as tall as (John) Tunnicliffe. Sutcliffe has dark, glossy hair and usually disdains the valued White Rose cap when batting. He strolls casually along by the side of Percy, keeping his weather eye open for the wicket-keeper's end and the honour of taking the first ball.
Holmes and Sutcliffe shared 74 century stands in all first-class matches including 69 for Yorkshire. 19 of these exceeded 200 and 4 were over 300, including their world record stand of 555 at Leyton in 1932. Yorkshire won the title 8 times in the seasons that Holmes and Sutcliffe opened the innings together.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe
In September 1922, Sutcliffe played in a Scarborough Festival match for C I Thornton's XI against MCC and, for the first time, was paired with Jack Hobbs in an opening partnership. They put on 120 in their only innings until Hobbs was out for 45; Sutcliffe went on to make 111.
Following his successful season with Yorkshire in 1922, Sutcliffe was in contention for a place on the England tour of South Africa in the winter of 1922–23, especially as Jack Hobbs declined to tour. The selectors evidently felt that Sutcliffe was not yet ready but they were, "as events would prove, wise to delay his promotion" as it ensured that Sutcliffe would have Hobbs as his "influential guide on the international stage". Percy Holmes was also overlooked and England's openers in the 1922–23 series were Andy Sandham, Frank Mann and Jack Russell.
The partnership of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, opening the innings together for England from 1924 to 1930, is the most famous in cricket history. With partnerships of 136 and 268 in their first two Test matches together, they were a success from the start and The Cricketer said:
Hobbs is undoubtedly the sauciest run-stealer in the world today. In Sutcliffe, he has found the ideal partner in the felony, for the Yorkshireman unhesitatingly responds to his calls, showing absolute confidence in Hobbs' judgement.
England wicket-keeper Les Ames, himself a top-class batsman, commented on their running together between the wickets by emphasising the placement of the stroke, which was so correct that they could "just play and run". Ames said they were not fast runners and that "Herbert only strolled".
Sutcliffe readily acknowledged his debt to his "influential guide" by naming his eldest son after him and writing, in a booklet published in 1927, that he doubted if Hobbs had an equal and that, as a batsman, "he stands alone (and is) the best I have ever seen". Sutcliffe expressed the view that if W G Grace was as good as Jack Hobbs, "then he must have been wonderful". He said that Hobbs' earliest advice to him had been simply: "Play your own game". Sutcliffe commented: "Four words – they counted for so much. They told me all I wanted to know".
Ian Peebles wrote that Sutcliffe's association with Hobbs "is judged, by results and all-round efficiency in all conditions", the greatest of all first-wicket partnerships and "will probably never be excelled". Peebles said that there lay between the two an "extraordinary understanding, manifested in their perfect and unhesitating judgment of the short single".
The last Test match in which Hobbs and Sutcliffe played together was the final one at The Oval, Hobbs' home ground, in the 1930 series against Australia. But the partnership was revived at the 1931 Scarborough Festival when they produced two double-century stands, first for the Players against the Gentlemen and then for H D G Leveson-Gower's XI against the New Zealand tourists. Their last partnership was for the Players at Lord's in 1932, an innings in which Hobbs carried his bat for 161 not out. Hobbs' biographer Ronald Mason summarised the association of Hobbs and Sutcliffe thus:
Behind them were nine years of wonderful attainment, 26 opening partnerships of 100 or more; a legendary technique and repute unequalled by any other pair; the lean, active quizzical Hobbs and the neat, wiry imperturbable Sutcliffe, who set a standard that can serve as a guide, but defied all attempts at emulation.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe made 15 century opening partnerships for England in Test matches, including 11 against Australia, and 11 in other first-class matches.
Sutcliffe and Hutton
Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career.
Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protégé but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel – the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him".
The master–apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle".
Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest.
Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice.
Noted opponents
As a specialist opening batsman, Sutcliffe's rivals on the field were the opposing bowlers and especially fast bowlers, though he encountered many outstanding spin bowlers too on turning or sticky wickets.
By the time Sutcliffe began his Test career, the formidable fast bowling partnership of Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald had ended, though Sutcliffe faced Gregory in Test matches and was opposed to McDonald in "Roses matches" between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Gregory by 1924–25 was no longer able to "frighten batsmen with sheer speed" but he still commanded respect and Jack Hobbs specifically told Sutcliffe to exercise caution against Gregory at the start of an innings. Sutcliffe regarded McDonald as "one of the best bowlers I ever met". He commented on McDonald's trick of "resting" by making himself seem tired and then "hurling himself into (a very fast delivery) like a demon". As Sutcliffe said, he never knew which ball would be the fast one and McDonald was a dangerous opponent.
But Sutcliffe was quoted as saying that he had "never played finer fast bowling" than that of the West Indians Learie Constantine, George Francis, Herman Griffith and Manny Martindale. Among the best English bowlers he faced in county cricket were some of his colleagues in England teams, such as Harold Larwood, Maurice Tate and Tich Freeman.
One of the toughest competitors he faced was the Australian leg spinner Clarrie Grimmett, "a tiny gnome of a man", who bowled with a roundarm action and made his Test debut at the age of 34, taking 11 wickets in his first match. Grimmett bowled "like a miser" and "begrudged every run", whereas his leg spin partner Arthur Mailey was the type of bowler who would "buy" his wickets by conceding runs and then, having boosted the batsman's confidence, snaring him with a "wrong 'un" (i.e., a googly). On Sutcliffe's first tour of Australia, he commented that he "was troubled most of the time by Arthur Mailey" but eventually he learned how to "differentiate between Mailey's leg breaks and his wrong 'uns".
Records
Fastest in world to reach 1,000 Test runs (later equalled by Everton Weekes) by achieving the feat in the 12th innings of his career.
Personal and business life
Sutcliffe married Emily ("Emmie") Pease at Pudsey Parish Church in September 1921. She had been a personal secretary to Richard Ingham, a mill owner who had introduced Sutcliffe to Pudsey St Lawrence. They had three children, two sons called Billy and John; and a daughter called Barbara. Billy Sutcliffe, whose middle name was Hobbs, played for Yorkshire between 1948 and 1957, captaining the team in the last two seasons of his career.
At the end of the 1924–25 tour of Australia, Sutcliffe and his Yorkshire colleague George Macaulay went into business together as a sports outfitting company with shops in Leeds and Wakefield. However, Macaulay withdrew from the business after a year and it became a Sutcliffe family concern until it folded in the 1990s. The business thrived while Sutcliffe was playing cricket and established itself as one of the leading sports goods retailers in the north of England. Sutcliffe ceased to have an active role in 1948 when he handed over the management to his son Billy.
Sutcliffe became the northern area representative, and eventually a director, of a paper manufacturer called Thomas Owen which was later amalgamated into Wiggins Teape. This firm also employed Douglas Jardine as company secretary, while Maurice Leyland, Bill Edrich and Len Hutton were other area representatives.
Sutcliffe developed severe arthritis in his old age, the disease crippling him to the extent that he needed a wheelchair. He suffered personal tragedy in April 1974 when his wife Emmie, then aged 74, died as result of severe burns following a fire at the family home in Ilkley. He was finally admitted to a Cross Hills nursing home in North Yorkshire where he died in January 1978 at the age of 83.
Footnotes
• a) Note that there are different versions of Sutcliffe's first-class career totals as a result of his participation in the 1930–31 Indian season. See Variations in first-class cricket statistics for more information.
References
Bibliography
John Arlott, Arlott on Cricket (ed. David Rayvern Allen), Collins, 1984
John Arlott, Portrait of the Master, Penguin, 1982
Barclays World of Cricket, 3rd edition, (ed. E. W. Swanton), Willow Books, 1986. Article on Sutcliffe written by Ian Peebles.
Derek Birley, A Social History of English Cricket, Aurum, 1999
Neville Cardus, Close of Play, Sportsmans Book Club edition, 1957, "Sutcliffe and Yorkshire", pp. 1–10
Bill Frindall, The Wisden Book of Cricket Records, Queen Anne Press, 1986,
Alan Gibson, The Cricket Captains of England, Cassell, 1979
Alan Hill, Herbert Sutcliffe: Cricket Maestro, Stadia, 2007 (2nd edition)
Douglas Jardine, In Quest of the Ashes, Methuen, 2005
Ronald Mason, Jack Hobbs, Sportsman's Book Club, 1961
Pelham Warner, Lords: 1787–1945, Harrap, 1946
Pelham Warner, Cricket Between Two Wars, Sporting Handbooks, 1946
Roy Webber, The County Cricket Championship, Sportsman's Book Club, 1958
Simon Wilde, Number One: The World's Best Batsmen and Bowlers, Gollancz, 1998,
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, various editions from 1920 to 1946
Graeme Wright, A Wisden Collection, Wisden, 2004
External links
Notes by the Editor – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1928 (online archive)
Herbert Sutcliffe's obituary – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1979 (online archive)
1894 births
1978 deaths
British Army personnel of World War I
England cricket team selectors
England Test cricketers
English cricketers
English cricketers of 1919 to 1945
Green Howards officers
People from Nidderdale
Players cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Yorkshire cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
North v South cricketers
Cricketers from Pudsey
H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers
Lord Hawke's XI cricketers
C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers
Royal Army Ordnance Corps officers
Sherwood Foresters soldiers
British Army personnel of World War II
Military personnel from Yorkshire
Marylebone Cricket Club Australian Touring Team cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club South African Touring Team cricketers | false | [
"The Afghanistan cricket team toured Bangladesh to play the Bangladesh cricket team in September 2019 in a one-off Test match. The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) confirmed the schedule for the tour in August 2019.\n\nFollowing the 2019 Cricket World Cup, where Afghanistan lost all of their matches, Rashid Khan was named as the new captain of the Afghanistan cricket team across all three formats. Khan was 20 years and 350 days old when he led the side in the one-off Test, becoming the youngest cricketer to captain a team in a Test match. On the first day of the match, Rahmat Shah became the first batsman to score a century for Afghanistan in a Test. During the one-off Test match, Afghanistan's Mohammad Nabi announced his retirement from Test cricket, to allow him to focus on white-ball cricket.\n\nAfghanistan won the one-off Test match by 224 runs. It was Afghanistan's second win in Test cricket, their first overseas, and Rashid Khan became the youngest captain to win a Test match. Bangladesh started the fifth and final day of the match on 136/6, with Afghanistan needing just four wickets to win. Play did not start until after 4pm local time, with Afghanistan taking the wickets they needed to win the Test match in the 18.3 overs that were scheduled to be bowled. Rashid Khan was named the player of the match, which he dedicated the award to the retiring Mohammad Nabi.\n\nSquads\n\nTour match\n\nOnly Test\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Series home at ESPN Cicinfo\n\n2019 in Afghan cricket\n2019 in Bangladeshi cricket\nInternational cricket competitions in 2019–20\nAfghan cricket tours of Bangladesh",
"The 2005 Hopman Cup (also known as the Hyundai Hopman Cup for sponsorship reasons) was the seventeenth edition of the Hopman Cup. Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchová and Dominik Hrbatý of Slovakia were the champions, when they defeated Argentina in the final. It was Slovakia's second Hopman Cup win. The event took place at the Burswood Entertainment Complex in Perth from 1 January 2005 through 8 January 2005. The round robin event had one African nation that played in the main draw of this year's Hopman Cup: Zimbabwe, who lost 1–2 to The Netherlands.\n\nPlay-off\n\nNetherlands vs. Zimbabwe\n\nGroup A\n\nTeams and Standings\nTeams and seeds of the 2005 Hopman Cup in Group A were:\n – Gisela Dulko and Guillermo Coria (Round robin win-loss: 3–0; match win-loss: 6–3)\n – Anna-Lena Grönefeld and Tommy Haas (Round robin win-loss: 2–1; match win-loss: 5–4)\n – Francesca Schiavone and Davide Sanguinetti (Round robin win-loss: 1–2; match win-loss: 4–5)\n – Anastasia Myskina and Marat Safin (Round robin win-loss: 0–3; match win-loss: 3–6)\n\nArgentina vs. Germany\n\nArgentina vs. Italy\n\nArgentina vs. Russia\n\nGermany vs. Italy\n\nGermany vs. Russia\n\nItaly vs. Russia\n\nGroup B\n\nTeams and Standings\nTeams of the 2005 Hopman Cup in Group B were:\n\n – Alicia Molik and either Paul Baccanello or Mark Philippoussis (Round robin win-loss: 1–2; match win-loss: 4–5)\n – Michaëlla Krajicek and Peter Wessels (Round Robin win-loss: 2–2; match win-loss: 6–6)\n – Daniela Hantuchová and Dominik Hrbatý (Round Robin win-loss: 2–1; match win-loss: 6–3)\n – Meghann Shaughnessy and James Blake (Round robin win-loss: 2–1; match win-loss: 5–4)\n – Cara Black and Wayne Black (Round robin win-loss: match win-loss: 1–2)\n\nAustralia vs. Slovakia\n\nNetherlands vs. Australia\n\nSlovakia vs. Netherlands\n\nSlovakia vs. United States\n\nUnited States vs. Australia\n\nUnited States vs. Netherlands\n\nFinal\n\nSlovakia vs. Argentina\n\nExternal links\n\n2005 Hopman Cup Article from the ITF\n\n2005\nHopman Cup\nHopman Cup"
]
|
[
"Herbert Sutcliffe",
"Sutcliffe and Hutton",
"Who is Hutton?",
"Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege",
"Did they ever play together?",
"Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934",
"Did they win that match?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_c762f7f31b37415eb25b09830029cbed_1 | What else is significant about their relationship? | 4 | What else is significant about Sutcliffe and Hutton's relationship besides opening the Yorkshire Innings in one championship match in 1934? | Herbert Sutcliffe | Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career. Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel - the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him". The master-apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle". Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest. Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice. CANNOTANSWER | Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege | Herbert Sutcliffe (24 November 1894 – 22 January 1978) was an English professional cricketer who represented Yorkshire and England as an opening batsman. Apart from one match in 1945, his first-class career spanned the period between the two world wars. His first-class debut was delayed by the First World War until 1919 and his career was effectively terminated in August 1939 when he was called up for military service in the imminent Second World War.
He was the first cricketer to score 16 centuries in Test match cricket.
A right-handed batsman, Sutcliffe was noted for his concentration and determination, qualities which made him invaluable to his teams in adverse batting conditions; and he is remembered as one of the game's finest "bad wicket batsmen". His fame rests mainly in the great opening partnership he formed with Jack Hobbs for England between 1924 and 1930. He also formed notable opening partnerships at Yorkshire with Percy Holmes and, in his last few seasons, the young Len Hutton. During Sutcliffe's career, Yorkshire won the County Championship 12 times. Sutcliffe played in 54 Test matches for England and on three occasions he toured Australia, where he enjoyed outstanding success. His last tour in 1932–33 included the controversial "bodyline" series, in which Sutcliffe is perceived to have been one of Douglas Jardine's main supporters. Although close friends have stated that Sutcliffe did not approve of bodyline, he always acted out of fierce loyalty to his team captain and was committed to his team's cause. In statistical terms, Sutcliffe was one of the most successful Test batsmen ever; his completed career batting average was 60.73 which is the highest by any English batsman and the seventh-highest worldwide (of Test batsmen with 20 completed innings) behind only Don Bradman, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Adam Voges, Graeme Pollock and George Headley.
Sutcliffe became a successful businessman early in his first-class career by using the money he earned as a player to establish a sportswear shop in Leeds. When his playing career ended, he served on the club committee at Yorkshire for 21 years and for three years was an England Test selector. Among the honours accorded him have been the commemoration of a special set of gates in his name at Headingley, home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and his induction into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Early years
Childhood
Herbert Sutcliffe was born in Summerbridge, Nidderdale, West Riding of Yorkshire on 24 November 1894 at his parents' home, a cottage in Gabblegate (now called East View). His parents were Willie and Jane Sutcliffe. Herbert was the second of three sons, his brothers being Arthur and Bob. Willie Sutcliffe, who worked at a sawmill in nearby Dacre Banks, was a keen club cricketer.
When Herbert was still a baby the family moved to Pudsey, where Willie's father was the landlord of the King's Arms. Willie worked in the pub and played cricket for the well-known Pudsey St Lawrence Cricket Club. He also played rugby football, and an injury sustained during a rugby match led to his premature death in 1898.
Jane Sutcliffe moved the family back to Nidderdale, where they lived in Darley, the boys enrolling at Darley School, and she remarried. Jane developed consumption, and she died in January 1904 at the age of 37, when Herbert was nine. Jane's second husband was a bootmaker called Tom Waller but he was not allowed custody of the brothers who moved back to Pudsey to be cared for by the Sutcliffe family. Willie Sutcliffe had three sisters, Sarah, Carrie and Harriet, who ran a bakery. They became the legal guardians of Arthur, Herbert and Bob, respectively.
As the three aunts were devoted members of the local Congregational Church, the three boys received religious instruction there and Herbert became a lifelong committed Christian. He was a Sunday School teacher as a young man and first came to notice as a cricketer when he played for a church team. The boys lived in the family house which contained the bakery and slept in a loft above the bakehouse itself.
Herbert left school in 1908 when he was 13, and was apprenticed to a boot and shoe company as a "clicker" who fastened boot soles to uppers. In 1911, his prowess at cricket earned him an offer of clerical employment in a local textile mill, where he learnt bookkeeping, a skill that served him well when he launched his own business career.
Development as a cricketer
Sutcliffe became seriously interested in cricket at the age of eight, soon after he returned to Pudsey during his mother's final illness. He formed an ambition to follow his father and two uncles and play for Pudsey St Lawrence. His first club was a Wesleyan church team in the neighbouring village of Stanningley, where he was first seen as a bowler rather than a batsman. In one match in 1907, he took all 10 wickets in an innings.
In 1908, now aged 13, he began playing for Pudsey St Lawrence's second team. The following year, Sutcliffe made his first-team debut. Two of his team-mates were Major Booth and Henry Hutton, father of Len Hutton.
In 1911, now aged 16, Sutcliffe switched his allegiance to the rival Pudsey Britannia club where, he is quoted as saying, "my batting improved by leaps and bounds". This move came about because of the offer of clerical employment at the textile mill, which was owned by Ernest Walker who was also the Britannia club captain. Sutcliffe later said that Walker allowed him more time for cricket practice than he could get from his bootmaking job.
The following season, Sutcliffe's progress was noted by Yorkshire County Cricket Club and he was invited to take part in the county team practice sessions at Headingley. He was welcomed by the great George Herbert Hirst, who gave him much encouragement and advice. Soon afterwards, he was invited to play for the Yorkshire 2nd XI team.
Sutcliffe was coached at Headingley by Hirst and the club's 2nd XI coach, Steve Doughty, who placed great emphasis on the importance of pad play (the use of the pads to intercept the ball and prevent it hitting the wicket when this would not risk being out leg before wicket). Although Doughty's approach was criticised by Sutcliffe's colleagues at Pudsey Britannia, Sutcliffe himself had no regrets about the time he spent mastering the technique and later explained that swing bowling had been so well developed by bowlers in every county team that it was impossible for any batsman to keep his wicket by relying on his bat alone. The long-term benefit he derived was a very strong defence that he later used to great effect on treacherous pitches.
By 1914, Sutcliffe had become the most accomplished player in the Bradford League in which Pudsey Britannia played. He was playing both for Yorkshire 2nd XI and Pudsey Britannia at this time. In August, just as the First World War was beginning, he appeared for the 2nd XI at Beverley against an East Riding XI and opened the batting for the first time as a Yorkshire player. He made a half-century in the second innings and the Cricket Argus commented that "he was confident and stylish in... his best performance for the second eleven". The Argus went on to say that Sutcliffe, with youth on his side, "looks every inch a cricketer (with) a variety of good strokes". In the Bradford League, Sutcliffe scored a then-record 727 runs in the season, which was beaten in 1916 by his future England opening partner Jack Hobbs.
Military service and demobilisation
Sutcliffe was called up in 1915 and served first with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, stationed at York, and then with the Sherwood Foresters. He was later commissioned into the Green Howards, now part of the Yorkshire Regiment, as a Second Lieutenant, but he did not see active service and was not posted to France until after the Armistice was signed.
Sutcliffe played cricket during the war for the Officer Cadet Battalion in Scotland, captaining his team in matches against Glasgow University and other Scottish teams. He still managed to play in the Bradford League on occasion, but he said that he sometimes did so under an assumed name after taking unofficial leave.
Sutcliffe was demobilised in 1919 and took a job as a colliery checkweighman at Allerton Bywater in Yorkshire. He was contracted to play for the colliery's cricket team in the Yorkshire Council league, but he was selected at the beginning of the 1919 season to play again for Yorkshire 2nd XI. However he retained the colliery job until he opened his sportswear shop in 1924.
First-class debut
The war had delayed the start of Sutcliffe's first-class career with Yorkshire and he was 24 when his chance finally came. In May 1919, he played for the county's 2nd XI against a full-strength 1st XI and did very well, scoring 51 not out. He received a good report in the Yorkshire Post and never played for the 2nd XI again. Yorkshire's first County Championship fixture after the war took place on 26 and 27 May at Bristol against Gloucestershire and Sutcliffe, batting at number 6, made his first-class debut. Yorkshire batted first, after losing the toss, and Sutcliffe made 11 in a total of 277 (Roy Kilner 112). Despite that seemingly modest score, Yorkshire won by an innings and 63 runs as Gloucestershire were bowled out twice for 125 and 89.
1919 to 1927
Sutcliffe kept his place in the Yorkshire team and continued to bat in the middle of the order for a month until, in the match against Nottinghamshire at Bramall Lane on 27 and 28 June, Wilfred Rhodes decided to drop down the order for the 2nd innings and Sutcliffe went in first with Percy Holmes. After some indifferent scores, he completed his maiden first-class century on 23 and 24 July against Northamptonshire at Northampton when he and Holmes put on 279 for the first wicket, Sutcliffe scoring 145 and Holmes 133. Further success resulted in Holmes and Sutcliffe being awarded their county caps in August 1919. Sutcliffe created a debut season record by scoring 1,839 runs at an average of 44.85 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 174 against Kent at Crabble Athletic Ground in Dover. Holmes and Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries each in 1919 and they shared in 5 century partnerships. Their performances were key to Yorkshire winning the championship that season for the 10th time in all.
As a result of their success in 1919, Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe were both awarded a Wisden Cricketer of the Year title in 1920. In the accompanying review, Wisden commented on Sutcliffe's pre-war development and the benefits that both he and Holmes derived from Steve Doughty's coaching. Sutcliffe's "fine driving" was commended but it was noted that "he may not yet be quite so strong in defence".
By his 1919 standards, Sutcliffe had two quiet years in 1920 and 1921. He was well down the national averages in 1920 with 1,393 runs at 33.16 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 131. In 1921, he did not score a century and made 1,235 runs at 30.12.
In 1922, as Yorkshire regained the County Championship title under new captain Geoffrey Wilson, Sutcliffe lived up to his early promise by scoring 2,020 runs at 46.97 with a highest score of 232 against Surrey at the Oval. He scored 11 half-centuries but only 2 centuries. Sutcliffe was one of seven Yorkshire players who were ever-present, playing in all 30 matches.
Sutcliffe's career advanced in 1923 when he made his first appearances in the North v South and Gentlemen v Players fixtures and in a Test Trial. His overall record in 1923 was 2,220 runs at 41.11 with 3 centuries, 15 fifties and a highest score of 139 against Somerset. The Yorkshire cricket historian Alfred Pullin wrote: "it was recognised long before the season ended that Sutcliffe had established his claim to be considered one of England's first-wicket batsmen".
In the 1924 season, Yorkshire completed a hat-trick of championships under Geoffrey Wilson and Sutcliffe enjoyed probably his best season to date, scoring 2,142 runs at 48.68 with 6 centuries including a highest score of 255 not out against Essex. He made his Test debut on Saturday, 14 June 1924, playing for England against South Africa at Edgbaston and opening the innings with Jack Hobbs. In this First Test, which England won by an innings, they recorded their first century partnership for England by putting on 136 before Sutcliffe was out for 64. In the Second Test at Lord's, Hobbs and Sutcliffe scored 268 before Sutcliffe was out for 122, his maiden Test century; Hobbs went on to make 211 and England again won by an innings. In the whole series, Sutcliffe scored 303 runs at 75.75.
As early as July, Sutcliffe was one of ten players named to tour Australia in the winter of 1924–25 under the leadership of Arthur Gilligan. At first, Hobbs declined the tour but then changed his mind when it was decided his wife would accompany him. The importance of this to Sutcliffe was that his partnership with Hobbs could continue at the very highest level of cricket where the presence of Hobbs was ultimately the key factor in Sutcliffe's major success on the tour, which established him as a world-class player. Sutcliffe said he had some initial difficulty in adjusting to Australian conditions, specifically the strong light which affected his timing. He also reckoned that the pitches were a good four yards faster than in England. His remedy was to play straight and by hitting the ball back down the pitch. He said later that he sacrificed many of his best shots, but "it paid off in the end". This is shown by his overall performance as, although England lost the series 4–1, Sutcliffe scored 734 runs in the five Tests at an average of 81.55 with 4 centuries, 2 half-centuries and a highest score of 176. In the whole tour, he scored 1,250 runs at 69.44 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 188.
In 1925, as Yorkshire won a 4th successive championship, Sutcliffe scored 2,308 runs at 53.67 with 7 centuries and a highest score of 235 against Middlesex at Headingley. During 1925 and 1926, Sutcliffe's skill was a primary factor in Yorkshire having the longest unbeaten run in county cricket: i.e., 70 matches without loss until early 1927. After three defeats in 1927, Yorkshire went a further 58 games without loss until 1929.
The first four Tests of the 1926 England v Australia series were scheduled for just three days and were all curtailed by poor weather. The final Test at the Oval was timeless to ensure a finish. It has become one of the most famous matches in cricket history, not because England regained the Ashes for the first time since 1912 but for the manner it which it was achieved as Hobbs and Sutcliffe produced their most famous partnership in treacherous batting conditions. Australia had a narrow first innings lead of 22 and, at close of play on the second day (a Monday), Hobbs and Sutcliffe had taken the England second innings score to 49–0, a lead of 27. Heavy rain fell overnight and next day, as the sun shone, the pitch soon developed into a "sticky wicket" on which it was generally assumed that England would be bowled out cheaply and so lose both the match and the series. But, in spite of the very difficult batting conditions, Hobbs and Sutcliffe put up a great defence of their wickets and gradually increased their partnership to 172 before Hobbs was out for exactly 100. Sutcliffe went on to make 161 and, in the end, England won the game comfortably, by 289 runs, and regained the Ashes. The tributes paid to Hobbs and Sutcliffe after this partnership are extensive. Pelham Warner perhaps encapsulated them all when he wrote: "Hobbs and Sutcliffe won it for us by their incomparable batting. They did not fail us at a time of most desperate crisis. Never has English cricket known a more dauntless pair".
In the 1926 County Championship, Yorkshire lost the title despite being unbeaten to their close rivals Lancashire by a very narrow margin. Sutcliffe was 2nd in the national batting averages behind Hobbs, scoring 2,528 runs at 66.52 with 8 centuries and a highest score of exactly 200 against Leicestershire. In the 1927 County Championship, Yorkshire finished 3rd but it was another great season for both Holmes and Sutcliffe who scored over 4,500 runs and 12 centuries between them. Sutcliffe scored 2,414 runs at 56.13 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 227 for England versus The Rest.
In the autumn of 1927, the Yorkshire committee decided to appoint Sutcliffe as team captain in succession to Arthur Lupton, who had retired. He would thus have become the first professional to captain the side since 1882 but, as Wisden records, "objection was taken to this action by two different parties". There were those who supported the view that no professional should be captain; and significant opposition also came from a large number of members who argued that, if a professional were to be appointed, it should be Wilfred Rhodes rather than Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe himself was en route to South Africa while most of the furore developed and had to rely on telegrams for his news. When first advised of the appointment, he sent a reply that spoke of the great honour and his desire to serve Yorkshire and England. But he was better apprised of the controversy when he arrived in Cape Town and finally sent a message that he was declining the offer but willing to serve under any other captain.
1928 to 1932
During the five years 1928 to 1932, Sutcliffe played 181 matches (254 innings) in which he was not out 36 times, scoring 15,529 runs for a total average of 70.35.
Sutcliffe made his only tour of South Africa in 1927–28, playing in 14 matches and scoring 1,030 runs at 51.50 with 2 centuries and a highest score of 102. He was able to open the England innings with Holmes, Hobbs having declined the tour, and made his score of 102 in the first innings of the First Test at the Old Wanderers ground in Johannesburg, England winning by 10 wickets.
In 1928, Sutcliffe scored 3,000 runs in a season for the first time, a feat he repeated in 1931 and 1932, becoming the first player to achieve it three times. Only Patsy Hendren and Wally Hammond have equalled the feat. Sutcliffe's 1928 tally was 3,002 at 76.97 with a highest score of 228 among 13 centuries and 13 half-centuries. He played in all three Tests against West Indies in 1928. This was West Indies' inaugural Test series and their batsmen struggled against a strong England attack so that England was able to win all three Tests by an innings. But Sutcliffe was very impressed by the fast bowling of Learie Constantine, George Francis and Herman Griffith and said of them during the Lord's Test that he had "never played finer fast bowling".
Under the leadership of Percy Chapman, Sutcliffe toured Australia again in 1928–29 with Hobbs as his opening partner. England won the first two Tests before Hobbs and Sutcliffe played major roles in one of the most famous Test matches ever at Melbourne. Australia won the toss and batted first, making 397 thanks to centuries by Alan Kippax and Jack Ryder. England scored 417 with 200 by Hammond and 58 by Sutcliffe. Australia then scored 351 with 107 by their captain Bill Woodfull and a maiden Test century by Don Bradman. This left England needing 332 to win. Australia had ended the 5th day of a timeless match on 347–8 and the pitch was showing increasing signs of wear. Overnight, a storm broke and soaked the pitch which, as the sun shone on it through the morning, became what Bradman later described as "the worst sticky I ever saw". Even Wisden admitted that it "may fittingly be described as a beastly wicket". Play on the sixth day did not begin until 12:51 and Australia's last two wickets quickly fell with just 4 runs added to their overnight total. Clem Hill reckoned that the state of the pitch was such that "odds of ten to one against an England success would be generous" and Hugh Trumble reportedly told Jack Hobbs that 70 would be a good total. Wisden recorded that "then it was that the wonderful skill of these two (Hobbs and Sutcliffe) showed itself so prominently for, with the ball turning and getting up almost straight, they put on 105 for the first wicket... the two batsmen rendered England splendid service by an historic stand and made victory probable". Having survived the last 5 minutes before lunch, they added 75 in the afternoon session when "the ball was turning and at other times getting up almost straight". Hobbs had nearly been dismissed early on when a catch was dropped but the two batsmen played with "remarkable footwork, masterly defence and unerring skill in a difficult situation". Hobbs was out when the score had reached 105 and then Sutcliffe added another 94 in partnership with Douglas Jardine as the wicket eased and close of play was safely reached with the total at 171–1 (Sutcliffe 83 not out). Next morning, with conditions much more favourable, Sutcliffe batted on until he was finally out for 135 with the total on 318–4 and only 14 more needed. There was a slight scare as three more wickets fell, including Chapman who was caught at cover when trying for the winning hit. But the runs were obtained and England had won a famous victory against the odds by 3 wickets. Sutcliffe later said that he considered this to have been his finest innings ever. Jardine later wrote about the number of times Hobbs and Sutcliffe were hit "all over the body" during their stand and made the point that, if a batsman is to make runs on an Australian sticky wicket, then being hit by the ball is inevitable.
In 1929, Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries against the South African tourists. The first was 113 for Yorkshire in a drawn match at Bramall Lane He then scored four in the Test series, including two in the same match in the Fifth Test at the Oval. His season aggregate was 2,189 runs at 52.11 with 9 centuries and a highest score of 150 against Northamptonshire.
In 1930, Sutcliffe was the leading Englishman in the first-class batting averages behind Don Bradman (i.e., of batsmen with 10 completed innings). In a summer of hot, thundery weather that produced some exceptionally bad pitches, Sutcliffe averaged 87.61 in the four Tests he played in, scoring 161 in the Fifth Test at the Oval. Sutcliffe's first-class aggregate in 1930 was 2,312 runs at 64.22 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 173 against Sussex.
During the winter of 1930–31, Hobbs and Sutcliffe went on a private tour of India and Ceylon that was organised by the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram (popularly known as "Vizzy"). There is debate in some quarters about the status of matches played on this tour, which are not recognised as first-class by Wisden in contrast to certain other publications. The scores were printed in The Cricketer Spring Annual in 1932 and presented as first-class but escaped general notice at the time and were largely ignored until some statisticians took an interest in them in the 1970s. It is known that neither Hobbs nor Sutcliffe thought they were first-class matches; they regarded them as exhibition games arranged for Vizzy's personal entertainment. Nevertheless, Sutcliffe scored 532 runs and 2 centuries in the disputed matches and this has impacted his first-class statistical record with two versions in circulation.
In all first-class cricket in the 1931 season, Sutcliffe scored four centuries in consecutive innings and averaged 96.96, topping the first-class averages for the first time. He totalled 3,006 runs with a highest score of 230 among 13 centuries. Yorkshire historian Jim Kilburn commented on Sutcliffe's general consistency as "almost past believing" while Sutcliffe himself reckoned that his accomplishments in 1931, which was a wet summer, were the best of his entire career.
When Yorkshire played Gloucestershire at Park Avenue, Bradford, in July 1932, Sutcliffe completed his 100th century. He was the first Yorkshire player and the seventh overall to achieve the feat. Having scored 83 in the first innings, he reached his target with 132 in the second. Yorkshire won the match by 133 runs. Yorkshire honoured the occasion by presenting Sutcliffe with a cheque for 100 guineas, repeating Surrey's reward paid to Jack Hobbs when he scored his 100th century. In Yorkshire's match against Essex at Leyton, Holmes and Sutcliffe set a world record partnership for any wicket of 555. This remained the world record for any wicket till 1945–46 and it was not until 1976–77 that it was beaten for the first wicket. It remains the record partnership for any wicket in England. Sutcliffe's share of the stand was 313, his career highest score. Yorkshire batted first and, at the end of the first day, the score stood at 423–0, with Holmes on 180 and Sutcliffe on 231, already beating their previous best stand of 347 against Hampshire in 1920. Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity then proceeded to bowl Essex out twice and Yorkshire won by an innings and 313 runs.
Sutcliffe scored 3,336 runs in 1932, the highest season total of his career and it included his highest individual score of 313, made in the world record stand at Leyton. He averaged 74.13 with 14 centuries and 9 half-centuries. He became the third batsman after K S Ranjitsinhji and C B Fry to score 1,000 runs in a month twice in the same season, making 1,193 in June and 1,006 in August. His total of 3,336 is the sixth highest season aggregate behind Denis Compton (3,816 in 1947), Bill Edrich (3,539 in 1947), Tom Hayward (3,518 in 1906), Len Hutton (3,429 in 1949) and Frank Woolley (3,352 in 1928). His fourteen centuries in the season have been bettered only by Compton (18 in 1947), Jack Hobbs (16 in 1925) and Wally Hammond (15 in 1938).
1932–33: the "bodyline" tour
In the winter of 1932–33, Sutcliffe was a key member of the England team that toured Australia and New Zealand under the captaincy of Douglas Jardine, taking part in all five Tests of the infamous "bodyline" series. Wisden in its tour summary stated unequivocally that "Jardine, while nothing like the batsman in Australia of four years earlier, captained the side superbly" but he "had one great difficulty which he never successfully overcame". The difficulty was to find a suitable partner for Sutcliffe as opening batsman and Wisden continues by remarking on several experiments tried by Jardine throughout the tour but ends by saying that "no real successor to Hobbs was discovered".
Sutcliffe, who was by now England's senior professional, was part of the England selection committee on the tour along with Jardine, Pelham Warner (team manager), Bob Wyatt (vice-captain) and Wally Hammond. Sutcliffe enjoyed only mixed success with the bat but he did make his career highest Test score of 194 in the First Test at Sydney, which England won by 10 wickets. Overall, he scored 1,318 first-class runs on the Australian leg of the tour at 73.22 with 5 centuries, the highest score being his 194 at Sydney. He was the only English batsman to reach 1,000 runs on this tour. Surprisingly, he had no success in New Zealand where, in 3 appearances, he made just 27 runs.
Australia won the toss at Sydney and decided to bat. Without Bradman, who was ill, they struggled against the pace of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce but, thanks to a brilliant innings of 187 not out by Stan McCabe, they made a creditable 360. England's batsmen had no such troubles and steadily built a total of 524 to claim a first innings lead of 164. Sutcliffe opened with Wyatt and they began with a stand of 112. Wyatt was dismissed for 38 and Sutcliffe then put on 188 for the second wicket with Hammond, who was out at 300–2 for 112. Next man in was Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and he joined Sutcliffe in a third wicket century partnership of 123 before Sutcliffe was finally out for 194 after batting for over 7 hours across the second and third days of the match. The last seven wickets fell for the addition of only 101 more runs. With Larwood taking his second five-wicket haul, Australia could only make 164 to tie the scores and at least make England bat again. Australia was 164–9 at close of play on the fourth day so all that was required on the last day was for Voce to dismiss Bill O'Reilly off the third ball of the morning, without adding to the total, and then Sutcliffe himself to score the solitary run needed to complete an emphatic 10 wicket victory. Wisden recorded that "there were less than a hundred people present to see the finish".
When he had scored 43, he played a ball bowled by O'Reilly onto his stumps but the impact did not shift the bails and so he was not out. Wisden said that "Sutcliffe gave a typical exhibition, being wonderfully sure in defence and certain in his off-driving". There was some criticism of Sutcliffe for scoring slowly at one point in the second half of his innings but Jardine has confirmed that Sutcliffe was playing under his instructions which "right nobly did Sutcliffe carry them out to the letter".
Australia, with Bradman back in their team, won the Second Test at Melbourne by 111 runs. Having been dismissed for 228 in the first innings, they fought back to reduce England to just 169, in which Sutcliffe made the top score of 52. In the second innings, Bradman effectively won the match for Australia by scoring a resilient 103 not out even though his team was dismissed for just 191. Sutcliffe was again England's highest scorer, making 33 of a poor 139 as O'Reilly and Bert Ironmonger took the wickets.
Sutcliffe failed twice in the Third Test at Adelaide, the most controversial match of the tour as it was the one in which the bodyline furore reached its climax. England won by 338 runs but the match was overshadowed by the injuries sustained by Woodfull and Australian wicket-keeper Bert Oldfield and the subsequent heated telegrams and diplomatic row.
England won the Fourth Test at Brisbane by 6 wickets. This time, Sutcliffe opened with Jardine and they put on 114 in the first innings. Sutcliffe scored 86, another top score. England held a narrow lead on first innings and then dismissed Australia for 175. Sutcliffe was out for 2 in the second innings but Leyland held the innings steady and ensured that England won both the match and the series. The Fifth Test at Sydney was therefore academic but England nevertheless won by 8 wickets, Sutcliffe scoring 56 in his only innings.
According to Bob Wyatt, Sutcliffe "backed Jardine to the hilt" on the subject of bowling "bodyline" aka "fast leg theory". Wyatt said that: "Herbert never hesitated in his views about our bowling strategy. He did not see anything wrong about pursuing the tactics". Les Ames agreed with Wyatt's view and said that, though the majority of the England players were morally opposed to Jardine's tactics, Sutcliffe took the pragmatic view that "the ball is there, it's short, so hook it". Sutcliffe himself was an outstanding player of the hook shot but Ames was unsure about how he would have coped with Larwood's accuracy if he had been playing against him. According to Bill O'Reilly, Sutcliffe was the strongest advocate of bodyline and he sometimes acted like an "unofficial captain", even initiating the tactics on his own responsibility. However, a close friend of Sutcliffe insisted that Sutcliffe "was always behind authority" and was absolutely loyal to his captain, but his private views about bodyline were another matter.
1933 to 1939
In 1933, Sutcliffe could not repeat his outstanding form of the 1932 season but he still scored a considerable 2,211 runs at 47.04, although it was his lowest tally in a dry summer since 1921. He completed 7 centuries with a highest score of 205 against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. Sutcliffe scored 304 runs at 50.66 in four Tests against Australia in 1934. His first-class aggregate for the 1934 season was 2,023 runs at 49.34 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 203 against Surrey at the Oval. In 1935, Sutcliffe's Test career ended when he missed the Third Test against South Africa due to a leg injury and then never recovered his place when he was fit again. Wisden's view was that England wished to try out younger players but it pointed out that Sutcliffe "remains a prolific runscorer".
Sutcliffe's record in Test cricket is outstanding. As shown by the adjacent graph, he is the only English batsman who has averaged more than 60 runs per innings in a completed career and his statistical record compares favourably with anyone except Don Bradman. Uniquely, Sutcliffe's batting average never dropped below 60 throughout his entire Test career and Javed Miandad is the only other player whose average never dropped below 50 in a career of at least 20 innings.
The demands of Test cricket behind him, Sutcliffe played in 29 of Yorkshire's 30 County Championship matches in 1936 but his average fell to 33.30, his worst seasonal performance since the early 1920s. His form rallied somewhat in the last three seasons of his career and he formed another outstanding opening partnership with Len Hutton who matured into a Test-class batsman in 1937. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 315 for the first wicket against Leicestershire at Hull in 1937, Sutcliffe scoring 189 and Hutton 153. Sutcliffe faced Australian opposition for the final time in 1938 when he appeared in two matches against the tourists, one in July for Yorkshire at Bramall Lane and the other in September at North Marine Road in a Scarborough Festival match when he played for H D G Leveson Gower's XI.
Yorkshire completed another hat-trick of County Championships in 1939 and, although he was now 44 and certainly a "veteran", Sutcliffe enjoyed a remarkable sequence of four consecutive centuries in May and June which showed any doubters that he was still one of the best opening batsmen around. Sutcliffe was to play one more first-class match in 1945, but his career effectively ended in August 1939 when he played for Yorkshire against Hampshire at Dean Park Cricket Ground, Bournemouth, on Saturday, 26 August and Monday, 28 August. Yorkshire won by an innings and 11 runs in just two days. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 56 before Hutton was out for 37 and Sutcliffe went on to score 51 before he was out at 117–2, leg before wicket to George Heath, who thus took his wicket for the second time in 1939.
Into retirement
As a reservist in the British Army, Sutcliffe was the first Yorkshire player to be called up, in August 1939, as the Second World War became imminent. He missed Yorkshire's final match of the season against Sussex at Hove, which ended on 1 September, the day the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. He rejoined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and attained the rank of major. He did not leave Great Britain during his army service which ended in November 1942. Now aged 48, he was discharged from the army on medical grounds having undergone two operations that year for sinus trouble and a shoulder injury. For the remainder of the war, he divided his time between his sportswear business and charity fundraising.
Like most top-class players, Sutcliffe occasionally played in charity matches during the war, including three to raise money for the Red Cross in 1940. In one of these, he played for a Yorkshire XI against a Bradford League XI at Park Avenue and scored 127, which was his last-ever century. The League team included Eddie Paynter, Manny Martindale and Learie Constantine, who scored a brilliant century in what Sutcliffe described as "a gem of an innings".
Although Alan Gibson described Sutcliffe as "a good public speaker", Sutcliffe himself seems to have been modest about this ability. During the war, he was asked to share a charity event platform with Sir Compton Mackenzie in Bradford. Mackenzie gave a brilliant speech that was well received and Sutcliffe said to him: "Oh, my, how I wish I could speak like you". Mackenzie, who was a keen cricket fan, replied: "You don't wish nearly as much that you could speak like me as I wish I could bat like you".
Sutcliffe had already stated his intention to retire from first-class cricket but nevertheless he returned in August 1945 at the age of 50 for one final match after the war in Europe ended. He captained the Yorkshire team in a match against a Royal Air Force team at North Marine Road in the renewed Scarborough Festival. The match was drawn after being affected by the weather. Sutcliffe batted once, going in at number 5, and scored just 8 runs before being dismissed leg before wicket (lbw) by Bill Edrich.
In 1949, Sutcliffe was accorded honorary membership of MCC and joined what was then a select company of English professionals including George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Jack Hobbs.
Sutcliffe continued to be involved in cricket and his Wisden obituary says: "His repayment to the game which had given him so much was service on the Yorkshire committee, as an England selector, and as sponsor for many good causes in cricket". In a tribute that was published with the obituary, Brian Sellers said: "We served together on the county committee for over 21 years". Sutcliffe was a Test selector for three years from 1959 through 1961, during which England played home series against India, South Africa and Australia.
In February 1963, Yorkshire appointed Sutcliffe a life member of the club and then, in July 1965, his old captain Sir William Worsley, now president of the club, formally opened the Sutcliffe Gates in the St Michael's Lane approach to the Headingley ground. Similar in design to the Hobbs Gates at the Oval, they carry the inscription:
In honour of a great Yorkshire and England cricketer
Sutcliffe retained his interest in cricket for the rest of his life. One of his final public appearances was in 1977 when, in his wheelchair and only a few months before he died, he was photographed at Headingley alongside Len Hutton and Geoff Boycott just after Boycott had emulated Sutcliffe and Hutton by becoming the third Yorkshire batsman to score 100 centuries in his first-class career.
Wisden summarised his career thus:
Herbert Sutcliffe was one of the great cricketers and he brought to cricket as to all his undertakings an assurance and capacity for concentration that positively commanded success. His technical talent matched his character and his achievements were therefore on the highest plane.
On 30 September 2009, Herbert Sutcliffe was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Style and technique
Sutcliffe's approach to cricket
Sutcliffe's approach was essentially to do everything possible to help his team to win the match. His philosophy was that the game was there to be won and not merely to be played. He was determined to keep his wicket intact and, according to Fred Trueman, "he was a terrible man to get out" and "was at his best in a crisis". Sutcliffe's professionalism was reflected in his preparation and off-field demeanour. He took great pride in his appearance and Trueman says he was "always spick and span". Neville Cardus described him thus: "...shiny of hair, black as the raven's, with flannels of fluttering silk, and the confident air of super-Pudsey breeding. A deviation from type, a 'sport' in the evolutionary process!"
Sutcliffe was "unfailingly courteous as a man" and, along with his England colleague Hobbs, "committed to advancing the cause of the professional cricketer". According to Stuart Surridge, "our profession as a respected one started with Jack and Herbert (who) gave us a new status".
One of the main reasons why Yorkshire were prepared to offer the captaincy to Sutcliffe in 1927 was because he was not perceived to be the typical professional. Sutcliffe set high standards for himself and was determined to get on in life, as well as cricket, and make a lot of money. Wally Hammond, who eventually did turn amateur and captained England, was another example. Sutcliffe took pains to modify his accent and, as Neville Cardus commented, Sutcliffe eventually spoke "not with the accents of Yorkshire but of Teddington". Cardus remarked on the Savile Row suits worn by Sutcliffe and Hammond: "The county cricketer has in certain instances become a man of bourgeois profession". But Bill Bowes, an ex-grammar school boy who had benefited from educational reforms that were unavailable to Sutcliffe and the older professionals, regarded Sutcliffe as a hero. Writing about Sutcliffe, Bowes pointed out that Sutcliffe was "no ordinary man" and stressed that "professionalism was very important to him".
Cardus wrote:
[Of his batting] Sutcliffe had style... But it was his eternal vigilance, his keen eye and a mind that could move and anticipate, which were his assets, plus his Yorkshire realism and his Yorkshire tenacity of character. Immaculate in flannels, his hair burnished by the sun, the cynosure of all the women's and girls' eyes, a cricketer of manners, symbol of the new urban social consciousness, none the less he could be fitted into the Yorkshire scheme and body and atmosphere, after all.
In his Wisden obituary, the editor wrote that "...neither Pudsey nor any other nursery could have claimed Herbert Sutcliffe as a typical product. He was a Yorkshireman in his loyalty and training, but he was cosmopolitan in approach and outlook. His manner fitted Lord's as expressively as it fitted Leeds".
Trevor Bailey, writing in the 1981 Wisden about cricketers' hairstyles, said that Sutcliffe's was "black patent-leather glinting in the sun, complete with the straightest of partings".
For his part, Sutcliffe explained to Bowes that "Lord Hawke had lifted professional cricket from knee to shoulder level and even Lord Hawke always wanted it back again". But Hawke never could get it back because professionalism had evolved as society had changed and the likes of Sutcliffe and Hammond were establishing a respectability for their job, as noted by Stuart Surridge, that enabled them and some of their successors to join the establishment.
Batting
Sutcliffe's greatest qualities as an opening batsman were perhaps his even temperament and his penchant for big occasions. It is significant that his Test batting average was substantially better than his overall first-class one. He is especially remembered for his partnerships with Hobbs for England and with Holmes for Yorkshire. One of the main factors in these partnerships was mutual understanding, especially when it came to their judgment of singles, and Sutcliffe was involved in relatively few run outs when batting with either Hobbs or Holmes.
John Arlott wrote that Sutcliffe was a batsman of "immense application and thought". Arlott listed his main qualities as sound defence, powerful offside driving and "arguably the best hooker of his age". But above all, says Arlott, Sutcliffe was "cool, beyond disturbance, the master of survival and the ultimate pragmatist of cricket". Douglas Jardine touched on this point when, describing Sutcliffe's tiredness at the end of the bodyline series, he added that he "feels inclined to think that Sutcliffe rather enjoys appearing to be in difficulties: he so rarely fails to surmount them".
Sutcliffe was noted for his courage when facing the world's fastest bowlers, such as Harold Larwood who paid this tribute to Sutcliffe after his death:
Herbert Sutcliffe needed some getting out. He was a great battler for England and for Yorkshire. He never gave his wicket away unless he was satisfied he had made enough already. With Percy Holmes he formed just about the finest opening partnership I bowled against. I got him out cheaply a few times, but he scored a few hundreds against my bowling, so I reckon we ended up just about square.
Ian Peebles wrote of him:
Where he was unexcelled was in the courage, determination and concentration he brought to the job in hand. Never flustered, and certainly never intimidated, he was at his best on the big or testing occasion.
Sutcliffe told Fred Trueman that, although some batsmen can play fast bowling and some can't, "if everybody told the truth, no one really likes it". Trueman speaks of Sutcliffe's unselfish attitude when batting as "he didn't hog the limelight". Rather, he was a "severely practical performer (who) had to cut out the frills as an opening batsman". Sutcliffe's job was to "lay the foundations" of the innings; his main qualifications were having "the ideal temperament" and being "a magnificent judge of line and length".
Sutcliffe lacked the "polished elegance of Hobbs" as he was "essentially a practical batsman with a superb judgment of length, pace and direction". He stood with the face of the bat very open (i.e., to the bowler) so that he could present its full width to the ball every delivery. He was noted as a firm striker off the front foot who also had efficient use of the pull and hook shots. The 1933 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack said of Sutcliffe, in respect of the record partnership with Percy Holmes in 1932, that "like practically all great batsmen, he was generally at much pains to play himself in, and at all times his cricket – even when well set – proved rather more restrained than the situation warranted". The report goes on to say that Sutcliffe "undoubtedly felt a heavy responsibility rested upon him" but concluded by remarking on "how he could hit when he considered he might set about run-getting in light-hearted fashion".
As with all great players, much of Sutcliffe's success was down to hard work. In a contribution to the 1932 edition of Wisden, Lord Hawke said of Sutcliffe that "nobody I know trained, and trains, harder or more conscientiously than Sutcliffe. I ascribe much of his success to that fact".
In an evaluation of Jack Hobbs, Simon Wilde wrote that, amongst English batsmen, until Wally Hammond came to the fore in the late 1920s:
Second in line was undoubtedly the cool, methodical Sutcliffe, Hobbs's trusted opening partner for England, whose average of 66.85 in Ashes matches is the second-highest amongst batsmen with 1,000 runs, 23 points behind Bradman's and 12 ahead of Hobbs's. In his first series against Australia, in 1924–25, Sutcliffe outscored Hobbs, but Hobbs returned home and reaffirmed his position with a record-breaking season in England. Sutcliffe, who began his days as a stylist, later made the most of his abilities with powers of defence and concentration rarely, if ever, seen before (Bradman said Sutcliffe had the best temperament of any cricketer he saw). But Sutcliffe himself conceded that he did not possess the gifts of Hobbs, Hammond or Hutton.
The late R. C. Robertson-Glasgow had written of Sutcliffe a tribute that Wisden appended to Sutcliffe's obituary:
[He] was the serenest batsman I have known. Whatever may have passed under that calm brow – anger, joy, disagreement, surprise, relief, triumph – no outward sign was betrayed on the field of play. When I first saw him, in 1919, he was a debonair and powerful stylist. As you bowled opening overs to the later Sutcliffe you noticed the entire development of every defensive art; the depressingly straight bat, the astute use of pads (as with Hobbs), the sharp detection of which out-swinger could be left; above all, the consistently safe playing down of a rising or turning ball on leg stump, or thighs.
A. A. Thomson wrote of him:
The fact is that for the whole inter-war period he was England's and Yorkshire's anchor-man, a personality as dependable as fallible human nature will allow, This does not mean that he was slow or stodgy... He lacked the polished artistry of Hobbs or the sheer princely quality of Hammond or the delightful impertinence of Holmes, but he lacked nothing else... His spirit warmed to the fight like that of an ancient warrior. His manner was suave; his hair immaculate; his voice quiet; but he revealed his truest self, after his 161 in the 1926 Oval Test, surely the most truly Sutcliffian innings of his life, when he said: 'Yes, Mr. Warner, I love a dogfight...'
Bowling and fielding
Although Sutcliffe as a boy was thought to have potential as a bowler, he specialised in batting to the extent that he only bowled 993 deliveries, with 31 maiden overs, in his entire first-class career. He bowled a straightforward right-arm medium pace with little success, his best figures being 3–15 while his career average was a very high 40.21.
As a fielder, Sutcliffe generally played in the outfield, where he was a quick retriever of the ball and had a very good throwing arm. As a young man he could throw a cricket ball over 100 yards. He was usually a safe catcher and, in his career, took 23 catches in 54 Tests and 474 in 754 first-class matches.
Famous partnerships
Holmes and Sutcliffe
The 1919 season saw the beginning of a famous Yorkshire opening partnership that endured for 15 seasons until Percy Holmes retired. Holmes and Sutcliffe were eulogised as Yorkshire's "heavenly twins". A flavour of the Holmes-Sutcliffe partnership was captured by The Cricketer in a profile written in 1921:
There is usually a hum of expectancy when Holmes and Sutcliffe appear, their faces wreathed in smiles, and chatting happily together. They seem to be sharing some all-absorbing joke. Holmes, proudly wearing his Yorkshire cap, walks with quick, short steps, shoulders erect and head in the air, doing his best to look as tall as (John) Tunnicliffe. Sutcliffe has dark, glossy hair and usually disdains the valued White Rose cap when batting. He strolls casually along by the side of Percy, keeping his weather eye open for the wicket-keeper's end and the honour of taking the first ball.
Holmes and Sutcliffe shared 74 century stands in all first-class matches including 69 for Yorkshire. 19 of these exceeded 200 and 4 were over 300, including their world record stand of 555 at Leyton in 1932. Yorkshire won the title 8 times in the seasons that Holmes and Sutcliffe opened the innings together.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe
In September 1922, Sutcliffe played in a Scarborough Festival match for C I Thornton's XI against MCC and, for the first time, was paired with Jack Hobbs in an opening partnership. They put on 120 in their only innings until Hobbs was out for 45; Sutcliffe went on to make 111.
Following his successful season with Yorkshire in 1922, Sutcliffe was in contention for a place on the England tour of South Africa in the winter of 1922–23, especially as Jack Hobbs declined to tour. The selectors evidently felt that Sutcliffe was not yet ready but they were, "as events would prove, wise to delay his promotion" as it ensured that Sutcliffe would have Hobbs as his "influential guide on the international stage". Percy Holmes was also overlooked and England's openers in the 1922–23 series were Andy Sandham, Frank Mann and Jack Russell.
The partnership of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, opening the innings together for England from 1924 to 1930, is the most famous in cricket history. With partnerships of 136 and 268 in their first two Test matches together, they were a success from the start and The Cricketer said:
Hobbs is undoubtedly the sauciest run-stealer in the world today. In Sutcliffe, he has found the ideal partner in the felony, for the Yorkshireman unhesitatingly responds to his calls, showing absolute confidence in Hobbs' judgement.
England wicket-keeper Les Ames, himself a top-class batsman, commented on their running together between the wickets by emphasising the placement of the stroke, which was so correct that they could "just play and run". Ames said they were not fast runners and that "Herbert only strolled".
Sutcliffe readily acknowledged his debt to his "influential guide" by naming his eldest son after him and writing, in a booklet published in 1927, that he doubted if Hobbs had an equal and that, as a batsman, "he stands alone (and is) the best I have ever seen". Sutcliffe expressed the view that if W G Grace was as good as Jack Hobbs, "then he must have been wonderful". He said that Hobbs' earliest advice to him had been simply: "Play your own game". Sutcliffe commented: "Four words – they counted for so much. They told me all I wanted to know".
Ian Peebles wrote that Sutcliffe's association with Hobbs "is judged, by results and all-round efficiency in all conditions", the greatest of all first-wicket partnerships and "will probably never be excelled". Peebles said that there lay between the two an "extraordinary understanding, manifested in their perfect and unhesitating judgment of the short single".
The last Test match in which Hobbs and Sutcliffe played together was the final one at The Oval, Hobbs' home ground, in the 1930 series against Australia. But the partnership was revived at the 1931 Scarborough Festival when they produced two double-century stands, first for the Players against the Gentlemen and then for H D G Leveson-Gower's XI against the New Zealand tourists. Their last partnership was for the Players at Lord's in 1932, an innings in which Hobbs carried his bat for 161 not out. Hobbs' biographer Ronald Mason summarised the association of Hobbs and Sutcliffe thus:
Behind them were nine years of wonderful attainment, 26 opening partnerships of 100 or more; a legendary technique and repute unequalled by any other pair; the lean, active quizzical Hobbs and the neat, wiry imperturbable Sutcliffe, who set a standard that can serve as a guide, but defied all attempts at emulation.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe made 15 century opening partnerships for England in Test matches, including 11 against Australia, and 11 in other first-class matches.
Sutcliffe and Hutton
Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career.
Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protégé but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel – the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him".
The master–apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle".
Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest.
Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice.
Noted opponents
As a specialist opening batsman, Sutcliffe's rivals on the field were the opposing bowlers and especially fast bowlers, though he encountered many outstanding spin bowlers too on turning or sticky wickets.
By the time Sutcliffe began his Test career, the formidable fast bowling partnership of Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald had ended, though Sutcliffe faced Gregory in Test matches and was opposed to McDonald in "Roses matches" between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Gregory by 1924–25 was no longer able to "frighten batsmen with sheer speed" but he still commanded respect and Jack Hobbs specifically told Sutcliffe to exercise caution against Gregory at the start of an innings. Sutcliffe regarded McDonald as "one of the best bowlers I ever met". He commented on McDonald's trick of "resting" by making himself seem tired and then "hurling himself into (a very fast delivery) like a demon". As Sutcliffe said, he never knew which ball would be the fast one and McDonald was a dangerous opponent.
But Sutcliffe was quoted as saying that he had "never played finer fast bowling" than that of the West Indians Learie Constantine, George Francis, Herman Griffith and Manny Martindale. Among the best English bowlers he faced in county cricket were some of his colleagues in England teams, such as Harold Larwood, Maurice Tate and Tich Freeman.
One of the toughest competitors he faced was the Australian leg spinner Clarrie Grimmett, "a tiny gnome of a man", who bowled with a roundarm action and made his Test debut at the age of 34, taking 11 wickets in his first match. Grimmett bowled "like a miser" and "begrudged every run", whereas his leg spin partner Arthur Mailey was the type of bowler who would "buy" his wickets by conceding runs and then, having boosted the batsman's confidence, snaring him with a "wrong 'un" (i.e., a googly). On Sutcliffe's first tour of Australia, he commented that he "was troubled most of the time by Arthur Mailey" but eventually he learned how to "differentiate between Mailey's leg breaks and his wrong 'uns".
Records
Fastest in world to reach 1,000 Test runs (later equalled by Everton Weekes) by achieving the feat in the 12th innings of his career.
Personal and business life
Sutcliffe married Emily ("Emmie") Pease at Pudsey Parish Church in September 1921. She had been a personal secretary to Richard Ingham, a mill owner who had introduced Sutcliffe to Pudsey St Lawrence. They had three children, two sons called Billy and John; and a daughter called Barbara. Billy Sutcliffe, whose middle name was Hobbs, played for Yorkshire between 1948 and 1957, captaining the team in the last two seasons of his career.
At the end of the 1924–25 tour of Australia, Sutcliffe and his Yorkshire colleague George Macaulay went into business together as a sports outfitting company with shops in Leeds and Wakefield. However, Macaulay withdrew from the business after a year and it became a Sutcliffe family concern until it folded in the 1990s. The business thrived while Sutcliffe was playing cricket and established itself as one of the leading sports goods retailers in the north of England. Sutcliffe ceased to have an active role in 1948 when he handed over the management to his son Billy.
Sutcliffe became the northern area representative, and eventually a director, of a paper manufacturer called Thomas Owen which was later amalgamated into Wiggins Teape. This firm also employed Douglas Jardine as company secretary, while Maurice Leyland, Bill Edrich and Len Hutton were other area representatives.
Sutcliffe developed severe arthritis in his old age, the disease crippling him to the extent that he needed a wheelchair. He suffered personal tragedy in April 1974 when his wife Emmie, then aged 74, died as result of severe burns following a fire at the family home in Ilkley. He was finally admitted to a Cross Hills nursing home in North Yorkshire where he died in January 1978 at the age of 83.
Footnotes
• a) Note that there are different versions of Sutcliffe's first-class career totals as a result of his participation in the 1930–31 Indian season. See Variations in first-class cricket statistics for more information.
References
Bibliography
John Arlott, Arlott on Cricket (ed. David Rayvern Allen), Collins, 1984
John Arlott, Portrait of the Master, Penguin, 1982
Barclays World of Cricket, 3rd edition, (ed. E. W. Swanton), Willow Books, 1986. Article on Sutcliffe written by Ian Peebles.
Derek Birley, A Social History of English Cricket, Aurum, 1999
Neville Cardus, Close of Play, Sportsmans Book Club edition, 1957, "Sutcliffe and Yorkshire", pp. 1–10
Bill Frindall, The Wisden Book of Cricket Records, Queen Anne Press, 1986,
Alan Gibson, The Cricket Captains of England, Cassell, 1979
Alan Hill, Herbert Sutcliffe: Cricket Maestro, Stadia, 2007 (2nd edition)
Douglas Jardine, In Quest of the Ashes, Methuen, 2005
Ronald Mason, Jack Hobbs, Sportsman's Book Club, 1961
Pelham Warner, Lords: 1787–1945, Harrap, 1946
Pelham Warner, Cricket Between Two Wars, Sporting Handbooks, 1946
Roy Webber, The County Cricket Championship, Sportsman's Book Club, 1958
Simon Wilde, Number One: The World's Best Batsmen and Bowlers, Gollancz, 1998,
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, various editions from 1920 to 1946
Graeme Wright, A Wisden Collection, Wisden, 2004
External links
Notes by the Editor – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1928 (online archive)
Herbert Sutcliffe's obituary – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1979 (online archive)
1894 births
1978 deaths
British Army personnel of World War I
England cricket team selectors
England Test cricketers
English cricketers
English cricketers of 1919 to 1945
Green Howards officers
People from Nidderdale
Players cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Yorkshire cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
North v South cricketers
Cricketers from Pudsey
H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers
Lord Hawke's XI cricketers
C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers
Royal Army Ordnance Corps officers
Sherwood Foresters soldiers
British Army personnel of World War II
Military personnel from Yorkshire
Marylebone Cricket Club Australian Touring Team cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club South African Touring Team cricketers | false | [
"\"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",
"The \"sweater curse\" or \"curse of the love sweater\" is a term used by knitters to describe the belief that if a knitter gives a hand-knit sweater to a significant other, it will lead to the recipient breaking up with the knitter. In an alternative formulation, the relationship will end before the sweater is even completed. The belief is widely discussed in knitting publications, and some knitters claim to have experienced it. In a 2005 poll, 15% of active knitters said that they had experienced the sweater curse firsthand, and 41% considered it a possibility that should be taken seriously.\n\nDespite its name, the \"sweater curse\" is treated in knitting literature not as a superstition governed by paranormal forces, but rather as a real-world pitfall of knitting that has rational explanations. Several plausible mechanisms for the sweater curse have been proposed, but it has not been studied systematically.\n\nExistence\n\nThe existence of the phenomenon is anecdotal, and may be related to confirmation bias; knitters may remember breakups more clearly after giving a hand-knit sweater, which represents a significant investment of money (typically over $100), effort (~100,000 stitches), time (as much as a year) and romantic imagination.\n\nProposed mechanisms\n\nAlthough the existence of this effect remains uncertain, it is a common belief amongst the knitting population, and several plausible (and non-exclusive) mechanisms for the sweater curse have been suggested within knitting periodicals and books:\n\n Unlucky timing. Knitting a sweater takes a long time, and the relationship dies of natural causes during its making. \n Rescue mission. The knitter senses subconsciously that the relationship is about to end, and knits a sweater as a gesture to save it. \n Catalyst for analyzing the relationship. Giving or receiving a significant gift such as a sweater may cause either the giver or receiver to evaluate the relationship. For example, the gift may seem too intimate, too domestic or too binding to the significant other. It can be seen as a signal that makes them realize that the relationship is not reciprocal, prompting them to end the relationship before it involves obligations.\n Aversion. The significant other may simply not want to wear anything hand-knit. A hand-knit sweater can also subject them to ridicule, either because the sweater looks bad (i.e., poorly made or unfashionable) or conveys overly domestic connotations.\n Misdirected attention. The knitter loves their sweater a little too much, and pesters the significant other about the sweater. Alternatively, the knitter loves to knit too much, and spends too much time with their knitting instead of with the significant other.\n Insufficient gratitude. The knitter sees the sweater as a significant thing, having chosen the pattern and color carefully, and having invested hours of labor; the recipient sees it as just another sweater, and the resulting lack of gratitude leads to tension in the relationship.\n New interests. The knitter may have discovered a new aspect of their personality, previously unexplored, to be of greater interest than the receiver understands. Having joined a knitting community, spending all their time reading about and thinking about knitting, potentially being secretive about their new interest in hopes of surprising the recipient, which may manifest as reminiscent of adulterous behaviour, or loss of interest in the relationship, thus alienating the soon-to-be recipient.\n\nAvoiding the curse\nFor many knitters, making a hand-knit gift is an emotional experience, an extended affectionate meditation on the person receiving the gift. A metaphor commonly used by knitters is, \"I knit my love into every stitch.\" Since giving too significant a gift too early in a relationship can evoke apprehension, knitters have been advised to match the knitted gift to the stage in the relationship, beginning with hats, mittens, scarves, or socks before graduating to sweaters. Many knitters also wait until marriage before making a sweater for a significant other.\n\nCommon-sense advice to knitters is that they should determine whether the recipient would ever wear a hand-knitted sweater. Knitters have also been advised to involve the significant other in designing the sweater (e.g. in choosing its design, colors and materials) and follow their suggestions, even if the knitter objects. Several books offer practical design advice for avoiding the sweater curse.\n\nSee also\n\n Urban legend\n\nReferences\n\nCurses\nClothing controversies\nKnitting\nLuck"
]
|
[
"Herbert Sutcliffe",
"Sutcliffe and Hutton",
"Who is Hutton?",
"Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege",
"Did they ever play together?",
"Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934",
"Did they win that match?",
"I don't know.",
"What else is significant about their relationship?",
"Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege"
]
| C_c762f7f31b37415eb25b09830029cbed_1 | In what ways were they alike? | 5 | In what ways were Sutcliffe and Hutton alike? | Herbert Sutcliffe | Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career. Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel - the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him". The master-apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle". Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest. Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice. CANNOTANSWER | "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". | Herbert Sutcliffe (24 November 1894 – 22 January 1978) was an English professional cricketer who represented Yorkshire and England as an opening batsman. Apart from one match in 1945, his first-class career spanned the period between the two world wars. His first-class debut was delayed by the First World War until 1919 and his career was effectively terminated in August 1939 when he was called up for military service in the imminent Second World War.
He was the first cricketer to score 16 centuries in Test match cricket.
A right-handed batsman, Sutcliffe was noted for his concentration and determination, qualities which made him invaluable to his teams in adverse batting conditions; and he is remembered as one of the game's finest "bad wicket batsmen". His fame rests mainly in the great opening partnership he formed with Jack Hobbs for England between 1924 and 1930. He also formed notable opening partnerships at Yorkshire with Percy Holmes and, in his last few seasons, the young Len Hutton. During Sutcliffe's career, Yorkshire won the County Championship 12 times. Sutcliffe played in 54 Test matches for England and on three occasions he toured Australia, where he enjoyed outstanding success. His last tour in 1932–33 included the controversial "bodyline" series, in which Sutcliffe is perceived to have been one of Douglas Jardine's main supporters. Although close friends have stated that Sutcliffe did not approve of bodyline, he always acted out of fierce loyalty to his team captain and was committed to his team's cause. In statistical terms, Sutcliffe was one of the most successful Test batsmen ever; his completed career batting average was 60.73 which is the highest by any English batsman and the seventh-highest worldwide (of Test batsmen with 20 completed innings) behind only Don Bradman, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Adam Voges, Graeme Pollock and George Headley.
Sutcliffe became a successful businessman early in his first-class career by using the money he earned as a player to establish a sportswear shop in Leeds. When his playing career ended, he served on the club committee at Yorkshire for 21 years and for three years was an England Test selector. Among the honours accorded him have been the commemoration of a special set of gates in his name at Headingley, home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and his induction into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Early years
Childhood
Herbert Sutcliffe was born in Summerbridge, Nidderdale, West Riding of Yorkshire on 24 November 1894 at his parents' home, a cottage in Gabblegate (now called East View). His parents were Willie and Jane Sutcliffe. Herbert was the second of three sons, his brothers being Arthur and Bob. Willie Sutcliffe, who worked at a sawmill in nearby Dacre Banks, was a keen club cricketer.
When Herbert was still a baby the family moved to Pudsey, where Willie's father was the landlord of the King's Arms. Willie worked in the pub and played cricket for the well-known Pudsey St Lawrence Cricket Club. He also played rugby football, and an injury sustained during a rugby match led to his premature death in 1898.
Jane Sutcliffe moved the family back to Nidderdale, where they lived in Darley, the boys enrolling at Darley School, and she remarried. Jane developed consumption, and she died in January 1904 at the age of 37, when Herbert was nine. Jane's second husband was a bootmaker called Tom Waller but he was not allowed custody of the brothers who moved back to Pudsey to be cared for by the Sutcliffe family. Willie Sutcliffe had three sisters, Sarah, Carrie and Harriet, who ran a bakery. They became the legal guardians of Arthur, Herbert and Bob, respectively.
As the three aunts were devoted members of the local Congregational Church, the three boys received religious instruction there and Herbert became a lifelong committed Christian. He was a Sunday School teacher as a young man and first came to notice as a cricketer when he played for a church team. The boys lived in the family house which contained the bakery and slept in a loft above the bakehouse itself.
Herbert left school in 1908 when he was 13, and was apprenticed to a boot and shoe company as a "clicker" who fastened boot soles to uppers. In 1911, his prowess at cricket earned him an offer of clerical employment in a local textile mill, where he learnt bookkeeping, a skill that served him well when he launched his own business career.
Development as a cricketer
Sutcliffe became seriously interested in cricket at the age of eight, soon after he returned to Pudsey during his mother's final illness. He formed an ambition to follow his father and two uncles and play for Pudsey St Lawrence. His first club was a Wesleyan church team in the neighbouring village of Stanningley, where he was first seen as a bowler rather than a batsman. In one match in 1907, he took all 10 wickets in an innings.
In 1908, now aged 13, he began playing for Pudsey St Lawrence's second team. The following year, Sutcliffe made his first-team debut. Two of his team-mates were Major Booth and Henry Hutton, father of Len Hutton.
In 1911, now aged 16, Sutcliffe switched his allegiance to the rival Pudsey Britannia club where, he is quoted as saying, "my batting improved by leaps and bounds". This move came about because of the offer of clerical employment at the textile mill, which was owned by Ernest Walker who was also the Britannia club captain. Sutcliffe later said that Walker allowed him more time for cricket practice than he could get from his bootmaking job.
The following season, Sutcliffe's progress was noted by Yorkshire County Cricket Club and he was invited to take part in the county team practice sessions at Headingley. He was welcomed by the great George Herbert Hirst, who gave him much encouragement and advice. Soon afterwards, he was invited to play for the Yorkshire 2nd XI team.
Sutcliffe was coached at Headingley by Hirst and the club's 2nd XI coach, Steve Doughty, who placed great emphasis on the importance of pad play (the use of the pads to intercept the ball and prevent it hitting the wicket when this would not risk being out leg before wicket). Although Doughty's approach was criticised by Sutcliffe's colleagues at Pudsey Britannia, Sutcliffe himself had no regrets about the time he spent mastering the technique and later explained that swing bowling had been so well developed by bowlers in every county team that it was impossible for any batsman to keep his wicket by relying on his bat alone. The long-term benefit he derived was a very strong defence that he later used to great effect on treacherous pitches.
By 1914, Sutcliffe had become the most accomplished player in the Bradford League in which Pudsey Britannia played. He was playing both for Yorkshire 2nd XI and Pudsey Britannia at this time. In August, just as the First World War was beginning, he appeared for the 2nd XI at Beverley against an East Riding XI and opened the batting for the first time as a Yorkshire player. He made a half-century in the second innings and the Cricket Argus commented that "he was confident and stylish in... his best performance for the second eleven". The Argus went on to say that Sutcliffe, with youth on his side, "looks every inch a cricketer (with) a variety of good strokes". In the Bradford League, Sutcliffe scored a then-record 727 runs in the season, which was beaten in 1916 by his future England opening partner Jack Hobbs.
Military service and demobilisation
Sutcliffe was called up in 1915 and served first with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, stationed at York, and then with the Sherwood Foresters. He was later commissioned into the Green Howards, now part of the Yorkshire Regiment, as a Second Lieutenant, but he did not see active service and was not posted to France until after the Armistice was signed.
Sutcliffe played cricket during the war for the Officer Cadet Battalion in Scotland, captaining his team in matches against Glasgow University and other Scottish teams. He still managed to play in the Bradford League on occasion, but he said that he sometimes did so under an assumed name after taking unofficial leave.
Sutcliffe was demobilised in 1919 and took a job as a colliery checkweighman at Allerton Bywater in Yorkshire. He was contracted to play for the colliery's cricket team in the Yorkshire Council league, but he was selected at the beginning of the 1919 season to play again for Yorkshire 2nd XI. However he retained the colliery job until he opened his sportswear shop in 1924.
First-class debut
The war had delayed the start of Sutcliffe's first-class career with Yorkshire and he was 24 when his chance finally came. In May 1919, he played for the county's 2nd XI against a full-strength 1st XI and did very well, scoring 51 not out. He received a good report in the Yorkshire Post and never played for the 2nd XI again. Yorkshire's first County Championship fixture after the war took place on 26 and 27 May at Bristol against Gloucestershire and Sutcliffe, batting at number 6, made his first-class debut. Yorkshire batted first, after losing the toss, and Sutcliffe made 11 in a total of 277 (Roy Kilner 112). Despite that seemingly modest score, Yorkshire won by an innings and 63 runs as Gloucestershire were bowled out twice for 125 and 89.
1919 to 1927
Sutcliffe kept his place in the Yorkshire team and continued to bat in the middle of the order for a month until, in the match against Nottinghamshire at Bramall Lane on 27 and 28 June, Wilfred Rhodes decided to drop down the order for the 2nd innings and Sutcliffe went in first with Percy Holmes. After some indifferent scores, he completed his maiden first-class century on 23 and 24 July against Northamptonshire at Northampton when he and Holmes put on 279 for the first wicket, Sutcliffe scoring 145 and Holmes 133. Further success resulted in Holmes and Sutcliffe being awarded their county caps in August 1919. Sutcliffe created a debut season record by scoring 1,839 runs at an average of 44.85 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 174 against Kent at Crabble Athletic Ground in Dover. Holmes and Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries each in 1919 and they shared in 5 century partnerships. Their performances were key to Yorkshire winning the championship that season for the 10th time in all.
As a result of their success in 1919, Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe were both awarded a Wisden Cricketer of the Year title in 1920. In the accompanying review, Wisden commented on Sutcliffe's pre-war development and the benefits that both he and Holmes derived from Steve Doughty's coaching. Sutcliffe's "fine driving" was commended but it was noted that "he may not yet be quite so strong in defence".
By his 1919 standards, Sutcliffe had two quiet years in 1920 and 1921. He was well down the national averages in 1920 with 1,393 runs at 33.16 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 131. In 1921, he did not score a century and made 1,235 runs at 30.12.
In 1922, as Yorkshire regained the County Championship title under new captain Geoffrey Wilson, Sutcliffe lived up to his early promise by scoring 2,020 runs at 46.97 with a highest score of 232 against Surrey at the Oval. He scored 11 half-centuries but only 2 centuries. Sutcliffe was one of seven Yorkshire players who were ever-present, playing in all 30 matches.
Sutcliffe's career advanced in 1923 when he made his first appearances in the North v South and Gentlemen v Players fixtures and in a Test Trial. His overall record in 1923 was 2,220 runs at 41.11 with 3 centuries, 15 fifties and a highest score of 139 against Somerset. The Yorkshire cricket historian Alfred Pullin wrote: "it was recognised long before the season ended that Sutcliffe had established his claim to be considered one of England's first-wicket batsmen".
In the 1924 season, Yorkshire completed a hat-trick of championships under Geoffrey Wilson and Sutcliffe enjoyed probably his best season to date, scoring 2,142 runs at 48.68 with 6 centuries including a highest score of 255 not out against Essex. He made his Test debut on Saturday, 14 June 1924, playing for England against South Africa at Edgbaston and opening the innings with Jack Hobbs. In this First Test, which England won by an innings, they recorded their first century partnership for England by putting on 136 before Sutcliffe was out for 64. In the Second Test at Lord's, Hobbs and Sutcliffe scored 268 before Sutcliffe was out for 122, his maiden Test century; Hobbs went on to make 211 and England again won by an innings. In the whole series, Sutcliffe scored 303 runs at 75.75.
As early as July, Sutcliffe was one of ten players named to tour Australia in the winter of 1924–25 under the leadership of Arthur Gilligan. At first, Hobbs declined the tour but then changed his mind when it was decided his wife would accompany him. The importance of this to Sutcliffe was that his partnership with Hobbs could continue at the very highest level of cricket where the presence of Hobbs was ultimately the key factor in Sutcliffe's major success on the tour, which established him as a world-class player. Sutcliffe said he had some initial difficulty in adjusting to Australian conditions, specifically the strong light which affected his timing. He also reckoned that the pitches were a good four yards faster than in England. His remedy was to play straight and by hitting the ball back down the pitch. He said later that he sacrificed many of his best shots, but "it paid off in the end". This is shown by his overall performance as, although England lost the series 4–1, Sutcliffe scored 734 runs in the five Tests at an average of 81.55 with 4 centuries, 2 half-centuries and a highest score of 176. In the whole tour, he scored 1,250 runs at 69.44 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 188.
In 1925, as Yorkshire won a 4th successive championship, Sutcliffe scored 2,308 runs at 53.67 with 7 centuries and a highest score of 235 against Middlesex at Headingley. During 1925 and 1926, Sutcliffe's skill was a primary factor in Yorkshire having the longest unbeaten run in county cricket: i.e., 70 matches without loss until early 1927. After three defeats in 1927, Yorkshire went a further 58 games without loss until 1929.
The first four Tests of the 1926 England v Australia series were scheduled for just three days and were all curtailed by poor weather. The final Test at the Oval was timeless to ensure a finish. It has become one of the most famous matches in cricket history, not because England regained the Ashes for the first time since 1912 but for the manner it which it was achieved as Hobbs and Sutcliffe produced their most famous partnership in treacherous batting conditions. Australia had a narrow first innings lead of 22 and, at close of play on the second day (a Monday), Hobbs and Sutcliffe had taken the England second innings score to 49–0, a lead of 27. Heavy rain fell overnight and next day, as the sun shone, the pitch soon developed into a "sticky wicket" on which it was generally assumed that England would be bowled out cheaply and so lose both the match and the series. But, in spite of the very difficult batting conditions, Hobbs and Sutcliffe put up a great defence of their wickets and gradually increased their partnership to 172 before Hobbs was out for exactly 100. Sutcliffe went on to make 161 and, in the end, England won the game comfortably, by 289 runs, and regained the Ashes. The tributes paid to Hobbs and Sutcliffe after this partnership are extensive. Pelham Warner perhaps encapsulated them all when he wrote: "Hobbs and Sutcliffe won it for us by their incomparable batting. They did not fail us at a time of most desperate crisis. Never has English cricket known a more dauntless pair".
In the 1926 County Championship, Yorkshire lost the title despite being unbeaten to their close rivals Lancashire by a very narrow margin. Sutcliffe was 2nd in the national batting averages behind Hobbs, scoring 2,528 runs at 66.52 with 8 centuries and a highest score of exactly 200 against Leicestershire. In the 1927 County Championship, Yorkshire finished 3rd but it was another great season for both Holmes and Sutcliffe who scored over 4,500 runs and 12 centuries between them. Sutcliffe scored 2,414 runs at 56.13 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 227 for England versus The Rest.
In the autumn of 1927, the Yorkshire committee decided to appoint Sutcliffe as team captain in succession to Arthur Lupton, who had retired. He would thus have become the first professional to captain the side since 1882 but, as Wisden records, "objection was taken to this action by two different parties". There were those who supported the view that no professional should be captain; and significant opposition also came from a large number of members who argued that, if a professional were to be appointed, it should be Wilfred Rhodes rather than Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe himself was en route to South Africa while most of the furore developed and had to rely on telegrams for his news. When first advised of the appointment, he sent a reply that spoke of the great honour and his desire to serve Yorkshire and England. But he was better apprised of the controversy when he arrived in Cape Town and finally sent a message that he was declining the offer but willing to serve under any other captain.
1928 to 1932
During the five years 1928 to 1932, Sutcliffe played 181 matches (254 innings) in which he was not out 36 times, scoring 15,529 runs for a total average of 70.35.
Sutcliffe made his only tour of South Africa in 1927–28, playing in 14 matches and scoring 1,030 runs at 51.50 with 2 centuries and a highest score of 102. He was able to open the England innings with Holmes, Hobbs having declined the tour, and made his score of 102 in the first innings of the First Test at the Old Wanderers ground in Johannesburg, England winning by 10 wickets.
In 1928, Sutcliffe scored 3,000 runs in a season for the first time, a feat he repeated in 1931 and 1932, becoming the first player to achieve it three times. Only Patsy Hendren and Wally Hammond have equalled the feat. Sutcliffe's 1928 tally was 3,002 at 76.97 with a highest score of 228 among 13 centuries and 13 half-centuries. He played in all three Tests against West Indies in 1928. This was West Indies' inaugural Test series and their batsmen struggled against a strong England attack so that England was able to win all three Tests by an innings. But Sutcliffe was very impressed by the fast bowling of Learie Constantine, George Francis and Herman Griffith and said of them during the Lord's Test that he had "never played finer fast bowling".
Under the leadership of Percy Chapman, Sutcliffe toured Australia again in 1928–29 with Hobbs as his opening partner. England won the first two Tests before Hobbs and Sutcliffe played major roles in one of the most famous Test matches ever at Melbourne. Australia won the toss and batted first, making 397 thanks to centuries by Alan Kippax and Jack Ryder. England scored 417 with 200 by Hammond and 58 by Sutcliffe. Australia then scored 351 with 107 by their captain Bill Woodfull and a maiden Test century by Don Bradman. This left England needing 332 to win. Australia had ended the 5th day of a timeless match on 347–8 and the pitch was showing increasing signs of wear. Overnight, a storm broke and soaked the pitch which, as the sun shone on it through the morning, became what Bradman later described as "the worst sticky I ever saw". Even Wisden admitted that it "may fittingly be described as a beastly wicket". Play on the sixth day did not begin until 12:51 and Australia's last two wickets quickly fell with just 4 runs added to their overnight total. Clem Hill reckoned that the state of the pitch was such that "odds of ten to one against an England success would be generous" and Hugh Trumble reportedly told Jack Hobbs that 70 would be a good total. Wisden recorded that "then it was that the wonderful skill of these two (Hobbs and Sutcliffe) showed itself so prominently for, with the ball turning and getting up almost straight, they put on 105 for the first wicket... the two batsmen rendered England splendid service by an historic stand and made victory probable". Having survived the last 5 minutes before lunch, they added 75 in the afternoon session when "the ball was turning and at other times getting up almost straight". Hobbs had nearly been dismissed early on when a catch was dropped but the two batsmen played with "remarkable footwork, masterly defence and unerring skill in a difficult situation". Hobbs was out when the score had reached 105 and then Sutcliffe added another 94 in partnership with Douglas Jardine as the wicket eased and close of play was safely reached with the total at 171–1 (Sutcliffe 83 not out). Next morning, with conditions much more favourable, Sutcliffe batted on until he was finally out for 135 with the total on 318–4 and only 14 more needed. There was a slight scare as three more wickets fell, including Chapman who was caught at cover when trying for the winning hit. But the runs were obtained and England had won a famous victory against the odds by 3 wickets. Sutcliffe later said that he considered this to have been his finest innings ever. Jardine later wrote about the number of times Hobbs and Sutcliffe were hit "all over the body" during their stand and made the point that, if a batsman is to make runs on an Australian sticky wicket, then being hit by the ball is inevitable.
In 1929, Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries against the South African tourists. The first was 113 for Yorkshire in a drawn match at Bramall Lane He then scored four in the Test series, including two in the same match in the Fifth Test at the Oval. His season aggregate was 2,189 runs at 52.11 with 9 centuries and a highest score of 150 against Northamptonshire.
In 1930, Sutcliffe was the leading Englishman in the first-class batting averages behind Don Bradman (i.e., of batsmen with 10 completed innings). In a summer of hot, thundery weather that produced some exceptionally bad pitches, Sutcliffe averaged 87.61 in the four Tests he played in, scoring 161 in the Fifth Test at the Oval. Sutcliffe's first-class aggregate in 1930 was 2,312 runs at 64.22 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 173 against Sussex.
During the winter of 1930–31, Hobbs and Sutcliffe went on a private tour of India and Ceylon that was organised by the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram (popularly known as "Vizzy"). There is debate in some quarters about the status of matches played on this tour, which are not recognised as first-class by Wisden in contrast to certain other publications. The scores were printed in The Cricketer Spring Annual in 1932 and presented as first-class but escaped general notice at the time and were largely ignored until some statisticians took an interest in them in the 1970s. It is known that neither Hobbs nor Sutcliffe thought they were first-class matches; they regarded them as exhibition games arranged for Vizzy's personal entertainment. Nevertheless, Sutcliffe scored 532 runs and 2 centuries in the disputed matches and this has impacted his first-class statistical record with two versions in circulation.
In all first-class cricket in the 1931 season, Sutcliffe scored four centuries in consecutive innings and averaged 96.96, topping the first-class averages for the first time. He totalled 3,006 runs with a highest score of 230 among 13 centuries. Yorkshire historian Jim Kilburn commented on Sutcliffe's general consistency as "almost past believing" while Sutcliffe himself reckoned that his accomplishments in 1931, which was a wet summer, were the best of his entire career.
When Yorkshire played Gloucestershire at Park Avenue, Bradford, in July 1932, Sutcliffe completed his 100th century. He was the first Yorkshire player and the seventh overall to achieve the feat. Having scored 83 in the first innings, he reached his target with 132 in the second. Yorkshire won the match by 133 runs. Yorkshire honoured the occasion by presenting Sutcliffe with a cheque for 100 guineas, repeating Surrey's reward paid to Jack Hobbs when he scored his 100th century. In Yorkshire's match against Essex at Leyton, Holmes and Sutcliffe set a world record partnership for any wicket of 555. This remained the world record for any wicket till 1945–46 and it was not until 1976–77 that it was beaten for the first wicket. It remains the record partnership for any wicket in England. Sutcliffe's share of the stand was 313, his career highest score. Yorkshire batted first and, at the end of the first day, the score stood at 423–0, with Holmes on 180 and Sutcliffe on 231, already beating their previous best stand of 347 against Hampshire in 1920. Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity then proceeded to bowl Essex out twice and Yorkshire won by an innings and 313 runs.
Sutcliffe scored 3,336 runs in 1932, the highest season total of his career and it included his highest individual score of 313, made in the world record stand at Leyton. He averaged 74.13 with 14 centuries and 9 half-centuries. He became the third batsman after K S Ranjitsinhji and C B Fry to score 1,000 runs in a month twice in the same season, making 1,193 in June and 1,006 in August. His total of 3,336 is the sixth highest season aggregate behind Denis Compton (3,816 in 1947), Bill Edrich (3,539 in 1947), Tom Hayward (3,518 in 1906), Len Hutton (3,429 in 1949) and Frank Woolley (3,352 in 1928). His fourteen centuries in the season have been bettered only by Compton (18 in 1947), Jack Hobbs (16 in 1925) and Wally Hammond (15 in 1938).
1932–33: the "bodyline" tour
In the winter of 1932–33, Sutcliffe was a key member of the England team that toured Australia and New Zealand under the captaincy of Douglas Jardine, taking part in all five Tests of the infamous "bodyline" series. Wisden in its tour summary stated unequivocally that "Jardine, while nothing like the batsman in Australia of four years earlier, captained the side superbly" but he "had one great difficulty which he never successfully overcame". The difficulty was to find a suitable partner for Sutcliffe as opening batsman and Wisden continues by remarking on several experiments tried by Jardine throughout the tour but ends by saying that "no real successor to Hobbs was discovered".
Sutcliffe, who was by now England's senior professional, was part of the England selection committee on the tour along with Jardine, Pelham Warner (team manager), Bob Wyatt (vice-captain) and Wally Hammond. Sutcliffe enjoyed only mixed success with the bat but he did make his career highest Test score of 194 in the First Test at Sydney, which England won by 10 wickets. Overall, he scored 1,318 first-class runs on the Australian leg of the tour at 73.22 with 5 centuries, the highest score being his 194 at Sydney. He was the only English batsman to reach 1,000 runs on this tour. Surprisingly, he had no success in New Zealand where, in 3 appearances, he made just 27 runs.
Australia won the toss at Sydney and decided to bat. Without Bradman, who was ill, they struggled against the pace of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce but, thanks to a brilliant innings of 187 not out by Stan McCabe, they made a creditable 360. England's batsmen had no such troubles and steadily built a total of 524 to claim a first innings lead of 164. Sutcliffe opened with Wyatt and they began with a stand of 112. Wyatt was dismissed for 38 and Sutcliffe then put on 188 for the second wicket with Hammond, who was out at 300–2 for 112. Next man in was Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and he joined Sutcliffe in a third wicket century partnership of 123 before Sutcliffe was finally out for 194 after batting for over 7 hours across the second and third days of the match. The last seven wickets fell for the addition of only 101 more runs. With Larwood taking his second five-wicket haul, Australia could only make 164 to tie the scores and at least make England bat again. Australia was 164–9 at close of play on the fourth day so all that was required on the last day was for Voce to dismiss Bill O'Reilly off the third ball of the morning, without adding to the total, and then Sutcliffe himself to score the solitary run needed to complete an emphatic 10 wicket victory. Wisden recorded that "there were less than a hundred people present to see the finish".
When he had scored 43, he played a ball bowled by O'Reilly onto his stumps but the impact did not shift the bails and so he was not out. Wisden said that "Sutcliffe gave a typical exhibition, being wonderfully sure in defence and certain in his off-driving". There was some criticism of Sutcliffe for scoring slowly at one point in the second half of his innings but Jardine has confirmed that Sutcliffe was playing under his instructions which "right nobly did Sutcliffe carry them out to the letter".
Australia, with Bradman back in their team, won the Second Test at Melbourne by 111 runs. Having been dismissed for 228 in the first innings, they fought back to reduce England to just 169, in which Sutcliffe made the top score of 52. In the second innings, Bradman effectively won the match for Australia by scoring a resilient 103 not out even though his team was dismissed for just 191. Sutcliffe was again England's highest scorer, making 33 of a poor 139 as O'Reilly and Bert Ironmonger took the wickets.
Sutcliffe failed twice in the Third Test at Adelaide, the most controversial match of the tour as it was the one in which the bodyline furore reached its climax. England won by 338 runs but the match was overshadowed by the injuries sustained by Woodfull and Australian wicket-keeper Bert Oldfield and the subsequent heated telegrams and diplomatic row.
England won the Fourth Test at Brisbane by 6 wickets. This time, Sutcliffe opened with Jardine and they put on 114 in the first innings. Sutcliffe scored 86, another top score. England held a narrow lead on first innings and then dismissed Australia for 175. Sutcliffe was out for 2 in the second innings but Leyland held the innings steady and ensured that England won both the match and the series. The Fifth Test at Sydney was therefore academic but England nevertheless won by 8 wickets, Sutcliffe scoring 56 in his only innings.
According to Bob Wyatt, Sutcliffe "backed Jardine to the hilt" on the subject of bowling "bodyline" aka "fast leg theory". Wyatt said that: "Herbert never hesitated in his views about our bowling strategy. He did not see anything wrong about pursuing the tactics". Les Ames agreed with Wyatt's view and said that, though the majority of the England players were morally opposed to Jardine's tactics, Sutcliffe took the pragmatic view that "the ball is there, it's short, so hook it". Sutcliffe himself was an outstanding player of the hook shot but Ames was unsure about how he would have coped with Larwood's accuracy if he had been playing against him. According to Bill O'Reilly, Sutcliffe was the strongest advocate of bodyline and he sometimes acted like an "unofficial captain", even initiating the tactics on his own responsibility. However, a close friend of Sutcliffe insisted that Sutcliffe "was always behind authority" and was absolutely loyal to his captain, but his private views about bodyline were another matter.
1933 to 1939
In 1933, Sutcliffe could not repeat his outstanding form of the 1932 season but he still scored a considerable 2,211 runs at 47.04, although it was his lowest tally in a dry summer since 1921. He completed 7 centuries with a highest score of 205 against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. Sutcliffe scored 304 runs at 50.66 in four Tests against Australia in 1934. His first-class aggregate for the 1934 season was 2,023 runs at 49.34 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 203 against Surrey at the Oval. In 1935, Sutcliffe's Test career ended when he missed the Third Test against South Africa due to a leg injury and then never recovered his place when he was fit again. Wisden's view was that England wished to try out younger players but it pointed out that Sutcliffe "remains a prolific runscorer".
Sutcliffe's record in Test cricket is outstanding. As shown by the adjacent graph, he is the only English batsman who has averaged more than 60 runs per innings in a completed career and his statistical record compares favourably with anyone except Don Bradman. Uniquely, Sutcliffe's batting average never dropped below 60 throughout his entire Test career and Javed Miandad is the only other player whose average never dropped below 50 in a career of at least 20 innings.
The demands of Test cricket behind him, Sutcliffe played in 29 of Yorkshire's 30 County Championship matches in 1936 but his average fell to 33.30, his worst seasonal performance since the early 1920s. His form rallied somewhat in the last three seasons of his career and he formed another outstanding opening partnership with Len Hutton who matured into a Test-class batsman in 1937. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 315 for the first wicket against Leicestershire at Hull in 1937, Sutcliffe scoring 189 and Hutton 153. Sutcliffe faced Australian opposition for the final time in 1938 when he appeared in two matches against the tourists, one in July for Yorkshire at Bramall Lane and the other in September at North Marine Road in a Scarborough Festival match when he played for H D G Leveson Gower's XI.
Yorkshire completed another hat-trick of County Championships in 1939 and, although he was now 44 and certainly a "veteran", Sutcliffe enjoyed a remarkable sequence of four consecutive centuries in May and June which showed any doubters that he was still one of the best opening batsmen around. Sutcliffe was to play one more first-class match in 1945, but his career effectively ended in August 1939 when he played for Yorkshire against Hampshire at Dean Park Cricket Ground, Bournemouth, on Saturday, 26 August and Monday, 28 August. Yorkshire won by an innings and 11 runs in just two days. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 56 before Hutton was out for 37 and Sutcliffe went on to score 51 before he was out at 117–2, leg before wicket to George Heath, who thus took his wicket for the second time in 1939.
Into retirement
As a reservist in the British Army, Sutcliffe was the first Yorkshire player to be called up, in August 1939, as the Second World War became imminent. He missed Yorkshire's final match of the season against Sussex at Hove, which ended on 1 September, the day the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. He rejoined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and attained the rank of major. He did not leave Great Britain during his army service which ended in November 1942. Now aged 48, he was discharged from the army on medical grounds having undergone two operations that year for sinus trouble and a shoulder injury. For the remainder of the war, he divided his time between his sportswear business and charity fundraising.
Like most top-class players, Sutcliffe occasionally played in charity matches during the war, including three to raise money for the Red Cross in 1940. In one of these, he played for a Yorkshire XI against a Bradford League XI at Park Avenue and scored 127, which was his last-ever century. The League team included Eddie Paynter, Manny Martindale and Learie Constantine, who scored a brilliant century in what Sutcliffe described as "a gem of an innings".
Although Alan Gibson described Sutcliffe as "a good public speaker", Sutcliffe himself seems to have been modest about this ability. During the war, he was asked to share a charity event platform with Sir Compton Mackenzie in Bradford. Mackenzie gave a brilliant speech that was well received and Sutcliffe said to him: "Oh, my, how I wish I could speak like you". Mackenzie, who was a keen cricket fan, replied: "You don't wish nearly as much that you could speak like me as I wish I could bat like you".
Sutcliffe had already stated his intention to retire from first-class cricket but nevertheless he returned in August 1945 at the age of 50 for one final match after the war in Europe ended. He captained the Yorkshire team in a match against a Royal Air Force team at North Marine Road in the renewed Scarborough Festival. The match was drawn after being affected by the weather. Sutcliffe batted once, going in at number 5, and scored just 8 runs before being dismissed leg before wicket (lbw) by Bill Edrich.
In 1949, Sutcliffe was accorded honorary membership of MCC and joined what was then a select company of English professionals including George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Jack Hobbs.
Sutcliffe continued to be involved in cricket and his Wisden obituary says: "His repayment to the game which had given him so much was service on the Yorkshire committee, as an England selector, and as sponsor for many good causes in cricket". In a tribute that was published with the obituary, Brian Sellers said: "We served together on the county committee for over 21 years". Sutcliffe was a Test selector for three years from 1959 through 1961, during which England played home series against India, South Africa and Australia.
In February 1963, Yorkshire appointed Sutcliffe a life member of the club and then, in July 1965, his old captain Sir William Worsley, now president of the club, formally opened the Sutcliffe Gates in the St Michael's Lane approach to the Headingley ground. Similar in design to the Hobbs Gates at the Oval, they carry the inscription:
In honour of a great Yorkshire and England cricketer
Sutcliffe retained his interest in cricket for the rest of his life. One of his final public appearances was in 1977 when, in his wheelchair and only a few months before he died, he was photographed at Headingley alongside Len Hutton and Geoff Boycott just after Boycott had emulated Sutcliffe and Hutton by becoming the third Yorkshire batsman to score 100 centuries in his first-class career.
Wisden summarised his career thus:
Herbert Sutcliffe was one of the great cricketers and he brought to cricket as to all his undertakings an assurance and capacity for concentration that positively commanded success. His technical talent matched his character and his achievements were therefore on the highest plane.
On 30 September 2009, Herbert Sutcliffe was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Style and technique
Sutcliffe's approach to cricket
Sutcliffe's approach was essentially to do everything possible to help his team to win the match. His philosophy was that the game was there to be won and not merely to be played. He was determined to keep his wicket intact and, according to Fred Trueman, "he was a terrible man to get out" and "was at his best in a crisis". Sutcliffe's professionalism was reflected in his preparation and off-field demeanour. He took great pride in his appearance and Trueman says he was "always spick and span". Neville Cardus described him thus: "...shiny of hair, black as the raven's, with flannels of fluttering silk, and the confident air of super-Pudsey breeding. A deviation from type, a 'sport' in the evolutionary process!"
Sutcliffe was "unfailingly courteous as a man" and, along with his England colleague Hobbs, "committed to advancing the cause of the professional cricketer". According to Stuart Surridge, "our profession as a respected one started with Jack and Herbert (who) gave us a new status".
One of the main reasons why Yorkshire were prepared to offer the captaincy to Sutcliffe in 1927 was because he was not perceived to be the typical professional. Sutcliffe set high standards for himself and was determined to get on in life, as well as cricket, and make a lot of money. Wally Hammond, who eventually did turn amateur and captained England, was another example. Sutcliffe took pains to modify his accent and, as Neville Cardus commented, Sutcliffe eventually spoke "not with the accents of Yorkshire but of Teddington". Cardus remarked on the Savile Row suits worn by Sutcliffe and Hammond: "The county cricketer has in certain instances become a man of bourgeois profession". But Bill Bowes, an ex-grammar school boy who had benefited from educational reforms that were unavailable to Sutcliffe and the older professionals, regarded Sutcliffe as a hero. Writing about Sutcliffe, Bowes pointed out that Sutcliffe was "no ordinary man" and stressed that "professionalism was very important to him".
Cardus wrote:
[Of his batting] Sutcliffe had style... But it was his eternal vigilance, his keen eye and a mind that could move and anticipate, which were his assets, plus his Yorkshire realism and his Yorkshire tenacity of character. Immaculate in flannels, his hair burnished by the sun, the cynosure of all the women's and girls' eyes, a cricketer of manners, symbol of the new urban social consciousness, none the less he could be fitted into the Yorkshire scheme and body and atmosphere, after all.
In his Wisden obituary, the editor wrote that "...neither Pudsey nor any other nursery could have claimed Herbert Sutcliffe as a typical product. He was a Yorkshireman in his loyalty and training, but he was cosmopolitan in approach and outlook. His manner fitted Lord's as expressively as it fitted Leeds".
Trevor Bailey, writing in the 1981 Wisden about cricketers' hairstyles, said that Sutcliffe's was "black patent-leather glinting in the sun, complete with the straightest of partings".
For his part, Sutcliffe explained to Bowes that "Lord Hawke had lifted professional cricket from knee to shoulder level and even Lord Hawke always wanted it back again". But Hawke never could get it back because professionalism had evolved as society had changed and the likes of Sutcliffe and Hammond were establishing a respectability for their job, as noted by Stuart Surridge, that enabled them and some of their successors to join the establishment.
Batting
Sutcliffe's greatest qualities as an opening batsman were perhaps his even temperament and his penchant for big occasions. It is significant that his Test batting average was substantially better than his overall first-class one. He is especially remembered for his partnerships with Hobbs for England and with Holmes for Yorkshire. One of the main factors in these partnerships was mutual understanding, especially when it came to their judgment of singles, and Sutcliffe was involved in relatively few run outs when batting with either Hobbs or Holmes.
John Arlott wrote that Sutcliffe was a batsman of "immense application and thought". Arlott listed his main qualities as sound defence, powerful offside driving and "arguably the best hooker of his age". But above all, says Arlott, Sutcliffe was "cool, beyond disturbance, the master of survival and the ultimate pragmatist of cricket". Douglas Jardine touched on this point when, describing Sutcliffe's tiredness at the end of the bodyline series, he added that he "feels inclined to think that Sutcliffe rather enjoys appearing to be in difficulties: he so rarely fails to surmount them".
Sutcliffe was noted for his courage when facing the world's fastest bowlers, such as Harold Larwood who paid this tribute to Sutcliffe after his death:
Herbert Sutcliffe needed some getting out. He was a great battler for England and for Yorkshire. He never gave his wicket away unless he was satisfied he had made enough already. With Percy Holmes he formed just about the finest opening partnership I bowled against. I got him out cheaply a few times, but he scored a few hundreds against my bowling, so I reckon we ended up just about square.
Ian Peebles wrote of him:
Where he was unexcelled was in the courage, determination and concentration he brought to the job in hand. Never flustered, and certainly never intimidated, he was at his best on the big or testing occasion.
Sutcliffe told Fred Trueman that, although some batsmen can play fast bowling and some can't, "if everybody told the truth, no one really likes it". Trueman speaks of Sutcliffe's unselfish attitude when batting as "he didn't hog the limelight". Rather, he was a "severely practical performer (who) had to cut out the frills as an opening batsman". Sutcliffe's job was to "lay the foundations" of the innings; his main qualifications were having "the ideal temperament" and being "a magnificent judge of line and length".
Sutcliffe lacked the "polished elegance of Hobbs" as he was "essentially a practical batsman with a superb judgment of length, pace and direction". He stood with the face of the bat very open (i.e., to the bowler) so that he could present its full width to the ball every delivery. He was noted as a firm striker off the front foot who also had efficient use of the pull and hook shots. The 1933 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack said of Sutcliffe, in respect of the record partnership with Percy Holmes in 1932, that "like practically all great batsmen, he was generally at much pains to play himself in, and at all times his cricket – even when well set – proved rather more restrained than the situation warranted". The report goes on to say that Sutcliffe "undoubtedly felt a heavy responsibility rested upon him" but concluded by remarking on "how he could hit when he considered he might set about run-getting in light-hearted fashion".
As with all great players, much of Sutcliffe's success was down to hard work. In a contribution to the 1932 edition of Wisden, Lord Hawke said of Sutcliffe that "nobody I know trained, and trains, harder or more conscientiously than Sutcliffe. I ascribe much of his success to that fact".
In an evaluation of Jack Hobbs, Simon Wilde wrote that, amongst English batsmen, until Wally Hammond came to the fore in the late 1920s:
Second in line was undoubtedly the cool, methodical Sutcliffe, Hobbs's trusted opening partner for England, whose average of 66.85 in Ashes matches is the second-highest amongst batsmen with 1,000 runs, 23 points behind Bradman's and 12 ahead of Hobbs's. In his first series against Australia, in 1924–25, Sutcliffe outscored Hobbs, but Hobbs returned home and reaffirmed his position with a record-breaking season in England. Sutcliffe, who began his days as a stylist, later made the most of his abilities with powers of defence and concentration rarely, if ever, seen before (Bradman said Sutcliffe had the best temperament of any cricketer he saw). But Sutcliffe himself conceded that he did not possess the gifts of Hobbs, Hammond or Hutton.
The late R. C. Robertson-Glasgow had written of Sutcliffe a tribute that Wisden appended to Sutcliffe's obituary:
[He] was the serenest batsman I have known. Whatever may have passed under that calm brow – anger, joy, disagreement, surprise, relief, triumph – no outward sign was betrayed on the field of play. When I first saw him, in 1919, he was a debonair and powerful stylist. As you bowled opening overs to the later Sutcliffe you noticed the entire development of every defensive art; the depressingly straight bat, the astute use of pads (as with Hobbs), the sharp detection of which out-swinger could be left; above all, the consistently safe playing down of a rising or turning ball on leg stump, or thighs.
A. A. Thomson wrote of him:
The fact is that for the whole inter-war period he was England's and Yorkshire's anchor-man, a personality as dependable as fallible human nature will allow, This does not mean that he was slow or stodgy... He lacked the polished artistry of Hobbs or the sheer princely quality of Hammond or the delightful impertinence of Holmes, but he lacked nothing else... His spirit warmed to the fight like that of an ancient warrior. His manner was suave; his hair immaculate; his voice quiet; but he revealed his truest self, after his 161 in the 1926 Oval Test, surely the most truly Sutcliffian innings of his life, when he said: 'Yes, Mr. Warner, I love a dogfight...'
Bowling and fielding
Although Sutcliffe as a boy was thought to have potential as a bowler, he specialised in batting to the extent that he only bowled 993 deliveries, with 31 maiden overs, in his entire first-class career. He bowled a straightforward right-arm medium pace with little success, his best figures being 3–15 while his career average was a very high 40.21.
As a fielder, Sutcliffe generally played in the outfield, where he was a quick retriever of the ball and had a very good throwing arm. As a young man he could throw a cricket ball over 100 yards. He was usually a safe catcher and, in his career, took 23 catches in 54 Tests and 474 in 754 first-class matches.
Famous partnerships
Holmes and Sutcliffe
The 1919 season saw the beginning of a famous Yorkshire opening partnership that endured for 15 seasons until Percy Holmes retired. Holmes and Sutcliffe were eulogised as Yorkshire's "heavenly twins". A flavour of the Holmes-Sutcliffe partnership was captured by The Cricketer in a profile written in 1921:
There is usually a hum of expectancy when Holmes and Sutcliffe appear, their faces wreathed in smiles, and chatting happily together. They seem to be sharing some all-absorbing joke. Holmes, proudly wearing his Yorkshire cap, walks with quick, short steps, shoulders erect and head in the air, doing his best to look as tall as (John) Tunnicliffe. Sutcliffe has dark, glossy hair and usually disdains the valued White Rose cap when batting. He strolls casually along by the side of Percy, keeping his weather eye open for the wicket-keeper's end and the honour of taking the first ball.
Holmes and Sutcliffe shared 74 century stands in all first-class matches including 69 for Yorkshire. 19 of these exceeded 200 and 4 were over 300, including their world record stand of 555 at Leyton in 1932. Yorkshire won the title 8 times in the seasons that Holmes and Sutcliffe opened the innings together.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe
In September 1922, Sutcliffe played in a Scarborough Festival match for C I Thornton's XI against MCC and, for the first time, was paired with Jack Hobbs in an opening partnership. They put on 120 in their only innings until Hobbs was out for 45; Sutcliffe went on to make 111.
Following his successful season with Yorkshire in 1922, Sutcliffe was in contention for a place on the England tour of South Africa in the winter of 1922–23, especially as Jack Hobbs declined to tour. The selectors evidently felt that Sutcliffe was not yet ready but they were, "as events would prove, wise to delay his promotion" as it ensured that Sutcliffe would have Hobbs as his "influential guide on the international stage". Percy Holmes was also overlooked and England's openers in the 1922–23 series were Andy Sandham, Frank Mann and Jack Russell.
The partnership of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, opening the innings together for England from 1924 to 1930, is the most famous in cricket history. With partnerships of 136 and 268 in their first two Test matches together, they were a success from the start and The Cricketer said:
Hobbs is undoubtedly the sauciest run-stealer in the world today. In Sutcliffe, he has found the ideal partner in the felony, for the Yorkshireman unhesitatingly responds to his calls, showing absolute confidence in Hobbs' judgement.
England wicket-keeper Les Ames, himself a top-class batsman, commented on their running together between the wickets by emphasising the placement of the stroke, which was so correct that they could "just play and run". Ames said they were not fast runners and that "Herbert only strolled".
Sutcliffe readily acknowledged his debt to his "influential guide" by naming his eldest son after him and writing, in a booklet published in 1927, that he doubted if Hobbs had an equal and that, as a batsman, "he stands alone (and is) the best I have ever seen". Sutcliffe expressed the view that if W G Grace was as good as Jack Hobbs, "then he must have been wonderful". He said that Hobbs' earliest advice to him had been simply: "Play your own game". Sutcliffe commented: "Four words – they counted for so much. They told me all I wanted to know".
Ian Peebles wrote that Sutcliffe's association with Hobbs "is judged, by results and all-round efficiency in all conditions", the greatest of all first-wicket partnerships and "will probably never be excelled". Peebles said that there lay between the two an "extraordinary understanding, manifested in their perfect and unhesitating judgment of the short single".
The last Test match in which Hobbs and Sutcliffe played together was the final one at The Oval, Hobbs' home ground, in the 1930 series against Australia. But the partnership was revived at the 1931 Scarborough Festival when they produced two double-century stands, first for the Players against the Gentlemen and then for H D G Leveson-Gower's XI against the New Zealand tourists. Their last partnership was for the Players at Lord's in 1932, an innings in which Hobbs carried his bat for 161 not out. Hobbs' biographer Ronald Mason summarised the association of Hobbs and Sutcliffe thus:
Behind them were nine years of wonderful attainment, 26 opening partnerships of 100 or more; a legendary technique and repute unequalled by any other pair; the lean, active quizzical Hobbs and the neat, wiry imperturbable Sutcliffe, who set a standard that can serve as a guide, but defied all attempts at emulation.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe made 15 century opening partnerships for England in Test matches, including 11 against Australia, and 11 in other first-class matches.
Sutcliffe and Hutton
Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career.
Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protégé but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel – the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him".
The master–apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle".
Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest.
Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice.
Noted opponents
As a specialist opening batsman, Sutcliffe's rivals on the field were the opposing bowlers and especially fast bowlers, though he encountered many outstanding spin bowlers too on turning or sticky wickets.
By the time Sutcliffe began his Test career, the formidable fast bowling partnership of Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald had ended, though Sutcliffe faced Gregory in Test matches and was opposed to McDonald in "Roses matches" between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Gregory by 1924–25 was no longer able to "frighten batsmen with sheer speed" but he still commanded respect and Jack Hobbs specifically told Sutcliffe to exercise caution against Gregory at the start of an innings. Sutcliffe regarded McDonald as "one of the best bowlers I ever met". He commented on McDonald's trick of "resting" by making himself seem tired and then "hurling himself into (a very fast delivery) like a demon". As Sutcliffe said, he never knew which ball would be the fast one and McDonald was a dangerous opponent.
But Sutcliffe was quoted as saying that he had "never played finer fast bowling" than that of the West Indians Learie Constantine, George Francis, Herman Griffith and Manny Martindale. Among the best English bowlers he faced in county cricket were some of his colleagues in England teams, such as Harold Larwood, Maurice Tate and Tich Freeman.
One of the toughest competitors he faced was the Australian leg spinner Clarrie Grimmett, "a tiny gnome of a man", who bowled with a roundarm action and made his Test debut at the age of 34, taking 11 wickets in his first match. Grimmett bowled "like a miser" and "begrudged every run", whereas his leg spin partner Arthur Mailey was the type of bowler who would "buy" his wickets by conceding runs and then, having boosted the batsman's confidence, snaring him with a "wrong 'un" (i.e., a googly). On Sutcliffe's first tour of Australia, he commented that he "was troubled most of the time by Arthur Mailey" but eventually he learned how to "differentiate between Mailey's leg breaks and his wrong 'uns".
Records
Fastest in world to reach 1,000 Test runs (later equalled by Everton Weekes) by achieving the feat in the 12th innings of his career.
Personal and business life
Sutcliffe married Emily ("Emmie") Pease at Pudsey Parish Church in September 1921. She had been a personal secretary to Richard Ingham, a mill owner who had introduced Sutcliffe to Pudsey St Lawrence. They had three children, two sons called Billy and John; and a daughter called Barbara. Billy Sutcliffe, whose middle name was Hobbs, played for Yorkshire between 1948 and 1957, captaining the team in the last two seasons of his career.
At the end of the 1924–25 tour of Australia, Sutcliffe and his Yorkshire colleague George Macaulay went into business together as a sports outfitting company with shops in Leeds and Wakefield. However, Macaulay withdrew from the business after a year and it became a Sutcliffe family concern until it folded in the 1990s. The business thrived while Sutcliffe was playing cricket and established itself as one of the leading sports goods retailers in the north of England. Sutcliffe ceased to have an active role in 1948 when he handed over the management to his son Billy.
Sutcliffe became the northern area representative, and eventually a director, of a paper manufacturer called Thomas Owen which was later amalgamated into Wiggins Teape. This firm also employed Douglas Jardine as company secretary, while Maurice Leyland, Bill Edrich and Len Hutton were other area representatives.
Sutcliffe developed severe arthritis in his old age, the disease crippling him to the extent that he needed a wheelchair. He suffered personal tragedy in April 1974 when his wife Emmie, then aged 74, died as result of severe burns following a fire at the family home in Ilkley. He was finally admitted to a Cross Hills nursing home in North Yorkshire where he died in January 1978 at the age of 83.
Footnotes
• a) Note that there are different versions of Sutcliffe's first-class career totals as a result of his participation in the 1930–31 Indian season. See Variations in first-class cricket statistics for more information.
References
Bibliography
John Arlott, Arlott on Cricket (ed. David Rayvern Allen), Collins, 1984
John Arlott, Portrait of the Master, Penguin, 1982
Barclays World of Cricket, 3rd edition, (ed. E. W. Swanton), Willow Books, 1986. Article on Sutcliffe written by Ian Peebles.
Derek Birley, A Social History of English Cricket, Aurum, 1999
Neville Cardus, Close of Play, Sportsmans Book Club edition, 1957, "Sutcliffe and Yorkshire", pp. 1–10
Bill Frindall, The Wisden Book of Cricket Records, Queen Anne Press, 1986,
Alan Gibson, The Cricket Captains of England, Cassell, 1979
Alan Hill, Herbert Sutcliffe: Cricket Maestro, Stadia, 2007 (2nd edition)
Douglas Jardine, In Quest of the Ashes, Methuen, 2005
Ronald Mason, Jack Hobbs, Sportsman's Book Club, 1961
Pelham Warner, Lords: 1787–1945, Harrap, 1946
Pelham Warner, Cricket Between Two Wars, Sporting Handbooks, 1946
Roy Webber, The County Cricket Championship, Sportsman's Book Club, 1958
Simon Wilde, Number One: The World's Best Batsmen and Bowlers, Gollancz, 1998,
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, various editions from 1920 to 1946
Graeme Wright, A Wisden Collection, Wisden, 2004
External links
Notes by the Editor – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1928 (online archive)
Herbert Sutcliffe's obituary – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1979 (online archive)
1894 births
1978 deaths
British Army personnel of World War I
England cricket team selectors
England Test cricketers
English cricketers
English cricketers of 1919 to 1945
Green Howards officers
People from Nidderdale
Players cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Yorkshire cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers
North v South cricketers
Cricketers from Pudsey
H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers
Lord Hawke's XI cricketers
C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers
Royal Army Ordnance Corps officers
Sherwood Foresters soldiers
British Army personnel of World War II
Military personnel from Yorkshire
Marylebone Cricket Club Australian Touring Team cricketers
Marylebone Cricket Club South African Touring Team cricketers | false | [
"Eze Nri Apia and Nri–Alike were the first and only kings to rule Nri Kingdom as joint monarchs. After succeeding Eze Nri Agụ in 1676 CE, they reigned from 1677–1700 CE. It is believed that Eze Nri Apia and Nri–Alike died on the same day.\n\nReferences\n\nNri-Igbo\nNri monarchs\nKingdom of Nri\n17th-century monarchs in Africa\n18th-century monarchs in Africa",
"The Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Trust (SSSLST) runs educational institutions located in Karnataka, India. There is one campus in Alike, Dakshina Kannada district, and one in Muddenahalli, Chikkaballapur district.\n\nThe trust was established as Loka Seva Vrinda in the 1960s by Madiyala Narayan Bhat, who founded the Loka Seva High school in his home village Alike, and another school at Muddenahalli. In 1978, after the untimely death od Narayan Bhat, the schools were taken over by spiritual master Sathya Sai Baba, and he formed a new Trust called Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Trust.\n\nInstitutions run by the SSSLST include\n Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Primary School, Vani Vihar, in Alike\n Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva High School, in Alike\n Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Pre University College, Sathya Sai Vihar, in Alike\n Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Vidyakendra, Sathya Sai Vihar, a residential school for boys at Alike\nSri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Gurukulam, Muddenahalli \nSri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Veda Gurukulam, Muddenahalli \nSri Sathya Sai Premamrutha Prakashana, Muddenahalli \nSri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Prakashana, Muddenahalli \nSri Sathya Sai Sarla Memorial Hospital, Muddenahalli \n\nThe trust also has an orphanage named after Mahatma Gandhi, and a super specialty hospital, both in Alike.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nhttp://alikeonline.org/\nhttp://ssslst.org/\nhttp://sssset.edu.in/\n\nSchools in Dakshina Kannada district"
]
|
[
"Herbert Sutcliffe",
"Sutcliffe and Hutton",
"Who is Hutton?",
"Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege",
"Did they ever play together?",
"Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934",
"Did they win that match?",
"I don't know.",
"What else is significant about their relationship?",
"Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege",
"In what ways were they alike?",
"\"You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him\"."
]
| C_c762f7f31b37415eb25b09830029cbed_1 | Were they different in any ways? | 6 | Were Sutcliffe and Hutton different in any ways? | Herbert Sutcliffe | Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career. Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protege but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel - the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him". The master-apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle". Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest. Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice. CANNOTANSWER | Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe | Herbert Sutcliffe (24 November 1894 – 22 January 1978) was an English professional cricketer who represented Yorkshire and England as an opening batsman. Apart from one match in 1945, his first-class career spanned the period between the two world wars. His first-class debut was delayed by the First World War until 1919 and his career was effectively terminated in August 1939 when he was called up for military service in the imminent Second World War.
He was the first cricketer to score 16 centuries in Test match cricket.
A right-handed batsman, Sutcliffe was noted for his concentration and determination, qualities which made him invaluable to his teams in adverse batting conditions; and he is remembered as one of the game's finest "bad wicket batsmen". His fame rests mainly in the great opening partnership he formed with Jack Hobbs for England between 1924 and 1930. He also formed notable opening partnerships at Yorkshire with Percy Holmes and, in his last few seasons, the young Len Hutton. During Sutcliffe's career, Yorkshire won the County Championship 12 times. Sutcliffe played in 54 Test matches for England and on three occasions he toured Australia, where he enjoyed outstanding success. His last tour in 1932–33 included the controversial "bodyline" series, in which Sutcliffe is perceived to have been one of Douglas Jardine's main supporters. Although close friends have stated that Sutcliffe did not approve of bodyline, he always acted out of fierce loyalty to his team captain and was committed to his team's cause. In statistical terms, Sutcliffe was one of the most successful Test batsmen ever; his completed career batting average was 60.73 which is the highest by any English batsman and the seventh-highest worldwide (of Test batsmen with 20 completed innings) behind only Don Bradman, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Adam Voges, Graeme Pollock and George Headley.
Sutcliffe became a successful businessman early in his first-class career by using the money he earned as a player to establish a sportswear shop in Leeds. When his playing career ended, he served on the club committee at Yorkshire for 21 years and for three years was an England Test selector. Among the honours accorded him have been the commemoration of a special set of gates in his name at Headingley, home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and his induction into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Early years
Childhood
Herbert Sutcliffe was born in Summerbridge, Nidderdale, West Riding of Yorkshire on 24 November 1894 at his parents' home, a cottage in Gabblegate (now called East View). His parents were Willie and Jane Sutcliffe. Herbert was the second of three sons, his brothers being Arthur and Bob. Willie Sutcliffe, who worked at a sawmill in nearby Dacre Banks, was a keen club cricketer.
When Herbert was still a baby the family moved to Pudsey, where Willie's father was the landlord of the King's Arms. Willie worked in the pub and played cricket for the well-known Pudsey St Lawrence Cricket Club. He also played rugby football, and an injury sustained during a rugby match led to his premature death in 1898.
Jane Sutcliffe moved the family back to Nidderdale, where they lived in Darley, the boys enrolling at Darley School, and she remarried. Jane developed consumption, and she died in January 1904 at the age of 37, when Herbert was nine. Jane's second husband was a bootmaker called Tom Waller but he was not allowed custody of the brothers who moved back to Pudsey to be cared for by the Sutcliffe family. Willie Sutcliffe had three sisters, Sarah, Carrie and Harriet, who ran a bakery. They became the legal guardians of Arthur, Herbert and Bob, respectively.
As the three aunts were devoted members of the local Congregational Church, the three boys received religious instruction there and Herbert became a lifelong committed Christian. He was a Sunday School teacher as a young man and first came to notice as a cricketer when he played for a church team. The boys lived in the family house which contained the bakery and slept in a loft above the bakehouse itself.
Herbert left school in 1908 when he was 13, and was apprenticed to a boot and shoe company as a "clicker" who fastened boot soles to uppers. In 1911, his prowess at cricket earned him an offer of clerical employment in a local textile mill, where he learnt bookkeeping, a skill that served him well when he launched his own business career.
Development as a cricketer
Sutcliffe became seriously interested in cricket at the age of eight, soon after he returned to Pudsey during his mother's final illness. He formed an ambition to follow his father and two uncles and play for Pudsey St Lawrence. His first club was a Wesleyan church team in the neighbouring village of Stanningley, where he was first seen as a bowler rather than a batsman. In one match in 1907, he took all 10 wickets in an innings.
In 1908, now aged 13, he began playing for Pudsey St Lawrence's second team. The following year, Sutcliffe made his first-team debut. Two of his team-mates were Major Booth and Henry Hutton, father of Len Hutton.
In 1911, now aged 16, Sutcliffe switched his allegiance to the rival Pudsey Britannia club where, he is quoted as saying, "my batting improved by leaps and bounds". This move came about because of the offer of clerical employment at the textile mill, which was owned by Ernest Walker who was also the Britannia club captain. Sutcliffe later said that Walker allowed him more time for cricket practice than he could get from his bootmaking job.
The following season, Sutcliffe's progress was noted by Yorkshire County Cricket Club and he was invited to take part in the county team practice sessions at Headingley. He was welcomed by the great George Herbert Hirst, who gave him much encouragement and advice. Soon afterwards, he was invited to play for the Yorkshire 2nd XI team.
Sutcliffe was coached at Headingley by Hirst and the club's 2nd XI coach, Steve Doughty, who placed great emphasis on the importance of pad play (the use of the pads to intercept the ball and prevent it hitting the wicket when this would not risk being out leg before wicket). Although Doughty's approach was criticised by Sutcliffe's colleagues at Pudsey Britannia, Sutcliffe himself had no regrets about the time he spent mastering the technique and later explained that swing bowling had been so well developed by bowlers in every county team that it was impossible for any batsman to keep his wicket by relying on his bat alone. The long-term benefit he derived was a very strong defence that he later used to great effect on treacherous pitches.
By 1914, Sutcliffe had become the most accomplished player in the Bradford League in which Pudsey Britannia played. He was playing both for Yorkshire 2nd XI and Pudsey Britannia at this time. In August, just as the First World War was beginning, he appeared for the 2nd XI at Beverley against an East Riding XI and opened the batting for the first time as a Yorkshire player. He made a half-century in the second innings and the Cricket Argus commented that "he was confident and stylish in... his best performance for the second eleven". The Argus went on to say that Sutcliffe, with youth on his side, "looks every inch a cricketer (with) a variety of good strokes". In the Bradford League, Sutcliffe scored a then-record 727 runs in the season, which was beaten in 1916 by his future England opening partner Jack Hobbs.
Military service and demobilisation
Sutcliffe was called up in 1915 and served first with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, stationed at York, and then with the Sherwood Foresters. He was later commissioned into the Green Howards, now part of the Yorkshire Regiment, as a Second Lieutenant, but he did not see active service and was not posted to France until after the Armistice was signed.
Sutcliffe played cricket during the war for the Officer Cadet Battalion in Scotland, captaining his team in matches against Glasgow University and other Scottish teams. He still managed to play in the Bradford League on occasion, but he said that he sometimes did so under an assumed name after taking unofficial leave.
Sutcliffe was demobilised in 1919 and took a job as a colliery checkweighman at Allerton Bywater in Yorkshire. He was contracted to play for the colliery's cricket team in the Yorkshire Council league, but he was selected at the beginning of the 1919 season to play again for Yorkshire 2nd XI. However he retained the colliery job until he opened his sportswear shop in 1924.
First-class debut
The war had delayed the start of Sutcliffe's first-class career with Yorkshire and he was 24 when his chance finally came. In May 1919, he played for the county's 2nd XI against a full-strength 1st XI and did very well, scoring 51 not out. He received a good report in the Yorkshire Post and never played for the 2nd XI again. Yorkshire's first County Championship fixture after the war took place on 26 and 27 May at Bristol against Gloucestershire and Sutcliffe, batting at number 6, made his first-class debut. Yorkshire batted first, after losing the toss, and Sutcliffe made 11 in a total of 277 (Roy Kilner 112). Despite that seemingly modest score, Yorkshire won by an innings and 63 runs as Gloucestershire were bowled out twice for 125 and 89.
1919 to 1927
Sutcliffe kept his place in the Yorkshire team and continued to bat in the middle of the order for a month until, in the match against Nottinghamshire at Bramall Lane on 27 and 28 June, Wilfred Rhodes decided to drop down the order for the 2nd innings and Sutcliffe went in first with Percy Holmes. After some indifferent scores, he completed his maiden first-class century on 23 and 24 July against Northamptonshire at Northampton when he and Holmes put on 279 for the first wicket, Sutcliffe scoring 145 and Holmes 133. Further success resulted in Holmes and Sutcliffe being awarded their county caps in August 1919. Sutcliffe created a debut season record by scoring 1,839 runs at an average of 44.85 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 174 against Kent at Crabble Athletic Ground in Dover. Holmes and Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries each in 1919 and they shared in 5 century partnerships. Their performances were key to Yorkshire winning the championship that season for the 10th time in all.
As a result of their success in 1919, Percy Holmes and Herbert Sutcliffe were both awarded a Wisden Cricketer of the Year title in 1920. In the accompanying review, Wisden commented on Sutcliffe's pre-war development and the benefits that both he and Holmes derived from Steve Doughty's coaching. Sutcliffe's "fine driving" was commended but it was noted that "he may not yet be quite so strong in defence".
By his 1919 standards, Sutcliffe had two quiet years in 1920 and 1921. He was well down the national averages in 1920 with 1,393 runs at 33.16 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 131. In 1921, he did not score a century and made 1,235 runs at 30.12.
In 1922, as Yorkshire regained the County Championship title under new captain Geoffrey Wilson, Sutcliffe lived up to his early promise by scoring 2,020 runs at 46.97 with a highest score of 232 against Surrey at the Oval. He scored 11 half-centuries but only 2 centuries. Sutcliffe was one of seven Yorkshire players who were ever-present, playing in all 30 matches.
Sutcliffe's career advanced in 1923 when he made his first appearances in the North v South and Gentlemen v Players fixtures and in a Test Trial. His overall record in 1923 was 2,220 runs at 41.11 with 3 centuries, 15 fifties and a highest score of 139 against Somerset. The Yorkshire cricket historian Alfred Pullin wrote: "it was recognised long before the season ended that Sutcliffe had established his claim to be considered one of England's first-wicket batsmen".
In the 1924 season, Yorkshire completed a hat-trick of championships under Geoffrey Wilson and Sutcliffe enjoyed probably his best season to date, scoring 2,142 runs at 48.68 with 6 centuries including a highest score of 255 not out against Essex. He made his Test debut on Saturday, 14 June 1924, playing for England against South Africa at Edgbaston and opening the innings with Jack Hobbs. In this First Test, which England won by an innings, they recorded their first century partnership for England by putting on 136 before Sutcliffe was out for 64. In the Second Test at Lord's, Hobbs and Sutcliffe scored 268 before Sutcliffe was out for 122, his maiden Test century; Hobbs went on to make 211 and England again won by an innings. In the whole series, Sutcliffe scored 303 runs at 75.75.
As early as July, Sutcliffe was one of ten players named to tour Australia in the winter of 1924–25 under the leadership of Arthur Gilligan. At first, Hobbs declined the tour but then changed his mind when it was decided his wife would accompany him. The importance of this to Sutcliffe was that his partnership with Hobbs could continue at the very highest level of cricket where the presence of Hobbs was ultimately the key factor in Sutcliffe's major success on the tour, which established him as a world-class player. Sutcliffe said he had some initial difficulty in adjusting to Australian conditions, specifically the strong light which affected his timing. He also reckoned that the pitches were a good four yards faster than in England. His remedy was to play straight and by hitting the ball back down the pitch. He said later that he sacrificed many of his best shots, but "it paid off in the end". This is shown by his overall performance as, although England lost the series 4–1, Sutcliffe scored 734 runs in the five Tests at an average of 81.55 with 4 centuries, 2 half-centuries and a highest score of 176. In the whole tour, he scored 1,250 runs at 69.44 with 5 centuries and a highest score of 188.
In 1925, as Yorkshire won a 4th successive championship, Sutcliffe scored 2,308 runs at 53.67 with 7 centuries and a highest score of 235 against Middlesex at Headingley. During 1925 and 1926, Sutcliffe's skill was a primary factor in Yorkshire having the longest unbeaten run in county cricket: i.e., 70 matches without loss until early 1927. After three defeats in 1927, Yorkshire went a further 58 games without loss until 1929.
The first four Tests of the 1926 England v Australia series were scheduled for just three days and were all curtailed by poor weather. The final Test at the Oval was timeless to ensure a finish. It has become one of the most famous matches in cricket history, not because England regained the Ashes for the first time since 1912 but for the manner it which it was achieved as Hobbs and Sutcliffe produced their most famous partnership in treacherous batting conditions. Australia had a narrow first innings lead of 22 and, at close of play on the second day (a Monday), Hobbs and Sutcliffe had taken the England second innings score to 49–0, a lead of 27. Heavy rain fell overnight and next day, as the sun shone, the pitch soon developed into a "sticky wicket" on which it was generally assumed that England would be bowled out cheaply and so lose both the match and the series. But, in spite of the very difficult batting conditions, Hobbs and Sutcliffe put up a great defence of their wickets and gradually increased their partnership to 172 before Hobbs was out for exactly 100. Sutcliffe went on to make 161 and, in the end, England won the game comfortably, by 289 runs, and regained the Ashes. The tributes paid to Hobbs and Sutcliffe after this partnership are extensive. Pelham Warner perhaps encapsulated them all when he wrote: "Hobbs and Sutcliffe won it for us by their incomparable batting. They did not fail us at a time of most desperate crisis. Never has English cricket known a more dauntless pair".
In the 1926 County Championship, Yorkshire lost the title despite being unbeaten to their close rivals Lancashire by a very narrow margin. Sutcliffe was 2nd in the national batting averages behind Hobbs, scoring 2,528 runs at 66.52 with 8 centuries and a highest score of exactly 200 against Leicestershire. In the 1927 County Championship, Yorkshire finished 3rd but it was another great season for both Holmes and Sutcliffe who scored over 4,500 runs and 12 centuries between them. Sutcliffe scored 2,414 runs at 56.13 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 227 for England versus The Rest.
In the autumn of 1927, the Yorkshire committee decided to appoint Sutcliffe as team captain in succession to Arthur Lupton, who had retired. He would thus have become the first professional to captain the side since 1882 but, as Wisden records, "objection was taken to this action by two different parties". There were those who supported the view that no professional should be captain; and significant opposition also came from a large number of members who argued that, if a professional were to be appointed, it should be Wilfred Rhodes rather than Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe himself was en route to South Africa while most of the furore developed and had to rely on telegrams for his news. When first advised of the appointment, he sent a reply that spoke of the great honour and his desire to serve Yorkshire and England. But he was better apprised of the controversy when he arrived in Cape Town and finally sent a message that he was declining the offer but willing to serve under any other captain.
1928 to 1932
During the five years 1928 to 1932, Sutcliffe played 181 matches (254 innings) in which he was not out 36 times, scoring 15,529 runs for a total average of 70.35.
Sutcliffe made his only tour of South Africa in 1927–28, playing in 14 matches and scoring 1,030 runs at 51.50 with 2 centuries and a highest score of 102. He was able to open the England innings with Holmes, Hobbs having declined the tour, and made his score of 102 in the first innings of the First Test at the Old Wanderers ground in Johannesburg, England winning by 10 wickets.
In 1928, Sutcliffe scored 3,000 runs in a season for the first time, a feat he repeated in 1931 and 1932, becoming the first player to achieve it three times. Only Patsy Hendren and Wally Hammond have equalled the feat. Sutcliffe's 1928 tally was 3,002 at 76.97 with a highest score of 228 among 13 centuries and 13 half-centuries. He played in all three Tests against West Indies in 1928. This was West Indies' inaugural Test series and their batsmen struggled against a strong England attack so that England was able to win all three Tests by an innings. But Sutcliffe was very impressed by the fast bowling of Learie Constantine, George Francis and Herman Griffith and said of them during the Lord's Test that he had "never played finer fast bowling".
Under the leadership of Percy Chapman, Sutcliffe toured Australia again in 1928–29 with Hobbs as his opening partner. England won the first two Tests before Hobbs and Sutcliffe played major roles in one of the most famous Test matches ever at Melbourne. Australia won the toss and batted first, making 397 thanks to centuries by Alan Kippax and Jack Ryder. England scored 417 with 200 by Hammond and 58 by Sutcliffe. Australia then scored 351 with 107 by their captain Bill Woodfull and a maiden Test century by Don Bradman. This left England needing 332 to win. Australia had ended the 5th day of a timeless match on 347–8 and the pitch was showing increasing signs of wear. Overnight, a storm broke and soaked the pitch which, as the sun shone on it through the morning, became what Bradman later described as "the worst sticky I ever saw". Even Wisden admitted that it "may fittingly be described as a beastly wicket". Play on the sixth day did not begin until 12:51 and Australia's last two wickets quickly fell with just 4 runs added to their overnight total. Clem Hill reckoned that the state of the pitch was such that "odds of ten to one against an England success would be generous" and Hugh Trumble reportedly told Jack Hobbs that 70 would be a good total. Wisden recorded that "then it was that the wonderful skill of these two (Hobbs and Sutcliffe) showed itself so prominently for, with the ball turning and getting up almost straight, they put on 105 for the first wicket... the two batsmen rendered England splendid service by an historic stand and made victory probable". Having survived the last 5 minutes before lunch, they added 75 in the afternoon session when "the ball was turning and at other times getting up almost straight". Hobbs had nearly been dismissed early on when a catch was dropped but the two batsmen played with "remarkable footwork, masterly defence and unerring skill in a difficult situation". Hobbs was out when the score had reached 105 and then Sutcliffe added another 94 in partnership with Douglas Jardine as the wicket eased and close of play was safely reached with the total at 171–1 (Sutcliffe 83 not out). Next morning, with conditions much more favourable, Sutcliffe batted on until he was finally out for 135 with the total on 318–4 and only 14 more needed. There was a slight scare as three more wickets fell, including Chapman who was caught at cover when trying for the winning hit. But the runs were obtained and England had won a famous victory against the odds by 3 wickets. Sutcliffe later said that he considered this to have been his finest innings ever. Jardine later wrote about the number of times Hobbs and Sutcliffe were hit "all over the body" during their stand and made the point that, if a batsman is to make runs on an Australian sticky wicket, then being hit by the ball is inevitable.
In 1929, Sutcliffe scored 5 centuries against the South African tourists. The first was 113 for Yorkshire in a drawn match at Bramall Lane He then scored four in the Test series, including two in the same match in the Fifth Test at the Oval. His season aggregate was 2,189 runs at 52.11 with 9 centuries and a highest score of 150 against Northamptonshire.
In 1930, Sutcliffe was the leading Englishman in the first-class batting averages behind Don Bradman (i.e., of batsmen with 10 completed innings). In a summer of hot, thundery weather that produced some exceptionally bad pitches, Sutcliffe averaged 87.61 in the four Tests he played in, scoring 161 in the Fifth Test at the Oval. Sutcliffe's first-class aggregate in 1930 was 2,312 runs at 64.22 with 6 centuries and a highest score of 173 against Sussex.
During the winter of 1930–31, Hobbs and Sutcliffe went on a private tour of India and Ceylon that was organised by the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram (popularly known as "Vizzy"). There is debate in some quarters about the status of matches played on this tour, which are not recognised as first-class by Wisden in contrast to certain other publications. The scores were printed in The Cricketer Spring Annual in 1932 and presented as first-class but escaped general notice at the time and were largely ignored until some statisticians took an interest in them in the 1970s. It is known that neither Hobbs nor Sutcliffe thought they were first-class matches; they regarded them as exhibition games arranged for Vizzy's personal entertainment. Nevertheless, Sutcliffe scored 532 runs and 2 centuries in the disputed matches and this has impacted his first-class statistical record with two versions in circulation.
In all first-class cricket in the 1931 season, Sutcliffe scored four centuries in consecutive innings and averaged 96.96, topping the first-class averages for the first time. He totalled 3,006 runs with a highest score of 230 among 13 centuries. Yorkshire historian Jim Kilburn commented on Sutcliffe's general consistency as "almost past believing" while Sutcliffe himself reckoned that his accomplishments in 1931, which was a wet summer, were the best of his entire career.
When Yorkshire played Gloucestershire at Park Avenue, Bradford, in July 1932, Sutcliffe completed his 100th century. He was the first Yorkshire player and the seventh overall to achieve the feat. Having scored 83 in the first innings, he reached his target with 132 in the second. Yorkshire won the match by 133 runs. Yorkshire honoured the occasion by presenting Sutcliffe with a cheque for 100 guineas, repeating Surrey's reward paid to Jack Hobbs when he scored his 100th century. In Yorkshire's match against Essex at Leyton, Holmes and Sutcliffe set a world record partnership for any wicket of 555. This remained the world record for any wicket till 1945–46 and it was not until 1976–77 that it was beaten for the first wicket. It remains the record partnership for any wicket in England. Sutcliffe's share of the stand was 313, his career highest score. Yorkshire batted first and, at the end of the first day, the score stood at 423–0, with Holmes on 180 and Sutcliffe on 231, already beating their previous best stand of 347 against Hampshire in 1920. Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity then proceeded to bowl Essex out twice and Yorkshire won by an innings and 313 runs.
Sutcliffe scored 3,336 runs in 1932, the highest season total of his career and it included his highest individual score of 313, made in the world record stand at Leyton. He averaged 74.13 with 14 centuries and 9 half-centuries. He became the third batsman after K S Ranjitsinhji and C B Fry to score 1,000 runs in a month twice in the same season, making 1,193 in June and 1,006 in August. His total of 3,336 is the sixth highest season aggregate behind Denis Compton (3,816 in 1947), Bill Edrich (3,539 in 1947), Tom Hayward (3,518 in 1906), Len Hutton (3,429 in 1949) and Frank Woolley (3,352 in 1928). His fourteen centuries in the season have been bettered only by Compton (18 in 1947), Jack Hobbs (16 in 1925) and Wally Hammond (15 in 1938).
1932–33: the "bodyline" tour
In the winter of 1932–33, Sutcliffe was a key member of the England team that toured Australia and New Zealand under the captaincy of Douglas Jardine, taking part in all five Tests of the infamous "bodyline" series. Wisden in its tour summary stated unequivocally that "Jardine, while nothing like the batsman in Australia of four years earlier, captained the side superbly" but he "had one great difficulty which he never successfully overcame". The difficulty was to find a suitable partner for Sutcliffe as opening batsman and Wisden continues by remarking on several experiments tried by Jardine throughout the tour but ends by saying that "no real successor to Hobbs was discovered".
Sutcliffe, who was by now England's senior professional, was part of the England selection committee on the tour along with Jardine, Pelham Warner (team manager), Bob Wyatt (vice-captain) and Wally Hammond. Sutcliffe enjoyed only mixed success with the bat but he did make his career highest Test score of 194 in the First Test at Sydney, which England won by 10 wickets. Overall, he scored 1,318 first-class runs on the Australian leg of the tour at 73.22 with 5 centuries, the highest score being his 194 at Sydney. He was the only English batsman to reach 1,000 runs on this tour. Surprisingly, he had no success in New Zealand where, in 3 appearances, he made just 27 runs.
Australia won the toss at Sydney and decided to bat. Without Bradman, who was ill, they struggled against the pace of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce but, thanks to a brilliant innings of 187 not out by Stan McCabe, they made a creditable 360. England's batsmen had no such troubles and steadily built a total of 524 to claim a first innings lead of 164. Sutcliffe opened with Wyatt and they began with a stand of 112. Wyatt was dismissed for 38 and Sutcliffe then put on 188 for the second wicket with Hammond, who was out at 300–2 for 112. Next man in was Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and he joined Sutcliffe in a third wicket century partnership of 123 before Sutcliffe was finally out for 194 after batting for over 7 hours across the second and third days of the match. The last seven wickets fell for the addition of only 101 more runs. With Larwood taking his second five-wicket haul, Australia could only make 164 to tie the scores and at least make England bat again. Australia was 164–9 at close of play on the fourth day so all that was required on the last day was for Voce to dismiss Bill O'Reilly off the third ball of the morning, without adding to the total, and then Sutcliffe himself to score the solitary run needed to complete an emphatic 10 wicket victory. Wisden recorded that "there were less than a hundred people present to see the finish".
When he had scored 43, he played a ball bowled by O'Reilly onto his stumps but the impact did not shift the bails and so he was not out. Wisden said that "Sutcliffe gave a typical exhibition, being wonderfully sure in defence and certain in his off-driving". There was some criticism of Sutcliffe for scoring slowly at one point in the second half of his innings but Jardine has confirmed that Sutcliffe was playing under his instructions which "right nobly did Sutcliffe carry them out to the letter".
Australia, with Bradman back in their team, won the Second Test at Melbourne by 111 runs. Having been dismissed for 228 in the first innings, they fought back to reduce England to just 169, in which Sutcliffe made the top score of 52. In the second innings, Bradman effectively won the match for Australia by scoring a resilient 103 not out even though his team was dismissed for just 191. Sutcliffe was again England's highest scorer, making 33 of a poor 139 as O'Reilly and Bert Ironmonger took the wickets.
Sutcliffe failed twice in the Third Test at Adelaide, the most controversial match of the tour as it was the one in which the bodyline furore reached its climax. England won by 338 runs but the match was overshadowed by the injuries sustained by Woodfull and Australian wicket-keeper Bert Oldfield and the subsequent heated telegrams and diplomatic row.
England won the Fourth Test at Brisbane by 6 wickets. This time, Sutcliffe opened with Jardine and they put on 114 in the first innings. Sutcliffe scored 86, another top score. England held a narrow lead on first innings and then dismissed Australia for 175. Sutcliffe was out for 2 in the second innings but Leyland held the innings steady and ensured that England won both the match and the series. The Fifth Test at Sydney was therefore academic but England nevertheless won by 8 wickets, Sutcliffe scoring 56 in his only innings.
According to Bob Wyatt, Sutcliffe "backed Jardine to the hilt" on the subject of bowling "bodyline" aka "fast leg theory". Wyatt said that: "Herbert never hesitated in his views about our bowling strategy. He did not see anything wrong about pursuing the tactics". Les Ames agreed with Wyatt's view and said that, though the majority of the England players were morally opposed to Jardine's tactics, Sutcliffe took the pragmatic view that "the ball is there, it's short, so hook it". Sutcliffe himself was an outstanding player of the hook shot but Ames was unsure about how he would have coped with Larwood's accuracy if he had been playing against him. According to Bill O'Reilly, Sutcliffe was the strongest advocate of bodyline and he sometimes acted like an "unofficial captain", even initiating the tactics on his own responsibility. However, a close friend of Sutcliffe insisted that Sutcliffe "was always behind authority" and was absolutely loyal to his captain, but his private views about bodyline were another matter.
1933 to 1939
In 1933, Sutcliffe could not repeat his outstanding form of the 1932 season but he still scored a considerable 2,211 runs at 47.04, although it was his lowest tally in a dry summer since 1921. He completed 7 centuries with a highest score of 205 against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. Sutcliffe scored 304 runs at 50.66 in four Tests against Australia in 1934. His first-class aggregate for the 1934 season was 2,023 runs at 49.34 with 4 centuries and a highest score of 203 against Surrey at the Oval. In 1935, Sutcliffe's Test career ended when he missed the Third Test against South Africa due to a leg injury and then never recovered his place when he was fit again. Wisden's view was that England wished to try out younger players but it pointed out that Sutcliffe "remains a prolific runscorer".
Sutcliffe's record in Test cricket is outstanding. As shown by the adjacent graph, he is the only English batsman who has averaged more than 60 runs per innings in a completed career and his statistical record compares favourably with anyone except Don Bradman. Uniquely, Sutcliffe's batting average never dropped below 60 throughout his entire Test career and Javed Miandad is the only other player whose average never dropped below 50 in a career of at least 20 innings.
The demands of Test cricket behind him, Sutcliffe played in 29 of Yorkshire's 30 County Championship matches in 1936 but his average fell to 33.30, his worst seasonal performance since the early 1920s. His form rallied somewhat in the last three seasons of his career and he formed another outstanding opening partnership with Len Hutton who matured into a Test-class batsman in 1937. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 315 for the first wicket against Leicestershire at Hull in 1937, Sutcliffe scoring 189 and Hutton 153. Sutcliffe faced Australian opposition for the final time in 1938 when he appeared in two matches against the tourists, one in July for Yorkshire at Bramall Lane and the other in September at North Marine Road in a Scarborough Festival match when he played for H D G Leveson Gower's XI.
Yorkshire completed another hat-trick of County Championships in 1939 and, although he was now 44 and certainly a "veteran", Sutcliffe enjoyed a remarkable sequence of four consecutive centuries in May and June which showed any doubters that he was still one of the best opening batsmen around. Sutcliffe was to play one more first-class match in 1945, but his career effectively ended in August 1939 when he played for Yorkshire against Hampshire at Dean Park Cricket Ground, Bournemouth, on Saturday, 26 August and Monday, 28 August. Yorkshire won by an innings and 11 runs in just two days. Sutcliffe and Hutton put on 56 before Hutton was out for 37 and Sutcliffe went on to score 51 before he was out at 117–2, leg before wicket to George Heath, who thus took his wicket for the second time in 1939.
Into retirement
As a reservist in the British Army, Sutcliffe was the first Yorkshire player to be called up, in August 1939, as the Second World War became imminent. He missed Yorkshire's final match of the season against Sussex at Hove, which ended on 1 September, the day the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. He rejoined the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and attained the rank of major. He did not leave Great Britain during his army service which ended in November 1942. Now aged 48, he was discharged from the army on medical grounds having undergone two operations that year for sinus trouble and a shoulder injury. For the remainder of the war, he divided his time between his sportswear business and charity fundraising.
Like most top-class players, Sutcliffe occasionally played in charity matches during the war, including three to raise money for the Red Cross in 1940. In one of these, he played for a Yorkshire XI against a Bradford League XI at Park Avenue and scored 127, which was his last-ever century. The League team included Eddie Paynter, Manny Martindale and Learie Constantine, who scored a brilliant century in what Sutcliffe described as "a gem of an innings".
Although Alan Gibson described Sutcliffe as "a good public speaker", Sutcliffe himself seems to have been modest about this ability. During the war, he was asked to share a charity event platform with Sir Compton Mackenzie in Bradford. Mackenzie gave a brilliant speech that was well received and Sutcliffe said to him: "Oh, my, how I wish I could speak like you". Mackenzie, who was a keen cricket fan, replied: "You don't wish nearly as much that you could speak like me as I wish I could bat like you".
Sutcliffe had already stated his intention to retire from first-class cricket but nevertheless he returned in August 1945 at the age of 50 for one final match after the war in Europe ended. He captained the Yorkshire team in a match against a Royal Air Force team at North Marine Road in the renewed Scarborough Festival. The match was drawn after being affected by the weather. Sutcliffe batted once, going in at number 5, and scored just 8 runs before being dismissed leg before wicket (lbw) by Bill Edrich.
In 1949, Sutcliffe was accorded honorary membership of MCC and joined what was then a select company of English professionals including George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Jack Hobbs.
Sutcliffe continued to be involved in cricket and his Wisden obituary says: "His repayment to the game which had given him so much was service on the Yorkshire committee, as an England selector, and as sponsor for many good causes in cricket". In a tribute that was published with the obituary, Brian Sellers said: "We served together on the county committee for over 21 years". Sutcliffe was a Test selector for three years from 1959 through 1961, during which England played home series against India, South Africa and Australia.
In February 1963, Yorkshire appointed Sutcliffe a life member of the club and then, in July 1965, his old captain Sir William Worsley, now president of the club, formally opened the Sutcliffe Gates in the St Michael's Lane approach to the Headingley ground. Similar in design to the Hobbs Gates at the Oval, they carry the inscription:
In honour of a great Yorkshire and England cricketer
Sutcliffe retained his interest in cricket for the rest of his life. One of his final public appearances was in 1977 when, in his wheelchair and only a few months before he died, he was photographed at Headingley alongside Len Hutton and Geoff Boycott just after Boycott had emulated Sutcliffe and Hutton by becoming the third Yorkshire batsman to score 100 centuries in his first-class career.
Wisden summarised his career thus:
Herbert Sutcliffe was one of the great cricketers and he brought to cricket as to all his undertakings an assurance and capacity for concentration that positively commanded success. His technical talent matched his character and his achievements were therefore on the highest plane.
On 30 September 2009, Herbert Sutcliffe was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Style and technique
Sutcliffe's approach to cricket
Sutcliffe's approach was essentially to do everything possible to help his team to win the match. His philosophy was that the game was there to be won and not merely to be played. He was determined to keep his wicket intact and, according to Fred Trueman, "he was a terrible man to get out" and "was at his best in a crisis". Sutcliffe's professionalism was reflected in his preparation and off-field demeanour. He took great pride in his appearance and Trueman says he was "always spick and span". Neville Cardus described him thus: "...shiny of hair, black as the raven's, with flannels of fluttering silk, and the confident air of super-Pudsey breeding. A deviation from type, a 'sport' in the evolutionary process!"
Sutcliffe was "unfailingly courteous as a man" and, along with his England colleague Hobbs, "committed to advancing the cause of the professional cricketer". According to Stuart Surridge, "our profession as a respected one started with Jack and Herbert (who) gave us a new status".
One of the main reasons why Yorkshire were prepared to offer the captaincy to Sutcliffe in 1927 was because he was not perceived to be the typical professional. Sutcliffe set high standards for himself and was determined to get on in life, as well as cricket, and make a lot of money. Wally Hammond, who eventually did turn amateur and captained England, was another example. Sutcliffe took pains to modify his accent and, as Neville Cardus commented, Sutcliffe eventually spoke "not with the accents of Yorkshire but of Teddington". Cardus remarked on the Savile Row suits worn by Sutcliffe and Hammond: "The county cricketer has in certain instances become a man of bourgeois profession". But Bill Bowes, an ex-grammar school boy who had benefited from educational reforms that were unavailable to Sutcliffe and the older professionals, regarded Sutcliffe as a hero. Writing about Sutcliffe, Bowes pointed out that Sutcliffe was "no ordinary man" and stressed that "professionalism was very important to him".
Cardus wrote:
[Of his batting] Sutcliffe had style... But it was his eternal vigilance, his keen eye and a mind that could move and anticipate, which were his assets, plus his Yorkshire realism and his Yorkshire tenacity of character. Immaculate in flannels, his hair burnished by the sun, the cynosure of all the women's and girls' eyes, a cricketer of manners, symbol of the new urban social consciousness, none the less he could be fitted into the Yorkshire scheme and body and atmosphere, after all.
In his Wisden obituary, the editor wrote that "...neither Pudsey nor any other nursery could have claimed Herbert Sutcliffe as a typical product. He was a Yorkshireman in his loyalty and training, but he was cosmopolitan in approach and outlook. His manner fitted Lord's as expressively as it fitted Leeds".
Trevor Bailey, writing in the 1981 Wisden about cricketers' hairstyles, said that Sutcliffe's was "black patent-leather glinting in the sun, complete with the straightest of partings".
For his part, Sutcliffe explained to Bowes that "Lord Hawke had lifted professional cricket from knee to shoulder level and even Lord Hawke always wanted it back again". But Hawke never could get it back because professionalism had evolved as society had changed and the likes of Sutcliffe and Hammond were establishing a respectability for their job, as noted by Stuart Surridge, that enabled them and some of their successors to join the establishment.
Batting
Sutcliffe's greatest qualities as an opening batsman were perhaps his even temperament and his penchant for big occasions. It is significant that his Test batting average was substantially better than his overall first-class one. He is especially remembered for his partnerships with Hobbs for England and with Holmes for Yorkshire. One of the main factors in these partnerships was mutual understanding, especially when it came to their judgment of singles, and Sutcliffe was involved in relatively few run outs when batting with either Hobbs or Holmes.
John Arlott wrote that Sutcliffe was a batsman of "immense application and thought". Arlott listed his main qualities as sound defence, powerful offside driving and "arguably the best hooker of his age". But above all, says Arlott, Sutcliffe was "cool, beyond disturbance, the master of survival and the ultimate pragmatist of cricket". Douglas Jardine touched on this point when, describing Sutcliffe's tiredness at the end of the bodyline series, he added that he "feels inclined to think that Sutcliffe rather enjoys appearing to be in difficulties: he so rarely fails to surmount them".
Sutcliffe was noted for his courage when facing the world's fastest bowlers, such as Harold Larwood who paid this tribute to Sutcliffe after his death:
Herbert Sutcliffe needed some getting out. He was a great battler for England and for Yorkshire. He never gave his wicket away unless he was satisfied he had made enough already. With Percy Holmes he formed just about the finest opening partnership I bowled against. I got him out cheaply a few times, but he scored a few hundreds against my bowling, so I reckon we ended up just about square.
Ian Peebles wrote of him:
Where he was unexcelled was in the courage, determination and concentration he brought to the job in hand. Never flustered, and certainly never intimidated, he was at his best on the big or testing occasion.
Sutcliffe told Fred Trueman that, although some batsmen can play fast bowling and some can't, "if everybody told the truth, no one really likes it". Trueman speaks of Sutcliffe's unselfish attitude when batting as "he didn't hog the limelight". Rather, he was a "severely practical performer (who) had to cut out the frills as an opening batsman". Sutcliffe's job was to "lay the foundations" of the innings; his main qualifications were having "the ideal temperament" and being "a magnificent judge of line and length".
Sutcliffe lacked the "polished elegance of Hobbs" as he was "essentially a practical batsman with a superb judgment of length, pace and direction". He stood with the face of the bat very open (i.e., to the bowler) so that he could present its full width to the ball every delivery. He was noted as a firm striker off the front foot who also had efficient use of the pull and hook shots. The 1933 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack said of Sutcliffe, in respect of the record partnership with Percy Holmes in 1932, that "like practically all great batsmen, he was generally at much pains to play himself in, and at all times his cricket – even when well set – proved rather more restrained than the situation warranted". The report goes on to say that Sutcliffe "undoubtedly felt a heavy responsibility rested upon him" but concluded by remarking on "how he could hit when he considered he might set about run-getting in light-hearted fashion".
As with all great players, much of Sutcliffe's success was down to hard work. In a contribution to the 1932 edition of Wisden, Lord Hawke said of Sutcliffe that "nobody I know trained, and trains, harder or more conscientiously than Sutcliffe. I ascribe much of his success to that fact".
In an evaluation of Jack Hobbs, Simon Wilde wrote that, amongst English batsmen, until Wally Hammond came to the fore in the late 1920s:
Second in line was undoubtedly the cool, methodical Sutcliffe, Hobbs's trusted opening partner for England, whose average of 66.85 in Ashes matches is the second-highest amongst batsmen with 1,000 runs, 23 points behind Bradman's and 12 ahead of Hobbs's. In his first series against Australia, in 1924–25, Sutcliffe outscored Hobbs, but Hobbs returned home and reaffirmed his position with a record-breaking season in England. Sutcliffe, who began his days as a stylist, later made the most of his abilities with powers of defence and concentration rarely, if ever, seen before (Bradman said Sutcliffe had the best temperament of any cricketer he saw). But Sutcliffe himself conceded that he did not possess the gifts of Hobbs, Hammond or Hutton.
The late R. C. Robertson-Glasgow had written of Sutcliffe a tribute that Wisden appended to Sutcliffe's obituary:
[He] was the serenest batsman I have known. Whatever may have passed under that calm brow – anger, joy, disagreement, surprise, relief, triumph – no outward sign was betrayed on the field of play. When I first saw him, in 1919, he was a debonair and powerful stylist. As you bowled opening overs to the later Sutcliffe you noticed the entire development of every defensive art; the depressingly straight bat, the astute use of pads (as with Hobbs), the sharp detection of which out-swinger could be left; above all, the consistently safe playing down of a rising or turning ball on leg stump, or thighs.
A. A. Thomson wrote of him:
The fact is that for the whole inter-war period he was England's and Yorkshire's anchor-man, a personality as dependable as fallible human nature will allow, This does not mean that he was slow or stodgy... He lacked the polished artistry of Hobbs or the sheer princely quality of Hammond or the delightful impertinence of Holmes, but he lacked nothing else... His spirit warmed to the fight like that of an ancient warrior. His manner was suave; his hair immaculate; his voice quiet; but he revealed his truest self, after his 161 in the 1926 Oval Test, surely the most truly Sutcliffian innings of his life, when he said: 'Yes, Mr. Warner, I love a dogfight...'
Bowling and fielding
Although Sutcliffe as a boy was thought to have potential as a bowler, he specialised in batting to the extent that he only bowled 993 deliveries, with 31 maiden overs, in his entire first-class career. He bowled a straightforward right-arm medium pace with little success, his best figures being 3–15 while his career average was a very high 40.21.
As a fielder, Sutcliffe generally played in the outfield, where he was a quick retriever of the ball and had a very good throwing arm. As a young man he could throw a cricket ball over 100 yards. He was usually a safe catcher and, in his career, took 23 catches in 54 Tests and 474 in 754 first-class matches.
Famous partnerships
Holmes and Sutcliffe
The 1919 season saw the beginning of a famous Yorkshire opening partnership that endured for 15 seasons until Percy Holmes retired. Holmes and Sutcliffe were eulogised as Yorkshire's "heavenly twins". A flavour of the Holmes-Sutcliffe partnership was captured by The Cricketer in a profile written in 1921:
There is usually a hum of expectancy when Holmes and Sutcliffe appear, their faces wreathed in smiles, and chatting happily together. They seem to be sharing some all-absorbing joke. Holmes, proudly wearing his Yorkshire cap, walks with quick, short steps, shoulders erect and head in the air, doing his best to look as tall as (John) Tunnicliffe. Sutcliffe has dark, glossy hair and usually disdains the valued White Rose cap when batting. He strolls casually along by the side of Percy, keeping his weather eye open for the wicket-keeper's end and the honour of taking the first ball.
Holmes and Sutcliffe shared 74 century stands in all first-class matches including 69 for Yorkshire. 19 of these exceeded 200 and 4 were over 300, including their world record stand of 555 at Leyton in 1932. Yorkshire won the title 8 times in the seasons that Holmes and Sutcliffe opened the innings together.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe
In September 1922, Sutcliffe played in a Scarborough Festival match for C I Thornton's XI against MCC and, for the first time, was paired with Jack Hobbs in an opening partnership. They put on 120 in their only innings until Hobbs was out for 45; Sutcliffe went on to make 111.
Following his successful season with Yorkshire in 1922, Sutcliffe was in contention for a place on the England tour of South Africa in the winter of 1922–23, especially as Jack Hobbs declined to tour. The selectors evidently felt that Sutcliffe was not yet ready but they were, "as events would prove, wise to delay his promotion" as it ensured that Sutcliffe would have Hobbs as his "influential guide on the international stage". Percy Holmes was also overlooked and England's openers in the 1922–23 series were Andy Sandham, Frank Mann and Jack Russell.
The partnership of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, opening the innings together for England from 1924 to 1930, is the most famous in cricket history. With partnerships of 136 and 268 in their first two Test matches together, they were a success from the start and The Cricketer said:
Hobbs is undoubtedly the sauciest run-stealer in the world today. In Sutcliffe, he has found the ideal partner in the felony, for the Yorkshireman unhesitatingly responds to his calls, showing absolute confidence in Hobbs' judgement.
England wicket-keeper Les Ames, himself a top-class batsman, commented on their running together between the wickets by emphasising the placement of the stroke, which was so correct that they could "just play and run". Ames said they were not fast runners and that "Herbert only strolled".
Sutcliffe readily acknowledged his debt to his "influential guide" by naming his eldest son after him and writing, in a booklet published in 1927, that he doubted if Hobbs had an equal and that, as a batsman, "he stands alone (and is) the best I have ever seen". Sutcliffe expressed the view that if W G Grace was as good as Jack Hobbs, "then he must have been wonderful". He said that Hobbs' earliest advice to him had been simply: "Play your own game". Sutcliffe commented: "Four words – they counted for so much. They told me all I wanted to know".
Ian Peebles wrote that Sutcliffe's association with Hobbs "is judged, by results and all-round efficiency in all conditions", the greatest of all first-wicket partnerships and "will probably never be excelled". Peebles said that there lay between the two an "extraordinary understanding, manifested in their perfect and unhesitating judgment of the short single".
The last Test match in which Hobbs and Sutcliffe played together was the final one at The Oval, Hobbs' home ground, in the 1930 series against Australia. But the partnership was revived at the 1931 Scarborough Festival when they produced two double-century stands, first for the Players against the Gentlemen and then for H D G Leveson-Gower's XI against the New Zealand tourists. Their last partnership was for the Players at Lord's in 1932, an innings in which Hobbs carried his bat for 161 not out. Hobbs' biographer Ronald Mason summarised the association of Hobbs and Sutcliffe thus:
Behind them were nine years of wonderful attainment, 26 opening partnerships of 100 or more; a legendary technique and repute unequalled by any other pair; the lean, active quizzical Hobbs and the neat, wiry imperturbable Sutcliffe, who set a standard that can serve as a guide, but defied all attempts at emulation.
Hobbs and Sutcliffe made 15 century opening partnerships for England in Test matches, including 11 against Australia, and 11 in other first-class matches.
Sutcliffe and Hutton
Sutcliffe and Len Hutton opened the Yorkshire innings in one championship match in 1934 and then, with Sutcliffe's Test career ending the following year, became the regular Yorkshire pairing until 1939 when the outbreak of war effectively ended Sutcliffe's career.
Especially given that he was from Pudsey, Hutton was often portrayed as Sutcliffe's protégé but Hutton maintained that it was the coaching of George Hirst that did most to develop his career. He said of Sutcliffe: "You do learn a lot from watching a player of Herbert's class. It was an enriching and invaluable experience to bat with him". Sutcliffe's view of Hutton was that he was "a marvel – the discovery of a generation". Hutton said that his shyness and the fact that he was twenty years younger than Sutcliffe made it difficult for him to approach his partner when he needed help, which he more readily got from Bill Bowes and Hedley Verity. About Sutcliffe he said: "I did not find it easy to talk to him".
The master–apprentice relationship changed after Hutton scored a world record 364 for England against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Future Yorkshire captain Ronnie Burnet reckoned that Sutcliffe had been the dominant partner until then and their scores would be something like 60 to 40 in Sutcliffe's favour. After Hutton made his record, his confidence increased and Burnet said the ratio was reversed "to 70:30 in Len's favour". Burnet said that Hutton was "tearing attacks apart in 1939 and Herbert was by then playing second fiddle".
Comparisons of the two Pudsey masters have been inevitable but there were essential differences in style. Bill Bowes said that Sutcliffe readily acknowledged the superior ability of Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond and Len Hutton but what Sutcliffe did have were the concentration and willpower to make the best of his abilities in any given situation. Hutton pinpointed the key difference by explaining that, when Sutcliffe was taking guard, "his weight was on the (front) left foot, enabling him to play the hook shot so well" whereas Hutton put his weight onto his (back) right foot. Hence Sutcliffe more easily moved back while Hutton developed a forward style. Another view, expressed by Sutcliffe's son Billy, who also played with Hutton for Yorkshire, was that Sutcliffe was "probably better in a crisis", as his numerous successes on bad or "sticky" wickets would suggest.
Sutcliffe and Hutton made 16 century opening partnerships together, 15 of them for Yorkshire. Their highest was 315, which they achieved twice.
Noted opponents
As a specialist opening batsman, Sutcliffe's rivals on the field were the opposing bowlers and especially fast bowlers, though he encountered many outstanding spin bowlers too on turning or sticky wickets.
By the time Sutcliffe began his Test career, the formidable fast bowling partnership of Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald had ended, though Sutcliffe faced Gregory in Test matches and was opposed to McDonald in "Roses matches" between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Gregory by 1924–25 was no longer able to "frighten batsmen with sheer speed" but he still commanded respect and Jack Hobbs specifically told Sutcliffe to exercise caution against Gregory at the start of an innings. Sutcliffe regarded McDonald as "one of the best bowlers I ever met". He commented on McDonald's trick of "resting" by making himself seem tired and then "hurling himself into (a very fast delivery) like a demon". As Sutcliffe said, he never knew which ball would be the fast one and McDonald was a dangerous opponent.
But Sutcliffe was quoted as saying that he had "never played finer fast bowling" than that of the West Indians Learie Constantine, George Francis, Herman Griffith and Manny Martindale. Among the best English bowlers he faced in county cricket were some of his colleagues in England teams, such as Harold Larwood, Maurice Tate and Tich Freeman.
One of the toughest competitors he faced was the Australian leg spinner Clarrie Grimmett, "a tiny gnome of a man", who bowled with a roundarm action and made his Test debut at the age of 34, taking 11 wickets in his first match. Grimmett bowled "like a miser" and "begrudged every run", whereas his leg spin partner Arthur Mailey was the type of bowler who would "buy" his wickets by conceding runs and then, having boosted the batsman's confidence, snaring him with a "wrong 'un" (i.e., a googly). On Sutcliffe's first tour of Australia, he commented that he "was troubled most of the time by Arthur Mailey" but eventually he learned how to "differentiate between Mailey's leg breaks and his wrong 'uns".
Records
Fastest in world to reach 1,000 Test runs (later equalled by Everton Weekes) by achieving the feat in the 12th innings of his career.
Personal and business life
Sutcliffe married Emily ("Emmie") Pease at Pudsey Parish Church in September 1921. She had been a personal secretary to Richard Ingham, a mill owner who had introduced Sutcliffe to Pudsey St Lawrence. They had three children, two sons called Billy and John; and a daughter called Barbara. Billy Sutcliffe, whose middle name was Hobbs, played for Yorkshire between 1948 and 1957, captaining the team in the last two seasons of his career.
At the end of the 1924–25 tour of Australia, Sutcliffe and his Yorkshire colleague George Macaulay went into business together as a sports outfitting company with shops in Leeds and Wakefield. However, Macaulay withdrew from the business after a year and it became a Sutcliffe family concern until it folded in the 1990s. The business thrived while Sutcliffe was playing cricket and established itself as one of the leading sports goods retailers in the north of England. Sutcliffe ceased to have an active role in 1948 when he handed over the management to his son Billy.
Sutcliffe became the northern area representative, and eventually a director, of a paper manufacturer called Thomas Owen which was later amalgamated into Wiggins Teape. This firm also employed Douglas Jardine as company secretary, while Maurice Leyland, Bill Edrich and Len Hutton were other area representatives.
Sutcliffe developed severe arthritis in his old age, the disease crippling him to the extent that he needed a wheelchair. He suffered personal tragedy in April 1974 when his wife Emmie, then aged 74, died as result of severe burns following a fire at the family home in Ilkley. He was finally admitted to a Cross Hills nursing home in North Yorkshire where he died in January 1978 at the age of 83.
Footnotes
• a) Note that there are different versions of Sutcliffe's first-class career totals as a result of his participation in the 1930–31 Indian season. See Variations in first-class cricket statistics for more information.
References
Bibliography
John Arlott, Arlott on Cricket (ed. David Rayvern Allen), Collins, 1984
John Arlott, Portrait of the Master, Penguin, 1982
Barclays World of Cricket, 3rd edition, (ed. E. W. Swanton), Willow Books, 1986. Article on Sutcliffe written by Ian Peebles.
Derek Birley, A Social History of English Cricket, Aurum, 1999
Neville Cardus, Close of Play, Sportsmans Book Club edition, 1957, "Sutcliffe and Yorkshire", pp. 1–10
Bill Frindall, The Wisden Book of Cricket Records, Queen Anne Press, 1986,
Alan Gibson, The Cricket Captains of England, Cassell, 1979
Alan Hill, Herbert Sutcliffe: Cricket Maestro, Stadia, 2007 (2nd edition)
Douglas Jardine, In Quest of the Ashes, Methuen, 2005
Ronald Mason, Jack Hobbs, Sportsman's Book Club, 1961
Pelham Warner, Lords: 1787–1945, Harrap, 1946
Pelham Warner, Cricket Between Two Wars, Sporting Handbooks, 1946
Roy Webber, The County Cricket Championship, Sportsman's Book Club, 1958
Simon Wilde, Number One: The World's Best Batsmen and Bowlers, Gollancz, 1998,
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, various editions from 1920 to 1946
Graeme Wright, A Wisden Collection, Wisden, 2004
External links
Notes by the Editor – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1928 (online archive)
Herbert Sutcliffe's obituary – Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1979 (online archive)
1894 births
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Marylebone Cricket Club South African Touring Team cricketers | true | [
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"Kinship analysis is any analysis that deals with kinship. Such analyses are used in many different disciplines of research, where analysis is conducted in different ways.\n\nIn anthropology, kinship analysis is normally either the analysis of social practices related to kinship, or the analysis of systems of kinship terminology in different cultures.\nIn forensics, kinship analysis is used about forms of genetic profiling aimed at discovering possible genealogical relations between individuals based on DNA samples."
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"Lew Wallace",
"Forts Henry and Donelson"
]
| C_f36a7125118b479ebf442f8831306360_0 | What did he do at Fort Henry? | 1 | What did Lew Wallace do at Fort Henry? | Lew Wallace | On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant. Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army. CANNOTANSWER | Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant | Lewis Wallace (April 10, 1827February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. He was appointed Indiana's adjutant general and commanded the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Wallace, who attained the rank of major general, participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, and the Battle of Monocacy. He also served on the military commission for the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and presided over the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant of the Andersonville prison camp.
Wallace resigned from the U.S. Army in November 1865 and briefly served as a major general in the Mexican army, before returning to the United States. Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory (1878–1881) and served as U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire (1881–1885). Wallace retired to his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he continued to write until his death in 1905.
Early life and education
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to Esther French Wallace (née Test) and David Wallace. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress. Lew Wallace's maternal grandfather was circuit court judge and Congressman John Test.
In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis.
Lew began his formal education at the age of six at a public school in Covington, but he much preferred the outdoors. Wallace had a talent for drawing and loved to read, but he was a discipline problem at school. In 1836, at the age of nine, Lew joined his older brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended the preparatory school division of Wabash College, but soon transferred to another school more suitable for his age. In 1840, when Wallace was thirteen, his father sent him to a private academy at Centerville, Indiana, where his teacher encouraged Lew's natural affinity for writing. Wallace returned to Indianapolis the following year.
Sixteen-year-old Lew went out to earn his own wages in 1842, after his father refused to pay for more schooling. Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office and lived in an Indianapolis boardinghouse. He also joined the Marion Rifles, a local militia unit, and began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. Wallace said in his autobiography that he had never been a member of any organized religion, but he did believe "in the Christian conception of God".
By 1846, at the start of the Mexican–American War, the nineteen-year-old Wallace was studying law at his father's law office, but left that pursuit to establish a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. He was appointed a second lieutenant, and on June 19, 1846, mustered into military service with the Marion Volunteers (also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry). Wallace rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant while serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, but Wallace personally did not participate in combat. Wallace was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847, and returned to Indiana, where he intended to practice law. After the war, Wallace and William B. Greer operated a Free Soil newspaper, The Free Soil Banner, in Indianapolis.
Marriage and family
In 1848 Wallace met Susan Arnold Elston at the Crawfordsville home of Henry Smith Lane, Wallace's former commander during the Mexican War. Susan was the daughter of Major Isaac Compton Elston, a wealthy Crawfordsville merchant, and Maria Akin Elston, whose family were Quakers from upstate New York. Susan accepted Wallace's marriage proposal in 1849, and they were married in Crawfordsville on May 6, 1852. The Wallaces had one son, Henry Lane Wallace, who was born on February 17, 1853.
Early law and military career
Wallace was admitted to the bar in February 1849, and moved from Indianapolis to Covington, Indiana, where he established a law practice. In 1851 Wallace was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana's 1st congressional district, but he resigned in 1853 and moved his family to Crawfordsville, in Montgomery County, Indiana. Wallace continued to practice law and was elected as a Democrat to a two-year term in the Indiana Senate in 1856. From 1849 to 1853, his office was housed in the Fountain County Clerk's Building.
While living in Crawfordsville, Wallace organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia, later called the Montgomery Guards. During the winter of 1859–60, after reading about elite units of the French Army in Algeria, Wallace adopted the Zouave uniform and their system of training for the group. The Montgomery Guards would later form the core of his first military command, the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the American Civil War.
Civil War service
Wallace, a staunch supporter of the Union, became a member of the Republican party, and began his full-time military career soon after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Indiana's governor, the Republican Oliver P. Morton, asked Wallace to help recruit Indiana volunteers for the Union army. Wallace, who also sought a military command, agreed to become the state's adjutant general on the condition that he would be given command of a regiment of his choice. Indiana's quota of six regimental units was filled within a week, and Wallace took command of the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into the Union army on April 25, 1861. Wallace received his formal commission as a colonel in the Union army the following day.
On June 5, 1861, Wallace went with the 11th Indiana to Cumberland, Maryland, and on June 12, the regiment won a minor battle at Romney, Virginia, (in present-day West Virginia). The rout boosted morale for Union troops and led to the Confederate evacuation of Harpers Ferry on June 18. On September 3, 1861, Wallace was promoted to brigadier general of U.S. Army volunteers and given command of a brigade.
Forts Henry and Donelson
On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant.
Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.
During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.
Shiloh
Wallace's most controversial command came at the battle of Shiloh, where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj. Gen. Grant.
What was to become a long-standing controversy developed around the contents of Wallace's written orders on April 6, the 3rd Division's movements on the first day of battle, and their late arrival on the field. On the second day of battle, Wallace's division joined reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army to play an important role in the Union victory. Prior to the battle, Wallace's division had been left in reserve and was encamped near Crump's Landing. Their orders were to guard the Union's right flank and cover the road to Bethel Station, Tennessee, where railroad lines led to Corinth, Mississippi, to the south. To protect the road from Crump's Landing and Bethel Station, Wallace sent Col. John M. Thayer's 2nd Brigade to Stoney Lonesome, west of Crump's Landing, and the 3rd Brigade, commanded by Col. Charles Whittlesey to Adamsville, west of Crump's Landing. Col. Morgan L. Smith's 1st Brigade remained with Wallace at Crump's Landing, north of Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.
Between 5 and 6 a.m. on April 6, 1862, Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing was surprised and nearly routed by a sudden attack from the Confederate army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Grant, who heard the early morning artillery fire, took a steamboat from his headquarters at Savannah, Tennessee, to Crump's Landing, where he gave Wallace orders to wait in reserve and be ready to move. Grant proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, where he arrived around 8:30 a.m. Grant's new orders to Wallace, which arrived between 11 and 11:30 a.m., were given verbally to an aide, who transcribed them before they were delivered. The written orders were lost during the battle, so their exact wording cannot be confirmed; however, eyewitness accounts agree that Grant ordered Wallace to join the right side of the Union army, presumably in support of Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's 5th Division, who were encamped near Shiloh Church on the morning of April 6.
Knowledge of the area's roads played a critical role in Wallace's journey to the battlefield on April 6. In late March, after heavy rains made transportation difficult between Crump's Landing and Pittsburg Landing, Wallace's men had opened a route to Pittsburg Landing along Shunpike road, which connected to a road near Sherman's camp. Brig. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace's men at Pittsburg Landing opened the River Road (also known as the Hamburg-Savannah Road), a route farther east.
Of the two main routes that Wallace could use to move his men to the front, he chose the Shunpike road, the more direct route to reach Sherman's division near Shiloh Church. The day before the battle, Wallace wrote a letter to a fellow officer, W. H. L. Wallace, stating his intention to do so. Lew Wallace and his staff maintained after the battle that Grant's order did not specify Pittsburg Landing as their destination, and it did not specify which route the 3rd Division was ordered to take. However, Grant claimed in his memoirs that he had ordered Wallace to take the route nearest to the river to reach Pittsburg Landing. Historians are divided, with some stating that Wallace's explanation is the most logical.
After a second messenger from Grant arrived around noon with word to move out, Wallace's division of approximately 5,800 men began their march toward the battlefield. Between 2 and 2:30 p.m., a third messenger from Grant found Wallace along the Shunpike road, where he informed Wallace that Sherman had been forced back from Shiloh Church and was fighting closer to the river, near Pittsburg Landing. The Union army had been pushed back so far that Wallace was to the rear of the advancing Southern troops.
Wallace considered attacking the Confederates, but abandoned the idea. Instead he made a controversial decision to countermarch his troops along the Shunpike road, follow a crossroads to the River Road, and then move south to Pittsburg Landing. Rather than realigning his troops, so that the rear guard would be in the front, Wallace countermarched his column to maintain their original order, keeping his artillery in the lead position to support the Union infantry on the field. After the time-consuming maneuver was completed, Wallace's troops returned to the midpoint on the Shunpike road, crossed east over a path to the River Road, and followed it south to join Grant's army on the field. Progress was slow due to the road conditions and countermarch. Wallace's division arrived at Pittsburg Landing about 6:30 p.m., after having marched about in nearly seven hours over roads that had been left in terrible conditions by recent rainstorms and previous Union marches. They gathered at the battlefield at dusk, about 7 p.m., with the fighting nearly over for the day, and took up a position on the right of the Union line.
The next day, April 7, Wallace's division held the extreme right of the Union line. Two of Wallace's batteries with the aid of a battery from the 1st Illinois Light Artillery were the first to attack at about 5:30 a.m. Sherman's and Wallace's troops helped force the Confederates to fall back, and by 3 p.m. the Confederates were retreating southwest, toward Corinth.
Historian Timothy B. Smith conceded that on the second day Wallace's division sustained far fewer casualties (296) than any of Buell's three divisions. However, Smith argued that the number of casualties does not always show the effectiveness of troops. Wallace had his soldiers lie down when they were under fire, which minimized casualties. He also maneuvered his division so that it turned the Confederate left flank. Wallace advanced his division at 6:30 am, reached the south side of Tilghman Branch about 8:00 am, and occupied a commanding ridge by 9:00 am, all with little opposition. Here he paused to wait for Union troops to appear on his left. Up to this point, Wallace's movements were slow. Once Grant's and Buell's soldiers reached the Confederate main line of defense they were stopped in heavy fighting. Noting that the Confederate left did not reach as far as Owl Creek, Wallace wheeled his division to outflank the enemy line. Finding Wallace's troops to their left and rear, the left-hand Confederate brigade hurriedly fell back. This unhinged the entire line and the Confederate troops soon retreated to a second position around noon. At around 1:00 pm, Wallace worked a few regiments around the Confederate left flank, forcing their withdrawal to a third position. After the Confederates left the battlefield, Wallace's division went the farthest south, but he pulled his troops back before going into camp that evening.
Shiloh controversy
At first, the battle was viewed by the North as a victory; however, on April 23, after civilians began hearing news of the high number of casualties, the Lincoln administration asked the Union army for further explanation. Grant, who was accused of poor leadership at Shiloh, and his superior, Halleck, placed the blame on Wallace by asserting that his failure to follow orders and the delay in moving up the reserves on April 6 had nearly cost them the battle.
Grant had placed much of the blame on General Wallace, to whom he had sent verbal orders to bring his troops forward, accusing Wallace of failure in following those orders, which he believed resulted in the delay in moving up reserves, nearly costing the Union the loss of the battle. After hearing reports that Wallace refused to obey anything but written orders, an angry General Grant asserted that a division general ought to take his troops to wherever the firing may be, even without orders", and first sent Colonel William R. Rowley, ordering him to "tell him to come up at once" and that "if he should require a written order of you, you will give it to him at once". When Rowley caught up to where Wallace's division last was, there was only a supply wagon departing the scene. Riding on further, Rowley found Wallace at the head of his column near Clear Creek, positioned on high ground. Rowley pulled Wallace off to the side and warned him of the danger that lay just ahead, exclaiming, "Don't you know that Sherman has been driven back? Why, the whole army is within half a mile of the river, and it's a question if we are not all going to be driven into it." Wallace, stunned by the news, sent his cavalry ahead to assess the situation, and upon returning, it had confirmed Rowley's claim.
On April 30, 1862, Halleck reorganized his army and removed Wallace and John McClernand from active duty, placing both of them in reserve.
Wallace's reputation and career as a military leader suffered a significant setback from controversy over Shiloh. He spent the remainder of his life trying to resolve the accusations and change public opinion about his role in the battle. On March 14, 1863, Wallace wrote a letter to Halleck that provided an official explanation of his actions. He also wrote Grant several letters and met with him in person more than once in an attempt to vindicate himself. On August 16, 1863, Wallace wrote Sherman for advice on the issue. Sherman urged Wallace to be patient and not to request a formal inquiry. Although Sherman brought Wallace's concerns to Grant's attention, Wallace was not given another active duty command until March 1864.
For many years Grant stood by his original version of the orders to Wallace. As late as 1884, when Grant wrote an article on Shiloh for The Century Magazine that appeared in its February 1885 issue, he maintained that Wallace had taken the wrong road on the first day of battle. After W. H. L. Wallace's widow gave Grant a letter that Lew Wallace had written to her the day before the battle (the one indicating his plans to use the Shunpike road to pass between Shiloh and his position west of Crump's Landing), Grant changed his mind. Grant wrote a letter to the editors at Century, which was published in its September 1885 issue, and added a note to his memoirs to explain that Wallace's letter "modifies very materially what I have said, and what has been said by others, about the conduct of General Lew Wallace at the battle of Shiloh." While reaffirming that he had ordered Wallace to take the River Road, Grant stated that he could not be sure the exact content of Wallace's written orders, since his verbal orders were given to one of his aides and transcribed.
Grant's article in the February 1885 issue of Century became the basis of his chapter on Shiloh in his memoirs, which were published in 1886, and influenced many later accounts of Wallace's actions on the first day of battle. Grant acknowledged in his memoirs: "If the position of our front had not changed, the road which Wallace took would have been somewhat shorter to our right than the River road." Wallace's account of the events appeared in his autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1906. Despite his later fame and fortune as the writer of Ben-Hur, Wallace continued to lament, "Shiloh and its slanders! Will the world ever acquit me of them? If I were guilty I would not feel them as keenly."
Other military assignments
On August 17, 1862, Wallace accepted a regiment command in the Department of the Ohio to help with the successful defense of Cincinnati during Braxton Bragg's incursion into Kentucky. Next, Wallace took command of Camp Chase, a prisoner-of-war camp at Columbus, Ohio, where he remained until October 30, 1862. A month later Wallace was placed in charge of a five-member commission to investigate Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's conduct in response to the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. The commission criticized Buell for his retreat, but it did not find him disloyal to the Union. When the commission's work was completed on May 6, 1863, Wallace returned to Indiana to wait for a new command. In mid-July 1863, while Wallace was home, he helped protect the railroad junction at North Vernon, Indiana, from Confederate general John Hunt Morgan's raid into southern Indiana.
Monocacy
Wallace's most notable service came on Saturday, July 9, 1864 at the Battle of Monocacy part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Although Confederate General Jubal A. Early and an estimated 15,000 troops defeated Wallace's troops at Monocacy Junction, Maryland, forcing them to retreat to Baltimore, the effort cost Early a chance to capture Washington, D.C. Wallace's men were able to delay the Confederate advance toward Washington for an entire day, giving the city time to organize its defenses. Early arrived in Washington at around noon on July 11, two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy, the northernmost Confederate victory of the war, but Union reinforcements had already arrived at Fort Stevens to repel the Confederates and force their retreat to Virginia.
Wallace, who had returned to active duty on March 12, 1864, assumed command of VIII Corps, which was headquartered in Baltimore. On July 9, a combined Union force of approximately 5,800 men under Wallace's command (mostly hundred-days' men from VIII Corps) and a division under James B. Ricketts from VI Corps encountered Confederate troops at Monocacy Junction between 9 and 10 a.m. Although Wallace was uncertain whether Baltimore or Washington, D.C., was the Confederate objective, he knew his troops would have to delay the advance until Union reinforcements arrived. Wallace's men repelled the Confederate attacks for more than six hours before retreating to Baltimore.
After the battle Wallace informed Halleck that his forces fought until 5 p.m., but the Confederate troops, which he estimated at 20,000 men, had overwhelmed them. When Grant learned of the defeat, he named Maj. Gen. E. O. C. Ord as Wallace's replacement in command of VIII Corps. On July 28, after officials learned how Wallace's efforts at Monocacy helped save Washington D.C. from capture, he was reinstated as commander of VIII Corps. In Grant's memoirs, he praised Wallace's delaying tactics at Monocacy:
If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent. ... General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory.
Later military service
On January 22, 1865, Grant ordered Wallace to the Rio Grande in southern Texas to investigate Confederate military operations in the area. Although Wallace was not officially authorized to offer terms, he did discuss proposals for the surrender of the Confederate troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Wallace provided Grant with copies of his proposals and reported on the negotiations, but no agreement was made. Before returning to Baltimore, Wallace also met with Mexican military leaders to discuss the U.S. government's unofficial efforts to aid in expelling Maximilian's French occupation forces from Mexico.
Following President Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, Wallace was appointed to the military commission that investigated the Lincoln assassination conspirators. The commission, which began in May, was dissolved on June 30, 1865, after all eight conspirators were found guilty. In mid-August 1865, Wallace was appointed head of an eight-member military commission that investigated the conduct of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant in charge of the South's Andersonville prison camp. The court-martial which took nearly two months, opened on August 21, 1865. At its conclusion Wirz was found guilty and sentenced to death.
On April 30, 1865, Wallace had accepted an offer to become a major general in the Mexican army, but the agreement, which was contingent upon his resignation from the U.S. Army, was delayed by Wallace's service on the two military commissions. Wallace tendered his resignation from the U.S. Army on November 4, 1865, effective November 30, and returned to Mexico to assist the Mexican army. Although the Juárez government promised Wallace $100,000 for his services, he returned to the United States in 1867 in deep financial debt.
Political and diplomatic career
Wallace returned to Indiana in 1867 to practice law, but the profession did not appeal to him, and he turned to politics. Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress (in 1868 and 1870), and supported Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election. As a reward for his political support, Hayes appointed Wallace as governor of the New Mexico Territory, where he served from August 1878 to March 1881. His next assignment came in March 1881, when Republican president James A. Garfield appointed Wallace to an overseas diplomatic post in Constantinople as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire. Wallace remained in this post until 1885.
Territorial governor of New Mexico
Wallace arrived in Santa Fe on September 29, 1878, to begin his service as governor of the New Mexico Territory during a time of lawless violence and political corruption. Wallace was involved in efforts to resolve New Mexico's Lincoln County War, a contentious and violent disagreement among the county's residents, and tried to end a series of Apache raids on territorial settlers. In 1880, while living at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, Wallace also completed the manuscript for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
On March 1, 1879, after previous efforts to restore order in Lincoln County had failed, Wallace ordered the arrest of those responsible for local killings. One of the outlaws was William Henry McCarty Jr. (alias William H. Bonney), better known as Billy the Kid. On March 17, 1879, Wallace secretly met with Bonney, who had witnessed the murder of a Lincoln County lawyer named Huston Chapman. Wallace wanted him to testify in the trial of Chapman's accused murderers, but Bonney wanted Wallace's protection from his enemies and amnesty for his earlier crimes. During their meeting, the pair arranged for Bonney to become an informant in exchange for a full pardon of his previous crimes. Wallace supposedly assured the Kid that he would be "scot free with a pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds." On March 20 Bonney agreed to provide grand jury testimony against those involved in Chapman's murder. Wallace arranged for a "fake" arrest and Bonney's detention in a local jail to assure his safety. Bonney testified in court on April 14, as agreed. However, the local district attorney revoked Wallace's bargain and refused to set the outlaw free. After spending several weeks in jail, Bonney escaped and returned to his criminal ways, which included killing additional men. He was shot and killed on July 14, 1881, by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who had been appointed by local ranching interests who had tired of his rustling their herds. In the meantime, Wallace had resigned from his duties as territorial governor on March 9, 1881, and was waiting for a new political appointment.
On December 31, 2010, on his last day in office, then-Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico declined a pardon request from Bonney's supporters, citing a "lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity" over Wallace's promise of amnesty. Descendants of Wallace and Garrett were among those who opposed the pardon.
U.S. diplomat in the Ottoman Empire
On May 19, 1881, Wallace was appointed U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). Wallace remained at the diplomatic post until 1885, and became a trusted friend of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. When a crisis developed between the Turkish and British governments over control of Egypt, Wallace served as an intermediary between the sultan and Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador. Although Wallace's efforts were unsuccessful, he earned respect for his efforts and a promotion in the U.S. diplomatic service.
In 1883, an editorial aimed at Wallace appeared in the newspaper Havatzelet (xiii. No. 6) titled "An American and yet a Despot". The editorial caused the Havatzelet to be suspended and its editor Israel Dov Frumkin to be imprisoned for forty-five days by order from Constantinople, directed to the pasha of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The incident that led to the editorial was the dismissal, made at Wallace's request, of Joseph Kriger, the Jewish secretary and interpreter to the pasha of Jerusalem. Wallace complained that Kriger had failed to receive him with the honor due to his rank, and refused to issue any apology for the alleged shortcoming. Havatzelet claimed that the proceeding was instigated by missionaries, whom Wallace strongly supported.
In addition to Wallace's diplomatic duties, which included protection of U.S. citizens and U.S. trade rights in the area, Wallace found time to travel and do historical research. Wallace visited Jerusalem and the surrounding area, the site for his novel, Ben-Hur, and did research in Constantinople, the locale for The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell, which he began writing in 1887.
The election of Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, ended Wallace's political appointment. He resigned from the U.S. diplomatic service on March 4, 1885. The sultan wanted Wallace to continue to work in the Ottoman Empire, and even made a proposal to have him represent Ottoman interests in England or France, but Wallace declined and returned home to Crawfordsville.
Writing career
Wallace confessed in his autobiography that he took up writing as a diversion from studying law. Although he wrote several books, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), which established his fame as an author.
In 1843, Wallace began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. The popular historical novel, with Cortez's conquest of Mexico as its central theme, was based on William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. Wallace's book sold seven thousand copies in its first year. Its sales continued to rise after Wallace's reputation as an author was established with the publication of subsequent novels.
Wallace wrote the manuscript for Ben-Hur, his second and best-known novel, during his spare time at Crawfordsville, and completed it in Santa Fe, while serving as the territorial governor of New Mexico. Ben-Hur, an adventure story of revenge and redemption, is told from the perspective of a Jewish nobleman named Judah Ben-Hur. Because Wallace had not been to the Holy Land before writing the book, he began research to familiarize himself with the area's geography and its history at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1873. Harper and Brothers published the book on November 12, 1880.
Ben-Hur made Wallace a wealthy man and established his reputation as a famous author. Sales were slow at first; only 2,800 copies were sold in the first seven months after its release, but the book became popular among readers around the world. By 1886, it was earning Wallace about $11,000 in annual royalties (equivalent to $290,000 in 2015 dollars), and provided Wallace's family with financial security. By 1889, Harper and Brothers had sold 400,000 copies and the book had been translated into several languages.
In 1900, Ben-Hur became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Amy Lifson, an editor for Humanities, identified it as the most influential Christian book of the 19th century. Others named it one of the best-selling novels of all time. At the time of Ben-Hur'''s one hundredth anniversary in 1980, it had "never been out of print" and had been adapted for the stage and several motion pictures.Boomhower, pp. 11, 138; Morrow, pp. 17–18. One historian, Victor Davis Hanson, has argued that Ben-Hur drew from Wallace's life, particularly his experiences at Shiloh, and the damage it did to his reputation. The book's main character, Judah Ben-Hur, accidentally causes injury to a high-ranking Roman commander, for which he and his family suffer tribulations and calumny.
Wallace wrote subsequent novels and biographies, but Ben-Hur remained his most important work. Wallace considered The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (1893) as his best novel. He also wrote a biography of President Benjamin Harrison, a fellow Hoosier and Civil War general, and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898), a narrative poem. Wallace was writing his autobiography when he died in 1905. His wife Susan completed it with the assistance of Mary Hannah Krout, another author from Crawfordsville. It was published posthumously in 1906.
Later years
Wallace continued to write after his return from the Ottoman Empire. He also patented several of his own inventions, built a seven-story apartment building in Indianapolis, The Blacherne, and drew up plans for a private study at his home in Crawfordsville. Wallace remained active in veterans groups, including writing a speech for the dedication of the battlefield at the Chickamauga.
Wallace's elaborate writing study, which he described as "a pleasure-house for my soul", served as his private retreat. Now called the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, it was built between 1895 and 1898, adjacent to his residence in Crawfordsville, and set in an enclosed park. The study along with three and one-half acres of its grounds were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The property is operated as a museum, open to the public. Wallace had a moat on two sides of the Study and stocked it so he could fish from the back porch and a landing. In winter, he would fire up the coal furnace in the Study basement and fish from the windows. He loved fishing so much he invented and patented a special traveler's fishing pole. After just a few years he had the moat drained as it was negatively affecting the Study foundation and he worried about his grandchildren and neighborhood children falling into the water.
On April 5, 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Wallace, at age seventy-one, offered to raise and lead a force of soldiers, but the war office refused. Undeterred, he went to a local recruiting office and attempted to enlist as a private, but was rejected again, presumably because of his age.
Wallace's service at the battle of Shiloh continued to haunt him in later life. The debate persisted in book publications, magazine articles, pamphlets, speeches, and in private correspondence. Wallace attended a reunion at Shiloh in 1894, his first return since 1862, and retraced his journey to the battlefield with veterans from the 3rd Division. He returned to Shiloh for a final time in 1901 to walk the battlefield with David W. Reed, the Shiloh Battlefield Commission's historian, and others. Wallace died before the manuscript of his memoirs was fully completed, and it is unknown whether he would have revised his final account of the battle.
Death
Wallace died at home in Crawfordsville, on February 15, 1905, of atrophic gastritis. He was seventy-seven years old. Wallace is buried in Crawfordsville Oak Hill Cemetery.
Legacy and honors
Wallace was a man of many interests and a lifelong adventure seeker, who remained a persistent, self-confident man of action. He was also impatient and highly sensitive to personal criticisms, especially those related to his command decisions at Shiloh. Despite Wallace's career in law and politics, combined with years of military and diplomatic service, he achieved his greatest fame as a novelist, most notably for his best-selling biblical tale, Ben-Hur.
Following Wallace's death, the State of Indiana commissioned the sculptor Andrew O'Connor to create a marble statue of Wallace dressed in a military uniform for the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. The statue was unveiled during a ceremony held on January 11, 1910. Wallace is the only novelist honored in the hall. A bronze copy of the statue is installed on the grounds of Wallace's study in Crawfordsville.Morrow, p. 22.
Lew Wallace High School opened in 1926 at 415 West 45th Avenue in Gary, Indiana. On June 3, 2014, the Gary School Board voted 4 to 2 to close Lew Wallace, along with five other schools.
A Knights of Pythias lodge was established in Franklin, Indiana at the Masonic Home to be known as the General Lewis Wallace Lodge #2019.
Popular culture
NASL Indianapolis-based team The Indy Eleven pays homage to the 11th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, which fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. The inspiration for the name came from Donna Schmink, the Collection Manager at the Indiana War Museum, who, when asked by team officials for ideas on a team name connected to Indiana history, suggested "the Eleventh" in honor of the regiment that valiantly fought under the initial direction of Colonel Lew Wallace.
Film and television
Frank Reicher (uncredited) as General Lew Wallace in the film Billy the Kid (1930).
Berton Churchill as Gov. Wallace in The Big Stampede (1932).
Joe King (actor) (uncredited) as Governor Lew Wallace in Land Beyond the Law (1937).
Robert H. Barrat as General Lew Wallace in The Kid from Texas (1950).
Claude Stroud as Gen. Lew Wallace - New Mexico Governor in I Shot Billy the Kid (1950).
Otis Garth (uncredited) as Gov. Lew Wallace in The Law vs. Billy the Kid (1954).
Ralph Moody as Gen. Lew Wallace in Strange Lady in Town (1955).
Robert Warwick as Governor Wallace in Law of the Plainsman (TV series), episode "Amnesty" (aired April 7, 1960).
Cameron Mitchell as General Lew Wallace in The Andersonville Trial (TV), which aired May 17, 1970; an adaptation of the 1959 Broadway play by the same name.
Jason Robards as Governor Wallace in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
René Auberjonois as Gov. Lew Wallace in Longarm (TV film, 1988).
Wilford Brimley as Gov. Lew Wallace in Billy the Kid (TNT film, 1989).
Scott Wilson as Governor Lewis Wallace in the film Young Guns II (1990).
Brian Merrick as Gen. Lew Wallace in No Retreat from Destiny: The Battle That Rescued Washington (2006 video).
Published works
Fiction
The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873.)
Commodus: An Historical Play (Crawfordsville, IN: privately published by the author, 1876.) Revised and reissued in the same year.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880.)
The First Christmas from Ben-Hur (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899.)
The Boyhood of Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888.)
The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893.) Two volumes.
The Wooing of Malkatoon (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1898.)
Non-Fiction
Life of Gen. Ben Harrison (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1888.)
Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the U.S. With a Concise Biographical Sketch of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Ex-Minister to France [by Murat Halstad] (Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing Co., 1892.)
Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906.) Two volumes.
See also
List of American Civil War battles
List of American Civil War generals (Union)
José María Jesús Carbajal
Bibliography of the American Civil War
Bibliography of Ulysses S. Grant
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Biographies
Other works
Lighty, Shaun Chandler. "The Fall and Rise of Lew Wallace: Gaining Legitimacy Through Popular Culture." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2005. Available online at ohiolink.edu.
Swansburg, John. "The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War Hero and Author of Ben-Hur", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
Swansburg, John. "Lew Wallace a Life in Artifacts", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
External links
Notable Hoosier Obits: Lew Wallace gives a collection of Wallace obituaries from around the country.
Wallace's obituary 16 February 1905. New York Times'' (pdf format).
Lew Wallace Archive, overview with detailed bibliography of his works
General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, Crawfordsville
Wallace's time-line at General Lew Wallace Museum
Lew Wallace in Jerusalem, 1883
Wallace's 'Minister Resident of the United States of America to Turkey' Calling Card in the Shapell Manuscript Foundation Collection
Lew Wallace collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
1827 births
1905 deaths
1870s in New Mexico Territory
1880s in New Mexico Territory
19th-century American diplomats
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Ambassadors of the United States to the Ottoman Empire
American autobiographers
American historical novelists
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
Burials in Indiana
Christian novelists
Deaths from gastritis
Governors of New Mexico Territory
Indiana lawyers
Indiana Republicans
Indiana state senators
Lincoln County Wars
Military personnel from Indiana
New Mexico Republicans
Novelists from Indiana
People associated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
People from Brookville, Indiana
People from Covington, Indiana
People from Crawfordsville, Indiana
People from Indiana in the Mexican–American War
People of Indiana in the American Civil War
Union Army generals
Writers from Indiana
Writers of historical fiction set in antiquity
Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period
20th-century American male writers | true | [
"Fort Henry was a colonial fort which stood about ¼ mile from the Ohio River in what is now downtown, Wheeling, West Virginia. The fort was originally known as Fort Fincastle and was named for Viscount Fincastle, Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia. Later it was renamed for Patrick Henry, and was at the time located in Virginia. The fort was subject to two major sieges, two notable feats (McColloch's Leap and Betty Zane's trek through the battle) and other skirmishes.\n\nHistory\nBuilt in June 1774, Fort Henry was not erected by any specific plan or design, but was one of a number of similar forts built to protect settlers on the frontier in the middle years of the 1770s. The outbreak of Lord Dunmore's War, a conflict between American Indians of the Ohio Country and Virginia, was the immediate reason for its construction.\n\nConstruction was supervised by Colonel William Crawford under the orders of the Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore.\n\nIt would appear that the need for a fortified shelter was noticed simultaneously by the residents of the area, and by the military authorities at Fort Pitt (Pennsylvania), in the spring of 1774. John Connolly wrote to Wheeling and urged the settlers to fortify themselves as soon as possible.\n\nEbenezer Zane and John Caldwell began the fort, which was completed with the help of Captain William Crawford, Colonel Angus McDonald and 400 militia and regulars from Fort Pitt. A letter preserved in the Pennsylvania Archives shows that Connolly told Crawford \"to proceed to Wheeling and complete the fort.\"\n\nA letter from Lord Dunmore dated June 20, 1774 to Connolly states that Dunmore \"entirely [approved] of the measures [Connolly] have taken to build a fort at Wheeling.\" Dunmore, then, did not specifically order the fort to be built, but did approve of it. Connolly, according to some accounts, left Fort Pitt with 100 men to help build the fort, but was harassed by a small raiding party of Indians. He returned to Fort Pitt, and then sent out Crawford and McDonald with 400 men.\n\nForm\nThe fort enclosed about and was defended on three sides by the topography. On the south and west (river) sides, the bluff prevented or greatly hindered assaults. On the north, the ravine provided protection. The only level ingress would have been from the east. Zane's blockhouse protected the entrance since attackers had to pass by it to attack the fort. They would have been caught in a crossfire between the fort and the blockhouse. All of the recorded attacks on Fort Henry came from the east.\n\nThe outer palisade wall was made of timbers, with blockhouses built at each of the four corners. In 1781 a two-story log structure was added near the front gate on which a cannon was mounted.\n\nAmerican Revolutionary War\n\nThe fort was besieged twice during the American Revolutionary War, once in 1777 and again in 1782.\n\nFirst Battle of Fort Henry\nIn 1777, Native Americans of the Shawnee, Wyandot and Mingo tribes joined to attack settlements along the Ohio River. Local men later joined by recruits from Fort Shepherd (in Elm Grove) and Fort Holliday defended the fort. The native force subsequently burned the surrounding cabins and destroyed livestock. Major Samuel McColloch led a small force of men from Fort Vanmetre along Short Creek to assist the besieged Fort Henry. McColloch was separated from his men and was chased by attacking Indians. Upon his horse, McColloch charged up Wheeling Hill and made what is known as McColloch's Leap down its eastern side to safety. The Indians rushed to the edge, expecting to see the Major lying dead in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the hill. To their great surprise they instead saw McColloch, still mounted on his white horse, galloping away from them.\n\nSecond Battle of Fort Henry\nIn 1782, a native army along with some British soldiers attempted to take Fort Henry. During this siege, Fort Henry's supply of ammunition was exhausted. The defenders decided to dispatch one of its men to secure more ammunition from the Zane homestead. Betty Zane volunteered for the dangerous task. During her departing run, she was heckled by both native and British soldiers. Upon successfully reaching the Zane homestead, she gathered a tablecloth and filled it with gunpowder. During her return, she was fired upon but was uninjured. It is believed that one bullet did, in fact, pierce her clothing. As a result of Zane's heroism, Fort Henry remained in American control.\n\nNumerous other skirmishes took place nearby.\n\nDisposition\nThe fort was dismantled soon after the end of the Revolutionary War, though some parts of it remained standing until 1808. In 1793, General Anthony Wayne built a blockhouse on the site for relay and storage as he moved his troops down the Ohio River prior to his Ohio Country campaign. Today the site is covered by city streets of Wheeling.\n\nSee also\nSamuel Mason\n\nReferences \nThe Border Wars of the Upper Ohio Valley (1769–1794), William Hintzen, Precision Shooting Inc. (Manchester, CT 2001), pp. 366–367.\nBrooks, A. B. \"Story of Fort Henry\", West Virginia History, Volume I, Number 2 (January 1940), pp. 110–118.\nKlein, Richard and Cooper, Alan, \"The Fort Henry Story\", Fort Henry Bicentennial Committee, 1982\n\nExternal links\nFort Henry Days official website\nFt. Henry Days Part 1 (video)\nFt. Henry Days Part 2 (video)\nFort Henry Days Local Television Commercial (video)\n\nInfrastructure completed in 1774\nAmerican Revolutionary War forts\nForts in West Virginia\nVirginia in the American Revolution\nOhio County, West Virginia\nBritish forts in the United States\nColonial forts in West Virginia",
"The siege of Fort Henry was an attack on American militiamen during the American Revolutionary War near the Virginia outpost known as Fort Henry by a mixed band of Indians in September 1777. The fort, named for Virginia Governor Patrick Henry, was at first defended by only a small number of militia, as rumors of the Indian attack had moved faster than the Indians, and a number of militia companies had left the fort. The American settlers were successful in repulsing the Indian attack.\n\nBackground\nIn the summer of 1777, rumors began circulating throughout frontier areas of Virginia and Pennsylvania that Indians living in the Ohio Country were planning attacks on frontier settlements on and around the Ohio River. Fort Henry, which had been constructed in 1774 to protect the settlers in the area around what is now Wheeling, West Virginia, was one of the rumored targets. In early August, General Edward Hand, the commander at nearby Fort Pitt warned Lieutenant David Shepherd and all of the local militia captains of the threat, ordering them to gather at Fort Henry. For a time thereafter, militia companies stayed at Fort Henry, improving its defenses and patrolling for Indians. However, the absence of any obvious threat led many of those companies to leave and return to their homes. By the end of August, only two companies, those of Captains Joseph Ogle and Samuel Mason, remained.\n\nBattle\nThe battle is reported in some sources to have taken place on September 1, and in others on September 21.\n\nOn the night of the battle, a mixed band of about 200 Indians (predominantly Wyandot and Mingo, although there were also some Shawnee and Delaware) under the leadership of the Wendat chief Pomoacan, approached the fort in great stealth and secrecy.\nLocal men later joined by recruits from Fort Shepherd (in Elm Grove) and Fort Holliday defended the fort. When four men left the fort early that morning, the Indians attacked them, killing one. The other three escaped, including two who returned to the fort to raise the alarm.\n\nAnticipating a sortie from the fort, the Indians set up an ambush. The party that Captain Mason led out marched out to search for the Indians, and were very nearly surprised. One of Mason's men, Thomas Glen(sic), spotted an Indian and shot him, prompting the Indians to open fire. Seeing that they were very nearly surrounded, Mason and his men retreated, with Mason suffering severe enough injuries that he was forced to hide by the path rather than go to the fort. When Ogle led some men out to assist, his party was also attacked, and he was forced to take cover. Both he and Mason were eventually able to reenter the fort.\n\nThe Native American force subsequently burned the surrounding cabins and destroyed livestock. Major Samuel McColloch led a small force of men from Fort Vanmetre along Short Creek to assist the besieged Fort Henry. McColloch was separated from his men and was chased by attacking Indians. Upon his horse, McColloch charged up Wheeling Hill and made what is known as McColloch's Leap, down its eastern side to safety. The Indians rushed to the edge, expecting to see the Major lying dead in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the hill. To their great surprise they instead saw McColloch, still mounted on his white horse, galloping away from them.\n\nThe Indians remained overnight outside the fort, dancing and demonstrating, but never attacked it directly. They left the next morning, having suffered nine wounded and one killed, while the Americans lost fifteen, with five wounded.\n\nFollowing the Revolutionary War, Captain Samuel Mason would later turn to a life of crime as a river pirate in 1797 at Cave-In-Rock on the Ohio River and a highwayman on the Natchez Trace.\n\nReferences\n\nFort Henry 1777\nConflicts in 1777\n1777 in the United States\nFort Henry 1777\nWheeling, West Virginia\nFort Henry (1777)\nFort Henry (1777)"
]
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[
"Lew Wallace",
"Forts Henry and Donelson",
"What did he do at Fort Henry?",
"Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant"
]
| C_f36a7125118b479ebf442f8831306360_0 | What else did he do there? | 2 | Other than at Fort Donelson, What else did Lew Wallace do at Fort Henry ? | Lew Wallace | On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant. Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army. CANNOTANSWER | Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. | Lewis Wallace (April 10, 1827February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. He was appointed Indiana's adjutant general and commanded the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Wallace, who attained the rank of major general, participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, and the Battle of Monocacy. He also served on the military commission for the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and presided over the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant of the Andersonville prison camp.
Wallace resigned from the U.S. Army in November 1865 and briefly served as a major general in the Mexican army, before returning to the United States. Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory (1878–1881) and served as U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire (1881–1885). Wallace retired to his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he continued to write until his death in 1905.
Early life and education
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to Esther French Wallace (née Test) and David Wallace. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress. Lew Wallace's maternal grandfather was circuit court judge and Congressman John Test.
In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis.
Lew began his formal education at the age of six at a public school in Covington, but he much preferred the outdoors. Wallace had a talent for drawing and loved to read, but he was a discipline problem at school. In 1836, at the age of nine, Lew joined his older brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended the preparatory school division of Wabash College, but soon transferred to another school more suitable for his age. In 1840, when Wallace was thirteen, his father sent him to a private academy at Centerville, Indiana, where his teacher encouraged Lew's natural affinity for writing. Wallace returned to Indianapolis the following year.
Sixteen-year-old Lew went out to earn his own wages in 1842, after his father refused to pay for more schooling. Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office and lived in an Indianapolis boardinghouse. He also joined the Marion Rifles, a local militia unit, and began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. Wallace said in his autobiography that he had never been a member of any organized religion, but he did believe "in the Christian conception of God".
By 1846, at the start of the Mexican–American War, the nineteen-year-old Wallace was studying law at his father's law office, but left that pursuit to establish a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. He was appointed a second lieutenant, and on June 19, 1846, mustered into military service with the Marion Volunteers (also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry). Wallace rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant while serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, but Wallace personally did not participate in combat. Wallace was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847, and returned to Indiana, where he intended to practice law. After the war, Wallace and William B. Greer operated a Free Soil newspaper, The Free Soil Banner, in Indianapolis.
Marriage and family
In 1848 Wallace met Susan Arnold Elston at the Crawfordsville home of Henry Smith Lane, Wallace's former commander during the Mexican War. Susan was the daughter of Major Isaac Compton Elston, a wealthy Crawfordsville merchant, and Maria Akin Elston, whose family were Quakers from upstate New York. Susan accepted Wallace's marriage proposal in 1849, and they were married in Crawfordsville on May 6, 1852. The Wallaces had one son, Henry Lane Wallace, who was born on February 17, 1853.
Early law and military career
Wallace was admitted to the bar in February 1849, and moved from Indianapolis to Covington, Indiana, where he established a law practice. In 1851 Wallace was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana's 1st congressional district, but he resigned in 1853 and moved his family to Crawfordsville, in Montgomery County, Indiana. Wallace continued to practice law and was elected as a Democrat to a two-year term in the Indiana Senate in 1856. From 1849 to 1853, his office was housed in the Fountain County Clerk's Building.
While living in Crawfordsville, Wallace organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia, later called the Montgomery Guards. During the winter of 1859–60, after reading about elite units of the French Army in Algeria, Wallace adopted the Zouave uniform and their system of training for the group. The Montgomery Guards would later form the core of his first military command, the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the American Civil War.
Civil War service
Wallace, a staunch supporter of the Union, became a member of the Republican party, and began his full-time military career soon after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Indiana's governor, the Republican Oliver P. Morton, asked Wallace to help recruit Indiana volunteers for the Union army. Wallace, who also sought a military command, agreed to become the state's adjutant general on the condition that he would be given command of a regiment of his choice. Indiana's quota of six regimental units was filled within a week, and Wallace took command of the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into the Union army on April 25, 1861. Wallace received his formal commission as a colonel in the Union army the following day.
On June 5, 1861, Wallace went with the 11th Indiana to Cumberland, Maryland, and on June 12, the regiment won a minor battle at Romney, Virginia, (in present-day West Virginia). The rout boosted morale for Union troops and led to the Confederate evacuation of Harpers Ferry on June 18. On September 3, 1861, Wallace was promoted to brigadier general of U.S. Army volunteers and given command of a brigade.
Forts Henry and Donelson
On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant.
Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.
During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.
Shiloh
Wallace's most controversial command came at the battle of Shiloh, where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj. Gen. Grant.
What was to become a long-standing controversy developed around the contents of Wallace's written orders on April 6, the 3rd Division's movements on the first day of battle, and their late arrival on the field. On the second day of battle, Wallace's division joined reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army to play an important role in the Union victory. Prior to the battle, Wallace's division had been left in reserve and was encamped near Crump's Landing. Their orders were to guard the Union's right flank and cover the road to Bethel Station, Tennessee, where railroad lines led to Corinth, Mississippi, to the south. To protect the road from Crump's Landing and Bethel Station, Wallace sent Col. John M. Thayer's 2nd Brigade to Stoney Lonesome, west of Crump's Landing, and the 3rd Brigade, commanded by Col. Charles Whittlesey to Adamsville, west of Crump's Landing. Col. Morgan L. Smith's 1st Brigade remained with Wallace at Crump's Landing, north of Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.
Between 5 and 6 a.m. on April 6, 1862, Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing was surprised and nearly routed by a sudden attack from the Confederate army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Grant, who heard the early morning artillery fire, took a steamboat from his headquarters at Savannah, Tennessee, to Crump's Landing, where he gave Wallace orders to wait in reserve and be ready to move. Grant proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, where he arrived around 8:30 a.m. Grant's new orders to Wallace, which arrived between 11 and 11:30 a.m., were given verbally to an aide, who transcribed them before they were delivered. The written orders were lost during the battle, so their exact wording cannot be confirmed; however, eyewitness accounts agree that Grant ordered Wallace to join the right side of the Union army, presumably in support of Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's 5th Division, who were encamped near Shiloh Church on the morning of April 6.
Knowledge of the area's roads played a critical role in Wallace's journey to the battlefield on April 6. In late March, after heavy rains made transportation difficult between Crump's Landing and Pittsburg Landing, Wallace's men had opened a route to Pittsburg Landing along Shunpike road, which connected to a road near Sherman's camp. Brig. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace's men at Pittsburg Landing opened the River Road (also known as the Hamburg-Savannah Road), a route farther east.
Of the two main routes that Wallace could use to move his men to the front, he chose the Shunpike road, the more direct route to reach Sherman's division near Shiloh Church. The day before the battle, Wallace wrote a letter to a fellow officer, W. H. L. Wallace, stating his intention to do so. Lew Wallace and his staff maintained after the battle that Grant's order did not specify Pittsburg Landing as their destination, and it did not specify which route the 3rd Division was ordered to take. However, Grant claimed in his memoirs that he had ordered Wallace to take the route nearest to the river to reach Pittsburg Landing. Historians are divided, with some stating that Wallace's explanation is the most logical.
After a second messenger from Grant arrived around noon with word to move out, Wallace's division of approximately 5,800 men began their march toward the battlefield. Between 2 and 2:30 p.m., a third messenger from Grant found Wallace along the Shunpike road, where he informed Wallace that Sherman had been forced back from Shiloh Church and was fighting closer to the river, near Pittsburg Landing. The Union army had been pushed back so far that Wallace was to the rear of the advancing Southern troops.
Wallace considered attacking the Confederates, but abandoned the idea. Instead he made a controversial decision to countermarch his troops along the Shunpike road, follow a crossroads to the River Road, and then move south to Pittsburg Landing. Rather than realigning his troops, so that the rear guard would be in the front, Wallace countermarched his column to maintain their original order, keeping his artillery in the lead position to support the Union infantry on the field. After the time-consuming maneuver was completed, Wallace's troops returned to the midpoint on the Shunpike road, crossed east over a path to the River Road, and followed it south to join Grant's army on the field. Progress was slow due to the road conditions and countermarch. Wallace's division arrived at Pittsburg Landing about 6:30 p.m., after having marched about in nearly seven hours over roads that had been left in terrible conditions by recent rainstorms and previous Union marches. They gathered at the battlefield at dusk, about 7 p.m., with the fighting nearly over for the day, and took up a position on the right of the Union line.
The next day, April 7, Wallace's division held the extreme right of the Union line. Two of Wallace's batteries with the aid of a battery from the 1st Illinois Light Artillery were the first to attack at about 5:30 a.m. Sherman's and Wallace's troops helped force the Confederates to fall back, and by 3 p.m. the Confederates were retreating southwest, toward Corinth.
Historian Timothy B. Smith conceded that on the second day Wallace's division sustained far fewer casualties (296) than any of Buell's three divisions. However, Smith argued that the number of casualties does not always show the effectiveness of troops. Wallace had his soldiers lie down when they were under fire, which minimized casualties. He also maneuvered his division so that it turned the Confederate left flank. Wallace advanced his division at 6:30 am, reached the south side of Tilghman Branch about 8:00 am, and occupied a commanding ridge by 9:00 am, all with little opposition. Here he paused to wait for Union troops to appear on his left. Up to this point, Wallace's movements were slow. Once Grant's and Buell's soldiers reached the Confederate main line of defense they were stopped in heavy fighting. Noting that the Confederate left did not reach as far as Owl Creek, Wallace wheeled his division to outflank the enemy line. Finding Wallace's troops to their left and rear, the left-hand Confederate brigade hurriedly fell back. This unhinged the entire line and the Confederate troops soon retreated to a second position around noon. At around 1:00 pm, Wallace worked a few regiments around the Confederate left flank, forcing their withdrawal to a third position. After the Confederates left the battlefield, Wallace's division went the farthest south, but he pulled his troops back before going into camp that evening.
Shiloh controversy
At first, the battle was viewed by the North as a victory; however, on April 23, after civilians began hearing news of the high number of casualties, the Lincoln administration asked the Union army for further explanation. Grant, who was accused of poor leadership at Shiloh, and his superior, Halleck, placed the blame on Wallace by asserting that his failure to follow orders and the delay in moving up the reserves on April 6 had nearly cost them the battle.
Grant had placed much of the blame on General Wallace, to whom he had sent verbal orders to bring his troops forward, accusing Wallace of failure in following those orders, which he believed resulted in the delay in moving up reserves, nearly costing the Union the loss of the battle. After hearing reports that Wallace refused to obey anything but written orders, an angry General Grant asserted that a division general ought to take his troops to wherever the firing may be, even without orders", and first sent Colonel William R. Rowley, ordering him to "tell him to come up at once" and that "if he should require a written order of you, you will give it to him at once". When Rowley caught up to where Wallace's division last was, there was only a supply wagon departing the scene. Riding on further, Rowley found Wallace at the head of his column near Clear Creek, positioned on high ground. Rowley pulled Wallace off to the side and warned him of the danger that lay just ahead, exclaiming, "Don't you know that Sherman has been driven back? Why, the whole army is within half a mile of the river, and it's a question if we are not all going to be driven into it." Wallace, stunned by the news, sent his cavalry ahead to assess the situation, and upon returning, it had confirmed Rowley's claim.
On April 30, 1862, Halleck reorganized his army and removed Wallace and John McClernand from active duty, placing both of them in reserve.
Wallace's reputation and career as a military leader suffered a significant setback from controversy over Shiloh. He spent the remainder of his life trying to resolve the accusations and change public opinion about his role in the battle. On March 14, 1863, Wallace wrote a letter to Halleck that provided an official explanation of his actions. He also wrote Grant several letters and met with him in person more than once in an attempt to vindicate himself. On August 16, 1863, Wallace wrote Sherman for advice on the issue. Sherman urged Wallace to be patient and not to request a formal inquiry. Although Sherman brought Wallace's concerns to Grant's attention, Wallace was not given another active duty command until March 1864.
For many years Grant stood by his original version of the orders to Wallace. As late as 1884, when Grant wrote an article on Shiloh for The Century Magazine that appeared in its February 1885 issue, he maintained that Wallace had taken the wrong road on the first day of battle. After W. H. L. Wallace's widow gave Grant a letter that Lew Wallace had written to her the day before the battle (the one indicating his plans to use the Shunpike road to pass between Shiloh and his position west of Crump's Landing), Grant changed his mind. Grant wrote a letter to the editors at Century, which was published in its September 1885 issue, and added a note to his memoirs to explain that Wallace's letter "modifies very materially what I have said, and what has been said by others, about the conduct of General Lew Wallace at the battle of Shiloh." While reaffirming that he had ordered Wallace to take the River Road, Grant stated that he could not be sure the exact content of Wallace's written orders, since his verbal orders were given to one of his aides and transcribed.
Grant's article in the February 1885 issue of Century became the basis of his chapter on Shiloh in his memoirs, which were published in 1886, and influenced many later accounts of Wallace's actions on the first day of battle. Grant acknowledged in his memoirs: "If the position of our front had not changed, the road which Wallace took would have been somewhat shorter to our right than the River road." Wallace's account of the events appeared in his autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1906. Despite his later fame and fortune as the writer of Ben-Hur, Wallace continued to lament, "Shiloh and its slanders! Will the world ever acquit me of them? If I were guilty I would not feel them as keenly."
Other military assignments
On August 17, 1862, Wallace accepted a regiment command in the Department of the Ohio to help with the successful defense of Cincinnati during Braxton Bragg's incursion into Kentucky. Next, Wallace took command of Camp Chase, a prisoner-of-war camp at Columbus, Ohio, where he remained until October 30, 1862. A month later Wallace was placed in charge of a five-member commission to investigate Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's conduct in response to the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. The commission criticized Buell for his retreat, but it did not find him disloyal to the Union. When the commission's work was completed on May 6, 1863, Wallace returned to Indiana to wait for a new command. In mid-July 1863, while Wallace was home, he helped protect the railroad junction at North Vernon, Indiana, from Confederate general John Hunt Morgan's raid into southern Indiana.
Monocacy
Wallace's most notable service came on Saturday, July 9, 1864 at the Battle of Monocacy part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Although Confederate General Jubal A. Early and an estimated 15,000 troops defeated Wallace's troops at Monocacy Junction, Maryland, forcing them to retreat to Baltimore, the effort cost Early a chance to capture Washington, D.C. Wallace's men were able to delay the Confederate advance toward Washington for an entire day, giving the city time to organize its defenses. Early arrived in Washington at around noon on July 11, two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy, the northernmost Confederate victory of the war, but Union reinforcements had already arrived at Fort Stevens to repel the Confederates and force their retreat to Virginia.
Wallace, who had returned to active duty on March 12, 1864, assumed command of VIII Corps, which was headquartered in Baltimore. On July 9, a combined Union force of approximately 5,800 men under Wallace's command (mostly hundred-days' men from VIII Corps) and a division under James B. Ricketts from VI Corps encountered Confederate troops at Monocacy Junction between 9 and 10 a.m. Although Wallace was uncertain whether Baltimore or Washington, D.C., was the Confederate objective, he knew his troops would have to delay the advance until Union reinforcements arrived. Wallace's men repelled the Confederate attacks for more than six hours before retreating to Baltimore.
After the battle Wallace informed Halleck that his forces fought until 5 p.m., but the Confederate troops, which he estimated at 20,000 men, had overwhelmed them. When Grant learned of the defeat, he named Maj. Gen. E. O. C. Ord as Wallace's replacement in command of VIII Corps. On July 28, after officials learned how Wallace's efforts at Monocacy helped save Washington D.C. from capture, he was reinstated as commander of VIII Corps. In Grant's memoirs, he praised Wallace's delaying tactics at Monocacy:
If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent. ... General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory.
Later military service
On January 22, 1865, Grant ordered Wallace to the Rio Grande in southern Texas to investigate Confederate military operations in the area. Although Wallace was not officially authorized to offer terms, he did discuss proposals for the surrender of the Confederate troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Wallace provided Grant with copies of his proposals and reported on the negotiations, but no agreement was made. Before returning to Baltimore, Wallace also met with Mexican military leaders to discuss the U.S. government's unofficial efforts to aid in expelling Maximilian's French occupation forces from Mexico.
Following President Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, Wallace was appointed to the military commission that investigated the Lincoln assassination conspirators. The commission, which began in May, was dissolved on June 30, 1865, after all eight conspirators were found guilty. In mid-August 1865, Wallace was appointed head of an eight-member military commission that investigated the conduct of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant in charge of the South's Andersonville prison camp. The court-martial which took nearly two months, opened on August 21, 1865. At its conclusion Wirz was found guilty and sentenced to death.
On April 30, 1865, Wallace had accepted an offer to become a major general in the Mexican army, but the agreement, which was contingent upon his resignation from the U.S. Army, was delayed by Wallace's service on the two military commissions. Wallace tendered his resignation from the U.S. Army on November 4, 1865, effective November 30, and returned to Mexico to assist the Mexican army. Although the Juárez government promised Wallace $100,000 for his services, he returned to the United States in 1867 in deep financial debt.
Political and diplomatic career
Wallace returned to Indiana in 1867 to practice law, but the profession did not appeal to him, and he turned to politics. Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress (in 1868 and 1870), and supported Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election. As a reward for his political support, Hayes appointed Wallace as governor of the New Mexico Territory, where he served from August 1878 to March 1881. His next assignment came in March 1881, when Republican president James A. Garfield appointed Wallace to an overseas diplomatic post in Constantinople as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire. Wallace remained in this post until 1885.
Territorial governor of New Mexico
Wallace arrived in Santa Fe on September 29, 1878, to begin his service as governor of the New Mexico Territory during a time of lawless violence and political corruption. Wallace was involved in efforts to resolve New Mexico's Lincoln County War, a contentious and violent disagreement among the county's residents, and tried to end a series of Apache raids on territorial settlers. In 1880, while living at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, Wallace also completed the manuscript for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
On March 1, 1879, after previous efforts to restore order in Lincoln County had failed, Wallace ordered the arrest of those responsible for local killings. One of the outlaws was William Henry McCarty Jr. (alias William H. Bonney), better known as Billy the Kid. On March 17, 1879, Wallace secretly met with Bonney, who had witnessed the murder of a Lincoln County lawyer named Huston Chapman. Wallace wanted him to testify in the trial of Chapman's accused murderers, but Bonney wanted Wallace's protection from his enemies and amnesty for his earlier crimes. During their meeting, the pair arranged for Bonney to become an informant in exchange for a full pardon of his previous crimes. Wallace supposedly assured the Kid that he would be "scot free with a pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds." On March 20 Bonney agreed to provide grand jury testimony against those involved in Chapman's murder. Wallace arranged for a "fake" arrest and Bonney's detention in a local jail to assure his safety. Bonney testified in court on April 14, as agreed. However, the local district attorney revoked Wallace's bargain and refused to set the outlaw free. After spending several weeks in jail, Bonney escaped and returned to his criminal ways, which included killing additional men. He was shot and killed on July 14, 1881, by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who had been appointed by local ranching interests who had tired of his rustling their herds. In the meantime, Wallace had resigned from his duties as territorial governor on March 9, 1881, and was waiting for a new political appointment.
On December 31, 2010, on his last day in office, then-Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico declined a pardon request from Bonney's supporters, citing a "lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity" over Wallace's promise of amnesty. Descendants of Wallace and Garrett were among those who opposed the pardon.
U.S. diplomat in the Ottoman Empire
On May 19, 1881, Wallace was appointed U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). Wallace remained at the diplomatic post until 1885, and became a trusted friend of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. When a crisis developed between the Turkish and British governments over control of Egypt, Wallace served as an intermediary between the sultan and Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador. Although Wallace's efforts were unsuccessful, he earned respect for his efforts and a promotion in the U.S. diplomatic service.
In 1883, an editorial aimed at Wallace appeared in the newspaper Havatzelet (xiii. No. 6) titled "An American and yet a Despot". The editorial caused the Havatzelet to be suspended and its editor Israel Dov Frumkin to be imprisoned for forty-five days by order from Constantinople, directed to the pasha of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The incident that led to the editorial was the dismissal, made at Wallace's request, of Joseph Kriger, the Jewish secretary and interpreter to the pasha of Jerusalem. Wallace complained that Kriger had failed to receive him with the honor due to his rank, and refused to issue any apology for the alleged shortcoming. Havatzelet claimed that the proceeding was instigated by missionaries, whom Wallace strongly supported.
In addition to Wallace's diplomatic duties, which included protection of U.S. citizens and U.S. trade rights in the area, Wallace found time to travel and do historical research. Wallace visited Jerusalem and the surrounding area, the site for his novel, Ben-Hur, and did research in Constantinople, the locale for The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell, which he began writing in 1887.
The election of Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, ended Wallace's political appointment. He resigned from the U.S. diplomatic service on March 4, 1885. The sultan wanted Wallace to continue to work in the Ottoman Empire, and even made a proposal to have him represent Ottoman interests in England or France, but Wallace declined and returned home to Crawfordsville.
Writing career
Wallace confessed in his autobiography that he took up writing as a diversion from studying law. Although he wrote several books, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), which established his fame as an author.
In 1843, Wallace began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. The popular historical novel, with Cortez's conquest of Mexico as its central theme, was based on William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. Wallace's book sold seven thousand copies in its first year. Its sales continued to rise after Wallace's reputation as an author was established with the publication of subsequent novels.
Wallace wrote the manuscript for Ben-Hur, his second and best-known novel, during his spare time at Crawfordsville, and completed it in Santa Fe, while serving as the territorial governor of New Mexico. Ben-Hur, an adventure story of revenge and redemption, is told from the perspective of a Jewish nobleman named Judah Ben-Hur. Because Wallace had not been to the Holy Land before writing the book, he began research to familiarize himself with the area's geography and its history at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1873. Harper and Brothers published the book on November 12, 1880.
Ben-Hur made Wallace a wealthy man and established his reputation as a famous author. Sales were slow at first; only 2,800 copies were sold in the first seven months after its release, but the book became popular among readers around the world. By 1886, it was earning Wallace about $11,000 in annual royalties (equivalent to $290,000 in 2015 dollars), and provided Wallace's family with financial security. By 1889, Harper and Brothers had sold 400,000 copies and the book had been translated into several languages.
In 1900, Ben-Hur became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Amy Lifson, an editor for Humanities, identified it as the most influential Christian book of the 19th century. Others named it one of the best-selling novels of all time. At the time of Ben-Hur'''s one hundredth anniversary in 1980, it had "never been out of print" and had been adapted for the stage and several motion pictures.Boomhower, pp. 11, 138; Morrow, pp. 17–18. One historian, Victor Davis Hanson, has argued that Ben-Hur drew from Wallace's life, particularly his experiences at Shiloh, and the damage it did to his reputation. The book's main character, Judah Ben-Hur, accidentally causes injury to a high-ranking Roman commander, for which he and his family suffer tribulations and calumny.
Wallace wrote subsequent novels and biographies, but Ben-Hur remained his most important work. Wallace considered The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (1893) as his best novel. He also wrote a biography of President Benjamin Harrison, a fellow Hoosier and Civil War general, and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898), a narrative poem. Wallace was writing his autobiography when he died in 1905. His wife Susan completed it with the assistance of Mary Hannah Krout, another author from Crawfordsville. It was published posthumously in 1906.
Later years
Wallace continued to write after his return from the Ottoman Empire. He also patented several of his own inventions, built a seven-story apartment building in Indianapolis, The Blacherne, and drew up plans for a private study at his home in Crawfordsville. Wallace remained active in veterans groups, including writing a speech for the dedication of the battlefield at the Chickamauga.
Wallace's elaborate writing study, which he described as "a pleasure-house for my soul", served as his private retreat. Now called the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, it was built between 1895 and 1898, adjacent to his residence in Crawfordsville, and set in an enclosed park. The study along with three and one-half acres of its grounds were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The property is operated as a museum, open to the public. Wallace had a moat on two sides of the Study and stocked it so he could fish from the back porch and a landing. In winter, he would fire up the coal furnace in the Study basement and fish from the windows. He loved fishing so much he invented and patented a special traveler's fishing pole. After just a few years he had the moat drained as it was negatively affecting the Study foundation and he worried about his grandchildren and neighborhood children falling into the water.
On April 5, 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Wallace, at age seventy-one, offered to raise and lead a force of soldiers, but the war office refused. Undeterred, he went to a local recruiting office and attempted to enlist as a private, but was rejected again, presumably because of his age.
Wallace's service at the battle of Shiloh continued to haunt him in later life. The debate persisted in book publications, magazine articles, pamphlets, speeches, and in private correspondence. Wallace attended a reunion at Shiloh in 1894, his first return since 1862, and retraced his journey to the battlefield with veterans from the 3rd Division. He returned to Shiloh for a final time in 1901 to walk the battlefield with David W. Reed, the Shiloh Battlefield Commission's historian, and others. Wallace died before the manuscript of his memoirs was fully completed, and it is unknown whether he would have revised his final account of the battle.
Death
Wallace died at home in Crawfordsville, on February 15, 1905, of atrophic gastritis. He was seventy-seven years old. Wallace is buried in Crawfordsville Oak Hill Cemetery.
Legacy and honors
Wallace was a man of many interests and a lifelong adventure seeker, who remained a persistent, self-confident man of action. He was also impatient and highly sensitive to personal criticisms, especially those related to his command decisions at Shiloh. Despite Wallace's career in law and politics, combined with years of military and diplomatic service, he achieved his greatest fame as a novelist, most notably for his best-selling biblical tale, Ben-Hur.
Following Wallace's death, the State of Indiana commissioned the sculptor Andrew O'Connor to create a marble statue of Wallace dressed in a military uniform for the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. The statue was unveiled during a ceremony held on January 11, 1910. Wallace is the only novelist honored in the hall. A bronze copy of the statue is installed on the grounds of Wallace's study in Crawfordsville.Morrow, p. 22.
Lew Wallace High School opened in 1926 at 415 West 45th Avenue in Gary, Indiana. On June 3, 2014, the Gary School Board voted 4 to 2 to close Lew Wallace, along with five other schools.
A Knights of Pythias lodge was established in Franklin, Indiana at the Masonic Home to be known as the General Lewis Wallace Lodge #2019.
Popular culture
NASL Indianapolis-based team The Indy Eleven pays homage to the 11th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, which fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. The inspiration for the name came from Donna Schmink, the Collection Manager at the Indiana War Museum, who, when asked by team officials for ideas on a team name connected to Indiana history, suggested "the Eleventh" in honor of the regiment that valiantly fought under the initial direction of Colonel Lew Wallace.
Film and television
Frank Reicher (uncredited) as General Lew Wallace in the film Billy the Kid (1930).
Berton Churchill as Gov. Wallace in The Big Stampede (1932).
Joe King (actor) (uncredited) as Governor Lew Wallace in Land Beyond the Law (1937).
Robert H. Barrat as General Lew Wallace in The Kid from Texas (1950).
Claude Stroud as Gen. Lew Wallace - New Mexico Governor in I Shot Billy the Kid (1950).
Otis Garth (uncredited) as Gov. Lew Wallace in The Law vs. Billy the Kid (1954).
Ralph Moody as Gen. Lew Wallace in Strange Lady in Town (1955).
Robert Warwick as Governor Wallace in Law of the Plainsman (TV series), episode "Amnesty" (aired April 7, 1960).
Cameron Mitchell as General Lew Wallace in The Andersonville Trial (TV), which aired May 17, 1970; an adaptation of the 1959 Broadway play by the same name.
Jason Robards as Governor Wallace in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
René Auberjonois as Gov. Lew Wallace in Longarm (TV film, 1988).
Wilford Brimley as Gov. Lew Wallace in Billy the Kid (TNT film, 1989).
Scott Wilson as Governor Lewis Wallace in the film Young Guns II (1990).
Brian Merrick as Gen. Lew Wallace in No Retreat from Destiny: The Battle That Rescued Washington (2006 video).
Published works
Fiction
The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873.)
Commodus: An Historical Play (Crawfordsville, IN: privately published by the author, 1876.) Revised and reissued in the same year.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880.)
The First Christmas from Ben-Hur (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899.)
The Boyhood of Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888.)
The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893.) Two volumes.
The Wooing of Malkatoon (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1898.)
Non-Fiction
Life of Gen. Ben Harrison (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1888.)
Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the U.S. With a Concise Biographical Sketch of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Ex-Minister to France [by Murat Halstad] (Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing Co., 1892.)
Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906.) Two volumes.
See also
List of American Civil War battles
List of American Civil War generals (Union)
José María Jesús Carbajal
Bibliography of the American Civil War
Bibliography of Ulysses S. Grant
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Biographies
Other works
Lighty, Shaun Chandler. "The Fall and Rise of Lew Wallace: Gaining Legitimacy Through Popular Culture." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2005. Available online at ohiolink.edu.
Swansburg, John. "The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War Hero and Author of Ben-Hur", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
Swansburg, John. "Lew Wallace a Life in Artifacts", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
External links
Notable Hoosier Obits: Lew Wallace gives a collection of Wallace obituaries from around the country.
Wallace's obituary 16 February 1905. New York Times'' (pdf format).
Lew Wallace Archive, overview with detailed bibliography of his works
General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, Crawfordsville
Wallace's time-line at General Lew Wallace Museum
Lew Wallace in Jerusalem, 1883
Wallace's 'Minister Resident of the United States of America to Turkey' Calling Card in the Shapell Manuscript Foundation Collection
Lew Wallace collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
1827 births
1905 deaths
1870s in New Mexico Territory
1880s in New Mexico Territory
19th-century American diplomats
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Ambassadors of the United States to the Ottoman Empire
American autobiographers
American historical novelists
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
Burials in Indiana
Christian novelists
Deaths from gastritis
Governors of New Mexico Territory
Indiana lawyers
Indiana Republicans
Indiana state senators
Lincoln County Wars
Military personnel from Indiana
New Mexico Republicans
Novelists from Indiana
People associated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
People from Brookville, Indiana
People from Covington, Indiana
People from Crawfordsville, Indiana
People from Indiana in the Mexican–American War
People of Indiana in the American Civil War
Union Army generals
Writers from Indiana
Writers of historical fiction set in antiquity
Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period
20th-century American male writers | 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",
"\"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"
]
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[
"Lew Wallace",
"Forts Henry and Donelson",
"What did he do at Fort Henry?",
"Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant",
"What else did he do there?",
"Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops."
]
| C_f36a7125118b479ebf442f8831306360_0 | Did he do anything else there? | 3 | In addition to being at Fort Donelson, Did Lew Wallace do anything else there? | Lew Wallace | On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant. Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army. CANNOTANSWER | Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, | Lewis Wallace (April 10, 1827February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. He was appointed Indiana's adjutant general and commanded the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Wallace, who attained the rank of major general, participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, and the Battle of Monocacy. He also served on the military commission for the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and presided over the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant of the Andersonville prison camp.
Wallace resigned from the U.S. Army in November 1865 and briefly served as a major general in the Mexican army, before returning to the United States. Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory (1878–1881) and served as U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire (1881–1885). Wallace retired to his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he continued to write until his death in 1905.
Early life and education
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to Esther French Wallace (née Test) and David Wallace. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress. Lew Wallace's maternal grandfather was circuit court judge and Congressman John Test.
In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis.
Lew began his formal education at the age of six at a public school in Covington, but he much preferred the outdoors. Wallace had a talent for drawing and loved to read, but he was a discipline problem at school. In 1836, at the age of nine, Lew joined his older brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended the preparatory school division of Wabash College, but soon transferred to another school more suitable for his age. In 1840, when Wallace was thirteen, his father sent him to a private academy at Centerville, Indiana, where his teacher encouraged Lew's natural affinity for writing. Wallace returned to Indianapolis the following year.
Sixteen-year-old Lew went out to earn his own wages in 1842, after his father refused to pay for more schooling. Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office and lived in an Indianapolis boardinghouse. He also joined the Marion Rifles, a local militia unit, and began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. Wallace said in his autobiography that he had never been a member of any organized religion, but he did believe "in the Christian conception of God".
By 1846, at the start of the Mexican–American War, the nineteen-year-old Wallace was studying law at his father's law office, but left that pursuit to establish a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. He was appointed a second lieutenant, and on June 19, 1846, mustered into military service with the Marion Volunteers (also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry). Wallace rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant while serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, but Wallace personally did not participate in combat. Wallace was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847, and returned to Indiana, where he intended to practice law. After the war, Wallace and William B. Greer operated a Free Soil newspaper, The Free Soil Banner, in Indianapolis.
Marriage and family
In 1848 Wallace met Susan Arnold Elston at the Crawfordsville home of Henry Smith Lane, Wallace's former commander during the Mexican War. Susan was the daughter of Major Isaac Compton Elston, a wealthy Crawfordsville merchant, and Maria Akin Elston, whose family were Quakers from upstate New York. Susan accepted Wallace's marriage proposal in 1849, and they were married in Crawfordsville on May 6, 1852. The Wallaces had one son, Henry Lane Wallace, who was born on February 17, 1853.
Early law and military career
Wallace was admitted to the bar in February 1849, and moved from Indianapolis to Covington, Indiana, where he established a law practice. In 1851 Wallace was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana's 1st congressional district, but he resigned in 1853 and moved his family to Crawfordsville, in Montgomery County, Indiana. Wallace continued to practice law and was elected as a Democrat to a two-year term in the Indiana Senate in 1856. From 1849 to 1853, his office was housed in the Fountain County Clerk's Building.
While living in Crawfordsville, Wallace organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia, later called the Montgomery Guards. During the winter of 1859–60, after reading about elite units of the French Army in Algeria, Wallace adopted the Zouave uniform and their system of training for the group. The Montgomery Guards would later form the core of his first military command, the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the American Civil War.
Civil War service
Wallace, a staunch supporter of the Union, became a member of the Republican party, and began his full-time military career soon after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Indiana's governor, the Republican Oliver P. Morton, asked Wallace to help recruit Indiana volunteers for the Union army. Wallace, who also sought a military command, agreed to become the state's adjutant general on the condition that he would be given command of a regiment of his choice. Indiana's quota of six regimental units was filled within a week, and Wallace took command of the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into the Union army on April 25, 1861. Wallace received his formal commission as a colonel in the Union army the following day.
On June 5, 1861, Wallace went with the 11th Indiana to Cumberland, Maryland, and on June 12, the regiment won a minor battle at Romney, Virginia, (in present-day West Virginia). The rout boosted morale for Union troops and led to the Confederate evacuation of Harpers Ferry on June 18. On September 3, 1861, Wallace was promoted to brigadier general of U.S. Army volunteers and given command of a brigade.
Forts Henry and Donelson
On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant.
Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.
During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.
Shiloh
Wallace's most controversial command came at the battle of Shiloh, where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj. Gen. Grant.
What was to become a long-standing controversy developed around the contents of Wallace's written orders on April 6, the 3rd Division's movements on the first day of battle, and their late arrival on the field. On the second day of battle, Wallace's division joined reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army to play an important role in the Union victory. Prior to the battle, Wallace's division had been left in reserve and was encamped near Crump's Landing. Their orders were to guard the Union's right flank and cover the road to Bethel Station, Tennessee, where railroad lines led to Corinth, Mississippi, to the south. To protect the road from Crump's Landing and Bethel Station, Wallace sent Col. John M. Thayer's 2nd Brigade to Stoney Lonesome, west of Crump's Landing, and the 3rd Brigade, commanded by Col. Charles Whittlesey to Adamsville, west of Crump's Landing. Col. Morgan L. Smith's 1st Brigade remained with Wallace at Crump's Landing, north of Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.
Between 5 and 6 a.m. on April 6, 1862, Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing was surprised and nearly routed by a sudden attack from the Confederate army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Grant, who heard the early morning artillery fire, took a steamboat from his headquarters at Savannah, Tennessee, to Crump's Landing, where he gave Wallace orders to wait in reserve and be ready to move. Grant proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, where he arrived around 8:30 a.m. Grant's new orders to Wallace, which arrived between 11 and 11:30 a.m., were given verbally to an aide, who transcribed them before they were delivered. The written orders were lost during the battle, so their exact wording cannot be confirmed; however, eyewitness accounts agree that Grant ordered Wallace to join the right side of the Union army, presumably in support of Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's 5th Division, who were encamped near Shiloh Church on the morning of April 6.
Knowledge of the area's roads played a critical role in Wallace's journey to the battlefield on April 6. In late March, after heavy rains made transportation difficult between Crump's Landing and Pittsburg Landing, Wallace's men had opened a route to Pittsburg Landing along Shunpike road, which connected to a road near Sherman's camp. Brig. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace's men at Pittsburg Landing opened the River Road (also known as the Hamburg-Savannah Road), a route farther east.
Of the two main routes that Wallace could use to move his men to the front, he chose the Shunpike road, the more direct route to reach Sherman's division near Shiloh Church. The day before the battle, Wallace wrote a letter to a fellow officer, W. H. L. Wallace, stating his intention to do so. Lew Wallace and his staff maintained after the battle that Grant's order did not specify Pittsburg Landing as their destination, and it did not specify which route the 3rd Division was ordered to take. However, Grant claimed in his memoirs that he had ordered Wallace to take the route nearest to the river to reach Pittsburg Landing. Historians are divided, with some stating that Wallace's explanation is the most logical.
After a second messenger from Grant arrived around noon with word to move out, Wallace's division of approximately 5,800 men began their march toward the battlefield. Between 2 and 2:30 p.m., a third messenger from Grant found Wallace along the Shunpike road, where he informed Wallace that Sherman had been forced back from Shiloh Church and was fighting closer to the river, near Pittsburg Landing. The Union army had been pushed back so far that Wallace was to the rear of the advancing Southern troops.
Wallace considered attacking the Confederates, but abandoned the idea. Instead he made a controversial decision to countermarch his troops along the Shunpike road, follow a crossroads to the River Road, and then move south to Pittsburg Landing. Rather than realigning his troops, so that the rear guard would be in the front, Wallace countermarched his column to maintain their original order, keeping his artillery in the lead position to support the Union infantry on the field. After the time-consuming maneuver was completed, Wallace's troops returned to the midpoint on the Shunpike road, crossed east over a path to the River Road, and followed it south to join Grant's army on the field. Progress was slow due to the road conditions and countermarch. Wallace's division arrived at Pittsburg Landing about 6:30 p.m., after having marched about in nearly seven hours over roads that had been left in terrible conditions by recent rainstorms and previous Union marches. They gathered at the battlefield at dusk, about 7 p.m., with the fighting nearly over for the day, and took up a position on the right of the Union line.
The next day, April 7, Wallace's division held the extreme right of the Union line. Two of Wallace's batteries with the aid of a battery from the 1st Illinois Light Artillery were the first to attack at about 5:30 a.m. Sherman's and Wallace's troops helped force the Confederates to fall back, and by 3 p.m. the Confederates were retreating southwest, toward Corinth.
Historian Timothy B. Smith conceded that on the second day Wallace's division sustained far fewer casualties (296) than any of Buell's three divisions. However, Smith argued that the number of casualties does not always show the effectiveness of troops. Wallace had his soldiers lie down when they were under fire, which minimized casualties. He also maneuvered his division so that it turned the Confederate left flank. Wallace advanced his division at 6:30 am, reached the south side of Tilghman Branch about 8:00 am, and occupied a commanding ridge by 9:00 am, all with little opposition. Here he paused to wait for Union troops to appear on his left. Up to this point, Wallace's movements were slow. Once Grant's and Buell's soldiers reached the Confederate main line of defense they were stopped in heavy fighting. Noting that the Confederate left did not reach as far as Owl Creek, Wallace wheeled his division to outflank the enemy line. Finding Wallace's troops to their left and rear, the left-hand Confederate brigade hurriedly fell back. This unhinged the entire line and the Confederate troops soon retreated to a second position around noon. At around 1:00 pm, Wallace worked a few regiments around the Confederate left flank, forcing their withdrawal to a third position. After the Confederates left the battlefield, Wallace's division went the farthest south, but he pulled his troops back before going into camp that evening.
Shiloh controversy
At first, the battle was viewed by the North as a victory; however, on April 23, after civilians began hearing news of the high number of casualties, the Lincoln administration asked the Union army for further explanation. Grant, who was accused of poor leadership at Shiloh, and his superior, Halleck, placed the blame on Wallace by asserting that his failure to follow orders and the delay in moving up the reserves on April 6 had nearly cost them the battle.
Grant had placed much of the blame on General Wallace, to whom he had sent verbal orders to bring his troops forward, accusing Wallace of failure in following those orders, which he believed resulted in the delay in moving up reserves, nearly costing the Union the loss of the battle. After hearing reports that Wallace refused to obey anything but written orders, an angry General Grant asserted that a division general ought to take his troops to wherever the firing may be, even without orders", and first sent Colonel William R. Rowley, ordering him to "tell him to come up at once" and that "if he should require a written order of you, you will give it to him at once". When Rowley caught up to where Wallace's division last was, there was only a supply wagon departing the scene. Riding on further, Rowley found Wallace at the head of his column near Clear Creek, positioned on high ground. Rowley pulled Wallace off to the side and warned him of the danger that lay just ahead, exclaiming, "Don't you know that Sherman has been driven back? Why, the whole army is within half a mile of the river, and it's a question if we are not all going to be driven into it." Wallace, stunned by the news, sent his cavalry ahead to assess the situation, and upon returning, it had confirmed Rowley's claim.
On April 30, 1862, Halleck reorganized his army and removed Wallace and John McClernand from active duty, placing both of them in reserve.
Wallace's reputation and career as a military leader suffered a significant setback from controversy over Shiloh. He spent the remainder of his life trying to resolve the accusations and change public opinion about his role in the battle. On March 14, 1863, Wallace wrote a letter to Halleck that provided an official explanation of his actions. He also wrote Grant several letters and met with him in person more than once in an attempt to vindicate himself. On August 16, 1863, Wallace wrote Sherman for advice on the issue. Sherman urged Wallace to be patient and not to request a formal inquiry. Although Sherman brought Wallace's concerns to Grant's attention, Wallace was not given another active duty command until March 1864.
For many years Grant stood by his original version of the orders to Wallace. As late as 1884, when Grant wrote an article on Shiloh for The Century Magazine that appeared in its February 1885 issue, he maintained that Wallace had taken the wrong road on the first day of battle. After W. H. L. Wallace's widow gave Grant a letter that Lew Wallace had written to her the day before the battle (the one indicating his plans to use the Shunpike road to pass between Shiloh and his position west of Crump's Landing), Grant changed his mind. Grant wrote a letter to the editors at Century, which was published in its September 1885 issue, and added a note to his memoirs to explain that Wallace's letter "modifies very materially what I have said, and what has been said by others, about the conduct of General Lew Wallace at the battle of Shiloh." While reaffirming that he had ordered Wallace to take the River Road, Grant stated that he could not be sure the exact content of Wallace's written orders, since his verbal orders were given to one of his aides and transcribed.
Grant's article in the February 1885 issue of Century became the basis of his chapter on Shiloh in his memoirs, which were published in 1886, and influenced many later accounts of Wallace's actions on the first day of battle. Grant acknowledged in his memoirs: "If the position of our front had not changed, the road which Wallace took would have been somewhat shorter to our right than the River road." Wallace's account of the events appeared in his autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1906. Despite his later fame and fortune as the writer of Ben-Hur, Wallace continued to lament, "Shiloh and its slanders! Will the world ever acquit me of them? If I were guilty I would not feel them as keenly."
Other military assignments
On August 17, 1862, Wallace accepted a regiment command in the Department of the Ohio to help with the successful defense of Cincinnati during Braxton Bragg's incursion into Kentucky. Next, Wallace took command of Camp Chase, a prisoner-of-war camp at Columbus, Ohio, where he remained until October 30, 1862. A month later Wallace was placed in charge of a five-member commission to investigate Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's conduct in response to the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. The commission criticized Buell for his retreat, but it did not find him disloyal to the Union. When the commission's work was completed on May 6, 1863, Wallace returned to Indiana to wait for a new command. In mid-July 1863, while Wallace was home, he helped protect the railroad junction at North Vernon, Indiana, from Confederate general John Hunt Morgan's raid into southern Indiana.
Monocacy
Wallace's most notable service came on Saturday, July 9, 1864 at the Battle of Monocacy part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Although Confederate General Jubal A. Early and an estimated 15,000 troops defeated Wallace's troops at Monocacy Junction, Maryland, forcing them to retreat to Baltimore, the effort cost Early a chance to capture Washington, D.C. Wallace's men were able to delay the Confederate advance toward Washington for an entire day, giving the city time to organize its defenses. Early arrived in Washington at around noon on July 11, two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy, the northernmost Confederate victory of the war, but Union reinforcements had already arrived at Fort Stevens to repel the Confederates and force their retreat to Virginia.
Wallace, who had returned to active duty on March 12, 1864, assumed command of VIII Corps, which was headquartered in Baltimore. On July 9, a combined Union force of approximately 5,800 men under Wallace's command (mostly hundred-days' men from VIII Corps) and a division under James B. Ricketts from VI Corps encountered Confederate troops at Monocacy Junction between 9 and 10 a.m. Although Wallace was uncertain whether Baltimore or Washington, D.C., was the Confederate objective, he knew his troops would have to delay the advance until Union reinforcements arrived. Wallace's men repelled the Confederate attacks for more than six hours before retreating to Baltimore.
After the battle Wallace informed Halleck that his forces fought until 5 p.m., but the Confederate troops, which he estimated at 20,000 men, had overwhelmed them. When Grant learned of the defeat, he named Maj. Gen. E. O. C. Ord as Wallace's replacement in command of VIII Corps. On July 28, after officials learned how Wallace's efforts at Monocacy helped save Washington D.C. from capture, he was reinstated as commander of VIII Corps. In Grant's memoirs, he praised Wallace's delaying tactics at Monocacy:
If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent. ... General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory.
Later military service
On January 22, 1865, Grant ordered Wallace to the Rio Grande in southern Texas to investigate Confederate military operations in the area. Although Wallace was not officially authorized to offer terms, he did discuss proposals for the surrender of the Confederate troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Wallace provided Grant with copies of his proposals and reported on the negotiations, but no agreement was made. Before returning to Baltimore, Wallace also met with Mexican military leaders to discuss the U.S. government's unofficial efforts to aid in expelling Maximilian's French occupation forces from Mexico.
Following President Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, Wallace was appointed to the military commission that investigated the Lincoln assassination conspirators. The commission, which began in May, was dissolved on June 30, 1865, after all eight conspirators were found guilty. In mid-August 1865, Wallace was appointed head of an eight-member military commission that investigated the conduct of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant in charge of the South's Andersonville prison camp. The court-martial which took nearly two months, opened on August 21, 1865. At its conclusion Wirz was found guilty and sentenced to death.
On April 30, 1865, Wallace had accepted an offer to become a major general in the Mexican army, but the agreement, which was contingent upon his resignation from the U.S. Army, was delayed by Wallace's service on the two military commissions. Wallace tendered his resignation from the U.S. Army on November 4, 1865, effective November 30, and returned to Mexico to assist the Mexican army. Although the Juárez government promised Wallace $100,000 for his services, he returned to the United States in 1867 in deep financial debt.
Political and diplomatic career
Wallace returned to Indiana in 1867 to practice law, but the profession did not appeal to him, and he turned to politics. Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress (in 1868 and 1870), and supported Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election. As a reward for his political support, Hayes appointed Wallace as governor of the New Mexico Territory, where he served from August 1878 to March 1881. His next assignment came in March 1881, when Republican president James A. Garfield appointed Wallace to an overseas diplomatic post in Constantinople as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire. Wallace remained in this post until 1885.
Territorial governor of New Mexico
Wallace arrived in Santa Fe on September 29, 1878, to begin his service as governor of the New Mexico Territory during a time of lawless violence and political corruption. Wallace was involved in efforts to resolve New Mexico's Lincoln County War, a contentious and violent disagreement among the county's residents, and tried to end a series of Apache raids on territorial settlers. In 1880, while living at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, Wallace also completed the manuscript for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
On March 1, 1879, after previous efforts to restore order in Lincoln County had failed, Wallace ordered the arrest of those responsible for local killings. One of the outlaws was William Henry McCarty Jr. (alias William H. Bonney), better known as Billy the Kid. On March 17, 1879, Wallace secretly met with Bonney, who had witnessed the murder of a Lincoln County lawyer named Huston Chapman. Wallace wanted him to testify in the trial of Chapman's accused murderers, but Bonney wanted Wallace's protection from his enemies and amnesty for his earlier crimes. During their meeting, the pair arranged for Bonney to become an informant in exchange for a full pardon of his previous crimes. Wallace supposedly assured the Kid that he would be "scot free with a pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds." On March 20 Bonney agreed to provide grand jury testimony against those involved in Chapman's murder. Wallace arranged for a "fake" arrest and Bonney's detention in a local jail to assure his safety. Bonney testified in court on April 14, as agreed. However, the local district attorney revoked Wallace's bargain and refused to set the outlaw free. After spending several weeks in jail, Bonney escaped and returned to his criminal ways, which included killing additional men. He was shot and killed on July 14, 1881, by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who had been appointed by local ranching interests who had tired of his rustling their herds. In the meantime, Wallace had resigned from his duties as territorial governor on March 9, 1881, and was waiting for a new political appointment.
On December 31, 2010, on his last day in office, then-Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico declined a pardon request from Bonney's supporters, citing a "lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity" over Wallace's promise of amnesty. Descendants of Wallace and Garrett were among those who opposed the pardon.
U.S. diplomat in the Ottoman Empire
On May 19, 1881, Wallace was appointed U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). Wallace remained at the diplomatic post until 1885, and became a trusted friend of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. When a crisis developed between the Turkish and British governments over control of Egypt, Wallace served as an intermediary between the sultan and Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador. Although Wallace's efforts were unsuccessful, he earned respect for his efforts and a promotion in the U.S. diplomatic service.
In 1883, an editorial aimed at Wallace appeared in the newspaper Havatzelet (xiii. No. 6) titled "An American and yet a Despot". The editorial caused the Havatzelet to be suspended and its editor Israel Dov Frumkin to be imprisoned for forty-five days by order from Constantinople, directed to the pasha of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The incident that led to the editorial was the dismissal, made at Wallace's request, of Joseph Kriger, the Jewish secretary and interpreter to the pasha of Jerusalem. Wallace complained that Kriger had failed to receive him with the honor due to his rank, and refused to issue any apology for the alleged shortcoming. Havatzelet claimed that the proceeding was instigated by missionaries, whom Wallace strongly supported.
In addition to Wallace's diplomatic duties, which included protection of U.S. citizens and U.S. trade rights in the area, Wallace found time to travel and do historical research. Wallace visited Jerusalem and the surrounding area, the site for his novel, Ben-Hur, and did research in Constantinople, the locale for The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell, which he began writing in 1887.
The election of Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, ended Wallace's political appointment. He resigned from the U.S. diplomatic service on March 4, 1885. The sultan wanted Wallace to continue to work in the Ottoman Empire, and even made a proposal to have him represent Ottoman interests in England or France, but Wallace declined and returned home to Crawfordsville.
Writing career
Wallace confessed in his autobiography that he took up writing as a diversion from studying law. Although he wrote several books, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), which established his fame as an author.
In 1843, Wallace began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. The popular historical novel, with Cortez's conquest of Mexico as its central theme, was based on William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. Wallace's book sold seven thousand copies in its first year. Its sales continued to rise after Wallace's reputation as an author was established with the publication of subsequent novels.
Wallace wrote the manuscript for Ben-Hur, his second and best-known novel, during his spare time at Crawfordsville, and completed it in Santa Fe, while serving as the territorial governor of New Mexico. Ben-Hur, an adventure story of revenge and redemption, is told from the perspective of a Jewish nobleman named Judah Ben-Hur. Because Wallace had not been to the Holy Land before writing the book, he began research to familiarize himself with the area's geography and its history at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1873. Harper and Brothers published the book on November 12, 1880.
Ben-Hur made Wallace a wealthy man and established his reputation as a famous author. Sales were slow at first; only 2,800 copies were sold in the first seven months after its release, but the book became popular among readers around the world. By 1886, it was earning Wallace about $11,000 in annual royalties (equivalent to $290,000 in 2015 dollars), and provided Wallace's family with financial security. By 1889, Harper and Brothers had sold 400,000 copies and the book had been translated into several languages.
In 1900, Ben-Hur became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Amy Lifson, an editor for Humanities, identified it as the most influential Christian book of the 19th century. Others named it one of the best-selling novels of all time. At the time of Ben-Hur'''s one hundredth anniversary in 1980, it had "never been out of print" and had been adapted for the stage and several motion pictures.Boomhower, pp. 11, 138; Morrow, pp. 17–18. One historian, Victor Davis Hanson, has argued that Ben-Hur drew from Wallace's life, particularly his experiences at Shiloh, and the damage it did to his reputation. The book's main character, Judah Ben-Hur, accidentally causes injury to a high-ranking Roman commander, for which he and his family suffer tribulations and calumny.
Wallace wrote subsequent novels and biographies, but Ben-Hur remained his most important work. Wallace considered The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (1893) as his best novel. He also wrote a biography of President Benjamin Harrison, a fellow Hoosier and Civil War general, and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898), a narrative poem. Wallace was writing his autobiography when he died in 1905. His wife Susan completed it with the assistance of Mary Hannah Krout, another author from Crawfordsville. It was published posthumously in 1906.
Later years
Wallace continued to write after his return from the Ottoman Empire. He also patented several of his own inventions, built a seven-story apartment building in Indianapolis, The Blacherne, and drew up plans for a private study at his home in Crawfordsville. Wallace remained active in veterans groups, including writing a speech for the dedication of the battlefield at the Chickamauga.
Wallace's elaborate writing study, which he described as "a pleasure-house for my soul", served as his private retreat. Now called the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, it was built between 1895 and 1898, adjacent to his residence in Crawfordsville, and set in an enclosed park. The study along with three and one-half acres of its grounds were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The property is operated as a museum, open to the public. Wallace had a moat on two sides of the Study and stocked it so he could fish from the back porch and a landing. In winter, he would fire up the coal furnace in the Study basement and fish from the windows. He loved fishing so much he invented and patented a special traveler's fishing pole. After just a few years he had the moat drained as it was negatively affecting the Study foundation and he worried about his grandchildren and neighborhood children falling into the water.
On April 5, 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Wallace, at age seventy-one, offered to raise and lead a force of soldiers, but the war office refused. Undeterred, he went to a local recruiting office and attempted to enlist as a private, but was rejected again, presumably because of his age.
Wallace's service at the battle of Shiloh continued to haunt him in later life. The debate persisted in book publications, magazine articles, pamphlets, speeches, and in private correspondence. Wallace attended a reunion at Shiloh in 1894, his first return since 1862, and retraced his journey to the battlefield with veterans from the 3rd Division. He returned to Shiloh for a final time in 1901 to walk the battlefield with David W. Reed, the Shiloh Battlefield Commission's historian, and others. Wallace died before the manuscript of his memoirs was fully completed, and it is unknown whether he would have revised his final account of the battle.
Death
Wallace died at home in Crawfordsville, on February 15, 1905, of atrophic gastritis. He was seventy-seven years old. Wallace is buried in Crawfordsville Oak Hill Cemetery.
Legacy and honors
Wallace was a man of many interests and a lifelong adventure seeker, who remained a persistent, self-confident man of action. He was also impatient and highly sensitive to personal criticisms, especially those related to his command decisions at Shiloh. Despite Wallace's career in law and politics, combined with years of military and diplomatic service, he achieved his greatest fame as a novelist, most notably for his best-selling biblical tale, Ben-Hur.
Following Wallace's death, the State of Indiana commissioned the sculptor Andrew O'Connor to create a marble statue of Wallace dressed in a military uniform for the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. The statue was unveiled during a ceremony held on January 11, 1910. Wallace is the only novelist honored in the hall. A bronze copy of the statue is installed on the grounds of Wallace's study in Crawfordsville.Morrow, p. 22.
Lew Wallace High School opened in 1926 at 415 West 45th Avenue in Gary, Indiana. On June 3, 2014, the Gary School Board voted 4 to 2 to close Lew Wallace, along with five other schools.
A Knights of Pythias lodge was established in Franklin, Indiana at the Masonic Home to be known as the General Lewis Wallace Lodge #2019.
Popular culture
NASL Indianapolis-based team The Indy Eleven pays homage to the 11th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, which fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. The inspiration for the name came from Donna Schmink, the Collection Manager at the Indiana War Museum, who, when asked by team officials for ideas on a team name connected to Indiana history, suggested "the Eleventh" in honor of the regiment that valiantly fought under the initial direction of Colonel Lew Wallace.
Film and television
Frank Reicher (uncredited) as General Lew Wallace in the film Billy the Kid (1930).
Berton Churchill as Gov. Wallace in The Big Stampede (1932).
Joe King (actor) (uncredited) as Governor Lew Wallace in Land Beyond the Law (1937).
Robert H. Barrat as General Lew Wallace in The Kid from Texas (1950).
Claude Stroud as Gen. Lew Wallace - New Mexico Governor in I Shot Billy the Kid (1950).
Otis Garth (uncredited) as Gov. Lew Wallace in The Law vs. Billy the Kid (1954).
Ralph Moody as Gen. Lew Wallace in Strange Lady in Town (1955).
Robert Warwick as Governor Wallace in Law of the Plainsman (TV series), episode "Amnesty" (aired April 7, 1960).
Cameron Mitchell as General Lew Wallace in The Andersonville Trial (TV), which aired May 17, 1970; an adaptation of the 1959 Broadway play by the same name.
Jason Robards as Governor Wallace in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
René Auberjonois as Gov. Lew Wallace in Longarm (TV film, 1988).
Wilford Brimley as Gov. Lew Wallace in Billy the Kid (TNT film, 1989).
Scott Wilson as Governor Lewis Wallace in the film Young Guns II (1990).
Brian Merrick as Gen. Lew Wallace in No Retreat from Destiny: The Battle That Rescued Washington (2006 video).
Published works
Fiction
The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873.)
Commodus: An Historical Play (Crawfordsville, IN: privately published by the author, 1876.) Revised and reissued in the same year.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880.)
The First Christmas from Ben-Hur (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899.)
The Boyhood of Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888.)
The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893.) Two volumes.
The Wooing of Malkatoon (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1898.)
Non-Fiction
Life of Gen. Ben Harrison (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1888.)
Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the U.S. With a Concise Biographical Sketch of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Ex-Minister to France [by Murat Halstad] (Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing Co., 1892.)
Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906.) Two volumes.
See also
List of American Civil War battles
List of American Civil War generals (Union)
José María Jesús Carbajal
Bibliography of the American Civil War
Bibliography of Ulysses S. Grant
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Biographies
Other works
Lighty, Shaun Chandler. "The Fall and Rise of Lew Wallace: Gaining Legitimacy Through Popular Culture." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2005. Available online at ohiolink.edu.
Swansburg, John. "The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War Hero and Author of Ben-Hur", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
Swansburg, John. "Lew Wallace a Life in Artifacts", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
External links
Notable Hoosier Obits: Lew Wallace gives a collection of Wallace obituaries from around the country.
Wallace's obituary 16 February 1905. New York Times'' (pdf format).
Lew Wallace Archive, overview with detailed bibliography of his works
General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, Crawfordsville
Wallace's time-line at General Lew Wallace Museum
Lew Wallace in Jerusalem, 1883
Wallace's 'Minister Resident of the United States of America to Turkey' Calling Card in the Shapell Manuscript Foundation Collection
Lew Wallace collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
1827 births
1905 deaths
1870s in New Mexico Territory
1880s in New Mexico Territory
19th-century American diplomats
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Ambassadors of the United States to the Ottoman Empire
American autobiographers
American historical novelists
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
Burials in Indiana
Christian novelists
Deaths from gastritis
Governors of New Mexico Territory
Indiana lawyers
Indiana Republicans
Indiana state senators
Lincoln County Wars
Military personnel from Indiana
New Mexico Republicans
Novelists from Indiana
People associated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
People from Brookville, Indiana
People from Covington, Indiana
People from Crawfordsville, Indiana
People from Indiana in the Mexican–American War
People of Indiana in the American Civil War
Union Army generals
Writers from Indiana
Writers of historical fiction set in antiquity
Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period
20th-century American male writers | true | [
"\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" is a song written by Billy Livsey and Don Schlitz, and recorded by American country music artist George Strait. It was released in February 2001 as the third and final single from his self-titled album. The song reached number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in July 2001. It also peaked at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.\n\nContent\nThe song is about man who is giving his woman the option to leave him. He gives her many different options for all the things she can do. At the end he gives her the option to stay with him if she really can’t find anything else to do. He says he will be alright if she leaves, but really it seems he wants her to stay.\n\nChart performance\n\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" debuted at number 60 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of March 3, 2001.\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\n2000 songs\nGeorge Strait songs\nSongs written by Billy Livsey\nSongs written by Don Schlitz\nSong recordings produced by Tony Brown (record producer)\nMCA Nashville Records singles",
"\"Do Anything\" is the debut single of American pop group Natural Selection. The song was written by group members Elliot Erickson and Frederick Thomas, who also produced the track, and the rap was written and performed by Ingrid Chavez. American actress and singer Niki Haris provides the song's spoken lyrics. A new jack swing and funk-pop song, it is the opening track on Natural Selection's self-titled, only studio album. Released as a single in 1991, \"Do Anything\" became a hit in the United States, where it reached the number-two position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Worldwide, it became a top-10 hit in Australia and New Zealand while peaking at number 24 in Canada.\n\nCritical reception\nRolling Stone magazine featured the song on their list of \"18 Awesome Prince Rip-Offs\", comparing Frederick Thomas's vocals on the song to those of fellow American musician Prince. Music & Media magazine also compared the song to Prince's work, calling its chorus \"snappy\" and its melody \"asserted\", while Tom Breihan of Stereogum referred to the track as \"K-Mart-brand Prince\". Jeff Giles of pop culture website Popdose wrote that the song is \"deeply, deeply silly,\" commenting on its \"horrible\" lyrics, \"dated\" production, and \"painfully bad\" rap, but he noted that the song is difficult to hate overall. He went on to say that if Natural Selection had released this song and nothing else, its popularity would have persisted more, and he also predicted that if American rock band Fall Out Boy covered the song, it would become a summer hit. AllMusic reviewer Alex Henderson called the track \"likeable\" and appreciated that it was original compared to other urban contemporary songs released during the early 1990s.\n\nChart performance\n\"Do Anything\" debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 58, becoming the Hot Shot Debut of August 10, 1991. Ten issues later, the song reached its peak of number two, behind only \"Emotions by Mariah Carey. It spent its final week on the Hot 100 at number 27 on December 28, 1991, spending a total of 21 weeks on the listing. It was the United States' 32nd-most-succeful single of 1991. In Canada, after debuting at number 92 on October 5, 1991, the song rose up the chart until reaching number 24 on November 23. \"Do Anything\" was not as successful in Europe, peaking at number 48 on the Dutch Single Top 100 and number 69 on the UK Singles Chart, but in Sweden, it debuted and peaked at number 21 in November 1991. The single became a top-10 hit in both Australia and New Zealand, reaching number 10 in the former nation and number nine in the latter.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUS 12-inch vinyl\nA1. \"Do Anything\" (Justin Strauss Remix) – 6:00\nA2. \"Do Anything\" (Just Dubbin Dub) – 4:30\nB1. \"Do Anything\" (Just Right Mix) – 4:35\nB2. \"Do Anything\" (Just Right Dub) – 4:50\nB3. \"Do Anything\" (radio edit) – 3:55\n\nUS cassette single and European 7-inch single\n \"Do Anything\" (single mix) – 3:55\n \"Do Anything\" (raw mix) – 4:11\n\nUK and European 12-inch vinyl\nA1. \"Do Anything\" (Justin Strauss Remix) – 6:00\nA2. \"Do Anything\" (Just Dubbin Dub) – 4:30\nB1. \"Do Anything\" (Just Right Mix) – 4:35\nB2. \"Do Anything\" (Just Right Dub) – 4:50\n\nPersonnel\nCredits are taken from the US cassette single liner notes and cassette notes.\n Elliot Erickson – keyboards, drum programming, writer, producer, mixer, engineer\n Frederick Thomas – lead and background vocals, writer, producer\n Niki Haris – spoken vocals\n Ingrid Chavez – rap writer\n Brian Malouf – additional production and mixing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n1991 debut singles\nAmerican pop songs\nEast West Records singles\nFunk songs\nNew jack swing songs"
]
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[
"Lew Wallace",
"Forts Henry and Donelson",
"What did he do at Fort Henry?",
"Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant",
"What else did he do there?",
"Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops.",
"Did he do anything else there?",
"Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862,"
]
| C_f36a7125118b479ebf442f8831306360_0 | What did he do at Donelson? | 4 | What did Lew Wallace do at Fort Donelson? | Lew Wallace | On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant. Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army. CANNOTANSWER | Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson. | Lewis Wallace (April 10, 1827February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. He was appointed Indiana's adjutant general and commanded the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Wallace, who attained the rank of major general, participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, and the Battle of Monocacy. He also served on the military commission for the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and presided over the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant of the Andersonville prison camp.
Wallace resigned from the U.S. Army in November 1865 and briefly served as a major general in the Mexican army, before returning to the United States. Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory (1878–1881) and served as U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire (1881–1885). Wallace retired to his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he continued to write until his death in 1905.
Early life and education
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to Esther French Wallace (née Test) and David Wallace. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress. Lew Wallace's maternal grandfather was circuit court judge and Congressman John Test.
In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis.
Lew began his formal education at the age of six at a public school in Covington, but he much preferred the outdoors. Wallace had a talent for drawing and loved to read, but he was a discipline problem at school. In 1836, at the age of nine, Lew joined his older brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended the preparatory school division of Wabash College, but soon transferred to another school more suitable for his age. In 1840, when Wallace was thirteen, his father sent him to a private academy at Centerville, Indiana, where his teacher encouraged Lew's natural affinity for writing. Wallace returned to Indianapolis the following year.
Sixteen-year-old Lew went out to earn his own wages in 1842, after his father refused to pay for more schooling. Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office and lived in an Indianapolis boardinghouse. He also joined the Marion Rifles, a local militia unit, and began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. Wallace said in his autobiography that he had never been a member of any organized religion, but he did believe "in the Christian conception of God".
By 1846, at the start of the Mexican–American War, the nineteen-year-old Wallace was studying law at his father's law office, but left that pursuit to establish a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. He was appointed a second lieutenant, and on June 19, 1846, mustered into military service with the Marion Volunteers (also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry). Wallace rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant while serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, but Wallace personally did not participate in combat. Wallace was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847, and returned to Indiana, where he intended to practice law. After the war, Wallace and William B. Greer operated a Free Soil newspaper, The Free Soil Banner, in Indianapolis.
Marriage and family
In 1848 Wallace met Susan Arnold Elston at the Crawfordsville home of Henry Smith Lane, Wallace's former commander during the Mexican War. Susan was the daughter of Major Isaac Compton Elston, a wealthy Crawfordsville merchant, and Maria Akin Elston, whose family were Quakers from upstate New York. Susan accepted Wallace's marriage proposal in 1849, and they were married in Crawfordsville on May 6, 1852. The Wallaces had one son, Henry Lane Wallace, who was born on February 17, 1853.
Early law and military career
Wallace was admitted to the bar in February 1849, and moved from Indianapolis to Covington, Indiana, where he established a law practice. In 1851 Wallace was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana's 1st congressional district, but he resigned in 1853 and moved his family to Crawfordsville, in Montgomery County, Indiana. Wallace continued to practice law and was elected as a Democrat to a two-year term in the Indiana Senate in 1856. From 1849 to 1853, his office was housed in the Fountain County Clerk's Building.
While living in Crawfordsville, Wallace organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia, later called the Montgomery Guards. During the winter of 1859–60, after reading about elite units of the French Army in Algeria, Wallace adopted the Zouave uniform and their system of training for the group. The Montgomery Guards would later form the core of his first military command, the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the American Civil War.
Civil War service
Wallace, a staunch supporter of the Union, became a member of the Republican party, and began his full-time military career soon after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Indiana's governor, the Republican Oliver P. Morton, asked Wallace to help recruit Indiana volunteers for the Union army. Wallace, who also sought a military command, agreed to become the state's adjutant general on the condition that he would be given command of a regiment of his choice. Indiana's quota of six regimental units was filled within a week, and Wallace took command of the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into the Union army on April 25, 1861. Wallace received his formal commission as a colonel in the Union army the following day.
On June 5, 1861, Wallace went with the 11th Indiana to Cumberland, Maryland, and on June 12, the regiment won a minor battle at Romney, Virginia, (in present-day West Virginia). The rout boosted morale for Union troops and led to the Confederate evacuation of Harpers Ferry on June 18. On September 3, 1861, Wallace was promoted to brigadier general of U.S. Army volunteers and given command of a brigade.
Forts Henry and Donelson
On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant.
Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.
During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.
Shiloh
Wallace's most controversial command came at the battle of Shiloh, where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj. Gen. Grant.
What was to become a long-standing controversy developed around the contents of Wallace's written orders on April 6, the 3rd Division's movements on the first day of battle, and their late arrival on the field. On the second day of battle, Wallace's division joined reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army to play an important role in the Union victory. Prior to the battle, Wallace's division had been left in reserve and was encamped near Crump's Landing. Their orders were to guard the Union's right flank and cover the road to Bethel Station, Tennessee, where railroad lines led to Corinth, Mississippi, to the south. To protect the road from Crump's Landing and Bethel Station, Wallace sent Col. John M. Thayer's 2nd Brigade to Stoney Lonesome, west of Crump's Landing, and the 3rd Brigade, commanded by Col. Charles Whittlesey to Adamsville, west of Crump's Landing. Col. Morgan L. Smith's 1st Brigade remained with Wallace at Crump's Landing, north of Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.
Between 5 and 6 a.m. on April 6, 1862, Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing was surprised and nearly routed by a sudden attack from the Confederate army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Grant, who heard the early morning artillery fire, took a steamboat from his headquarters at Savannah, Tennessee, to Crump's Landing, where he gave Wallace orders to wait in reserve and be ready to move. Grant proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, where he arrived around 8:30 a.m. Grant's new orders to Wallace, which arrived between 11 and 11:30 a.m., were given verbally to an aide, who transcribed them before they were delivered. The written orders were lost during the battle, so their exact wording cannot be confirmed; however, eyewitness accounts agree that Grant ordered Wallace to join the right side of the Union army, presumably in support of Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's 5th Division, who were encamped near Shiloh Church on the morning of April 6.
Knowledge of the area's roads played a critical role in Wallace's journey to the battlefield on April 6. In late March, after heavy rains made transportation difficult between Crump's Landing and Pittsburg Landing, Wallace's men had opened a route to Pittsburg Landing along Shunpike road, which connected to a road near Sherman's camp. Brig. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace's men at Pittsburg Landing opened the River Road (also known as the Hamburg-Savannah Road), a route farther east.
Of the two main routes that Wallace could use to move his men to the front, he chose the Shunpike road, the more direct route to reach Sherman's division near Shiloh Church. The day before the battle, Wallace wrote a letter to a fellow officer, W. H. L. Wallace, stating his intention to do so. Lew Wallace and his staff maintained after the battle that Grant's order did not specify Pittsburg Landing as their destination, and it did not specify which route the 3rd Division was ordered to take. However, Grant claimed in his memoirs that he had ordered Wallace to take the route nearest to the river to reach Pittsburg Landing. Historians are divided, with some stating that Wallace's explanation is the most logical.
After a second messenger from Grant arrived around noon with word to move out, Wallace's division of approximately 5,800 men began their march toward the battlefield. Between 2 and 2:30 p.m., a third messenger from Grant found Wallace along the Shunpike road, where he informed Wallace that Sherman had been forced back from Shiloh Church and was fighting closer to the river, near Pittsburg Landing. The Union army had been pushed back so far that Wallace was to the rear of the advancing Southern troops.
Wallace considered attacking the Confederates, but abandoned the idea. Instead he made a controversial decision to countermarch his troops along the Shunpike road, follow a crossroads to the River Road, and then move south to Pittsburg Landing. Rather than realigning his troops, so that the rear guard would be in the front, Wallace countermarched his column to maintain their original order, keeping his artillery in the lead position to support the Union infantry on the field. After the time-consuming maneuver was completed, Wallace's troops returned to the midpoint on the Shunpike road, crossed east over a path to the River Road, and followed it south to join Grant's army on the field. Progress was slow due to the road conditions and countermarch. Wallace's division arrived at Pittsburg Landing about 6:30 p.m., after having marched about in nearly seven hours over roads that had been left in terrible conditions by recent rainstorms and previous Union marches. They gathered at the battlefield at dusk, about 7 p.m., with the fighting nearly over for the day, and took up a position on the right of the Union line.
The next day, April 7, Wallace's division held the extreme right of the Union line. Two of Wallace's batteries with the aid of a battery from the 1st Illinois Light Artillery were the first to attack at about 5:30 a.m. Sherman's and Wallace's troops helped force the Confederates to fall back, and by 3 p.m. the Confederates were retreating southwest, toward Corinth.
Historian Timothy B. Smith conceded that on the second day Wallace's division sustained far fewer casualties (296) than any of Buell's three divisions. However, Smith argued that the number of casualties does not always show the effectiveness of troops. Wallace had his soldiers lie down when they were under fire, which minimized casualties. He also maneuvered his division so that it turned the Confederate left flank. Wallace advanced his division at 6:30 am, reached the south side of Tilghman Branch about 8:00 am, and occupied a commanding ridge by 9:00 am, all with little opposition. Here he paused to wait for Union troops to appear on his left. Up to this point, Wallace's movements were slow. Once Grant's and Buell's soldiers reached the Confederate main line of defense they were stopped in heavy fighting. Noting that the Confederate left did not reach as far as Owl Creek, Wallace wheeled his division to outflank the enemy line. Finding Wallace's troops to their left and rear, the left-hand Confederate brigade hurriedly fell back. This unhinged the entire line and the Confederate troops soon retreated to a second position around noon. At around 1:00 pm, Wallace worked a few regiments around the Confederate left flank, forcing their withdrawal to a third position. After the Confederates left the battlefield, Wallace's division went the farthest south, but he pulled his troops back before going into camp that evening.
Shiloh controversy
At first, the battle was viewed by the North as a victory; however, on April 23, after civilians began hearing news of the high number of casualties, the Lincoln administration asked the Union army for further explanation. Grant, who was accused of poor leadership at Shiloh, and his superior, Halleck, placed the blame on Wallace by asserting that his failure to follow orders and the delay in moving up the reserves on April 6 had nearly cost them the battle.
Grant had placed much of the blame on General Wallace, to whom he had sent verbal orders to bring his troops forward, accusing Wallace of failure in following those orders, which he believed resulted in the delay in moving up reserves, nearly costing the Union the loss of the battle. After hearing reports that Wallace refused to obey anything but written orders, an angry General Grant asserted that a division general ought to take his troops to wherever the firing may be, even without orders", and first sent Colonel William R. Rowley, ordering him to "tell him to come up at once" and that "if he should require a written order of you, you will give it to him at once". When Rowley caught up to where Wallace's division last was, there was only a supply wagon departing the scene. Riding on further, Rowley found Wallace at the head of his column near Clear Creek, positioned on high ground. Rowley pulled Wallace off to the side and warned him of the danger that lay just ahead, exclaiming, "Don't you know that Sherman has been driven back? Why, the whole army is within half a mile of the river, and it's a question if we are not all going to be driven into it." Wallace, stunned by the news, sent his cavalry ahead to assess the situation, and upon returning, it had confirmed Rowley's claim.
On April 30, 1862, Halleck reorganized his army and removed Wallace and John McClernand from active duty, placing both of them in reserve.
Wallace's reputation and career as a military leader suffered a significant setback from controversy over Shiloh. He spent the remainder of his life trying to resolve the accusations and change public opinion about his role in the battle. On March 14, 1863, Wallace wrote a letter to Halleck that provided an official explanation of his actions. He also wrote Grant several letters and met with him in person more than once in an attempt to vindicate himself. On August 16, 1863, Wallace wrote Sherman for advice on the issue. Sherman urged Wallace to be patient and not to request a formal inquiry. Although Sherman brought Wallace's concerns to Grant's attention, Wallace was not given another active duty command until March 1864.
For many years Grant stood by his original version of the orders to Wallace. As late as 1884, when Grant wrote an article on Shiloh for The Century Magazine that appeared in its February 1885 issue, he maintained that Wallace had taken the wrong road on the first day of battle. After W. H. L. Wallace's widow gave Grant a letter that Lew Wallace had written to her the day before the battle (the one indicating his plans to use the Shunpike road to pass between Shiloh and his position west of Crump's Landing), Grant changed his mind. Grant wrote a letter to the editors at Century, which was published in its September 1885 issue, and added a note to his memoirs to explain that Wallace's letter "modifies very materially what I have said, and what has been said by others, about the conduct of General Lew Wallace at the battle of Shiloh." While reaffirming that he had ordered Wallace to take the River Road, Grant stated that he could not be sure the exact content of Wallace's written orders, since his verbal orders were given to one of his aides and transcribed.
Grant's article in the February 1885 issue of Century became the basis of his chapter on Shiloh in his memoirs, which were published in 1886, and influenced many later accounts of Wallace's actions on the first day of battle. Grant acknowledged in his memoirs: "If the position of our front had not changed, the road which Wallace took would have been somewhat shorter to our right than the River road." Wallace's account of the events appeared in his autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1906. Despite his later fame and fortune as the writer of Ben-Hur, Wallace continued to lament, "Shiloh and its slanders! Will the world ever acquit me of them? If I were guilty I would not feel them as keenly."
Other military assignments
On August 17, 1862, Wallace accepted a regiment command in the Department of the Ohio to help with the successful defense of Cincinnati during Braxton Bragg's incursion into Kentucky. Next, Wallace took command of Camp Chase, a prisoner-of-war camp at Columbus, Ohio, where he remained until October 30, 1862. A month later Wallace was placed in charge of a five-member commission to investigate Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's conduct in response to the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. The commission criticized Buell for his retreat, but it did not find him disloyal to the Union. When the commission's work was completed on May 6, 1863, Wallace returned to Indiana to wait for a new command. In mid-July 1863, while Wallace was home, he helped protect the railroad junction at North Vernon, Indiana, from Confederate general John Hunt Morgan's raid into southern Indiana.
Monocacy
Wallace's most notable service came on Saturday, July 9, 1864 at the Battle of Monocacy part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Although Confederate General Jubal A. Early and an estimated 15,000 troops defeated Wallace's troops at Monocacy Junction, Maryland, forcing them to retreat to Baltimore, the effort cost Early a chance to capture Washington, D.C. Wallace's men were able to delay the Confederate advance toward Washington for an entire day, giving the city time to organize its defenses. Early arrived in Washington at around noon on July 11, two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy, the northernmost Confederate victory of the war, but Union reinforcements had already arrived at Fort Stevens to repel the Confederates and force their retreat to Virginia.
Wallace, who had returned to active duty on March 12, 1864, assumed command of VIII Corps, which was headquartered in Baltimore. On July 9, a combined Union force of approximately 5,800 men under Wallace's command (mostly hundred-days' men from VIII Corps) and a division under James B. Ricketts from VI Corps encountered Confederate troops at Monocacy Junction between 9 and 10 a.m. Although Wallace was uncertain whether Baltimore or Washington, D.C., was the Confederate objective, he knew his troops would have to delay the advance until Union reinforcements arrived. Wallace's men repelled the Confederate attacks for more than six hours before retreating to Baltimore.
After the battle Wallace informed Halleck that his forces fought until 5 p.m., but the Confederate troops, which he estimated at 20,000 men, had overwhelmed them. When Grant learned of the defeat, he named Maj. Gen. E. O. C. Ord as Wallace's replacement in command of VIII Corps. On July 28, after officials learned how Wallace's efforts at Monocacy helped save Washington D.C. from capture, he was reinstated as commander of VIII Corps. In Grant's memoirs, he praised Wallace's delaying tactics at Monocacy:
If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent. ... General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory.
Later military service
On January 22, 1865, Grant ordered Wallace to the Rio Grande in southern Texas to investigate Confederate military operations in the area. Although Wallace was not officially authorized to offer terms, he did discuss proposals for the surrender of the Confederate troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Wallace provided Grant with copies of his proposals and reported on the negotiations, but no agreement was made. Before returning to Baltimore, Wallace also met with Mexican military leaders to discuss the U.S. government's unofficial efforts to aid in expelling Maximilian's French occupation forces from Mexico.
Following President Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, Wallace was appointed to the military commission that investigated the Lincoln assassination conspirators. The commission, which began in May, was dissolved on June 30, 1865, after all eight conspirators were found guilty. In mid-August 1865, Wallace was appointed head of an eight-member military commission that investigated the conduct of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant in charge of the South's Andersonville prison camp. The court-martial which took nearly two months, opened on August 21, 1865. At its conclusion Wirz was found guilty and sentenced to death.
On April 30, 1865, Wallace had accepted an offer to become a major general in the Mexican army, but the agreement, which was contingent upon his resignation from the U.S. Army, was delayed by Wallace's service on the two military commissions. Wallace tendered his resignation from the U.S. Army on November 4, 1865, effective November 30, and returned to Mexico to assist the Mexican army. Although the Juárez government promised Wallace $100,000 for his services, he returned to the United States in 1867 in deep financial debt.
Political and diplomatic career
Wallace returned to Indiana in 1867 to practice law, but the profession did not appeal to him, and he turned to politics. Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress (in 1868 and 1870), and supported Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election. As a reward for his political support, Hayes appointed Wallace as governor of the New Mexico Territory, where he served from August 1878 to March 1881. His next assignment came in March 1881, when Republican president James A. Garfield appointed Wallace to an overseas diplomatic post in Constantinople as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire. Wallace remained in this post until 1885.
Territorial governor of New Mexico
Wallace arrived in Santa Fe on September 29, 1878, to begin his service as governor of the New Mexico Territory during a time of lawless violence and political corruption. Wallace was involved in efforts to resolve New Mexico's Lincoln County War, a contentious and violent disagreement among the county's residents, and tried to end a series of Apache raids on territorial settlers. In 1880, while living at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, Wallace also completed the manuscript for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
On March 1, 1879, after previous efforts to restore order in Lincoln County had failed, Wallace ordered the arrest of those responsible for local killings. One of the outlaws was William Henry McCarty Jr. (alias William H. Bonney), better known as Billy the Kid. On March 17, 1879, Wallace secretly met with Bonney, who had witnessed the murder of a Lincoln County lawyer named Huston Chapman. Wallace wanted him to testify in the trial of Chapman's accused murderers, but Bonney wanted Wallace's protection from his enemies and amnesty for his earlier crimes. During their meeting, the pair arranged for Bonney to become an informant in exchange for a full pardon of his previous crimes. Wallace supposedly assured the Kid that he would be "scot free with a pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds." On March 20 Bonney agreed to provide grand jury testimony against those involved in Chapman's murder. Wallace arranged for a "fake" arrest and Bonney's detention in a local jail to assure his safety. Bonney testified in court on April 14, as agreed. However, the local district attorney revoked Wallace's bargain and refused to set the outlaw free. After spending several weeks in jail, Bonney escaped and returned to his criminal ways, which included killing additional men. He was shot and killed on July 14, 1881, by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who had been appointed by local ranching interests who had tired of his rustling their herds. In the meantime, Wallace had resigned from his duties as territorial governor on March 9, 1881, and was waiting for a new political appointment.
On December 31, 2010, on his last day in office, then-Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico declined a pardon request from Bonney's supporters, citing a "lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity" over Wallace's promise of amnesty. Descendants of Wallace and Garrett were among those who opposed the pardon.
U.S. diplomat in the Ottoman Empire
On May 19, 1881, Wallace was appointed U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). Wallace remained at the diplomatic post until 1885, and became a trusted friend of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. When a crisis developed between the Turkish and British governments over control of Egypt, Wallace served as an intermediary between the sultan and Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador. Although Wallace's efforts were unsuccessful, he earned respect for his efforts and a promotion in the U.S. diplomatic service.
In 1883, an editorial aimed at Wallace appeared in the newspaper Havatzelet (xiii. No. 6) titled "An American and yet a Despot". The editorial caused the Havatzelet to be suspended and its editor Israel Dov Frumkin to be imprisoned for forty-five days by order from Constantinople, directed to the pasha of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The incident that led to the editorial was the dismissal, made at Wallace's request, of Joseph Kriger, the Jewish secretary and interpreter to the pasha of Jerusalem. Wallace complained that Kriger had failed to receive him with the honor due to his rank, and refused to issue any apology for the alleged shortcoming. Havatzelet claimed that the proceeding was instigated by missionaries, whom Wallace strongly supported.
In addition to Wallace's diplomatic duties, which included protection of U.S. citizens and U.S. trade rights in the area, Wallace found time to travel and do historical research. Wallace visited Jerusalem and the surrounding area, the site for his novel, Ben-Hur, and did research in Constantinople, the locale for The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell, which he began writing in 1887.
The election of Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, ended Wallace's political appointment. He resigned from the U.S. diplomatic service on March 4, 1885. The sultan wanted Wallace to continue to work in the Ottoman Empire, and even made a proposal to have him represent Ottoman interests in England or France, but Wallace declined and returned home to Crawfordsville.
Writing career
Wallace confessed in his autobiography that he took up writing as a diversion from studying law. Although he wrote several books, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), which established his fame as an author.
In 1843, Wallace began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. The popular historical novel, with Cortez's conquest of Mexico as its central theme, was based on William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. Wallace's book sold seven thousand copies in its first year. Its sales continued to rise after Wallace's reputation as an author was established with the publication of subsequent novels.
Wallace wrote the manuscript for Ben-Hur, his second and best-known novel, during his spare time at Crawfordsville, and completed it in Santa Fe, while serving as the territorial governor of New Mexico. Ben-Hur, an adventure story of revenge and redemption, is told from the perspective of a Jewish nobleman named Judah Ben-Hur. Because Wallace had not been to the Holy Land before writing the book, he began research to familiarize himself with the area's geography and its history at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1873. Harper and Brothers published the book on November 12, 1880.
Ben-Hur made Wallace a wealthy man and established his reputation as a famous author. Sales were slow at first; only 2,800 copies were sold in the first seven months after its release, but the book became popular among readers around the world. By 1886, it was earning Wallace about $11,000 in annual royalties (equivalent to $290,000 in 2015 dollars), and provided Wallace's family with financial security. By 1889, Harper and Brothers had sold 400,000 copies and the book had been translated into several languages.
In 1900, Ben-Hur became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Amy Lifson, an editor for Humanities, identified it as the most influential Christian book of the 19th century. Others named it one of the best-selling novels of all time. At the time of Ben-Hur'''s one hundredth anniversary in 1980, it had "never been out of print" and had been adapted for the stage and several motion pictures.Boomhower, pp. 11, 138; Morrow, pp. 17–18. One historian, Victor Davis Hanson, has argued that Ben-Hur drew from Wallace's life, particularly his experiences at Shiloh, and the damage it did to his reputation. The book's main character, Judah Ben-Hur, accidentally causes injury to a high-ranking Roman commander, for which he and his family suffer tribulations and calumny.
Wallace wrote subsequent novels and biographies, but Ben-Hur remained his most important work. Wallace considered The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (1893) as his best novel. He also wrote a biography of President Benjamin Harrison, a fellow Hoosier and Civil War general, and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898), a narrative poem. Wallace was writing his autobiography when he died in 1905. His wife Susan completed it with the assistance of Mary Hannah Krout, another author from Crawfordsville. It was published posthumously in 1906.
Later years
Wallace continued to write after his return from the Ottoman Empire. He also patented several of his own inventions, built a seven-story apartment building in Indianapolis, The Blacherne, and drew up plans for a private study at his home in Crawfordsville. Wallace remained active in veterans groups, including writing a speech for the dedication of the battlefield at the Chickamauga.
Wallace's elaborate writing study, which he described as "a pleasure-house for my soul", served as his private retreat. Now called the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, it was built between 1895 and 1898, adjacent to his residence in Crawfordsville, and set in an enclosed park. The study along with three and one-half acres of its grounds were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The property is operated as a museum, open to the public. Wallace had a moat on two sides of the Study and stocked it so he could fish from the back porch and a landing. In winter, he would fire up the coal furnace in the Study basement and fish from the windows. He loved fishing so much he invented and patented a special traveler's fishing pole. After just a few years he had the moat drained as it was negatively affecting the Study foundation and he worried about his grandchildren and neighborhood children falling into the water.
On April 5, 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Wallace, at age seventy-one, offered to raise and lead a force of soldiers, but the war office refused. Undeterred, he went to a local recruiting office and attempted to enlist as a private, but was rejected again, presumably because of his age.
Wallace's service at the battle of Shiloh continued to haunt him in later life. The debate persisted in book publications, magazine articles, pamphlets, speeches, and in private correspondence. Wallace attended a reunion at Shiloh in 1894, his first return since 1862, and retraced his journey to the battlefield with veterans from the 3rd Division. He returned to Shiloh for a final time in 1901 to walk the battlefield with David W. Reed, the Shiloh Battlefield Commission's historian, and others. Wallace died before the manuscript of his memoirs was fully completed, and it is unknown whether he would have revised his final account of the battle.
Death
Wallace died at home in Crawfordsville, on February 15, 1905, of atrophic gastritis. He was seventy-seven years old. Wallace is buried in Crawfordsville Oak Hill Cemetery.
Legacy and honors
Wallace was a man of many interests and a lifelong adventure seeker, who remained a persistent, self-confident man of action. He was also impatient and highly sensitive to personal criticisms, especially those related to his command decisions at Shiloh. Despite Wallace's career in law and politics, combined with years of military and diplomatic service, he achieved his greatest fame as a novelist, most notably for his best-selling biblical tale, Ben-Hur.
Following Wallace's death, the State of Indiana commissioned the sculptor Andrew O'Connor to create a marble statue of Wallace dressed in a military uniform for the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. The statue was unveiled during a ceremony held on January 11, 1910. Wallace is the only novelist honored in the hall. A bronze copy of the statue is installed on the grounds of Wallace's study in Crawfordsville.Morrow, p. 22.
Lew Wallace High School opened in 1926 at 415 West 45th Avenue in Gary, Indiana. On June 3, 2014, the Gary School Board voted 4 to 2 to close Lew Wallace, along with five other schools.
A Knights of Pythias lodge was established in Franklin, Indiana at the Masonic Home to be known as the General Lewis Wallace Lodge #2019.
Popular culture
NASL Indianapolis-based team The Indy Eleven pays homage to the 11th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, which fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. The inspiration for the name came from Donna Schmink, the Collection Manager at the Indiana War Museum, who, when asked by team officials for ideas on a team name connected to Indiana history, suggested "the Eleventh" in honor of the regiment that valiantly fought under the initial direction of Colonel Lew Wallace.
Film and television
Frank Reicher (uncredited) as General Lew Wallace in the film Billy the Kid (1930).
Berton Churchill as Gov. Wallace in The Big Stampede (1932).
Joe King (actor) (uncredited) as Governor Lew Wallace in Land Beyond the Law (1937).
Robert H. Barrat as General Lew Wallace in The Kid from Texas (1950).
Claude Stroud as Gen. Lew Wallace - New Mexico Governor in I Shot Billy the Kid (1950).
Otis Garth (uncredited) as Gov. Lew Wallace in The Law vs. Billy the Kid (1954).
Ralph Moody as Gen. Lew Wallace in Strange Lady in Town (1955).
Robert Warwick as Governor Wallace in Law of the Plainsman (TV series), episode "Amnesty" (aired April 7, 1960).
Cameron Mitchell as General Lew Wallace in The Andersonville Trial (TV), which aired May 17, 1970; an adaptation of the 1959 Broadway play by the same name.
Jason Robards as Governor Wallace in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
René Auberjonois as Gov. Lew Wallace in Longarm (TV film, 1988).
Wilford Brimley as Gov. Lew Wallace in Billy the Kid (TNT film, 1989).
Scott Wilson as Governor Lewis Wallace in the film Young Guns II (1990).
Brian Merrick as Gen. Lew Wallace in No Retreat from Destiny: The Battle That Rescued Washington (2006 video).
Published works
Fiction
The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873.)
Commodus: An Historical Play (Crawfordsville, IN: privately published by the author, 1876.) Revised and reissued in the same year.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880.)
The First Christmas from Ben-Hur (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899.)
The Boyhood of Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888.)
The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893.) Two volumes.
The Wooing of Malkatoon (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1898.)
Non-Fiction
Life of Gen. Ben Harrison (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1888.)
Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the U.S. With a Concise Biographical Sketch of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Ex-Minister to France [by Murat Halstad] (Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing Co., 1892.)
Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906.) Two volumes.
See also
List of American Civil War battles
List of American Civil War generals (Union)
José María Jesús Carbajal
Bibliography of the American Civil War
Bibliography of Ulysses S. Grant
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Biographies
Other works
Lighty, Shaun Chandler. "The Fall and Rise of Lew Wallace: Gaining Legitimacy Through Popular Culture." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2005. Available online at ohiolink.edu.
Swansburg, John. "The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War Hero and Author of Ben-Hur", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
Swansburg, John. "Lew Wallace a Life in Artifacts", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
External links
Notable Hoosier Obits: Lew Wallace gives a collection of Wallace obituaries from around the country.
Wallace's obituary 16 February 1905. New York Times'' (pdf format).
Lew Wallace Archive, overview with detailed bibliography of his works
General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, Crawfordsville
Wallace's time-line at General Lew Wallace Museum
Lew Wallace in Jerusalem, 1883
Wallace's 'Minister Resident of the United States of America to Turkey' Calling Card in the Shapell Manuscript Foundation Collection
Lew Wallace collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
1827 births
1905 deaths
1870s in New Mexico Territory
1880s in New Mexico Territory
19th-century American diplomats
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Ambassadors of the United States to the Ottoman Empire
American autobiographers
American historical novelists
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
Burials in Indiana
Christian novelists
Deaths from gastritis
Governors of New Mexico Territory
Indiana lawyers
Indiana Republicans
Indiana state senators
Lincoln County Wars
Military personnel from Indiana
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Novelists from Indiana
People associated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
People from Brookville, Indiana
People from Covington, Indiana
People from Crawfordsville, Indiana
People from Indiana in the Mexican–American War
People of Indiana in the American Civil War
Union Army generals
Writers from Indiana
Writers of historical fiction set in antiquity
Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period
20th-century American male writers | true | [
"Emily Donelson (June 1, 1807 – December 19, 1836) was the niece of Rachel Donelson Jackson, She served as White House hostess and first lady of the United States.\n\nEarly life and marriage\nEmily Tennessee Donelson was born on her father's farm in Donelson, Tennessee. Her father, John Donelson, was the brother of Rachel Donelson Jackson, the wife of future President Andrew Jackson. Unlike many girls of her day, Emily was afforded a formal education. She studied at Nashville Female Academy in Nashville, with her niece Mary Ann Eastin, and was considered an accomplished student.\n\nOn September 16, 1824, seventeen-year-old Emily married Andrew Jackson Donelson. Donelson was Emily's first cousin and a ward of their mutual uncle and aunt, Andrew and Rachel Donelson Jackson. The couple had four children: Andrew Jackson Donelson Jr. (1826-1859), Mary Emily Donelson (1829-1905), John Samuel Donelson (1832-1863), and Rachel Jackson Donelson (1834-1888).\n\nWhite House hostess\nIt has been speculated that even before Rachel Donelson Jackson's death in 1828, Jackson had planned for Emily to accompany them to Washington to assist Rachel in the duties of White House hostess. The Jacksons had maintained a similar arrangement with Emily at The Hermitage, their plantation in Tennessee. The death of Rachel Donelson Jackson caused these plans to be abandoned and Andrew Jackson asked Emily to take over all the responsibilities of the White House hostess, which she did with the aid of her niece Mary Ann Eastin.\n\nEmily arrived in Washington at the age of 21. Her husband, Andrew Jackson Donelson, served as President Jackson's private secretary. The first months of Jackson's administration marked a period of mourning for Rachel Donelson Jackson. The unofficial period of mourning ended when Emily hosted a New Year's party at the White House on January 1, 1830.\n\nPetticoat affair and dismissal\nIn 1829, Washington society began to buzz with rumors surrounding Peggy Eaton, the new wife of Secretary of War John Henry Eaton. The rumors alleged the couple's relationship had begun as an extramarital affair, and that Peggy's first husband had committed suicide when he learned of their relationship. Medical examiners concluded that he had died of pneumonia, but the rumors persisted.\n \nThe growing scandal, soon to be nicknamed the Petticoat affair, began to split Jackson's Cabinet. The wives of several members of Jackson's cabinet, most notably Floride Calhoun, the wife of Vice President John C. Calhoun, refused to receive Peggy into Washington society, and snubbed the couple.\n\nPresident Jackson viewed the treatment of Peggy Eaton as unwarranted and unfair. He also drew comparisons to the treatment of his own late wife. Unbeknownst to the Jacksons, Rachel was still legally married to her first husband when she married Andrew Jackson, as he had begun divorce proceedings against Rachel, but the action was not finalized. This fact was discovered by supporters of John Quincy Adams during the election of 1828. They mercilessly attacked Rachel as an adulterer and a bigamist. Although Rachel had suffered from ill health since 1825, Jackson blamed her death in December 1828 on the stresses of the campaign. Jackson believed that Washington society was treating Peggy unfairly just as it had treated his late wife.\n\nJackson began to pressure his subordinates to accept the couple. Emily had sided with the group that wanted to snub the Eatons. When Jackson confronted Emily, she relented somewhat and included Peggy in White House functions, but Emily extended to her the basic courtesies and nothing more. The situation came to a head when the Eatons declined Jackson's invitation to a White House dinner in early 1830. When Jackson inquired why they had declined his invitation, Peggy cited Emily's cold treatment.\n\nEmily and Andrew Jackson traveled to the Hermitage for a vacation in the summer of 1830. By then the rift between the President and Emily had grown so great that Emily refused to stay at the Hermitage, instead choosing to stay at her mother's house. When Jackson returned to Washington, Andrew Jackson Donelson accompanied him, but Emily did not. Jackson asked Emily to come back and resume her duties. However, she refused to do so as long as Jackson continued to insist on Peggy Eaton's acceptance in the White House.\n\nBeginning in 1834, Sarah Yorke Jackson, President Jackson's daughter-in-law, served as the White House hostess. There are conflicting accounts about Emily Donelson's absence from the White House during the three years that Sarah Yorke Jackson served as hostess. A cohort of scholars believe that the cause was her treatment of Peggy Eaton, while others argue that it was her worsening tuberculosis.\n\nIllness and death\nEmily's health began to deteriorate in 1836. In June of that year she went to recuperate at Poplar Grove (later named Tulip Grove), her plantation adjacent to the Hermitage. Her health continued to decline, and she died that December at the age of 29 of tuberculosis. She reportedly died looking out the window waiting for her husband to come home.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1807 births\n1836 deaths\n19th-century American women\n19th-century deaths from tuberculosis\nFirst Ladies of the United States\nAndrew Jackson family\nPeople from Donelson, Tennessee\nTuberculosis deaths in Tennessee",
"Andrew Jackson Donelson (August 25, 1799 – June 26, 1871) was an American diplomat. He served in various positions as a Democrat and was the Know Nothing nominee for US Vice President in 1856.\n\nAfter the death of his father, Donelson lived with his aunt, Rachel Jackson, and her husband, Andrew Jackson. Donelson attended the US Military Academy and served under his uncle in Florida. He resigned his commission, studied law, and began his own practice in Nashville. He assisted Jackson's presidential campaigns and served as his private secretary after Jackson won the 1828 presidential election. He returned to Tennessee after the end of Jackson's presidency in 1837 and remained active in local politics.\n\nAfter helping James K. Polk triumph at the 1844 Democratic National Convention, Donelson was appointed by US President John Tyler to represent the United States in the Republic of Texas, where Donelson played an important role in the Texas annexation. In 1846, President Polk appointed Donelson as Minister to Prussia. Donelson left that position in 1849 and became the editor of a Democratic newspaper but alienated various factions in the party. In 1856, the Know Nothings chose Donelson as their vice presidential nominee, and he campaigned on a ticket with former Whig President Millard Fillmore. The ticket finished in third place in both the electoral and popular vote, behind the Democratic and the Republican tickets. Donelson also participated in the 1860 Constitutional Union Convention.\n\nEarly life\nOne of the three sons of Samuel and Mary Donelson, Andrew Jackson Donelson was born in Nashville, Tennessee. His younger brother, Daniel Smith Donelson, would become the Confederate brigadier general after whom Fort Donelson was later named. Donelson's father died when Donelson was about five. When his mother remarried, Donelson moved to The Hermitage, the home of his aunt, Rachel Donelson Jackson, and her husband, Donelson's namesake, the future US President Andrew Jackson. Rachel and Andrew Jackson took care of all three Donelson sons, including Andrew.\n\nDonelson attended Cumberland College in Nashville; joined the US Military Academy at West Point, New York; and graduated second in his class in 1820. His two years as an officer in the US Army were spent as aide-de-camp to Andrew Jackson, now a major general who was campaigning against the Seminoles in Florida. After the campaign, Donelson resigned his commission and studied law at Transylvania University, in Lexington, Kentucky. A year later, he started to practice law in Nashville.\n\nDemocratic politics\nDonelson assisted his uncle during the 1824 and 1828 presidential campaigns. In 1829, he became the private secretary to his uncle, who had been inaugurated as President of the United States. Donelson's wife, Emily, served as White House hostess and unofficial First Lady of the United States because Rachel Jackson had died in December 1828. Donelson remained Jackson's private secretary throughout his administration. During Donelson's stay in Washington, Donelson had his new home, Poplar Grove (later renamed Tulip Grove), constructed on the land he had inherited from his father, which was adjacent to the Hermitage.\n\nIn 1836, Tulip Grove was completed. Donelson moved back to Nashville after Jackson's retirement the following year. Donelson helped Jackson sustain the Democratic Party in a variety of ways for the next seven years in services such as writing newspaper editorials defending Democratic principles and helping Democratic candidates campaign for state, local, and national offices.\n\nIn 1844, Donelson was instrumental in helping James K. Polk win the Democratic presidential nomination over Martin Van Buren and other more notable candidates. US President John Tyler appointed Donelson chargé d'affaires of the United States mission to the Republic of Texas, probably in the hope that Jackson's nephew would be able to persuade former Tennessee politician Sam Houston to endorse the US annexation of Texas. Donelson was successful in that endeavor, and Texas joined the United States on December 29, 1845. Donelson was then made minister to Prussia in 1846, a position that he would hold until President Polk's Democratic administration was replaced by the Whig administration of Zachary Taylor in 1849. Donelson's constant complaining about his personal finances and his desire for a higher salary probably had more to do with the change than partisan differences.\n\nBetween September 1848 and November 1849, during the time of the Frankfurt Parliament, he was the US envoy to the short-lived revolutionary government of Germany in Frankfurt.\n\nIn 1851, Donelson became the editor of the Washington Union, a Democratic newspaper. However, as sectionalism became the dominant issue of American politics, Donelson became unpopular with several factions within the Democratic Party, which forced him out in 1852. He then joined the Know Nothing (American) Party.\n\nVice-presidential nomination and retirement\nIn 1856, Donelson was nominated as the running mate of former President Millard Fillmore on the Know Nothing (American Party) ticket. Fillmore and Donelson managed to garner over 20% of the popular vote but won only the eight electoral votes of Maryland.\n\nIn 1858, Donelson sold Tulip Grove and moved to Memphis, Tennessee. He participated primarily in local politics there, although he was a delegate to the Constitutional Union party's national nominating convention, which selected his old Tennessee nemesis, John Bell, as its presidential candidate.\n\nDuring the American Civil War, Donelson was harassed by both sides of the conflict and lost two of his sons in the war. During Reconstruction, he split time between his Memphis home and his plantation in Bolivar County, Mississippi. In his correspondence with his wife, he groused about the need to pay wages to Black workers who had once been enslaved.\n\nHe died at the Peabody Hotel, Memphis, in June 1871 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery.\n\nPersonal life \nDonelson married his first cousin, Emily Tennessee Donelson, in 1824. Emily died of tuberculosis in December 1836. They had four children: Andrew Jackson Donelson Jr. (1826-1859), Mary Emily Donelson (1829-1905), John Samuel Donelson (1832-1863), and Rachel Jackson Donelson (1834-1888).\n\nIn 1841, Donelson married his second cousin, Elizabeth (Martin) Randolph (1815-1871). Elizabeth was the widow of Meriwether Lewis Randolph (1810-1837), a son of Martha Jefferson Randolph, and a grandson of Thomas Jefferson. Donelson and his second wife had eight children: Daniel Smith Donelson (1842-1864), Martin Donelson (1847-1889), William Alexander Donelson (1849-1900), Catherine Donelson (1850-1868), Vinet Donelson (1854-1913), Lewis Randolph Donelson Sr. (1855-1927), Rosa Elizabeth Donelson (1858-1861), and Andrew Jackson \"Budie\" Donelson (1860-1915).\n\nTwo of Donelson's sons died in the Civil War. John Samuel died at the Battle of Chickamauga, and Daniel Smith was murdered by an unknown assailant.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n \n \n Cheathem, Mark R. (2007). Old Hickory's Nephew: The Political and Private Struggles of Andrew Jackson Donelson Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.\n \nSatterfield, Robert Beeler. \"Andrew Jackson Donelson: A Moderate Nationalist Jacksonian.\" Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1961.\n Spence, Richard Douglas (2017). Andrew Jackson Donelson: Jacksonian and Unionist. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.\n\nExternal links\nU.S. Department of State: Chiefs of Mission to Texas\nAndrew Jackson Donelson: Jackson's Confidant and Political Heir\nAndrew Jackson Donelson at Find A Grave\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n|-\n\n1799 births\n1871 deaths\n19th-century American diplomats\nAmbassadors of the United States to Germany\nAmbassadors of the United States to the Republic of Texas\nAndrew Jackson\nAndrew Jackson family\nPoliticians from Nashville, Tennessee\nPeople of Tennessee in the American Civil War\nPersonal secretaries to the President of the United States\nTennessee Constitutional Unionists\nTennessee Democrats\nTennessee Know Nothings\nTennessee lawyers\nTransylvania University alumni\nUnited States Army officers\nUnited States Military Academy alumni\n1856 United States vice-presidential candidates\nWashington, D.C. Democrats"
]
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[
"Lew Wallace",
"Forts Henry and Donelson",
"What did he do at Fort Henry?",
"Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant",
"What else did he do there?",
"Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops.",
"Did he do anything else there?",
"Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862,",
"What did he do at Donelson?",
"Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson."
]
| C_f36a7125118b479ebf442f8831306360_0 | What else did he do there? | 5 | In addition to efforts made at Fort Henry, What else did Lew Wallace do at Fort Donelson? | Lew Wallace | On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant. Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army. CANNOTANSWER | Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. | Lewis Wallace (April 10, 1827February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. He was appointed Indiana's adjutant general and commanded the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Wallace, who attained the rank of major general, participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, and the Battle of Monocacy. He also served on the military commission for the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and presided over the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant of the Andersonville prison camp.
Wallace resigned from the U.S. Army in November 1865 and briefly served as a major general in the Mexican army, before returning to the United States. Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory (1878–1881) and served as U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire (1881–1885). Wallace retired to his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he continued to write until his death in 1905.
Early life and education
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to Esther French Wallace (née Test) and David Wallace. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress. Lew Wallace's maternal grandfather was circuit court judge and Congressman John Test.
In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis.
Lew began his formal education at the age of six at a public school in Covington, but he much preferred the outdoors. Wallace had a talent for drawing and loved to read, but he was a discipline problem at school. In 1836, at the age of nine, Lew joined his older brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended the preparatory school division of Wabash College, but soon transferred to another school more suitable for his age. In 1840, when Wallace was thirteen, his father sent him to a private academy at Centerville, Indiana, where his teacher encouraged Lew's natural affinity for writing. Wallace returned to Indianapolis the following year.
Sixteen-year-old Lew went out to earn his own wages in 1842, after his father refused to pay for more schooling. Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office and lived in an Indianapolis boardinghouse. He also joined the Marion Rifles, a local militia unit, and began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. Wallace said in his autobiography that he had never been a member of any organized religion, but he did believe "in the Christian conception of God".
By 1846, at the start of the Mexican–American War, the nineteen-year-old Wallace was studying law at his father's law office, but left that pursuit to establish a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. He was appointed a second lieutenant, and on June 19, 1846, mustered into military service with the Marion Volunteers (also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry). Wallace rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant while serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, but Wallace personally did not participate in combat. Wallace was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847, and returned to Indiana, where he intended to practice law. After the war, Wallace and William B. Greer operated a Free Soil newspaper, The Free Soil Banner, in Indianapolis.
Marriage and family
In 1848 Wallace met Susan Arnold Elston at the Crawfordsville home of Henry Smith Lane, Wallace's former commander during the Mexican War. Susan was the daughter of Major Isaac Compton Elston, a wealthy Crawfordsville merchant, and Maria Akin Elston, whose family were Quakers from upstate New York. Susan accepted Wallace's marriage proposal in 1849, and they were married in Crawfordsville on May 6, 1852. The Wallaces had one son, Henry Lane Wallace, who was born on February 17, 1853.
Early law and military career
Wallace was admitted to the bar in February 1849, and moved from Indianapolis to Covington, Indiana, where he established a law practice. In 1851 Wallace was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana's 1st congressional district, but he resigned in 1853 and moved his family to Crawfordsville, in Montgomery County, Indiana. Wallace continued to practice law and was elected as a Democrat to a two-year term in the Indiana Senate in 1856. From 1849 to 1853, his office was housed in the Fountain County Clerk's Building.
While living in Crawfordsville, Wallace organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia, later called the Montgomery Guards. During the winter of 1859–60, after reading about elite units of the French Army in Algeria, Wallace adopted the Zouave uniform and their system of training for the group. The Montgomery Guards would later form the core of his first military command, the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the American Civil War.
Civil War service
Wallace, a staunch supporter of the Union, became a member of the Republican party, and began his full-time military career soon after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Indiana's governor, the Republican Oliver P. Morton, asked Wallace to help recruit Indiana volunteers for the Union army. Wallace, who also sought a military command, agreed to become the state's adjutant general on the condition that he would be given command of a regiment of his choice. Indiana's quota of six regimental units was filled within a week, and Wallace took command of the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into the Union army on April 25, 1861. Wallace received his formal commission as a colonel in the Union army the following day.
On June 5, 1861, Wallace went with the 11th Indiana to Cumberland, Maryland, and on June 12, the regiment won a minor battle at Romney, Virginia, (in present-day West Virginia). The rout boosted morale for Union troops and led to the Confederate evacuation of Harpers Ferry on June 18. On September 3, 1861, Wallace was promoted to brigadier general of U.S. Army volunteers and given command of a brigade.
Forts Henry and Donelson
On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant.
Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.
During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.
Shiloh
Wallace's most controversial command came at the battle of Shiloh, where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj. Gen. Grant.
What was to become a long-standing controversy developed around the contents of Wallace's written orders on April 6, the 3rd Division's movements on the first day of battle, and their late arrival on the field. On the second day of battle, Wallace's division joined reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army to play an important role in the Union victory. Prior to the battle, Wallace's division had been left in reserve and was encamped near Crump's Landing. Their orders were to guard the Union's right flank and cover the road to Bethel Station, Tennessee, where railroad lines led to Corinth, Mississippi, to the south. To protect the road from Crump's Landing and Bethel Station, Wallace sent Col. John M. Thayer's 2nd Brigade to Stoney Lonesome, west of Crump's Landing, and the 3rd Brigade, commanded by Col. Charles Whittlesey to Adamsville, west of Crump's Landing. Col. Morgan L. Smith's 1st Brigade remained with Wallace at Crump's Landing, north of Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.
Between 5 and 6 a.m. on April 6, 1862, Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing was surprised and nearly routed by a sudden attack from the Confederate army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Grant, who heard the early morning artillery fire, took a steamboat from his headquarters at Savannah, Tennessee, to Crump's Landing, where he gave Wallace orders to wait in reserve and be ready to move. Grant proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, where he arrived around 8:30 a.m. Grant's new orders to Wallace, which arrived between 11 and 11:30 a.m., were given verbally to an aide, who transcribed them before they were delivered. The written orders were lost during the battle, so their exact wording cannot be confirmed; however, eyewitness accounts agree that Grant ordered Wallace to join the right side of the Union army, presumably in support of Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's 5th Division, who were encamped near Shiloh Church on the morning of April 6.
Knowledge of the area's roads played a critical role in Wallace's journey to the battlefield on April 6. In late March, after heavy rains made transportation difficult between Crump's Landing and Pittsburg Landing, Wallace's men had opened a route to Pittsburg Landing along Shunpike road, which connected to a road near Sherman's camp. Brig. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace's men at Pittsburg Landing opened the River Road (also known as the Hamburg-Savannah Road), a route farther east.
Of the two main routes that Wallace could use to move his men to the front, he chose the Shunpike road, the more direct route to reach Sherman's division near Shiloh Church. The day before the battle, Wallace wrote a letter to a fellow officer, W. H. L. Wallace, stating his intention to do so. Lew Wallace and his staff maintained after the battle that Grant's order did not specify Pittsburg Landing as their destination, and it did not specify which route the 3rd Division was ordered to take. However, Grant claimed in his memoirs that he had ordered Wallace to take the route nearest to the river to reach Pittsburg Landing. Historians are divided, with some stating that Wallace's explanation is the most logical.
After a second messenger from Grant arrived around noon with word to move out, Wallace's division of approximately 5,800 men began their march toward the battlefield. Between 2 and 2:30 p.m., a third messenger from Grant found Wallace along the Shunpike road, where he informed Wallace that Sherman had been forced back from Shiloh Church and was fighting closer to the river, near Pittsburg Landing. The Union army had been pushed back so far that Wallace was to the rear of the advancing Southern troops.
Wallace considered attacking the Confederates, but abandoned the idea. Instead he made a controversial decision to countermarch his troops along the Shunpike road, follow a crossroads to the River Road, and then move south to Pittsburg Landing. Rather than realigning his troops, so that the rear guard would be in the front, Wallace countermarched his column to maintain their original order, keeping his artillery in the lead position to support the Union infantry on the field. After the time-consuming maneuver was completed, Wallace's troops returned to the midpoint on the Shunpike road, crossed east over a path to the River Road, and followed it south to join Grant's army on the field. Progress was slow due to the road conditions and countermarch. Wallace's division arrived at Pittsburg Landing about 6:30 p.m., after having marched about in nearly seven hours over roads that had been left in terrible conditions by recent rainstorms and previous Union marches. They gathered at the battlefield at dusk, about 7 p.m., with the fighting nearly over for the day, and took up a position on the right of the Union line.
The next day, April 7, Wallace's division held the extreme right of the Union line. Two of Wallace's batteries with the aid of a battery from the 1st Illinois Light Artillery were the first to attack at about 5:30 a.m. Sherman's and Wallace's troops helped force the Confederates to fall back, and by 3 p.m. the Confederates were retreating southwest, toward Corinth.
Historian Timothy B. Smith conceded that on the second day Wallace's division sustained far fewer casualties (296) than any of Buell's three divisions. However, Smith argued that the number of casualties does not always show the effectiveness of troops. Wallace had his soldiers lie down when they were under fire, which minimized casualties. He also maneuvered his division so that it turned the Confederate left flank. Wallace advanced his division at 6:30 am, reached the south side of Tilghman Branch about 8:00 am, and occupied a commanding ridge by 9:00 am, all with little opposition. Here he paused to wait for Union troops to appear on his left. Up to this point, Wallace's movements were slow. Once Grant's and Buell's soldiers reached the Confederate main line of defense they were stopped in heavy fighting. Noting that the Confederate left did not reach as far as Owl Creek, Wallace wheeled his division to outflank the enemy line. Finding Wallace's troops to their left and rear, the left-hand Confederate brigade hurriedly fell back. This unhinged the entire line and the Confederate troops soon retreated to a second position around noon. At around 1:00 pm, Wallace worked a few regiments around the Confederate left flank, forcing their withdrawal to a third position. After the Confederates left the battlefield, Wallace's division went the farthest south, but he pulled his troops back before going into camp that evening.
Shiloh controversy
At first, the battle was viewed by the North as a victory; however, on April 23, after civilians began hearing news of the high number of casualties, the Lincoln administration asked the Union army for further explanation. Grant, who was accused of poor leadership at Shiloh, and his superior, Halleck, placed the blame on Wallace by asserting that his failure to follow orders and the delay in moving up the reserves on April 6 had nearly cost them the battle.
Grant had placed much of the blame on General Wallace, to whom he had sent verbal orders to bring his troops forward, accusing Wallace of failure in following those orders, which he believed resulted in the delay in moving up reserves, nearly costing the Union the loss of the battle. After hearing reports that Wallace refused to obey anything but written orders, an angry General Grant asserted that a division general ought to take his troops to wherever the firing may be, even without orders", and first sent Colonel William R. Rowley, ordering him to "tell him to come up at once" and that "if he should require a written order of you, you will give it to him at once". When Rowley caught up to where Wallace's division last was, there was only a supply wagon departing the scene. Riding on further, Rowley found Wallace at the head of his column near Clear Creek, positioned on high ground. Rowley pulled Wallace off to the side and warned him of the danger that lay just ahead, exclaiming, "Don't you know that Sherman has been driven back? Why, the whole army is within half a mile of the river, and it's a question if we are not all going to be driven into it." Wallace, stunned by the news, sent his cavalry ahead to assess the situation, and upon returning, it had confirmed Rowley's claim.
On April 30, 1862, Halleck reorganized his army and removed Wallace and John McClernand from active duty, placing both of them in reserve.
Wallace's reputation and career as a military leader suffered a significant setback from controversy over Shiloh. He spent the remainder of his life trying to resolve the accusations and change public opinion about his role in the battle. On March 14, 1863, Wallace wrote a letter to Halleck that provided an official explanation of his actions. He also wrote Grant several letters and met with him in person more than once in an attempt to vindicate himself. On August 16, 1863, Wallace wrote Sherman for advice on the issue. Sherman urged Wallace to be patient and not to request a formal inquiry. Although Sherman brought Wallace's concerns to Grant's attention, Wallace was not given another active duty command until March 1864.
For many years Grant stood by his original version of the orders to Wallace. As late as 1884, when Grant wrote an article on Shiloh for The Century Magazine that appeared in its February 1885 issue, he maintained that Wallace had taken the wrong road on the first day of battle. After W. H. L. Wallace's widow gave Grant a letter that Lew Wallace had written to her the day before the battle (the one indicating his plans to use the Shunpike road to pass between Shiloh and his position west of Crump's Landing), Grant changed his mind. Grant wrote a letter to the editors at Century, which was published in its September 1885 issue, and added a note to his memoirs to explain that Wallace's letter "modifies very materially what I have said, and what has been said by others, about the conduct of General Lew Wallace at the battle of Shiloh." While reaffirming that he had ordered Wallace to take the River Road, Grant stated that he could not be sure the exact content of Wallace's written orders, since his verbal orders were given to one of his aides and transcribed.
Grant's article in the February 1885 issue of Century became the basis of his chapter on Shiloh in his memoirs, which were published in 1886, and influenced many later accounts of Wallace's actions on the first day of battle. Grant acknowledged in his memoirs: "If the position of our front had not changed, the road which Wallace took would have been somewhat shorter to our right than the River road." Wallace's account of the events appeared in his autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1906. Despite his later fame and fortune as the writer of Ben-Hur, Wallace continued to lament, "Shiloh and its slanders! Will the world ever acquit me of them? If I were guilty I would not feel them as keenly."
Other military assignments
On August 17, 1862, Wallace accepted a regiment command in the Department of the Ohio to help with the successful defense of Cincinnati during Braxton Bragg's incursion into Kentucky. Next, Wallace took command of Camp Chase, a prisoner-of-war camp at Columbus, Ohio, where he remained until October 30, 1862. A month later Wallace was placed in charge of a five-member commission to investigate Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's conduct in response to the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. The commission criticized Buell for his retreat, but it did not find him disloyal to the Union. When the commission's work was completed on May 6, 1863, Wallace returned to Indiana to wait for a new command. In mid-July 1863, while Wallace was home, he helped protect the railroad junction at North Vernon, Indiana, from Confederate general John Hunt Morgan's raid into southern Indiana.
Monocacy
Wallace's most notable service came on Saturday, July 9, 1864 at the Battle of Monocacy part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Although Confederate General Jubal A. Early and an estimated 15,000 troops defeated Wallace's troops at Monocacy Junction, Maryland, forcing them to retreat to Baltimore, the effort cost Early a chance to capture Washington, D.C. Wallace's men were able to delay the Confederate advance toward Washington for an entire day, giving the city time to organize its defenses. Early arrived in Washington at around noon on July 11, two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy, the northernmost Confederate victory of the war, but Union reinforcements had already arrived at Fort Stevens to repel the Confederates and force their retreat to Virginia.
Wallace, who had returned to active duty on March 12, 1864, assumed command of VIII Corps, which was headquartered in Baltimore. On July 9, a combined Union force of approximately 5,800 men under Wallace's command (mostly hundred-days' men from VIII Corps) and a division under James B. Ricketts from VI Corps encountered Confederate troops at Monocacy Junction between 9 and 10 a.m. Although Wallace was uncertain whether Baltimore or Washington, D.C., was the Confederate objective, he knew his troops would have to delay the advance until Union reinforcements arrived. Wallace's men repelled the Confederate attacks for more than six hours before retreating to Baltimore.
After the battle Wallace informed Halleck that his forces fought until 5 p.m., but the Confederate troops, which he estimated at 20,000 men, had overwhelmed them. When Grant learned of the defeat, he named Maj. Gen. E. O. C. Ord as Wallace's replacement in command of VIII Corps. On July 28, after officials learned how Wallace's efforts at Monocacy helped save Washington D.C. from capture, he was reinstated as commander of VIII Corps. In Grant's memoirs, he praised Wallace's delaying tactics at Monocacy:
If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent. ... General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory.
Later military service
On January 22, 1865, Grant ordered Wallace to the Rio Grande in southern Texas to investigate Confederate military operations in the area. Although Wallace was not officially authorized to offer terms, he did discuss proposals for the surrender of the Confederate troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Wallace provided Grant with copies of his proposals and reported on the negotiations, but no agreement was made. Before returning to Baltimore, Wallace also met with Mexican military leaders to discuss the U.S. government's unofficial efforts to aid in expelling Maximilian's French occupation forces from Mexico.
Following President Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, Wallace was appointed to the military commission that investigated the Lincoln assassination conspirators. The commission, which began in May, was dissolved on June 30, 1865, after all eight conspirators were found guilty. In mid-August 1865, Wallace was appointed head of an eight-member military commission that investigated the conduct of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant in charge of the South's Andersonville prison camp. The court-martial which took nearly two months, opened on August 21, 1865. At its conclusion Wirz was found guilty and sentenced to death.
On April 30, 1865, Wallace had accepted an offer to become a major general in the Mexican army, but the agreement, which was contingent upon his resignation from the U.S. Army, was delayed by Wallace's service on the two military commissions. Wallace tendered his resignation from the U.S. Army on November 4, 1865, effective November 30, and returned to Mexico to assist the Mexican army. Although the Juárez government promised Wallace $100,000 for his services, he returned to the United States in 1867 in deep financial debt.
Political and diplomatic career
Wallace returned to Indiana in 1867 to practice law, but the profession did not appeal to him, and he turned to politics. Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress (in 1868 and 1870), and supported Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election. As a reward for his political support, Hayes appointed Wallace as governor of the New Mexico Territory, where he served from August 1878 to March 1881. His next assignment came in March 1881, when Republican president James A. Garfield appointed Wallace to an overseas diplomatic post in Constantinople as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire. Wallace remained in this post until 1885.
Territorial governor of New Mexico
Wallace arrived in Santa Fe on September 29, 1878, to begin his service as governor of the New Mexico Territory during a time of lawless violence and political corruption. Wallace was involved in efforts to resolve New Mexico's Lincoln County War, a contentious and violent disagreement among the county's residents, and tried to end a series of Apache raids on territorial settlers. In 1880, while living at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, Wallace also completed the manuscript for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
On March 1, 1879, after previous efforts to restore order in Lincoln County had failed, Wallace ordered the arrest of those responsible for local killings. One of the outlaws was William Henry McCarty Jr. (alias William H. Bonney), better known as Billy the Kid. On March 17, 1879, Wallace secretly met with Bonney, who had witnessed the murder of a Lincoln County lawyer named Huston Chapman. Wallace wanted him to testify in the trial of Chapman's accused murderers, but Bonney wanted Wallace's protection from his enemies and amnesty for his earlier crimes. During their meeting, the pair arranged for Bonney to become an informant in exchange for a full pardon of his previous crimes. Wallace supposedly assured the Kid that he would be "scot free with a pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds." On March 20 Bonney agreed to provide grand jury testimony against those involved in Chapman's murder. Wallace arranged for a "fake" arrest and Bonney's detention in a local jail to assure his safety. Bonney testified in court on April 14, as agreed. However, the local district attorney revoked Wallace's bargain and refused to set the outlaw free. After spending several weeks in jail, Bonney escaped and returned to his criminal ways, which included killing additional men. He was shot and killed on July 14, 1881, by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who had been appointed by local ranching interests who had tired of his rustling their herds. In the meantime, Wallace had resigned from his duties as territorial governor on March 9, 1881, and was waiting for a new political appointment.
On December 31, 2010, on his last day in office, then-Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico declined a pardon request from Bonney's supporters, citing a "lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity" over Wallace's promise of amnesty. Descendants of Wallace and Garrett were among those who opposed the pardon.
U.S. diplomat in the Ottoman Empire
On May 19, 1881, Wallace was appointed U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). Wallace remained at the diplomatic post until 1885, and became a trusted friend of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. When a crisis developed between the Turkish and British governments over control of Egypt, Wallace served as an intermediary between the sultan and Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador. Although Wallace's efforts were unsuccessful, he earned respect for his efforts and a promotion in the U.S. diplomatic service.
In 1883, an editorial aimed at Wallace appeared in the newspaper Havatzelet (xiii. No. 6) titled "An American and yet a Despot". The editorial caused the Havatzelet to be suspended and its editor Israel Dov Frumkin to be imprisoned for forty-five days by order from Constantinople, directed to the pasha of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The incident that led to the editorial was the dismissal, made at Wallace's request, of Joseph Kriger, the Jewish secretary and interpreter to the pasha of Jerusalem. Wallace complained that Kriger had failed to receive him with the honor due to his rank, and refused to issue any apology for the alleged shortcoming. Havatzelet claimed that the proceeding was instigated by missionaries, whom Wallace strongly supported.
In addition to Wallace's diplomatic duties, which included protection of U.S. citizens and U.S. trade rights in the area, Wallace found time to travel and do historical research. Wallace visited Jerusalem and the surrounding area, the site for his novel, Ben-Hur, and did research in Constantinople, the locale for The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell, which he began writing in 1887.
The election of Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, ended Wallace's political appointment. He resigned from the U.S. diplomatic service on March 4, 1885. The sultan wanted Wallace to continue to work in the Ottoman Empire, and even made a proposal to have him represent Ottoman interests in England or France, but Wallace declined and returned home to Crawfordsville.
Writing career
Wallace confessed in his autobiography that he took up writing as a diversion from studying law. Although he wrote several books, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), which established his fame as an author.
In 1843, Wallace began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. The popular historical novel, with Cortez's conquest of Mexico as its central theme, was based on William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. Wallace's book sold seven thousand copies in its first year. Its sales continued to rise after Wallace's reputation as an author was established with the publication of subsequent novels.
Wallace wrote the manuscript for Ben-Hur, his second and best-known novel, during his spare time at Crawfordsville, and completed it in Santa Fe, while serving as the territorial governor of New Mexico. Ben-Hur, an adventure story of revenge and redemption, is told from the perspective of a Jewish nobleman named Judah Ben-Hur. Because Wallace had not been to the Holy Land before writing the book, he began research to familiarize himself with the area's geography and its history at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1873. Harper and Brothers published the book on November 12, 1880.
Ben-Hur made Wallace a wealthy man and established his reputation as a famous author. Sales were slow at first; only 2,800 copies were sold in the first seven months after its release, but the book became popular among readers around the world. By 1886, it was earning Wallace about $11,000 in annual royalties (equivalent to $290,000 in 2015 dollars), and provided Wallace's family with financial security. By 1889, Harper and Brothers had sold 400,000 copies and the book had been translated into several languages.
In 1900, Ben-Hur became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Amy Lifson, an editor for Humanities, identified it as the most influential Christian book of the 19th century. Others named it one of the best-selling novels of all time. At the time of Ben-Hur'''s one hundredth anniversary in 1980, it had "never been out of print" and had been adapted for the stage and several motion pictures.Boomhower, pp. 11, 138; Morrow, pp. 17–18. One historian, Victor Davis Hanson, has argued that Ben-Hur drew from Wallace's life, particularly his experiences at Shiloh, and the damage it did to his reputation. The book's main character, Judah Ben-Hur, accidentally causes injury to a high-ranking Roman commander, for which he and his family suffer tribulations and calumny.
Wallace wrote subsequent novels and biographies, but Ben-Hur remained his most important work. Wallace considered The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (1893) as his best novel. He also wrote a biography of President Benjamin Harrison, a fellow Hoosier and Civil War general, and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898), a narrative poem. Wallace was writing his autobiography when he died in 1905. His wife Susan completed it with the assistance of Mary Hannah Krout, another author from Crawfordsville. It was published posthumously in 1906.
Later years
Wallace continued to write after his return from the Ottoman Empire. He also patented several of his own inventions, built a seven-story apartment building in Indianapolis, The Blacherne, and drew up plans for a private study at his home in Crawfordsville. Wallace remained active in veterans groups, including writing a speech for the dedication of the battlefield at the Chickamauga.
Wallace's elaborate writing study, which he described as "a pleasure-house for my soul", served as his private retreat. Now called the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, it was built between 1895 and 1898, adjacent to his residence in Crawfordsville, and set in an enclosed park. The study along with three and one-half acres of its grounds were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The property is operated as a museum, open to the public. Wallace had a moat on two sides of the Study and stocked it so he could fish from the back porch and a landing. In winter, he would fire up the coal furnace in the Study basement and fish from the windows. He loved fishing so much he invented and patented a special traveler's fishing pole. After just a few years he had the moat drained as it was negatively affecting the Study foundation and he worried about his grandchildren and neighborhood children falling into the water.
On April 5, 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Wallace, at age seventy-one, offered to raise and lead a force of soldiers, but the war office refused. Undeterred, he went to a local recruiting office and attempted to enlist as a private, but was rejected again, presumably because of his age.
Wallace's service at the battle of Shiloh continued to haunt him in later life. The debate persisted in book publications, magazine articles, pamphlets, speeches, and in private correspondence. Wallace attended a reunion at Shiloh in 1894, his first return since 1862, and retraced his journey to the battlefield with veterans from the 3rd Division. He returned to Shiloh for a final time in 1901 to walk the battlefield with David W. Reed, the Shiloh Battlefield Commission's historian, and others. Wallace died before the manuscript of his memoirs was fully completed, and it is unknown whether he would have revised his final account of the battle.
Death
Wallace died at home in Crawfordsville, on February 15, 1905, of atrophic gastritis. He was seventy-seven years old. Wallace is buried in Crawfordsville Oak Hill Cemetery.
Legacy and honors
Wallace was a man of many interests and a lifelong adventure seeker, who remained a persistent, self-confident man of action. He was also impatient and highly sensitive to personal criticisms, especially those related to his command decisions at Shiloh. Despite Wallace's career in law and politics, combined with years of military and diplomatic service, he achieved his greatest fame as a novelist, most notably for his best-selling biblical tale, Ben-Hur.
Following Wallace's death, the State of Indiana commissioned the sculptor Andrew O'Connor to create a marble statue of Wallace dressed in a military uniform for the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. The statue was unveiled during a ceremony held on January 11, 1910. Wallace is the only novelist honored in the hall. A bronze copy of the statue is installed on the grounds of Wallace's study in Crawfordsville.Morrow, p. 22.
Lew Wallace High School opened in 1926 at 415 West 45th Avenue in Gary, Indiana. On June 3, 2014, the Gary School Board voted 4 to 2 to close Lew Wallace, along with five other schools.
A Knights of Pythias lodge was established in Franklin, Indiana at the Masonic Home to be known as the General Lewis Wallace Lodge #2019.
Popular culture
NASL Indianapolis-based team The Indy Eleven pays homage to the 11th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, which fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. The inspiration for the name came from Donna Schmink, the Collection Manager at the Indiana War Museum, who, when asked by team officials for ideas on a team name connected to Indiana history, suggested "the Eleventh" in honor of the regiment that valiantly fought under the initial direction of Colonel Lew Wallace.
Film and television
Frank Reicher (uncredited) as General Lew Wallace in the film Billy the Kid (1930).
Berton Churchill as Gov. Wallace in The Big Stampede (1932).
Joe King (actor) (uncredited) as Governor Lew Wallace in Land Beyond the Law (1937).
Robert H. Barrat as General Lew Wallace in The Kid from Texas (1950).
Claude Stroud as Gen. Lew Wallace - New Mexico Governor in I Shot Billy the Kid (1950).
Otis Garth (uncredited) as Gov. Lew Wallace in The Law vs. Billy the Kid (1954).
Ralph Moody as Gen. Lew Wallace in Strange Lady in Town (1955).
Robert Warwick as Governor Wallace in Law of the Plainsman (TV series), episode "Amnesty" (aired April 7, 1960).
Cameron Mitchell as General Lew Wallace in The Andersonville Trial (TV), which aired May 17, 1970; an adaptation of the 1959 Broadway play by the same name.
Jason Robards as Governor Wallace in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
René Auberjonois as Gov. Lew Wallace in Longarm (TV film, 1988).
Wilford Brimley as Gov. Lew Wallace in Billy the Kid (TNT film, 1989).
Scott Wilson as Governor Lewis Wallace in the film Young Guns II (1990).
Brian Merrick as Gen. Lew Wallace in No Retreat from Destiny: The Battle That Rescued Washington (2006 video).
Published works
Fiction
The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873.)
Commodus: An Historical Play (Crawfordsville, IN: privately published by the author, 1876.) Revised and reissued in the same year.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880.)
The First Christmas from Ben-Hur (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899.)
The Boyhood of Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888.)
The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893.) Two volumes.
The Wooing of Malkatoon (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1898.)
Non-Fiction
Life of Gen. Ben Harrison (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1888.)
Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the U.S. With a Concise Biographical Sketch of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Ex-Minister to France [by Murat Halstad] (Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing Co., 1892.)
Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906.) Two volumes.
See also
List of American Civil War battles
List of American Civil War generals (Union)
José María Jesús Carbajal
Bibliography of the American Civil War
Bibliography of Ulysses S. Grant
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Biographies
Other works
Lighty, Shaun Chandler. "The Fall and Rise of Lew Wallace: Gaining Legitimacy Through Popular Culture." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2005. Available online at ohiolink.edu.
Swansburg, John. "The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War Hero and Author of Ben-Hur", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
Swansburg, John. "Lew Wallace a Life in Artifacts", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
External links
Notable Hoosier Obits: Lew Wallace gives a collection of Wallace obituaries from around the country.
Wallace's obituary 16 February 1905. New York Times'' (pdf format).
Lew Wallace Archive, overview with detailed bibliography of his works
General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, Crawfordsville
Wallace's time-line at General Lew Wallace Museum
Lew Wallace in Jerusalem, 1883
Wallace's 'Minister Resident of the United States of America to Turkey' Calling Card in the Shapell Manuscript Foundation Collection
Lew Wallace collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
1827 births
1905 deaths
1870s in New Mexico Territory
1880s in New Mexico Territory
19th-century American diplomats
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Ambassadors of the United States to the Ottoman Empire
American autobiographers
American historical novelists
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
Burials in Indiana
Christian novelists
Deaths from gastritis
Governors of New Mexico Territory
Indiana lawyers
Indiana Republicans
Indiana state senators
Lincoln County Wars
Military personnel from Indiana
New Mexico Republicans
Novelists from Indiana
People associated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
People from Brookville, Indiana
People from Covington, Indiana
People from Crawfordsville, Indiana
People from Indiana in the Mexican–American War
People of Indiana in the American Civil War
Union Army generals
Writers from Indiana
Writers of historical fiction set in antiquity
Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period
20th-century American male writers | 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",
"\"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"
]
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[
"Lew Wallace",
"Forts Henry and Donelson",
"What did he do at Fort Henry?",
"Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant",
"What else did he do there?",
"Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops.",
"Did he do anything else there?",
"Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862,",
"What did he do at Donelson?",
"Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.",
"What else did he do there?",
"Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division."
]
| C_f36a7125118b479ebf442f8831306360_0 | Did he do anything else interesting? | 6 | Aside from being at Forts Henry and Donelson, Did Lew Wallace do anything else interesting? | Lew Wallace | On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant. Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army. CANNOTANSWER | age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army. | Lewis Wallace (April 10, 1827February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. He was appointed Indiana's adjutant general and commanded the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Wallace, who attained the rank of major general, participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, and the Battle of Monocacy. He also served on the military commission for the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and presided over the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant of the Andersonville prison camp.
Wallace resigned from the U.S. Army in November 1865 and briefly served as a major general in the Mexican army, before returning to the United States. Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory (1878–1881) and served as U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire (1881–1885). Wallace retired to his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he continued to write until his death in 1905.
Early life and education
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to Esther French Wallace (née Test) and David Wallace. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress. Lew Wallace's maternal grandfather was circuit court judge and Congressman John Test.
In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis.
Lew began his formal education at the age of six at a public school in Covington, but he much preferred the outdoors. Wallace had a talent for drawing and loved to read, but he was a discipline problem at school. In 1836, at the age of nine, Lew joined his older brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended the preparatory school division of Wabash College, but soon transferred to another school more suitable for his age. In 1840, when Wallace was thirteen, his father sent him to a private academy at Centerville, Indiana, where his teacher encouraged Lew's natural affinity for writing. Wallace returned to Indianapolis the following year.
Sixteen-year-old Lew went out to earn his own wages in 1842, after his father refused to pay for more schooling. Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office and lived in an Indianapolis boardinghouse. He also joined the Marion Rifles, a local militia unit, and began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. Wallace said in his autobiography that he had never been a member of any organized religion, but he did believe "in the Christian conception of God".
By 1846, at the start of the Mexican–American War, the nineteen-year-old Wallace was studying law at his father's law office, but left that pursuit to establish a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. He was appointed a second lieutenant, and on June 19, 1846, mustered into military service with the Marion Volunteers (also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry). Wallace rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant while serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, but Wallace personally did not participate in combat. Wallace was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847, and returned to Indiana, where he intended to practice law. After the war, Wallace and William B. Greer operated a Free Soil newspaper, The Free Soil Banner, in Indianapolis.
Marriage and family
In 1848 Wallace met Susan Arnold Elston at the Crawfordsville home of Henry Smith Lane, Wallace's former commander during the Mexican War. Susan was the daughter of Major Isaac Compton Elston, a wealthy Crawfordsville merchant, and Maria Akin Elston, whose family were Quakers from upstate New York. Susan accepted Wallace's marriage proposal in 1849, and they were married in Crawfordsville on May 6, 1852. The Wallaces had one son, Henry Lane Wallace, who was born on February 17, 1853.
Early law and military career
Wallace was admitted to the bar in February 1849, and moved from Indianapolis to Covington, Indiana, where he established a law practice. In 1851 Wallace was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana's 1st congressional district, but he resigned in 1853 and moved his family to Crawfordsville, in Montgomery County, Indiana. Wallace continued to practice law and was elected as a Democrat to a two-year term in the Indiana Senate in 1856. From 1849 to 1853, his office was housed in the Fountain County Clerk's Building.
While living in Crawfordsville, Wallace organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia, later called the Montgomery Guards. During the winter of 1859–60, after reading about elite units of the French Army in Algeria, Wallace adopted the Zouave uniform and their system of training for the group. The Montgomery Guards would later form the core of his first military command, the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the American Civil War.
Civil War service
Wallace, a staunch supporter of the Union, became a member of the Republican party, and began his full-time military career soon after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Indiana's governor, the Republican Oliver P. Morton, asked Wallace to help recruit Indiana volunteers for the Union army. Wallace, who also sought a military command, agreed to become the state's adjutant general on the condition that he would be given command of a regiment of his choice. Indiana's quota of six regimental units was filled within a week, and Wallace took command of the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into the Union army on April 25, 1861. Wallace received his formal commission as a colonel in the Union army the following day.
On June 5, 1861, Wallace went with the 11th Indiana to Cumberland, Maryland, and on June 12, the regiment won a minor battle at Romney, Virginia, (in present-day West Virginia). The rout boosted morale for Union troops and led to the Confederate evacuation of Harpers Ferry on June 18. On September 3, 1861, Wallace was promoted to brigadier general of U.S. Army volunteers and given command of a brigade.
Forts Henry and Donelson
On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant.
Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.
During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.
Shiloh
Wallace's most controversial command came at the battle of Shiloh, where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj. Gen. Grant.
What was to become a long-standing controversy developed around the contents of Wallace's written orders on April 6, the 3rd Division's movements on the first day of battle, and their late arrival on the field. On the second day of battle, Wallace's division joined reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army to play an important role in the Union victory. Prior to the battle, Wallace's division had been left in reserve and was encamped near Crump's Landing. Their orders were to guard the Union's right flank and cover the road to Bethel Station, Tennessee, where railroad lines led to Corinth, Mississippi, to the south. To protect the road from Crump's Landing and Bethel Station, Wallace sent Col. John M. Thayer's 2nd Brigade to Stoney Lonesome, west of Crump's Landing, and the 3rd Brigade, commanded by Col. Charles Whittlesey to Adamsville, west of Crump's Landing. Col. Morgan L. Smith's 1st Brigade remained with Wallace at Crump's Landing, north of Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.
Between 5 and 6 a.m. on April 6, 1862, Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing was surprised and nearly routed by a sudden attack from the Confederate army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Grant, who heard the early morning artillery fire, took a steamboat from his headquarters at Savannah, Tennessee, to Crump's Landing, where he gave Wallace orders to wait in reserve and be ready to move. Grant proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, where he arrived around 8:30 a.m. Grant's new orders to Wallace, which arrived between 11 and 11:30 a.m., were given verbally to an aide, who transcribed them before they were delivered. The written orders were lost during the battle, so their exact wording cannot be confirmed; however, eyewitness accounts agree that Grant ordered Wallace to join the right side of the Union army, presumably in support of Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's 5th Division, who were encamped near Shiloh Church on the morning of April 6.
Knowledge of the area's roads played a critical role in Wallace's journey to the battlefield on April 6. In late March, after heavy rains made transportation difficult between Crump's Landing and Pittsburg Landing, Wallace's men had opened a route to Pittsburg Landing along Shunpike road, which connected to a road near Sherman's camp. Brig. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace's men at Pittsburg Landing opened the River Road (also known as the Hamburg-Savannah Road), a route farther east.
Of the two main routes that Wallace could use to move his men to the front, he chose the Shunpike road, the more direct route to reach Sherman's division near Shiloh Church. The day before the battle, Wallace wrote a letter to a fellow officer, W. H. L. Wallace, stating his intention to do so. Lew Wallace and his staff maintained after the battle that Grant's order did not specify Pittsburg Landing as their destination, and it did not specify which route the 3rd Division was ordered to take. However, Grant claimed in his memoirs that he had ordered Wallace to take the route nearest to the river to reach Pittsburg Landing. Historians are divided, with some stating that Wallace's explanation is the most logical.
After a second messenger from Grant arrived around noon with word to move out, Wallace's division of approximately 5,800 men began their march toward the battlefield. Between 2 and 2:30 p.m., a third messenger from Grant found Wallace along the Shunpike road, where he informed Wallace that Sherman had been forced back from Shiloh Church and was fighting closer to the river, near Pittsburg Landing. The Union army had been pushed back so far that Wallace was to the rear of the advancing Southern troops.
Wallace considered attacking the Confederates, but abandoned the idea. Instead he made a controversial decision to countermarch his troops along the Shunpike road, follow a crossroads to the River Road, and then move south to Pittsburg Landing. Rather than realigning his troops, so that the rear guard would be in the front, Wallace countermarched his column to maintain their original order, keeping his artillery in the lead position to support the Union infantry on the field. After the time-consuming maneuver was completed, Wallace's troops returned to the midpoint on the Shunpike road, crossed east over a path to the River Road, and followed it south to join Grant's army on the field. Progress was slow due to the road conditions and countermarch. Wallace's division arrived at Pittsburg Landing about 6:30 p.m., after having marched about in nearly seven hours over roads that had been left in terrible conditions by recent rainstorms and previous Union marches. They gathered at the battlefield at dusk, about 7 p.m., with the fighting nearly over for the day, and took up a position on the right of the Union line.
The next day, April 7, Wallace's division held the extreme right of the Union line. Two of Wallace's batteries with the aid of a battery from the 1st Illinois Light Artillery were the first to attack at about 5:30 a.m. Sherman's and Wallace's troops helped force the Confederates to fall back, and by 3 p.m. the Confederates were retreating southwest, toward Corinth.
Historian Timothy B. Smith conceded that on the second day Wallace's division sustained far fewer casualties (296) than any of Buell's three divisions. However, Smith argued that the number of casualties does not always show the effectiveness of troops. Wallace had his soldiers lie down when they were under fire, which minimized casualties. He also maneuvered his division so that it turned the Confederate left flank. Wallace advanced his division at 6:30 am, reached the south side of Tilghman Branch about 8:00 am, and occupied a commanding ridge by 9:00 am, all with little opposition. Here he paused to wait for Union troops to appear on his left. Up to this point, Wallace's movements were slow. Once Grant's and Buell's soldiers reached the Confederate main line of defense they were stopped in heavy fighting. Noting that the Confederate left did not reach as far as Owl Creek, Wallace wheeled his division to outflank the enemy line. Finding Wallace's troops to their left and rear, the left-hand Confederate brigade hurriedly fell back. This unhinged the entire line and the Confederate troops soon retreated to a second position around noon. At around 1:00 pm, Wallace worked a few regiments around the Confederate left flank, forcing their withdrawal to a third position. After the Confederates left the battlefield, Wallace's division went the farthest south, but he pulled his troops back before going into camp that evening.
Shiloh controversy
At first, the battle was viewed by the North as a victory; however, on April 23, after civilians began hearing news of the high number of casualties, the Lincoln administration asked the Union army for further explanation. Grant, who was accused of poor leadership at Shiloh, and his superior, Halleck, placed the blame on Wallace by asserting that his failure to follow orders and the delay in moving up the reserves on April 6 had nearly cost them the battle.
Grant had placed much of the blame on General Wallace, to whom he had sent verbal orders to bring his troops forward, accusing Wallace of failure in following those orders, which he believed resulted in the delay in moving up reserves, nearly costing the Union the loss of the battle. After hearing reports that Wallace refused to obey anything but written orders, an angry General Grant asserted that a division general ought to take his troops to wherever the firing may be, even without orders", and first sent Colonel William R. Rowley, ordering him to "tell him to come up at once" and that "if he should require a written order of you, you will give it to him at once". When Rowley caught up to where Wallace's division last was, there was only a supply wagon departing the scene. Riding on further, Rowley found Wallace at the head of his column near Clear Creek, positioned on high ground. Rowley pulled Wallace off to the side and warned him of the danger that lay just ahead, exclaiming, "Don't you know that Sherman has been driven back? Why, the whole army is within half a mile of the river, and it's a question if we are not all going to be driven into it." Wallace, stunned by the news, sent his cavalry ahead to assess the situation, and upon returning, it had confirmed Rowley's claim.
On April 30, 1862, Halleck reorganized his army and removed Wallace and John McClernand from active duty, placing both of them in reserve.
Wallace's reputation and career as a military leader suffered a significant setback from controversy over Shiloh. He spent the remainder of his life trying to resolve the accusations and change public opinion about his role in the battle. On March 14, 1863, Wallace wrote a letter to Halleck that provided an official explanation of his actions. He also wrote Grant several letters and met with him in person more than once in an attempt to vindicate himself. On August 16, 1863, Wallace wrote Sherman for advice on the issue. Sherman urged Wallace to be patient and not to request a formal inquiry. Although Sherman brought Wallace's concerns to Grant's attention, Wallace was not given another active duty command until March 1864.
For many years Grant stood by his original version of the orders to Wallace. As late as 1884, when Grant wrote an article on Shiloh for The Century Magazine that appeared in its February 1885 issue, he maintained that Wallace had taken the wrong road on the first day of battle. After W. H. L. Wallace's widow gave Grant a letter that Lew Wallace had written to her the day before the battle (the one indicating his plans to use the Shunpike road to pass between Shiloh and his position west of Crump's Landing), Grant changed his mind. Grant wrote a letter to the editors at Century, which was published in its September 1885 issue, and added a note to his memoirs to explain that Wallace's letter "modifies very materially what I have said, and what has been said by others, about the conduct of General Lew Wallace at the battle of Shiloh." While reaffirming that he had ordered Wallace to take the River Road, Grant stated that he could not be sure the exact content of Wallace's written orders, since his verbal orders were given to one of his aides and transcribed.
Grant's article in the February 1885 issue of Century became the basis of his chapter on Shiloh in his memoirs, which were published in 1886, and influenced many later accounts of Wallace's actions on the first day of battle. Grant acknowledged in his memoirs: "If the position of our front had not changed, the road which Wallace took would have been somewhat shorter to our right than the River road." Wallace's account of the events appeared in his autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1906. Despite his later fame and fortune as the writer of Ben-Hur, Wallace continued to lament, "Shiloh and its slanders! Will the world ever acquit me of them? If I were guilty I would not feel them as keenly."
Other military assignments
On August 17, 1862, Wallace accepted a regiment command in the Department of the Ohio to help with the successful defense of Cincinnati during Braxton Bragg's incursion into Kentucky. Next, Wallace took command of Camp Chase, a prisoner-of-war camp at Columbus, Ohio, where he remained until October 30, 1862. A month later Wallace was placed in charge of a five-member commission to investigate Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's conduct in response to the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. The commission criticized Buell for his retreat, but it did not find him disloyal to the Union. When the commission's work was completed on May 6, 1863, Wallace returned to Indiana to wait for a new command. In mid-July 1863, while Wallace was home, he helped protect the railroad junction at North Vernon, Indiana, from Confederate general John Hunt Morgan's raid into southern Indiana.
Monocacy
Wallace's most notable service came on Saturday, July 9, 1864 at the Battle of Monocacy part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Although Confederate General Jubal A. Early and an estimated 15,000 troops defeated Wallace's troops at Monocacy Junction, Maryland, forcing them to retreat to Baltimore, the effort cost Early a chance to capture Washington, D.C. Wallace's men were able to delay the Confederate advance toward Washington for an entire day, giving the city time to organize its defenses. Early arrived in Washington at around noon on July 11, two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy, the northernmost Confederate victory of the war, but Union reinforcements had already arrived at Fort Stevens to repel the Confederates and force their retreat to Virginia.
Wallace, who had returned to active duty on March 12, 1864, assumed command of VIII Corps, which was headquartered in Baltimore. On July 9, a combined Union force of approximately 5,800 men under Wallace's command (mostly hundred-days' men from VIII Corps) and a division under James B. Ricketts from VI Corps encountered Confederate troops at Monocacy Junction between 9 and 10 a.m. Although Wallace was uncertain whether Baltimore or Washington, D.C., was the Confederate objective, he knew his troops would have to delay the advance until Union reinforcements arrived. Wallace's men repelled the Confederate attacks for more than six hours before retreating to Baltimore.
After the battle Wallace informed Halleck that his forces fought until 5 p.m., but the Confederate troops, which he estimated at 20,000 men, had overwhelmed them. When Grant learned of the defeat, he named Maj. Gen. E. O. C. Ord as Wallace's replacement in command of VIII Corps. On July 28, after officials learned how Wallace's efforts at Monocacy helped save Washington D.C. from capture, he was reinstated as commander of VIII Corps. In Grant's memoirs, he praised Wallace's delaying tactics at Monocacy:
If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent. ... General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory.
Later military service
On January 22, 1865, Grant ordered Wallace to the Rio Grande in southern Texas to investigate Confederate military operations in the area. Although Wallace was not officially authorized to offer terms, he did discuss proposals for the surrender of the Confederate troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Wallace provided Grant with copies of his proposals and reported on the negotiations, but no agreement was made. Before returning to Baltimore, Wallace also met with Mexican military leaders to discuss the U.S. government's unofficial efforts to aid in expelling Maximilian's French occupation forces from Mexico.
Following President Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, Wallace was appointed to the military commission that investigated the Lincoln assassination conspirators. The commission, which began in May, was dissolved on June 30, 1865, after all eight conspirators were found guilty. In mid-August 1865, Wallace was appointed head of an eight-member military commission that investigated the conduct of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant in charge of the South's Andersonville prison camp. The court-martial which took nearly two months, opened on August 21, 1865. At its conclusion Wirz was found guilty and sentenced to death.
On April 30, 1865, Wallace had accepted an offer to become a major general in the Mexican army, but the agreement, which was contingent upon his resignation from the U.S. Army, was delayed by Wallace's service on the two military commissions. Wallace tendered his resignation from the U.S. Army on November 4, 1865, effective November 30, and returned to Mexico to assist the Mexican army. Although the Juárez government promised Wallace $100,000 for his services, he returned to the United States in 1867 in deep financial debt.
Political and diplomatic career
Wallace returned to Indiana in 1867 to practice law, but the profession did not appeal to him, and he turned to politics. Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress (in 1868 and 1870), and supported Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election. As a reward for his political support, Hayes appointed Wallace as governor of the New Mexico Territory, where he served from August 1878 to March 1881. His next assignment came in March 1881, when Republican president James A. Garfield appointed Wallace to an overseas diplomatic post in Constantinople as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire. Wallace remained in this post until 1885.
Territorial governor of New Mexico
Wallace arrived in Santa Fe on September 29, 1878, to begin his service as governor of the New Mexico Territory during a time of lawless violence and political corruption. Wallace was involved in efforts to resolve New Mexico's Lincoln County War, a contentious and violent disagreement among the county's residents, and tried to end a series of Apache raids on territorial settlers. In 1880, while living at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, Wallace also completed the manuscript for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
On March 1, 1879, after previous efforts to restore order in Lincoln County had failed, Wallace ordered the arrest of those responsible for local killings. One of the outlaws was William Henry McCarty Jr. (alias William H. Bonney), better known as Billy the Kid. On March 17, 1879, Wallace secretly met with Bonney, who had witnessed the murder of a Lincoln County lawyer named Huston Chapman. Wallace wanted him to testify in the trial of Chapman's accused murderers, but Bonney wanted Wallace's protection from his enemies and amnesty for his earlier crimes. During their meeting, the pair arranged for Bonney to become an informant in exchange for a full pardon of his previous crimes. Wallace supposedly assured the Kid that he would be "scot free with a pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds." On March 20 Bonney agreed to provide grand jury testimony against those involved in Chapman's murder. Wallace arranged for a "fake" arrest and Bonney's detention in a local jail to assure his safety. Bonney testified in court on April 14, as agreed. However, the local district attorney revoked Wallace's bargain and refused to set the outlaw free. After spending several weeks in jail, Bonney escaped and returned to his criminal ways, which included killing additional men. He was shot and killed on July 14, 1881, by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who had been appointed by local ranching interests who had tired of his rustling their herds. In the meantime, Wallace had resigned from his duties as territorial governor on March 9, 1881, and was waiting for a new political appointment.
On December 31, 2010, on his last day in office, then-Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico declined a pardon request from Bonney's supporters, citing a "lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity" over Wallace's promise of amnesty. Descendants of Wallace and Garrett were among those who opposed the pardon.
U.S. diplomat in the Ottoman Empire
On May 19, 1881, Wallace was appointed U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). Wallace remained at the diplomatic post until 1885, and became a trusted friend of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. When a crisis developed between the Turkish and British governments over control of Egypt, Wallace served as an intermediary between the sultan and Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador. Although Wallace's efforts were unsuccessful, he earned respect for his efforts and a promotion in the U.S. diplomatic service.
In 1883, an editorial aimed at Wallace appeared in the newspaper Havatzelet (xiii. No. 6) titled "An American and yet a Despot". The editorial caused the Havatzelet to be suspended and its editor Israel Dov Frumkin to be imprisoned for forty-five days by order from Constantinople, directed to the pasha of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The incident that led to the editorial was the dismissal, made at Wallace's request, of Joseph Kriger, the Jewish secretary and interpreter to the pasha of Jerusalem. Wallace complained that Kriger had failed to receive him with the honor due to his rank, and refused to issue any apology for the alleged shortcoming. Havatzelet claimed that the proceeding was instigated by missionaries, whom Wallace strongly supported.
In addition to Wallace's diplomatic duties, which included protection of U.S. citizens and U.S. trade rights in the area, Wallace found time to travel and do historical research. Wallace visited Jerusalem and the surrounding area, the site for his novel, Ben-Hur, and did research in Constantinople, the locale for The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell, which he began writing in 1887.
The election of Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, ended Wallace's political appointment. He resigned from the U.S. diplomatic service on March 4, 1885. The sultan wanted Wallace to continue to work in the Ottoman Empire, and even made a proposal to have him represent Ottoman interests in England or France, but Wallace declined and returned home to Crawfordsville.
Writing career
Wallace confessed in his autobiography that he took up writing as a diversion from studying law. Although he wrote several books, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), which established his fame as an author.
In 1843, Wallace began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. The popular historical novel, with Cortez's conquest of Mexico as its central theme, was based on William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. Wallace's book sold seven thousand copies in its first year. Its sales continued to rise after Wallace's reputation as an author was established with the publication of subsequent novels.
Wallace wrote the manuscript for Ben-Hur, his second and best-known novel, during his spare time at Crawfordsville, and completed it in Santa Fe, while serving as the territorial governor of New Mexico. Ben-Hur, an adventure story of revenge and redemption, is told from the perspective of a Jewish nobleman named Judah Ben-Hur. Because Wallace had not been to the Holy Land before writing the book, he began research to familiarize himself with the area's geography and its history at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1873. Harper and Brothers published the book on November 12, 1880.
Ben-Hur made Wallace a wealthy man and established his reputation as a famous author. Sales were slow at first; only 2,800 copies were sold in the first seven months after its release, but the book became popular among readers around the world. By 1886, it was earning Wallace about $11,000 in annual royalties (equivalent to $290,000 in 2015 dollars), and provided Wallace's family with financial security. By 1889, Harper and Brothers had sold 400,000 copies and the book had been translated into several languages.
In 1900, Ben-Hur became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Amy Lifson, an editor for Humanities, identified it as the most influential Christian book of the 19th century. Others named it one of the best-selling novels of all time. At the time of Ben-Hur'''s one hundredth anniversary in 1980, it had "never been out of print" and had been adapted for the stage and several motion pictures.Boomhower, pp. 11, 138; Morrow, pp. 17–18. One historian, Victor Davis Hanson, has argued that Ben-Hur drew from Wallace's life, particularly his experiences at Shiloh, and the damage it did to his reputation. The book's main character, Judah Ben-Hur, accidentally causes injury to a high-ranking Roman commander, for which he and his family suffer tribulations and calumny.
Wallace wrote subsequent novels and biographies, but Ben-Hur remained his most important work. Wallace considered The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (1893) as his best novel. He also wrote a biography of President Benjamin Harrison, a fellow Hoosier and Civil War general, and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898), a narrative poem. Wallace was writing his autobiography when he died in 1905. His wife Susan completed it with the assistance of Mary Hannah Krout, another author from Crawfordsville. It was published posthumously in 1906.
Later years
Wallace continued to write after his return from the Ottoman Empire. He also patented several of his own inventions, built a seven-story apartment building in Indianapolis, The Blacherne, and drew up plans for a private study at his home in Crawfordsville. Wallace remained active in veterans groups, including writing a speech for the dedication of the battlefield at the Chickamauga.
Wallace's elaborate writing study, which he described as "a pleasure-house for my soul", served as his private retreat. Now called the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, it was built between 1895 and 1898, adjacent to his residence in Crawfordsville, and set in an enclosed park. The study along with three and one-half acres of its grounds were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The property is operated as a museum, open to the public. Wallace had a moat on two sides of the Study and stocked it so he could fish from the back porch and a landing. In winter, he would fire up the coal furnace in the Study basement and fish from the windows. He loved fishing so much he invented and patented a special traveler's fishing pole. After just a few years he had the moat drained as it was negatively affecting the Study foundation and he worried about his grandchildren and neighborhood children falling into the water.
On April 5, 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Wallace, at age seventy-one, offered to raise and lead a force of soldiers, but the war office refused. Undeterred, he went to a local recruiting office and attempted to enlist as a private, but was rejected again, presumably because of his age.
Wallace's service at the battle of Shiloh continued to haunt him in later life. The debate persisted in book publications, magazine articles, pamphlets, speeches, and in private correspondence. Wallace attended a reunion at Shiloh in 1894, his first return since 1862, and retraced his journey to the battlefield with veterans from the 3rd Division. He returned to Shiloh for a final time in 1901 to walk the battlefield with David W. Reed, the Shiloh Battlefield Commission's historian, and others. Wallace died before the manuscript of his memoirs was fully completed, and it is unknown whether he would have revised his final account of the battle.
Death
Wallace died at home in Crawfordsville, on February 15, 1905, of atrophic gastritis. He was seventy-seven years old. Wallace is buried in Crawfordsville Oak Hill Cemetery.
Legacy and honors
Wallace was a man of many interests and a lifelong adventure seeker, who remained a persistent, self-confident man of action. He was also impatient and highly sensitive to personal criticisms, especially those related to his command decisions at Shiloh. Despite Wallace's career in law and politics, combined with years of military and diplomatic service, he achieved his greatest fame as a novelist, most notably for his best-selling biblical tale, Ben-Hur.
Following Wallace's death, the State of Indiana commissioned the sculptor Andrew O'Connor to create a marble statue of Wallace dressed in a military uniform for the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. The statue was unveiled during a ceremony held on January 11, 1910. Wallace is the only novelist honored in the hall. A bronze copy of the statue is installed on the grounds of Wallace's study in Crawfordsville.Morrow, p. 22.
Lew Wallace High School opened in 1926 at 415 West 45th Avenue in Gary, Indiana. On June 3, 2014, the Gary School Board voted 4 to 2 to close Lew Wallace, along with five other schools.
A Knights of Pythias lodge was established in Franklin, Indiana at the Masonic Home to be known as the General Lewis Wallace Lodge #2019.
Popular culture
NASL Indianapolis-based team The Indy Eleven pays homage to the 11th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, which fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. The inspiration for the name came from Donna Schmink, the Collection Manager at the Indiana War Museum, who, when asked by team officials for ideas on a team name connected to Indiana history, suggested "the Eleventh" in honor of the regiment that valiantly fought under the initial direction of Colonel Lew Wallace.
Film and television
Frank Reicher (uncredited) as General Lew Wallace in the film Billy the Kid (1930).
Berton Churchill as Gov. Wallace in The Big Stampede (1932).
Joe King (actor) (uncredited) as Governor Lew Wallace in Land Beyond the Law (1937).
Robert H. Barrat as General Lew Wallace in The Kid from Texas (1950).
Claude Stroud as Gen. Lew Wallace - New Mexico Governor in I Shot Billy the Kid (1950).
Otis Garth (uncredited) as Gov. Lew Wallace in The Law vs. Billy the Kid (1954).
Ralph Moody as Gen. Lew Wallace in Strange Lady in Town (1955).
Robert Warwick as Governor Wallace in Law of the Plainsman (TV series), episode "Amnesty" (aired April 7, 1960).
Cameron Mitchell as General Lew Wallace in The Andersonville Trial (TV), which aired May 17, 1970; an adaptation of the 1959 Broadway play by the same name.
Jason Robards as Governor Wallace in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
René Auberjonois as Gov. Lew Wallace in Longarm (TV film, 1988).
Wilford Brimley as Gov. Lew Wallace in Billy the Kid (TNT film, 1989).
Scott Wilson as Governor Lewis Wallace in the film Young Guns II (1990).
Brian Merrick as Gen. Lew Wallace in No Retreat from Destiny: The Battle That Rescued Washington (2006 video).
Published works
Fiction
The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873.)
Commodus: An Historical Play (Crawfordsville, IN: privately published by the author, 1876.) Revised and reissued in the same year.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880.)
The First Christmas from Ben-Hur (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899.)
The Boyhood of Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888.)
The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893.) Two volumes.
The Wooing of Malkatoon (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1898.)
Non-Fiction
Life of Gen. Ben Harrison (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1888.)
Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the U.S. With a Concise Biographical Sketch of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Ex-Minister to France [by Murat Halstad] (Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing Co., 1892.)
Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906.) Two volumes.
See also
List of American Civil War battles
List of American Civil War generals (Union)
José María Jesús Carbajal
Bibliography of the American Civil War
Bibliography of Ulysses S. Grant
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Biographies
Other works
Lighty, Shaun Chandler. "The Fall and Rise of Lew Wallace: Gaining Legitimacy Through Popular Culture." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2005. Available online at ohiolink.edu.
Swansburg, John. "The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War Hero and Author of Ben-Hur", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
Swansburg, John. "Lew Wallace a Life in Artifacts", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
External links
Notable Hoosier Obits: Lew Wallace gives a collection of Wallace obituaries from around the country.
Wallace's obituary 16 February 1905. New York Times'' (pdf format).
Lew Wallace Archive, overview with detailed bibliography of his works
General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, Crawfordsville
Wallace's time-line at General Lew Wallace Museum
Lew Wallace in Jerusalem, 1883
Wallace's 'Minister Resident of the United States of America to Turkey' Calling Card in the Shapell Manuscript Foundation Collection
Lew Wallace collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
1827 births
1905 deaths
1870s in New Mexico Territory
1880s in New Mexico Territory
19th-century American diplomats
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Ambassadors of the United States to the Ottoman Empire
American autobiographers
American historical novelists
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
Burials in Indiana
Christian novelists
Deaths from gastritis
Governors of New Mexico Territory
Indiana lawyers
Indiana Republicans
Indiana state senators
Lincoln County Wars
Military personnel from Indiana
New Mexico Republicans
Novelists from Indiana
People associated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
People from Brookville, Indiana
People from Covington, Indiana
People from Crawfordsville, Indiana
People from Indiana in the Mexican–American War
People of Indiana in the American Civil War
Union Army generals
Writers from Indiana
Writers of historical fiction set in antiquity
Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period
20th-century American male writers | true | [
"\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" is a song written by Billy Livsey and Don Schlitz, and recorded by American country music artist George Strait. It was released in February 2001 as the third and final single from his self-titled album. The song reached number 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in July 2001. It also peaked at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.\n\nContent\nThe song is about man who is giving his woman the option to leave him. He gives her many different options for all the things she can do. At the end he gives her the option to stay with him if she really can’t find anything else to do. He says he will be alright if she leaves, but really it seems he wants her to stay.\n\nChart performance\n\"If You Can Do Anything Else\" debuted at number 60 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of March 3, 2001.\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 singles\n2000 songs\nGeorge Strait songs\nSongs written by Billy Livsey\nSongs written by Don Schlitz\nSong recordings produced by Tony Brown (record producer)\nMCA Nashville Records singles",
"\"Do Anything\" is the debut single of American pop group Natural Selection. The song was written by group members Elliot Erickson and Frederick Thomas, who also produced the track, and the rap was written and performed by Ingrid Chavez. American actress and singer Niki Haris provides the song's spoken lyrics. A new jack swing and funk-pop song, it is the opening track on Natural Selection's self-titled, only studio album. Released as a single in 1991, \"Do Anything\" became a hit in the United States, where it reached the number-two position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Worldwide, it became a top-10 hit in Australia and New Zealand while peaking at number 24 in Canada.\n\nCritical reception\nRolling Stone magazine featured the song on their list of \"18 Awesome Prince Rip-Offs\", comparing Frederick Thomas's vocals on the song to those of fellow American musician Prince. Music & Media magazine also compared the song to Prince's work, calling its chorus \"snappy\" and its melody \"asserted\", while Tom Breihan of Stereogum referred to the track as \"K-Mart-brand Prince\". Jeff Giles of pop culture website Popdose wrote that the song is \"deeply, deeply silly,\" commenting on its \"horrible\" lyrics, \"dated\" production, and \"painfully bad\" rap, but he noted that the song is difficult to hate overall. He went on to say that if Natural Selection had released this song and nothing else, its popularity would have persisted more, and he also predicted that if American rock band Fall Out Boy covered the song, it would become a summer hit. AllMusic reviewer Alex Henderson called the track \"likeable\" and appreciated that it was original compared to other urban contemporary songs released during the early 1990s.\n\nChart performance\n\"Do Anything\" debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 58, becoming the Hot Shot Debut of August 10, 1991. Ten issues later, the song reached its peak of number two, behind only \"Emotions by Mariah Carey. It spent its final week on the Hot 100 at number 27 on December 28, 1991, spending a total of 21 weeks on the listing. It was the United States' 32nd-most-succeful single of 1991. In Canada, after debuting at number 92 on October 5, 1991, the song rose up the chart until reaching number 24 on November 23. \"Do Anything\" was not as successful in Europe, peaking at number 48 on the Dutch Single Top 100 and number 69 on the UK Singles Chart, but in Sweden, it debuted and peaked at number 21 in November 1991. The single became a top-10 hit in both Australia and New Zealand, reaching number 10 in the former nation and number nine in the latter.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUS 12-inch vinyl\nA1. \"Do Anything\" (Justin Strauss Remix) – 6:00\nA2. \"Do Anything\" (Just Dubbin Dub) – 4:30\nB1. \"Do Anything\" (Just Right Mix) – 4:35\nB2. \"Do Anything\" (Just Right Dub) – 4:50\nB3. \"Do Anything\" (radio edit) – 3:55\n\nUS cassette single and European 7-inch single\n \"Do Anything\" (single mix) – 3:55\n \"Do Anything\" (raw mix) – 4:11\n\nUK and European 12-inch vinyl\nA1. \"Do Anything\" (Justin Strauss Remix) – 6:00\nA2. \"Do Anything\" (Just Dubbin Dub) – 4:30\nB1. \"Do Anything\" (Just Right Mix) – 4:35\nB2. \"Do Anything\" (Just Right Dub) – 4:50\n\nPersonnel\nCredits are taken from the US cassette single liner notes and cassette notes.\n Elliot Erickson – keyboards, drum programming, writer, producer, mixer, engineer\n Frederick Thomas – lead and background vocals, writer, producer\n Niki Haris – spoken vocals\n Ingrid Chavez – rap writer\n Brian Malouf – additional production and mixing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n1991 debut singles\nAmerican pop songs\nEast West Records singles\nFunk songs\nNew jack swing songs"
]
|
[
"Lew Wallace",
"Forts Henry and Donelson",
"What did he do at Fort Henry?",
"Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant",
"What else did he do there?",
"Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops.",
"Did he do anything else there?",
"Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862,",
"What did he do at Donelson?",
"Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.",
"What else did he do there?",
"Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division.",
"Did he do anything else interesting?",
"age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army."
]
| C_f36a7125118b479ebf442f8831306360_0 | Did he ever get married? | 7 | Did Lew Wallace ever get married? | Lew Wallace | On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant. Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Lewis Wallace (April 10, 1827February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. He was appointed Indiana's adjutant general and commanded the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Wallace, who attained the rank of major general, participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, and the Battle of Monocacy. He also served on the military commission for the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and presided over the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant of the Andersonville prison camp.
Wallace resigned from the U.S. Army in November 1865 and briefly served as a major general in the Mexican army, before returning to the United States. Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory (1878–1881) and served as U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire (1881–1885). Wallace retired to his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he continued to write until his death in 1905.
Early life and education
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to Esther French Wallace (née Test) and David Wallace. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress. Lew Wallace's maternal grandfather was circuit court judge and Congressman John Test.
In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis.
Lew began his formal education at the age of six at a public school in Covington, but he much preferred the outdoors. Wallace had a talent for drawing and loved to read, but he was a discipline problem at school. In 1836, at the age of nine, Lew joined his older brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended the preparatory school division of Wabash College, but soon transferred to another school more suitable for his age. In 1840, when Wallace was thirteen, his father sent him to a private academy at Centerville, Indiana, where his teacher encouraged Lew's natural affinity for writing. Wallace returned to Indianapolis the following year.
Sixteen-year-old Lew went out to earn his own wages in 1842, after his father refused to pay for more schooling. Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office and lived in an Indianapolis boardinghouse. He also joined the Marion Rifles, a local militia unit, and began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. Wallace said in his autobiography that he had never been a member of any organized religion, but he did believe "in the Christian conception of God".
By 1846, at the start of the Mexican–American War, the nineteen-year-old Wallace was studying law at his father's law office, but left that pursuit to establish a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. He was appointed a second lieutenant, and on June 19, 1846, mustered into military service with the Marion Volunteers (also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry). Wallace rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant while serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, but Wallace personally did not participate in combat. Wallace was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847, and returned to Indiana, where he intended to practice law. After the war, Wallace and William B. Greer operated a Free Soil newspaper, The Free Soil Banner, in Indianapolis.
Marriage and family
In 1848 Wallace met Susan Arnold Elston at the Crawfordsville home of Henry Smith Lane, Wallace's former commander during the Mexican War. Susan was the daughter of Major Isaac Compton Elston, a wealthy Crawfordsville merchant, and Maria Akin Elston, whose family were Quakers from upstate New York. Susan accepted Wallace's marriage proposal in 1849, and they were married in Crawfordsville on May 6, 1852. The Wallaces had one son, Henry Lane Wallace, who was born on February 17, 1853.
Early law and military career
Wallace was admitted to the bar in February 1849, and moved from Indianapolis to Covington, Indiana, where he established a law practice. In 1851 Wallace was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana's 1st congressional district, but he resigned in 1853 and moved his family to Crawfordsville, in Montgomery County, Indiana. Wallace continued to practice law and was elected as a Democrat to a two-year term in the Indiana Senate in 1856. From 1849 to 1853, his office was housed in the Fountain County Clerk's Building.
While living in Crawfordsville, Wallace organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia, later called the Montgomery Guards. During the winter of 1859–60, after reading about elite units of the French Army in Algeria, Wallace adopted the Zouave uniform and their system of training for the group. The Montgomery Guards would later form the core of his first military command, the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the American Civil War.
Civil War service
Wallace, a staunch supporter of the Union, became a member of the Republican party, and began his full-time military career soon after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Indiana's governor, the Republican Oliver P. Morton, asked Wallace to help recruit Indiana volunteers for the Union army. Wallace, who also sought a military command, agreed to become the state's adjutant general on the condition that he would be given command of a regiment of his choice. Indiana's quota of six regimental units was filled within a week, and Wallace took command of the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into the Union army on April 25, 1861. Wallace received his formal commission as a colonel in the Union army the following day.
On June 5, 1861, Wallace went with the 11th Indiana to Cumberland, Maryland, and on June 12, the regiment won a minor battle at Romney, Virginia, (in present-day West Virginia). The rout boosted morale for Union troops and led to the Confederate evacuation of Harpers Ferry on June 18. On September 3, 1861, Wallace was promoted to brigadier general of U.S. Army volunteers and given command of a brigade.
Forts Henry and Donelson
On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant.
Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.
During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.
Shiloh
Wallace's most controversial command came at the battle of Shiloh, where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj. Gen. Grant.
What was to become a long-standing controversy developed around the contents of Wallace's written orders on April 6, the 3rd Division's movements on the first day of battle, and their late arrival on the field. On the second day of battle, Wallace's division joined reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army to play an important role in the Union victory. Prior to the battle, Wallace's division had been left in reserve and was encamped near Crump's Landing. Their orders were to guard the Union's right flank and cover the road to Bethel Station, Tennessee, where railroad lines led to Corinth, Mississippi, to the south. To protect the road from Crump's Landing and Bethel Station, Wallace sent Col. John M. Thayer's 2nd Brigade to Stoney Lonesome, west of Crump's Landing, and the 3rd Brigade, commanded by Col. Charles Whittlesey to Adamsville, west of Crump's Landing. Col. Morgan L. Smith's 1st Brigade remained with Wallace at Crump's Landing, north of Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.
Between 5 and 6 a.m. on April 6, 1862, Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing was surprised and nearly routed by a sudden attack from the Confederate army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Grant, who heard the early morning artillery fire, took a steamboat from his headquarters at Savannah, Tennessee, to Crump's Landing, where he gave Wallace orders to wait in reserve and be ready to move. Grant proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, where he arrived around 8:30 a.m. Grant's new orders to Wallace, which arrived between 11 and 11:30 a.m., were given verbally to an aide, who transcribed them before they were delivered. The written orders were lost during the battle, so their exact wording cannot be confirmed; however, eyewitness accounts agree that Grant ordered Wallace to join the right side of the Union army, presumably in support of Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's 5th Division, who were encamped near Shiloh Church on the morning of April 6.
Knowledge of the area's roads played a critical role in Wallace's journey to the battlefield on April 6. In late March, after heavy rains made transportation difficult between Crump's Landing and Pittsburg Landing, Wallace's men had opened a route to Pittsburg Landing along Shunpike road, which connected to a road near Sherman's camp. Brig. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace's men at Pittsburg Landing opened the River Road (also known as the Hamburg-Savannah Road), a route farther east.
Of the two main routes that Wallace could use to move his men to the front, he chose the Shunpike road, the more direct route to reach Sherman's division near Shiloh Church. The day before the battle, Wallace wrote a letter to a fellow officer, W. H. L. Wallace, stating his intention to do so. Lew Wallace and his staff maintained after the battle that Grant's order did not specify Pittsburg Landing as their destination, and it did not specify which route the 3rd Division was ordered to take. However, Grant claimed in his memoirs that he had ordered Wallace to take the route nearest to the river to reach Pittsburg Landing. Historians are divided, with some stating that Wallace's explanation is the most logical.
After a second messenger from Grant arrived around noon with word to move out, Wallace's division of approximately 5,800 men began their march toward the battlefield. Between 2 and 2:30 p.m., a third messenger from Grant found Wallace along the Shunpike road, where he informed Wallace that Sherman had been forced back from Shiloh Church and was fighting closer to the river, near Pittsburg Landing. The Union army had been pushed back so far that Wallace was to the rear of the advancing Southern troops.
Wallace considered attacking the Confederates, but abandoned the idea. Instead he made a controversial decision to countermarch his troops along the Shunpike road, follow a crossroads to the River Road, and then move south to Pittsburg Landing. Rather than realigning his troops, so that the rear guard would be in the front, Wallace countermarched his column to maintain their original order, keeping his artillery in the lead position to support the Union infantry on the field. After the time-consuming maneuver was completed, Wallace's troops returned to the midpoint on the Shunpike road, crossed east over a path to the River Road, and followed it south to join Grant's army on the field. Progress was slow due to the road conditions and countermarch. Wallace's division arrived at Pittsburg Landing about 6:30 p.m., after having marched about in nearly seven hours over roads that had been left in terrible conditions by recent rainstorms and previous Union marches. They gathered at the battlefield at dusk, about 7 p.m., with the fighting nearly over for the day, and took up a position on the right of the Union line.
The next day, April 7, Wallace's division held the extreme right of the Union line. Two of Wallace's batteries with the aid of a battery from the 1st Illinois Light Artillery were the first to attack at about 5:30 a.m. Sherman's and Wallace's troops helped force the Confederates to fall back, and by 3 p.m. the Confederates were retreating southwest, toward Corinth.
Historian Timothy B. Smith conceded that on the second day Wallace's division sustained far fewer casualties (296) than any of Buell's three divisions. However, Smith argued that the number of casualties does not always show the effectiveness of troops. Wallace had his soldiers lie down when they were under fire, which minimized casualties. He also maneuvered his division so that it turned the Confederate left flank. Wallace advanced his division at 6:30 am, reached the south side of Tilghman Branch about 8:00 am, and occupied a commanding ridge by 9:00 am, all with little opposition. Here he paused to wait for Union troops to appear on his left. Up to this point, Wallace's movements were slow. Once Grant's and Buell's soldiers reached the Confederate main line of defense they were stopped in heavy fighting. Noting that the Confederate left did not reach as far as Owl Creek, Wallace wheeled his division to outflank the enemy line. Finding Wallace's troops to their left and rear, the left-hand Confederate brigade hurriedly fell back. This unhinged the entire line and the Confederate troops soon retreated to a second position around noon. At around 1:00 pm, Wallace worked a few regiments around the Confederate left flank, forcing their withdrawal to a third position. After the Confederates left the battlefield, Wallace's division went the farthest south, but he pulled his troops back before going into camp that evening.
Shiloh controversy
At first, the battle was viewed by the North as a victory; however, on April 23, after civilians began hearing news of the high number of casualties, the Lincoln administration asked the Union army for further explanation. Grant, who was accused of poor leadership at Shiloh, and his superior, Halleck, placed the blame on Wallace by asserting that his failure to follow orders and the delay in moving up the reserves on April 6 had nearly cost them the battle.
Grant had placed much of the blame on General Wallace, to whom he had sent verbal orders to bring his troops forward, accusing Wallace of failure in following those orders, which he believed resulted in the delay in moving up reserves, nearly costing the Union the loss of the battle. After hearing reports that Wallace refused to obey anything but written orders, an angry General Grant asserted that a division general ought to take his troops to wherever the firing may be, even without orders", and first sent Colonel William R. Rowley, ordering him to "tell him to come up at once" and that "if he should require a written order of you, you will give it to him at once". When Rowley caught up to where Wallace's division last was, there was only a supply wagon departing the scene. Riding on further, Rowley found Wallace at the head of his column near Clear Creek, positioned on high ground. Rowley pulled Wallace off to the side and warned him of the danger that lay just ahead, exclaiming, "Don't you know that Sherman has been driven back? Why, the whole army is within half a mile of the river, and it's a question if we are not all going to be driven into it." Wallace, stunned by the news, sent his cavalry ahead to assess the situation, and upon returning, it had confirmed Rowley's claim.
On April 30, 1862, Halleck reorganized his army and removed Wallace and John McClernand from active duty, placing both of them in reserve.
Wallace's reputation and career as a military leader suffered a significant setback from controversy over Shiloh. He spent the remainder of his life trying to resolve the accusations and change public opinion about his role in the battle. On March 14, 1863, Wallace wrote a letter to Halleck that provided an official explanation of his actions. He also wrote Grant several letters and met with him in person more than once in an attempt to vindicate himself. On August 16, 1863, Wallace wrote Sherman for advice on the issue. Sherman urged Wallace to be patient and not to request a formal inquiry. Although Sherman brought Wallace's concerns to Grant's attention, Wallace was not given another active duty command until March 1864.
For many years Grant stood by his original version of the orders to Wallace. As late as 1884, when Grant wrote an article on Shiloh for The Century Magazine that appeared in its February 1885 issue, he maintained that Wallace had taken the wrong road on the first day of battle. After W. H. L. Wallace's widow gave Grant a letter that Lew Wallace had written to her the day before the battle (the one indicating his plans to use the Shunpike road to pass between Shiloh and his position west of Crump's Landing), Grant changed his mind. Grant wrote a letter to the editors at Century, which was published in its September 1885 issue, and added a note to his memoirs to explain that Wallace's letter "modifies very materially what I have said, and what has been said by others, about the conduct of General Lew Wallace at the battle of Shiloh." While reaffirming that he had ordered Wallace to take the River Road, Grant stated that he could not be sure the exact content of Wallace's written orders, since his verbal orders were given to one of his aides and transcribed.
Grant's article in the February 1885 issue of Century became the basis of his chapter on Shiloh in his memoirs, which were published in 1886, and influenced many later accounts of Wallace's actions on the first day of battle. Grant acknowledged in his memoirs: "If the position of our front had not changed, the road which Wallace took would have been somewhat shorter to our right than the River road." Wallace's account of the events appeared in his autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1906. Despite his later fame and fortune as the writer of Ben-Hur, Wallace continued to lament, "Shiloh and its slanders! Will the world ever acquit me of them? If I were guilty I would not feel them as keenly."
Other military assignments
On August 17, 1862, Wallace accepted a regiment command in the Department of the Ohio to help with the successful defense of Cincinnati during Braxton Bragg's incursion into Kentucky. Next, Wallace took command of Camp Chase, a prisoner-of-war camp at Columbus, Ohio, where he remained until October 30, 1862. A month later Wallace was placed in charge of a five-member commission to investigate Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's conduct in response to the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. The commission criticized Buell for his retreat, but it did not find him disloyal to the Union. When the commission's work was completed on May 6, 1863, Wallace returned to Indiana to wait for a new command. In mid-July 1863, while Wallace was home, he helped protect the railroad junction at North Vernon, Indiana, from Confederate general John Hunt Morgan's raid into southern Indiana.
Monocacy
Wallace's most notable service came on Saturday, July 9, 1864 at the Battle of Monocacy part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Although Confederate General Jubal A. Early and an estimated 15,000 troops defeated Wallace's troops at Monocacy Junction, Maryland, forcing them to retreat to Baltimore, the effort cost Early a chance to capture Washington, D.C. Wallace's men were able to delay the Confederate advance toward Washington for an entire day, giving the city time to organize its defenses. Early arrived in Washington at around noon on July 11, two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy, the northernmost Confederate victory of the war, but Union reinforcements had already arrived at Fort Stevens to repel the Confederates and force their retreat to Virginia.
Wallace, who had returned to active duty on March 12, 1864, assumed command of VIII Corps, which was headquartered in Baltimore. On July 9, a combined Union force of approximately 5,800 men under Wallace's command (mostly hundred-days' men from VIII Corps) and a division under James B. Ricketts from VI Corps encountered Confederate troops at Monocacy Junction between 9 and 10 a.m. Although Wallace was uncertain whether Baltimore or Washington, D.C., was the Confederate objective, he knew his troops would have to delay the advance until Union reinforcements arrived. Wallace's men repelled the Confederate attacks for more than six hours before retreating to Baltimore.
After the battle Wallace informed Halleck that his forces fought until 5 p.m., but the Confederate troops, which he estimated at 20,000 men, had overwhelmed them. When Grant learned of the defeat, he named Maj. Gen. E. O. C. Ord as Wallace's replacement in command of VIII Corps. On July 28, after officials learned how Wallace's efforts at Monocacy helped save Washington D.C. from capture, he was reinstated as commander of VIII Corps. In Grant's memoirs, he praised Wallace's delaying tactics at Monocacy:
If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent. ... General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory.
Later military service
On January 22, 1865, Grant ordered Wallace to the Rio Grande in southern Texas to investigate Confederate military operations in the area. Although Wallace was not officially authorized to offer terms, he did discuss proposals for the surrender of the Confederate troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Wallace provided Grant with copies of his proposals and reported on the negotiations, but no agreement was made. Before returning to Baltimore, Wallace also met with Mexican military leaders to discuss the U.S. government's unofficial efforts to aid in expelling Maximilian's French occupation forces from Mexico.
Following President Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, Wallace was appointed to the military commission that investigated the Lincoln assassination conspirators. The commission, which began in May, was dissolved on June 30, 1865, after all eight conspirators were found guilty. In mid-August 1865, Wallace was appointed head of an eight-member military commission that investigated the conduct of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant in charge of the South's Andersonville prison camp. The court-martial which took nearly two months, opened on August 21, 1865. At its conclusion Wirz was found guilty and sentenced to death.
On April 30, 1865, Wallace had accepted an offer to become a major general in the Mexican army, but the agreement, which was contingent upon his resignation from the U.S. Army, was delayed by Wallace's service on the two military commissions. Wallace tendered his resignation from the U.S. Army on November 4, 1865, effective November 30, and returned to Mexico to assist the Mexican army. Although the Juárez government promised Wallace $100,000 for his services, he returned to the United States in 1867 in deep financial debt.
Political and diplomatic career
Wallace returned to Indiana in 1867 to practice law, but the profession did not appeal to him, and he turned to politics. Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress (in 1868 and 1870), and supported Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election. As a reward for his political support, Hayes appointed Wallace as governor of the New Mexico Territory, where he served from August 1878 to March 1881. His next assignment came in March 1881, when Republican president James A. Garfield appointed Wallace to an overseas diplomatic post in Constantinople as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire. Wallace remained in this post until 1885.
Territorial governor of New Mexico
Wallace arrived in Santa Fe on September 29, 1878, to begin his service as governor of the New Mexico Territory during a time of lawless violence and political corruption. Wallace was involved in efforts to resolve New Mexico's Lincoln County War, a contentious and violent disagreement among the county's residents, and tried to end a series of Apache raids on territorial settlers. In 1880, while living at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, Wallace also completed the manuscript for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
On March 1, 1879, after previous efforts to restore order in Lincoln County had failed, Wallace ordered the arrest of those responsible for local killings. One of the outlaws was William Henry McCarty Jr. (alias William H. Bonney), better known as Billy the Kid. On March 17, 1879, Wallace secretly met with Bonney, who had witnessed the murder of a Lincoln County lawyer named Huston Chapman. Wallace wanted him to testify in the trial of Chapman's accused murderers, but Bonney wanted Wallace's protection from his enemies and amnesty for his earlier crimes. During their meeting, the pair arranged for Bonney to become an informant in exchange for a full pardon of his previous crimes. Wallace supposedly assured the Kid that he would be "scot free with a pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds." On March 20 Bonney agreed to provide grand jury testimony against those involved in Chapman's murder. Wallace arranged for a "fake" arrest and Bonney's detention in a local jail to assure his safety. Bonney testified in court on April 14, as agreed. However, the local district attorney revoked Wallace's bargain and refused to set the outlaw free. After spending several weeks in jail, Bonney escaped and returned to his criminal ways, which included killing additional men. He was shot and killed on July 14, 1881, by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who had been appointed by local ranching interests who had tired of his rustling their herds. In the meantime, Wallace had resigned from his duties as territorial governor on March 9, 1881, and was waiting for a new political appointment.
On December 31, 2010, on his last day in office, then-Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico declined a pardon request from Bonney's supporters, citing a "lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity" over Wallace's promise of amnesty. Descendants of Wallace and Garrett were among those who opposed the pardon.
U.S. diplomat in the Ottoman Empire
On May 19, 1881, Wallace was appointed U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). Wallace remained at the diplomatic post until 1885, and became a trusted friend of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. When a crisis developed between the Turkish and British governments over control of Egypt, Wallace served as an intermediary between the sultan and Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador. Although Wallace's efforts were unsuccessful, he earned respect for his efforts and a promotion in the U.S. diplomatic service.
In 1883, an editorial aimed at Wallace appeared in the newspaper Havatzelet (xiii. No. 6) titled "An American and yet a Despot". The editorial caused the Havatzelet to be suspended and its editor Israel Dov Frumkin to be imprisoned for forty-five days by order from Constantinople, directed to the pasha of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The incident that led to the editorial was the dismissal, made at Wallace's request, of Joseph Kriger, the Jewish secretary and interpreter to the pasha of Jerusalem. Wallace complained that Kriger had failed to receive him with the honor due to his rank, and refused to issue any apology for the alleged shortcoming. Havatzelet claimed that the proceeding was instigated by missionaries, whom Wallace strongly supported.
In addition to Wallace's diplomatic duties, which included protection of U.S. citizens and U.S. trade rights in the area, Wallace found time to travel and do historical research. Wallace visited Jerusalem and the surrounding area, the site for his novel, Ben-Hur, and did research in Constantinople, the locale for The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell, which he began writing in 1887.
The election of Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, ended Wallace's political appointment. He resigned from the U.S. diplomatic service on March 4, 1885. The sultan wanted Wallace to continue to work in the Ottoman Empire, and even made a proposal to have him represent Ottoman interests in England or France, but Wallace declined and returned home to Crawfordsville.
Writing career
Wallace confessed in his autobiography that he took up writing as a diversion from studying law. Although he wrote several books, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), which established his fame as an author.
In 1843, Wallace began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. The popular historical novel, with Cortez's conquest of Mexico as its central theme, was based on William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. Wallace's book sold seven thousand copies in its first year. Its sales continued to rise after Wallace's reputation as an author was established with the publication of subsequent novels.
Wallace wrote the manuscript for Ben-Hur, his second and best-known novel, during his spare time at Crawfordsville, and completed it in Santa Fe, while serving as the territorial governor of New Mexico. Ben-Hur, an adventure story of revenge and redemption, is told from the perspective of a Jewish nobleman named Judah Ben-Hur. Because Wallace had not been to the Holy Land before writing the book, he began research to familiarize himself with the area's geography and its history at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1873. Harper and Brothers published the book on November 12, 1880.
Ben-Hur made Wallace a wealthy man and established his reputation as a famous author. Sales were slow at first; only 2,800 copies were sold in the first seven months after its release, but the book became popular among readers around the world. By 1886, it was earning Wallace about $11,000 in annual royalties (equivalent to $290,000 in 2015 dollars), and provided Wallace's family with financial security. By 1889, Harper and Brothers had sold 400,000 copies and the book had been translated into several languages.
In 1900, Ben-Hur became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Amy Lifson, an editor for Humanities, identified it as the most influential Christian book of the 19th century. Others named it one of the best-selling novels of all time. At the time of Ben-Hur'''s one hundredth anniversary in 1980, it had "never been out of print" and had been adapted for the stage and several motion pictures.Boomhower, pp. 11, 138; Morrow, pp. 17–18. One historian, Victor Davis Hanson, has argued that Ben-Hur drew from Wallace's life, particularly his experiences at Shiloh, and the damage it did to his reputation. The book's main character, Judah Ben-Hur, accidentally causes injury to a high-ranking Roman commander, for which he and his family suffer tribulations and calumny.
Wallace wrote subsequent novels and biographies, but Ben-Hur remained his most important work. Wallace considered The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (1893) as his best novel. He also wrote a biography of President Benjamin Harrison, a fellow Hoosier and Civil War general, and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898), a narrative poem. Wallace was writing his autobiography when he died in 1905. His wife Susan completed it with the assistance of Mary Hannah Krout, another author from Crawfordsville. It was published posthumously in 1906.
Later years
Wallace continued to write after his return from the Ottoman Empire. He also patented several of his own inventions, built a seven-story apartment building in Indianapolis, The Blacherne, and drew up plans for a private study at his home in Crawfordsville. Wallace remained active in veterans groups, including writing a speech for the dedication of the battlefield at the Chickamauga.
Wallace's elaborate writing study, which he described as "a pleasure-house for my soul", served as his private retreat. Now called the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, it was built between 1895 and 1898, adjacent to his residence in Crawfordsville, and set in an enclosed park. The study along with three and one-half acres of its grounds were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The property is operated as a museum, open to the public. Wallace had a moat on two sides of the Study and stocked it so he could fish from the back porch and a landing. In winter, he would fire up the coal furnace in the Study basement and fish from the windows. He loved fishing so much he invented and patented a special traveler's fishing pole. After just a few years he had the moat drained as it was negatively affecting the Study foundation and he worried about his grandchildren and neighborhood children falling into the water.
On April 5, 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Wallace, at age seventy-one, offered to raise and lead a force of soldiers, but the war office refused. Undeterred, he went to a local recruiting office and attempted to enlist as a private, but was rejected again, presumably because of his age.
Wallace's service at the battle of Shiloh continued to haunt him in later life. The debate persisted in book publications, magazine articles, pamphlets, speeches, and in private correspondence. Wallace attended a reunion at Shiloh in 1894, his first return since 1862, and retraced his journey to the battlefield with veterans from the 3rd Division. He returned to Shiloh for a final time in 1901 to walk the battlefield with David W. Reed, the Shiloh Battlefield Commission's historian, and others. Wallace died before the manuscript of his memoirs was fully completed, and it is unknown whether he would have revised his final account of the battle.
Death
Wallace died at home in Crawfordsville, on February 15, 1905, of atrophic gastritis. He was seventy-seven years old. Wallace is buried in Crawfordsville Oak Hill Cemetery.
Legacy and honors
Wallace was a man of many interests and a lifelong adventure seeker, who remained a persistent, self-confident man of action. He was also impatient and highly sensitive to personal criticisms, especially those related to his command decisions at Shiloh. Despite Wallace's career in law and politics, combined with years of military and diplomatic service, he achieved his greatest fame as a novelist, most notably for his best-selling biblical tale, Ben-Hur.
Following Wallace's death, the State of Indiana commissioned the sculptor Andrew O'Connor to create a marble statue of Wallace dressed in a military uniform for the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. The statue was unveiled during a ceremony held on January 11, 1910. Wallace is the only novelist honored in the hall. A bronze copy of the statue is installed on the grounds of Wallace's study in Crawfordsville.Morrow, p. 22.
Lew Wallace High School opened in 1926 at 415 West 45th Avenue in Gary, Indiana. On June 3, 2014, the Gary School Board voted 4 to 2 to close Lew Wallace, along with five other schools.
A Knights of Pythias lodge was established in Franklin, Indiana at the Masonic Home to be known as the General Lewis Wallace Lodge #2019.
Popular culture
NASL Indianapolis-based team The Indy Eleven pays homage to the 11th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, which fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. The inspiration for the name came from Donna Schmink, the Collection Manager at the Indiana War Museum, who, when asked by team officials for ideas on a team name connected to Indiana history, suggested "the Eleventh" in honor of the regiment that valiantly fought under the initial direction of Colonel Lew Wallace.
Film and television
Frank Reicher (uncredited) as General Lew Wallace in the film Billy the Kid (1930).
Berton Churchill as Gov. Wallace in The Big Stampede (1932).
Joe King (actor) (uncredited) as Governor Lew Wallace in Land Beyond the Law (1937).
Robert H. Barrat as General Lew Wallace in The Kid from Texas (1950).
Claude Stroud as Gen. Lew Wallace - New Mexico Governor in I Shot Billy the Kid (1950).
Otis Garth (uncredited) as Gov. Lew Wallace in The Law vs. Billy the Kid (1954).
Ralph Moody as Gen. Lew Wallace in Strange Lady in Town (1955).
Robert Warwick as Governor Wallace in Law of the Plainsman (TV series), episode "Amnesty" (aired April 7, 1960).
Cameron Mitchell as General Lew Wallace in The Andersonville Trial (TV), which aired May 17, 1970; an adaptation of the 1959 Broadway play by the same name.
Jason Robards as Governor Wallace in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
René Auberjonois as Gov. Lew Wallace in Longarm (TV film, 1988).
Wilford Brimley as Gov. Lew Wallace in Billy the Kid (TNT film, 1989).
Scott Wilson as Governor Lewis Wallace in the film Young Guns II (1990).
Brian Merrick as Gen. Lew Wallace in No Retreat from Destiny: The Battle That Rescued Washington (2006 video).
Published works
Fiction
The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873.)
Commodus: An Historical Play (Crawfordsville, IN: privately published by the author, 1876.) Revised and reissued in the same year.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880.)
The First Christmas from Ben-Hur (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899.)
The Boyhood of Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888.)
The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893.) Two volumes.
The Wooing of Malkatoon (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1898.)
Non-Fiction
Life of Gen. Ben Harrison (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1888.)
Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the U.S. With a Concise Biographical Sketch of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Ex-Minister to France [by Murat Halstad] (Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing Co., 1892.)
Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906.) Two volumes.
See also
List of American Civil War battles
List of American Civil War generals (Union)
José María Jesús Carbajal
Bibliography of the American Civil War
Bibliography of Ulysses S. Grant
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Biographies
Other works
Lighty, Shaun Chandler. "The Fall and Rise of Lew Wallace: Gaining Legitimacy Through Popular Culture." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2005. Available online at ohiolink.edu.
Swansburg, John. "The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War Hero and Author of Ben-Hur", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
Swansburg, John. "Lew Wallace a Life in Artifacts", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
External links
Notable Hoosier Obits: Lew Wallace gives a collection of Wallace obituaries from around the country.
Wallace's obituary 16 February 1905. New York Times'' (pdf format).
Lew Wallace Archive, overview with detailed bibliography of his works
General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, Crawfordsville
Wallace's time-line at General Lew Wallace Museum
Lew Wallace in Jerusalem, 1883
Wallace's 'Minister Resident of the United States of America to Turkey' Calling Card in the Shapell Manuscript Foundation Collection
Lew Wallace collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
1827 births
1905 deaths
1870s in New Mexico Territory
1880s in New Mexico Territory
19th-century American diplomats
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Ambassadors of the United States to the Ottoman Empire
American autobiographers
American historical novelists
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
Burials in Indiana
Christian novelists
Deaths from gastritis
Governors of New Mexico Territory
Indiana lawyers
Indiana Republicans
Indiana state senators
Lincoln County Wars
Military personnel from Indiana
New Mexico Republicans
Novelists from Indiana
People associated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
People from Brookville, Indiana
People from Covington, Indiana
People from Crawfordsville, Indiana
People from Indiana in the Mexican–American War
People of Indiana in the American Civil War
Union Army generals
Writers from Indiana
Writers of historical fiction set in antiquity
Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period
20th-century American male writers | false | [
"is the Japanese designer who created Hello Kitty.\n\nShe was born in Japan. After graduating from Musashino Art University, she created Hello Kitty at Sanrio in 1974. She left Sanrio in 1976 to get married and has been working as a freelance designer ever since. She did not make a lot of money from Hello Kitty.\n\nThe other characters she has created include Angel Cat Sugar and Rebecca Bonbon. She has also published some picture books.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Official Hello Kitty Website\nThe Official Rebecca Bonbon Website\nThe Official Angel Cat Sugar Website\n\n1946 births\nLiving people\nHello Kitty\nArtists from Chiba Prefecture\nJapanese designers",
"Yuri Ponomaryov (; 24 March 1932 – 13 April 2005) was a Russian cosmonaut.\n\nHe married fellow cosmonaut Valentina Ponomaryova in 1972 and the couple had two children before divorcing. As with Valentina, Yuri did not get to fly into space although he did serve on the Soyuz 18 backup crew.\n\nReferences\n\n1932 births\n2005 deaths\nRussian cosmonauts\nSoviet cosmonauts"
]
|
[
"Lew Wallace",
"Forts Henry and Donelson",
"What did he do at Fort Henry?",
"Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant",
"What else did he do there?",
"Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops.",
"Did he do anything else there?",
"Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862,",
"What did he do at Donelson?",
"Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.",
"What else did he do there?",
"Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division.",
"Did he do anything else interesting?",
"age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.",
"Did he ever get married?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_f36a7125118b479ebf442f8831306360_0 | Did he have a job? | 8 | Did Lew Wallace have a job? | Lew Wallace | On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant. Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson. During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Lewis Wallace (April 10, 1827February 15, 1905) was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."
Wallace's military career included service in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. He was appointed Indiana's adjutant general and commanded the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Wallace, who attained the rank of major general, participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, and the Battle of Monocacy. He also served on the military commission for the trials of the Lincoln assassination conspirators, and presided over the trial of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant of the Andersonville prison camp.
Wallace resigned from the U.S. Army in November 1865 and briefly served as a major general in the Mexican army, before returning to the United States. Wallace was appointed governor of the New Mexico Territory (1878–1881) and served as U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire (1881–1885). Wallace retired to his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he continued to write until his death in 1905.
Early life and education
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born on April 10, 1827, in Brookville, Indiana. He was the second of four sons born to Esther French Wallace (née Test) and David Wallace. Lew's father, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, left the military in 1822 and moved to Brookville, where he established a law practice and entered Indiana politics. David served in the Indiana General Assembly and later as the state's lieutenant governor, and governor, and as a member of Congress. Lew Wallace's maternal grandfather was circuit court judge and Congressman John Test.
In 1832 the family moved to Covington, Indiana, where Lew's mother died from tuberculosis on July 14, 1834. In December 1836, David married nineteen-year-old Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace, who later became a prominent suffragist and temperance advocate. In 1837, after David's election as governor of Indiana, the family moved to Indianapolis.
Lew began his formal education at the age of six at a public school in Covington, but he much preferred the outdoors. Wallace had a talent for drawing and loved to read, but he was a discipline problem at school. In 1836, at the age of nine, Lew joined his older brother in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he briefly attended the preparatory school division of Wabash College, but soon transferred to another school more suitable for his age. In 1840, when Wallace was thirteen, his father sent him to a private academy at Centerville, Indiana, where his teacher encouraged Lew's natural affinity for writing. Wallace returned to Indianapolis the following year.
Sixteen-year-old Lew went out to earn his own wages in 1842, after his father refused to pay for more schooling. Wallace found a job copying records at the Marion County clerk's office and lived in an Indianapolis boardinghouse. He also joined the Marion Rifles, a local militia unit, and began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. Wallace said in his autobiography that he had never been a member of any organized religion, but he did believe "in the Christian conception of God".
By 1846, at the start of the Mexican–American War, the nineteen-year-old Wallace was studying law at his father's law office, but left that pursuit to establish a recruiting office for the Marion Volunteers in Indianapolis. He was appointed a second lieutenant, and on June 19, 1846, mustered into military service with the Marion Volunteers (also known as Company H, 1st Indiana Volunteer Infantry). Wallace rose to the position of regimental adjutant and the rank of first lieutenant while serving in the army of Zachary Taylor, but Wallace personally did not participate in combat. Wallace was mustered out of the volunteer service on June 15, 1847, and returned to Indiana, where he intended to practice law. After the war, Wallace and William B. Greer operated a Free Soil newspaper, The Free Soil Banner, in Indianapolis.
Marriage and family
In 1848 Wallace met Susan Arnold Elston at the Crawfordsville home of Henry Smith Lane, Wallace's former commander during the Mexican War. Susan was the daughter of Major Isaac Compton Elston, a wealthy Crawfordsville merchant, and Maria Akin Elston, whose family were Quakers from upstate New York. Susan accepted Wallace's marriage proposal in 1849, and they were married in Crawfordsville on May 6, 1852. The Wallaces had one son, Henry Lane Wallace, who was born on February 17, 1853.
Early law and military career
Wallace was admitted to the bar in February 1849, and moved from Indianapolis to Covington, Indiana, where he established a law practice. In 1851 Wallace was elected prosecuting attorney of Indiana's 1st congressional district, but he resigned in 1853 and moved his family to Crawfordsville, in Montgomery County, Indiana. Wallace continued to practice law and was elected as a Democrat to a two-year term in the Indiana Senate in 1856. From 1849 to 1853, his office was housed in the Fountain County Clerk's Building.
While living in Crawfordsville, Wallace organized the Crawfordsville Guards Independent Militia, later called the Montgomery Guards. During the winter of 1859–60, after reading about elite units of the French Army in Algeria, Wallace adopted the Zouave uniform and their system of training for the group. The Montgomery Guards would later form the core of his first military command, the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, during the American Civil War.
Civil War service
Wallace, a staunch supporter of the Union, became a member of the Republican party, and began his full-time military career soon after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Indiana's governor, the Republican Oliver P. Morton, asked Wallace to help recruit Indiana volunteers for the Union army. Wallace, who also sought a military command, agreed to become the state's adjutant general on the condition that he would be given command of a regiment of his choice. Indiana's quota of six regimental units was filled within a week, and Wallace took command of the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into the Union army on April 25, 1861. Wallace received his formal commission as a colonel in the Union army the following day.
On June 5, 1861, Wallace went with the 11th Indiana to Cumberland, Maryland, and on June 12, the regiment won a minor battle at Romney, Virginia, (in present-day West Virginia). The rout boosted morale for Union troops and led to the Confederate evacuation of Harpers Ferry on June 18. On September 3, 1861, Wallace was promoted to brigadier general of U.S. Army volunteers and given command of a brigade.
Forts Henry and Donelson
On February 4 and 5, 1862, prior to the advance against Fort Henry, Union troops under the command of Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and a flotilla of Union ironclads and timberclad gunboats under the command of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote made their way toward the Confederate fort along the Tennessee River in western Tennessee. Wallace's brigade, which was attached to Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith's division, was ordered to occupy Fort Heiman, an uncompleted Confederate fort across the river from Fort Henry. Wallace's troops secured the deserted fort and watched the Union attack on Fort Henry from their hilltop position. On February 6, after more than an hour of bombardment from the Union gunboats, Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, surrendered Fort Henry to Grant.
Grant's superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, was concerned that Confederate reinforcements would try to retake the two forts when the Union troops moved overland toward Fort Donelson, so Wallace was left in command at Fort Henry to keep the forts secure. Displeased to have been left behind, Wallace prepared his troops to move out at a moment's notice. The order came at midnight on February 13. Wallace arrived along the Cumberland River the following day and was placed in charge of the 3rd Division. Many of the men in the division were untested reinforcements. Wallace's three brigades took up position in the center of the Union line, facing Fort Donelson.
During the fierce Confederate assault on February 15, and in Grant's absence from the battlefield, Wallace acted on his own initiative to send Cruft's brigade to reinforce the beleaguered division of Brig. Gen. John A. McClernand, despite orders from Grant to hold his position and prevent the enemy from escaping and without Grant's authority to take the offensive. With the Confederates continuing to advance, Wallace led a second brigade to the right and engaged the Confederates with infantry and artillery. Wallace's decision stopped their forward movement and was key in stabilizing a defensive line for the Union troops. After the Confederate assault had been checked, Wallace led a counterattack that regained the lost ground on the Union right. On March 21, 1862, Wallace, McClernand, and C. F. Smith were promoted to major general for their efforts. Wallace, who was age thirty-four at the time of his promotion, became the youngest major general in the Union army.
Shiloh
Wallace's most controversial command came at the battle of Shiloh, where he continued as the 3rd Division commander under Maj. Gen. Grant.
What was to become a long-standing controversy developed around the contents of Wallace's written orders on April 6, the 3rd Division's movements on the first day of battle, and their late arrival on the field. On the second day of battle, Wallace's division joined reinforcements from Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army to play an important role in the Union victory. Prior to the battle, Wallace's division had been left in reserve and was encamped near Crump's Landing. Their orders were to guard the Union's right flank and cover the road to Bethel Station, Tennessee, where railroad lines led to Corinth, Mississippi, to the south. To protect the road from Crump's Landing and Bethel Station, Wallace sent Col. John M. Thayer's 2nd Brigade to Stoney Lonesome, west of Crump's Landing, and the 3rd Brigade, commanded by Col. Charles Whittlesey to Adamsville, west of Crump's Landing. Col. Morgan L. Smith's 1st Brigade remained with Wallace at Crump's Landing, north of Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.
Between 5 and 6 a.m. on April 6, 1862, Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing was surprised and nearly routed by a sudden attack from the Confederate army under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. Grant, who heard the early morning artillery fire, took a steamboat from his headquarters at Savannah, Tennessee, to Crump's Landing, where he gave Wallace orders to wait in reserve and be ready to move. Grant proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, where he arrived around 8:30 a.m. Grant's new orders to Wallace, which arrived between 11 and 11:30 a.m., were given verbally to an aide, who transcribed them before they were delivered. The written orders were lost during the battle, so their exact wording cannot be confirmed; however, eyewitness accounts agree that Grant ordered Wallace to join the right side of the Union army, presumably in support of Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's 5th Division, who were encamped near Shiloh Church on the morning of April 6.
Knowledge of the area's roads played a critical role in Wallace's journey to the battlefield on April 6. In late March, after heavy rains made transportation difficult between Crump's Landing and Pittsburg Landing, Wallace's men had opened a route to Pittsburg Landing along Shunpike road, which connected to a road near Sherman's camp. Brig. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace's men at Pittsburg Landing opened the River Road (also known as the Hamburg-Savannah Road), a route farther east.
Of the two main routes that Wallace could use to move his men to the front, he chose the Shunpike road, the more direct route to reach Sherman's division near Shiloh Church. The day before the battle, Wallace wrote a letter to a fellow officer, W. H. L. Wallace, stating his intention to do so. Lew Wallace and his staff maintained after the battle that Grant's order did not specify Pittsburg Landing as their destination, and it did not specify which route the 3rd Division was ordered to take. However, Grant claimed in his memoirs that he had ordered Wallace to take the route nearest to the river to reach Pittsburg Landing. Historians are divided, with some stating that Wallace's explanation is the most logical.
After a second messenger from Grant arrived around noon with word to move out, Wallace's division of approximately 5,800 men began their march toward the battlefield. Between 2 and 2:30 p.m., a third messenger from Grant found Wallace along the Shunpike road, where he informed Wallace that Sherman had been forced back from Shiloh Church and was fighting closer to the river, near Pittsburg Landing. The Union army had been pushed back so far that Wallace was to the rear of the advancing Southern troops.
Wallace considered attacking the Confederates, but abandoned the idea. Instead he made a controversial decision to countermarch his troops along the Shunpike road, follow a crossroads to the River Road, and then move south to Pittsburg Landing. Rather than realigning his troops, so that the rear guard would be in the front, Wallace countermarched his column to maintain their original order, keeping his artillery in the lead position to support the Union infantry on the field. After the time-consuming maneuver was completed, Wallace's troops returned to the midpoint on the Shunpike road, crossed east over a path to the River Road, and followed it south to join Grant's army on the field. Progress was slow due to the road conditions and countermarch. Wallace's division arrived at Pittsburg Landing about 6:30 p.m., after having marched about in nearly seven hours over roads that had been left in terrible conditions by recent rainstorms and previous Union marches. They gathered at the battlefield at dusk, about 7 p.m., with the fighting nearly over for the day, and took up a position on the right of the Union line.
The next day, April 7, Wallace's division held the extreme right of the Union line. Two of Wallace's batteries with the aid of a battery from the 1st Illinois Light Artillery were the first to attack at about 5:30 a.m. Sherman's and Wallace's troops helped force the Confederates to fall back, and by 3 p.m. the Confederates were retreating southwest, toward Corinth.
Historian Timothy B. Smith conceded that on the second day Wallace's division sustained far fewer casualties (296) than any of Buell's three divisions. However, Smith argued that the number of casualties does not always show the effectiveness of troops. Wallace had his soldiers lie down when they were under fire, which minimized casualties. He also maneuvered his division so that it turned the Confederate left flank. Wallace advanced his division at 6:30 am, reached the south side of Tilghman Branch about 8:00 am, and occupied a commanding ridge by 9:00 am, all with little opposition. Here he paused to wait for Union troops to appear on his left. Up to this point, Wallace's movements were slow. Once Grant's and Buell's soldiers reached the Confederate main line of defense they were stopped in heavy fighting. Noting that the Confederate left did not reach as far as Owl Creek, Wallace wheeled his division to outflank the enemy line. Finding Wallace's troops to their left and rear, the left-hand Confederate brigade hurriedly fell back. This unhinged the entire line and the Confederate troops soon retreated to a second position around noon. At around 1:00 pm, Wallace worked a few regiments around the Confederate left flank, forcing their withdrawal to a third position. After the Confederates left the battlefield, Wallace's division went the farthest south, but he pulled his troops back before going into camp that evening.
Shiloh controversy
At first, the battle was viewed by the North as a victory; however, on April 23, after civilians began hearing news of the high number of casualties, the Lincoln administration asked the Union army for further explanation. Grant, who was accused of poor leadership at Shiloh, and his superior, Halleck, placed the blame on Wallace by asserting that his failure to follow orders and the delay in moving up the reserves on April 6 had nearly cost them the battle.
Grant had placed much of the blame on General Wallace, to whom he had sent verbal orders to bring his troops forward, accusing Wallace of failure in following those orders, which he believed resulted in the delay in moving up reserves, nearly costing the Union the loss of the battle. After hearing reports that Wallace refused to obey anything but written orders, an angry General Grant asserted that a division general ought to take his troops to wherever the firing may be, even without orders", and first sent Colonel William R. Rowley, ordering him to "tell him to come up at once" and that "if he should require a written order of you, you will give it to him at once". When Rowley caught up to where Wallace's division last was, there was only a supply wagon departing the scene. Riding on further, Rowley found Wallace at the head of his column near Clear Creek, positioned on high ground. Rowley pulled Wallace off to the side and warned him of the danger that lay just ahead, exclaiming, "Don't you know that Sherman has been driven back? Why, the whole army is within half a mile of the river, and it's a question if we are not all going to be driven into it." Wallace, stunned by the news, sent his cavalry ahead to assess the situation, and upon returning, it had confirmed Rowley's claim.
On April 30, 1862, Halleck reorganized his army and removed Wallace and John McClernand from active duty, placing both of them in reserve.
Wallace's reputation and career as a military leader suffered a significant setback from controversy over Shiloh. He spent the remainder of his life trying to resolve the accusations and change public opinion about his role in the battle. On March 14, 1863, Wallace wrote a letter to Halleck that provided an official explanation of his actions. He also wrote Grant several letters and met with him in person more than once in an attempt to vindicate himself. On August 16, 1863, Wallace wrote Sherman for advice on the issue. Sherman urged Wallace to be patient and not to request a formal inquiry. Although Sherman brought Wallace's concerns to Grant's attention, Wallace was not given another active duty command until March 1864.
For many years Grant stood by his original version of the orders to Wallace. As late as 1884, when Grant wrote an article on Shiloh for The Century Magazine that appeared in its February 1885 issue, he maintained that Wallace had taken the wrong road on the first day of battle. After W. H. L. Wallace's widow gave Grant a letter that Lew Wallace had written to her the day before the battle (the one indicating his plans to use the Shunpike road to pass between Shiloh and his position west of Crump's Landing), Grant changed his mind. Grant wrote a letter to the editors at Century, which was published in its September 1885 issue, and added a note to his memoirs to explain that Wallace's letter "modifies very materially what I have said, and what has been said by others, about the conduct of General Lew Wallace at the battle of Shiloh." While reaffirming that he had ordered Wallace to take the River Road, Grant stated that he could not be sure the exact content of Wallace's written orders, since his verbal orders were given to one of his aides and transcribed.
Grant's article in the February 1885 issue of Century became the basis of his chapter on Shiloh in his memoirs, which were published in 1886, and influenced many later accounts of Wallace's actions on the first day of battle. Grant acknowledged in his memoirs: "If the position of our front had not changed, the road which Wallace took would have been somewhat shorter to our right than the River road." Wallace's account of the events appeared in his autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1906. Despite his later fame and fortune as the writer of Ben-Hur, Wallace continued to lament, "Shiloh and its slanders! Will the world ever acquit me of them? If I were guilty I would not feel them as keenly."
Other military assignments
On August 17, 1862, Wallace accepted a regiment command in the Department of the Ohio to help with the successful defense of Cincinnati during Braxton Bragg's incursion into Kentucky. Next, Wallace took command of Camp Chase, a prisoner-of-war camp at Columbus, Ohio, where he remained until October 30, 1862. A month later Wallace was placed in charge of a five-member commission to investigate Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell's conduct in response to the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. The commission criticized Buell for his retreat, but it did not find him disloyal to the Union. When the commission's work was completed on May 6, 1863, Wallace returned to Indiana to wait for a new command. In mid-July 1863, while Wallace was home, he helped protect the railroad junction at North Vernon, Indiana, from Confederate general John Hunt Morgan's raid into southern Indiana.
Monocacy
Wallace's most notable service came on Saturday, July 9, 1864 at the Battle of Monocacy part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Although Confederate General Jubal A. Early and an estimated 15,000 troops defeated Wallace's troops at Monocacy Junction, Maryland, forcing them to retreat to Baltimore, the effort cost Early a chance to capture Washington, D.C. Wallace's men were able to delay the Confederate advance toward Washington for an entire day, giving the city time to organize its defenses. Early arrived in Washington at around noon on July 11, two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy, the northernmost Confederate victory of the war, but Union reinforcements had already arrived at Fort Stevens to repel the Confederates and force their retreat to Virginia.
Wallace, who had returned to active duty on March 12, 1864, assumed command of VIII Corps, which was headquartered in Baltimore. On July 9, a combined Union force of approximately 5,800 men under Wallace's command (mostly hundred-days' men from VIII Corps) and a division under James B. Ricketts from VI Corps encountered Confederate troops at Monocacy Junction between 9 and 10 a.m. Although Wallace was uncertain whether Baltimore or Washington, D.C., was the Confederate objective, he knew his troops would have to delay the advance until Union reinforcements arrived. Wallace's men repelled the Confederate attacks for more than six hours before retreating to Baltimore.
After the battle Wallace informed Halleck that his forces fought until 5 p.m., but the Confederate troops, which he estimated at 20,000 men, had overwhelmed them. When Grant learned of the defeat, he named Maj. Gen. E. O. C. Ord as Wallace's replacement in command of VIII Corps. On July 28, after officials learned how Wallace's efforts at Monocacy helped save Washington D.C. from capture, he was reinstated as commander of VIII Corps. In Grant's memoirs, he praised Wallace's delaying tactics at Monocacy:
If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent. ... General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory.
Later military service
On January 22, 1865, Grant ordered Wallace to the Rio Grande in southern Texas to investigate Confederate military operations in the area. Although Wallace was not officially authorized to offer terms, he did discuss proposals for the surrender of the Confederate troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Wallace provided Grant with copies of his proposals and reported on the negotiations, but no agreement was made. Before returning to Baltimore, Wallace also met with Mexican military leaders to discuss the U.S. government's unofficial efforts to aid in expelling Maximilian's French occupation forces from Mexico.
Following President Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, Wallace was appointed to the military commission that investigated the Lincoln assassination conspirators. The commission, which began in May, was dissolved on June 30, 1865, after all eight conspirators were found guilty. In mid-August 1865, Wallace was appointed head of an eight-member military commission that investigated the conduct of Henry Wirz, the Confederate commandant in charge of the South's Andersonville prison camp. The court-martial which took nearly two months, opened on August 21, 1865. At its conclusion Wirz was found guilty and sentenced to death.
On April 30, 1865, Wallace had accepted an offer to become a major general in the Mexican army, but the agreement, which was contingent upon his resignation from the U.S. Army, was delayed by Wallace's service on the two military commissions. Wallace tendered his resignation from the U.S. Army on November 4, 1865, effective November 30, and returned to Mexico to assist the Mexican army. Although the Juárez government promised Wallace $100,000 for his services, he returned to the United States in 1867 in deep financial debt.
Political and diplomatic career
Wallace returned to Indiana in 1867 to practice law, but the profession did not appeal to him, and he turned to politics. Wallace made two unsuccessful bids for a seat in Congress (in 1868 and 1870), and supported Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 election. As a reward for his political support, Hayes appointed Wallace as governor of the New Mexico Territory, where he served from August 1878 to March 1881. His next assignment came in March 1881, when Republican president James A. Garfield appointed Wallace to an overseas diplomatic post in Constantinople as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire. Wallace remained in this post until 1885.
Territorial governor of New Mexico
Wallace arrived in Santa Fe on September 29, 1878, to begin his service as governor of the New Mexico Territory during a time of lawless violence and political corruption. Wallace was involved in efforts to resolve New Mexico's Lincoln County War, a contentious and violent disagreement among the county's residents, and tried to end a series of Apache raids on territorial settlers. In 1880, while living at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, Wallace also completed the manuscript for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
On March 1, 1879, after previous efforts to restore order in Lincoln County had failed, Wallace ordered the arrest of those responsible for local killings. One of the outlaws was William Henry McCarty Jr. (alias William H. Bonney), better known as Billy the Kid. On March 17, 1879, Wallace secretly met with Bonney, who had witnessed the murder of a Lincoln County lawyer named Huston Chapman. Wallace wanted him to testify in the trial of Chapman's accused murderers, but Bonney wanted Wallace's protection from his enemies and amnesty for his earlier crimes. During their meeting, the pair arranged for Bonney to become an informant in exchange for a full pardon of his previous crimes. Wallace supposedly assured the Kid that he would be "scot free with a pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds." On March 20 Bonney agreed to provide grand jury testimony against those involved in Chapman's murder. Wallace arranged for a "fake" arrest and Bonney's detention in a local jail to assure his safety. Bonney testified in court on April 14, as agreed. However, the local district attorney revoked Wallace's bargain and refused to set the outlaw free. After spending several weeks in jail, Bonney escaped and returned to his criminal ways, which included killing additional men. He was shot and killed on July 14, 1881, by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who had been appointed by local ranching interests who had tired of his rustling their herds. In the meantime, Wallace had resigned from his duties as territorial governor on March 9, 1881, and was waiting for a new political appointment.
On December 31, 2010, on his last day in office, then-Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico declined a pardon request from Bonney's supporters, citing a "lack of conclusiveness and the historical ambiguity" over Wallace's promise of amnesty. Descendants of Wallace and Garrett were among those who opposed the pardon.
U.S. diplomat in the Ottoman Empire
On May 19, 1881, Wallace was appointed U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). Wallace remained at the diplomatic post until 1885, and became a trusted friend of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. When a crisis developed between the Turkish and British governments over control of Egypt, Wallace served as an intermediary between the sultan and Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador. Although Wallace's efforts were unsuccessful, he earned respect for his efforts and a promotion in the U.S. diplomatic service.
In 1883, an editorial aimed at Wallace appeared in the newspaper Havatzelet (xiii. No. 6) titled "An American and yet a Despot". The editorial caused the Havatzelet to be suspended and its editor Israel Dov Frumkin to be imprisoned for forty-five days by order from Constantinople, directed to the pasha of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The incident that led to the editorial was the dismissal, made at Wallace's request, of Joseph Kriger, the Jewish secretary and interpreter to the pasha of Jerusalem. Wallace complained that Kriger had failed to receive him with the honor due to his rank, and refused to issue any apology for the alleged shortcoming. Havatzelet claimed that the proceeding was instigated by missionaries, whom Wallace strongly supported.
In addition to Wallace's diplomatic duties, which included protection of U.S. citizens and U.S. trade rights in the area, Wallace found time to travel and do historical research. Wallace visited Jerusalem and the surrounding area, the site for his novel, Ben-Hur, and did research in Constantinople, the locale for The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell, which he began writing in 1887.
The election of Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, ended Wallace's political appointment. He resigned from the U.S. diplomatic service on March 4, 1885. The sultan wanted Wallace to continue to work in the Ottoman Empire, and even made a proposal to have him represent Ottoman interests in England or France, but Wallace declined and returned home to Crawfordsville.
Writing career
Wallace confessed in his autobiography that he took up writing as a diversion from studying law. Although he wrote several books, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), which established his fame as an author.
In 1843, Wallace began writing his first novel, The Fair God, but it was not published until 1873. The popular historical novel, with Cortez's conquest of Mexico as its central theme, was based on William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. Wallace's book sold seven thousand copies in its first year. Its sales continued to rise after Wallace's reputation as an author was established with the publication of subsequent novels.
Wallace wrote the manuscript for Ben-Hur, his second and best-known novel, during his spare time at Crawfordsville, and completed it in Santa Fe, while serving as the territorial governor of New Mexico. Ben-Hur, an adventure story of revenge and redemption, is told from the perspective of a Jewish nobleman named Judah Ben-Hur. Because Wallace had not been to the Holy Land before writing the book, he began research to familiarize himself with the area's geography and its history at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1873. Harper and Brothers published the book on November 12, 1880.
Ben-Hur made Wallace a wealthy man and established his reputation as a famous author. Sales were slow at first; only 2,800 copies were sold in the first seven months after its release, but the book became popular among readers around the world. By 1886, it was earning Wallace about $11,000 in annual royalties (equivalent to $290,000 in 2015 dollars), and provided Wallace's family with financial security. By 1889, Harper and Brothers had sold 400,000 copies and the book had been translated into several languages.
In 1900, Ben-Hur became the best-selling American novel of the 19th century, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Amy Lifson, an editor for Humanities, identified it as the most influential Christian book of the 19th century. Others named it one of the best-selling novels of all time. At the time of Ben-Hur'''s one hundredth anniversary in 1980, it had "never been out of print" and had been adapted for the stage and several motion pictures.Boomhower, pp. 11, 138; Morrow, pp. 17–18. One historian, Victor Davis Hanson, has argued that Ben-Hur drew from Wallace's life, particularly his experiences at Shiloh, and the damage it did to his reputation. The book's main character, Judah Ben-Hur, accidentally causes injury to a high-ranking Roman commander, for which he and his family suffer tribulations and calumny.
Wallace wrote subsequent novels and biographies, but Ben-Hur remained his most important work. Wallace considered The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (1893) as his best novel. He also wrote a biography of President Benjamin Harrison, a fellow Hoosier and Civil War general, and The Wooing of Malkatoon (1898), a narrative poem. Wallace was writing his autobiography when he died in 1905. His wife Susan completed it with the assistance of Mary Hannah Krout, another author from Crawfordsville. It was published posthumously in 1906.
Later years
Wallace continued to write after his return from the Ottoman Empire. He also patented several of his own inventions, built a seven-story apartment building in Indianapolis, The Blacherne, and drew up plans for a private study at his home in Crawfordsville. Wallace remained active in veterans groups, including writing a speech for the dedication of the battlefield at the Chickamauga.
Wallace's elaborate writing study, which he described as "a pleasure-house for my soul", served as his private retreat. Now called the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, it was built between 1895 and 1898, adjacent to his residence in Crawfordsville, and set in an enclosed park. The study along with three and one-half acres of its grounds were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The property is operated as a museum, open to the public. Wallace had a moat on two sides of the Study and stocked it so he could fish from the back porch and a landing. In winter, he would fire up the coal furnace in the Study basement and fish from the windows. He loved fishing so much he invented and patented a special traveler's fishing pole. After just a few years he had the moat drained as it was negatively affecting the Study foundation and he worried about his grandchildren and neighborhood children falling into the water.
On April 5, 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Wallace, at age seventy-one, offered to raise and lead a force of soldiers, but the war office refused. Undeterred, he went to a local recruiting office and attempted to enlist as a private, but was rejected again, presumably because of his age.
Wallace's service at the battle of Shiloh continued to haunt him in later life. The debate persisted in book publications, magazine articles, pamphlets, speeches, and in private correspondence. Wallace attended a reunion at Shiloh in 1894, his first return since 1862, and retraced his journey to the battlefield with veterans from the 3rd Division. He returned to Shiloh for a final time in 1901 to walk the battlefield with David W. Reed, the Shiloh Battlefield Commission's historian, and others. Wallace died before the manuscript of his memoirs was fully completed, and it is unknown whether he would have revised his final account of the battle.
Death
Wallace died at home in Crawfordsville, on February 15, 1905, of atrophic gastritis. He was seventy-seven years old. Wallace is buried in Crawfordsville Oak Hill Cemetery.
Legacy and honors
Wallace was a man of many interests and a lifelong adventure seeker, who remained a persistent, self-confident man of action. He was also impatient and highly sensitive to personal criticisms, especially those related to his command decisions at Shiloh. Despite Wallace's career in law and politics, combined with years of military and diplomatic service, he achieved his greatest fame as a novelist, most notably for his best-selling biblical tale, Ben-Hur.
Following Wallace's death, the State of Indiana commissioned the sculptor Andrew O'Connor to create a marble statue of Wallace dressed in a military uniform for the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. The statue was unveiled during a ceremony held on January 11, 1910. Wallace is the only novelist honored in the hall. A bronze copy of the statue is installed on the grounds of Wallace's study in Crawfordsville.Morrow, p. 22.
Lew Wallace High School opened in 1926 at 415 West 45th Avenue in Gary, Indiana. On June 3, 2014, the Gary School Board voted 4 to 2 to close Lew Wallace, along with five other schools.
A Knights of Pythias lodge was established in Franklin, Indiana at the Masonic Home to be known as the General Lewis Wallace Lodge #2019.
Popular culture
NASL Indianapolis-based team The Indy Eleven pays homage to the 11th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, which fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. The inspiration for the name came from Donna Schmink, the Collection Manager at the Indiana War Museum, who, when asked by team officials for ideas on a team name connected to Indiana history, suggested "the Eleventh" in honor of the regiment that valiantly fought under the initial direction of Colonel Lew Wallace.
Film and television
Frank Reicher (uncredited) as General Lew Wallace in the film Billy the Kid (1930).
Berton Churchill as Gov. Wallace in The Big Stampede (1932).
Joe King (actor) (uncredited) as Governor Lew Wallace in Land Beyond the Law (1937).
Robert H. Barrat as General Lew Wallace in The Kid from Texas (1950).
Claude Stroud as Gen. Lew Wallace - New Mexico Governor in I Shot Billy the Kid (1950).
Otis Garth (uncredited) as Gov. Lew Wallace in The Law vs. Billy the Kid (1954).
Ralph Moody as Gen. Lew Wallace in Strange Lady in Town (1955).
Robert Warwick as Governor Wallace in Law of the Plainsman (TV series), episode "Amnesty" (aired April 7, 1960).
Cameron Mitchell as General Lew Wallace in The Andersonville Trial (TV), which aired May 17, 1970; an adaptation of the 1959 Broadway play by the same name.
Jason Robards as Governor Wallace in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
René Auberjonois as Gov. Lew Wallace in Longarm (TV film, 1988).
Wilford Brimley as Gov. Lew Wallace in Billy the Kid (TNT film, 1989).
Scott Wilson as Governor Lewis Wallace in the film Young Guns II (1990).
Brian Merrick as Gen. Lew Wallace in No Retreat from Destiny: The Battle That Rescued Washington (2006 video).
Published works
Fiction
The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1873.)
Commodus: An Historical Play (Crawfordsville, IN: privately published by the author, 1876.) Revised and reissued in the same year.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880.)
The First Christmas from Ben-Hur (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899.)
The Boyhood of Christ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888.)
The Prince of India; or, Why Constantinople Fell (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893.) Two volumes.
The Wooing of Malkatoon (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1898.)
Non-Fiction
Life of Gen. Ben Harrison (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1888.)
Life and Public Services of Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the U.S. With a Concise Biographical Sketch of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Ex-Minister to France [by Murat Halstad] (Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing Co., 1892.)
Lew Wallace: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1906.) Two volumes.
See also
List of American Civil War battles
List of American Civil War generals (Union)
José María Jesús Carbajal
Bibliography of the American Civil War
Bibliography of Ulysses S. Grant
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Biographies
Other works
Lighty, Shaun Chandler. "The Fall and Rise of Lew Wallace: Gaining Legitimacy Through Popular Culture." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2005. Available online at ohiolink.edu.
Swansburg, John. "The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War Hero and Author of Ben-Hur", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
Swansburg, John. "Lew Wallace a Life in Artifacts", March 26, 2013, Slate (on-line magazine).
External links
Notable Hoosier Obits: Lew Wallace gives a collection of Wallace obituaries from around the country.
Wallace's obituary 16 February 1905. New York Times'' (pdf format).
Lew Wallace Archive, overview with detailed bibliography of his works
General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, Crawfordsville
Wallace's time-line at General Lew Wallace Museum
Lew Wallace in Jerusalem, 1883
Wallace's 'Minister Resident of the United States of America to Turkey' Calling Card in the Shapell Manuscript Foundation Collection
Lew Wallace collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
1827 births
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1870s in New Mexico Territory
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19th-century American diplomats
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Ambassadors of the United States to the Ottoman Empire
American autobiographers
American historical novelists
American male non-fiction writers
American male novelists
American military personnel of the Mexican–American War
Burials in Indiana
Christian novelists
Deaths from gastritis
Governors of New Mexico Territory
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20th-century American male writers | false | [
"Eliphaz ( ’Ělīp̄āz, \"El is pure gold\") is called a Temanite (). He is one of the friends or comforters of Job in the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible.\n\nThe first of the three visitors to Job (), he was said to have come from Teman, an important city of Edom (; ; ). Thus Eliphaz appears as the representative of the wisdom of the Edomites, which, according to , , and , was famous in antiquity.\n\nAs an alternative to the interpretation \"El is pure gold\", or \"My God is pure gold\", it has also been suggested that the name might mean something along the lines of \"My God is separate\" or \"My God is remote\".\n\nName\nThe name \"Eliphaz\" for the spokesman of Edomite wisdom may have been suggested to the author of Job by the tradition which gave the name Eliphaz to Esau's eldest son, the father of Teman (; ).\n\nBook of Job\nIn the arguments that pass between Job and his friends, it is Eliphaz who opens each of the three series of discussions:\nChapters 4-5, with Job's reply in chapters 6-7\nChapter 15, with Job's reply in chapters 16-17\nChapter 22, with Job's reply in chapters 23-24.\n\nAmerican theologian Albert Barnes suggests that, because he spoke first each time, Eliphaz may have been the eldest of the friends. Eliphaz appears mild and modest. In his first reply to Job's complaints, he argues that those who are truly good are never entirely forsaken by Providence, but that punishment may justly be inflicted for secret sins. He denies that any man is innocent and censures Job for asserting his freedom from guilt. Eliphaz exhorts Job to confess any concealed iniquities to alleviate his punishment. His arguments are well supported but God declares at the end of the book that Eliphaz has made a serious error in his speaking. Job offers a sacrifice to God for Eliphaz's error.\n\nHis primary belief was that the righteous do not perish; the wicked alone suffer, and in measure as they have sinned ().\n\nEliphaz' dream\nEliphaz' argument is, in part, rooted in what he believes to have been a personal revelation which he received through a dream (Job 4:12-16): \"an elusive word [stealed] past, quiet like a whisper\", and after a silence he heard a voice saying: Eliphaz feels empowered to confront Job because of his dream. Crenshaw notes that he missed \"the irony of this reference to God's lack of trust in his servants\".Some authors consider that Job's words in are a response to this \"revelation\" of Eliphaz: Albert Barnes refers to one of the Rosenmüllers as taking this approach. However, the words are different and form part of Job's reply to Bildad, the second friend: Barnes notes that \"it seems more probable that it is [a reply] to the general position which had been laid down and defended, that God was just and holy, and that his proceedings were marked with equity\".\n\nEliphaz refers to the content of his dream again for emphasis in :\n\nBildad also refers to Eliphaz' revelation in chapter 25, although he presents the concept as his own. Job rebukes him for it: \"What a help you are to the weak! How you have saved the arm without strength! What counsel you have given to one without wisdom! What helpful insight you have abundantly provided! To whom have you uttered words? And whose spirit was expressed through you?\" Job pokes fun at Bildad asking him what spirit revealed it to him because he recognizes the argument as Eliphaz's spiritual revelation.\n\nEliphaz' final speech\nAlthough quick-witted, and quick to respond, Eliphaz loses his composure in chapter 22, in the third and final round of speeches, accusing Job of specific faults, \"sins against justice and charity towards others\": oppressing widows and orphans, refusing bread to the hungry: a far cry from how he had originally described Job in his first address to him:\n\nEliphaz also misconstrues Job's message as he scrambles to summarize Job's thoughts from chapter 21:\n\nJob did not argue that God could not prevent evil. Job was observing that in this life God often chooses not to prevent evil. Conventional wisdom told Eliphaz that God should immediately punish the wicked as that would be the just thing to do. Job, however, saw it differently, and in 24:1, Job laments\n\nJob yearns for the justice Eliphaz claims exists – an immediate punishment of the wicked. However, that simply did not hold true according to Job's observations. Nevertheless, Job does not question God's ultimate justice. He knows justice will eventually be served. Job asks, \"For what hope have the godless when they are cut off, when God takes away their life? Does God listen to their cry when distress comes upon them?\"\n\nSee also \nBildad\nElihu\nZophar\n\nReferences \n\nHebrew Bible people\nBook of Job",
"SOARA (Situation, Objective, Action, Results, Aftermath) is a job interview technique developed by Hagymas Laszlo, Professor of Language at the University of Munich, and Alexander Botos, Chief Curator at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. It is similar to the Situation, Task, Action, Result technique. In many interviews, SOARA is used as a structure for clarifying information relating to a recent challenge.\n\nDetails\n\n Situation: The interviewer wants you to present a recent challenge and situation you found yourself in.\n Objective: What did you have to achieve? The interviewer will be looking to see what you were trying to achieve from the situation.\n Action: What did you do? The interviewer will be looking for information on what you did, why you did it and what were the alternatives.\n Results: What was the outcome of your actions? What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your objectives.\n Aftermath: What did you learn from this experience and have you used this learning since?\n\nJob interview"
]
|
[
"Yip Harburg",
"Hollywood and Broadway"
]
| C_ce69b2d6c0e84f2fae3a50f5286e9da2_0 | What did Yip do in Hollywood? | 1 | What did Yip Harburg do in Hollywood? | Yip Harburg | Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow." Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said: So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he--there were eleven screenwriters on that--and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing. Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. CANNOTANSWER | Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, | Edgar Yipsel Harburg (born Isidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (with Jay Gorney), "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his liberal sensibilities. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.
Early life and career
Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children (out of ten), was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8, 1896. His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.
He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, who bonded over a shared fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw taught his father, a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people, that 'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".
After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated from City College (later part of the City University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following the crash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 – $70,000 in debt," which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.
Gershwin introduced Harburg to Jay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for an Earl Carroll Broadway review (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, including Americana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression.
Harburg was a staunch critic of religion. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on God.
Hollywood and Broadway
Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow."
Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said:
Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, and which celebrated equality for women, Abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." Its plot satirized American financial practices and criticized reactionist politicians, mistreatment of the working classes as well as racism and the Jim Crow laws. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Blacklisting
Although never a member of the Communist Party (he was a member of the Socialist Party, and joked that "Yip" referred to the Young People's Socialist League, nicknamed the "Yipsels") he had been involved in radical groups, and he was blacklisted.
Harburg was named in a pamphlet Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television; his involvement with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and his refusal to identify reputed communists, led to him being blocked from working in Hollywood films, television, and radio for twelve full years, from 1950 to 1962. "As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country', I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy", he wrote to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. He was unable to travel abroad during this period, as his passport had been revoked. With a score by Sammy Fain and Harburg's lyrics, the musical Flahooley (1951) satirized the country's anti-communist sentiment, but it closed after forty performances at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia.
Later career
In 1966, songwriter Earl Robinson sought Harburg's help for the song "Hurry Sundown"; the two collaborated on the song and are credited as co-writers. The song was intended for the film Hurry Sundown, but was not used in the film. It was, however, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary for their 1966 album The Peter, Paul and Mary Album. The song was released as a single in 1967, and reached No. 37 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording.
Death
Harburg died while driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on March 5, 1981. While he was initially reported to have been killed in a traffic accident, it was later determined that he suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light.
Awards and recognition
In 1940 Harburg won an Oscar, shared with Harold Arlen, for Best Music, Original Song
for The Wizard of Oz (1939). In addition, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song, along with Arlen,
for Cabin in the Sky, (1943) and Best Music, Original Song
for Can't Help Singing, shared with Jerome Kern in (1944).
Harburg was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
On March 7, 2001, the results of a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Humanities ranked Judy Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" as the Number One recording of the 20th century.
On June 22, 2004, the American Film Institute broadcast AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs, a TV special announcing the 100 greatest film songs. "Over the Rainbow" was Number One, and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" was Number 82.
In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing Harburg's accomplishments. The stamp was drawn from a portrait taken by photographer Barbara Bordnick in 1978 along with a rainbow and lyric from "Over the Rainbow". The first day ceremony was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Songs
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" with composer Jay Gorney (1932)
"Riddle Me This" with composer Lewis Gensler (from the revue, "Ballyhoo of 1932", 1932)
"How Do You Do It? with composer Lewis Gensler (as above, 1932)
"April in Paris" with Vernon Duke (1932)
"It's Only a Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen (1933)
"Then I'll Be Tired of You" with Arthur Schwartz (1934)
"Last Night When We Were Young" with composer Harold Arlen (1935)
"Down with Love" with Harold Arlen (1937)
"Over the Rainbow" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"We're Off to See the Wizard" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Lydia the Tattooed Lady" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" with Harold Arlen (1943)
"Salome" with Roger Edens (1943) (for the movie Du Barry Was a Lady)
"The Eagle and Me" with Harold Arlen (1944)
"How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" with Burton Lane (1946)
"Old Devil Moon" with Burton Lane (1947)
"When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" with Burton Lane (1947)
"Free and Equal Blues" performed by Josh White
"And Russia Was Her Name" with Jerome Kern (1943)
Broadway revues
Earl Carroll's Sketchbook of 1929 (1929) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Jay Gorney
Garrick Gaieties (1930) - contributing lyricist
Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 (1930) - contributing songwriter
The Vanderbilt Revue (1930) - contributing lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 (1931) - featured lyricist for "Mailu"
Shoot the Works (1931) - contributing composer and lyricist
Ballyhoo of 1932 (1932) - lyricist
Americana (1932) - lyricist. The Revue include "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
Walk A Little Faster (1932) - lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 (1934) - primary lyricist (for about half of the numbers)
Life Begins at 8:40 (1934) - co-lyricist with Ira Gershwin
The Show is On (1936) - featured lyricist
Blue Holiday (1945) - all-Black cast - contributing composer and lyricist
At Home With Ethel Waters (1953) - featured lyricist for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe"
Post-retirement or posthumous credits:
A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine (1980) - featured lyricist for Over the Rainbow
Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1986) - featured lyricist to music by Jerome Kern
Mostly Sondheim (2002) - featured lyricist
Broadway musicals
Hooray for What! (1937) - lyricist and originator
Hold On to Your Hats (1940) - lyricist
Bloomer Girl (1944) - lyricist, originator and director for musical numbers
Finian's Rainbow (1947) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Revived in 1955, 1960, 2009
Flahooley (1951) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Jamaica (1957) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Musical
The Happiest Girl in the World (1961) - originator and lyricist to music by Jacques Offenbach and originator of the story, based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Darling of the Day (1968) - lyricist
Films
Moonlight and Pretzels (1933)
The Singing Kid (1936)
Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
At the Circus (1939)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943) (Harburg's song "Aint It The Truth", expressing religious skepticism, was removed)
Can't Help Singing (1944)
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Books
Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965)
At This Point in Rhyme (1976)
References
Further reading
Meyerson, Harold and Ernie Harburg. Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz: Yip Harburg, Lyricist, University of Michigan Press, (1993).
Alonso, Harriet. "Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist," Wesleyan University Press (2012).
External links
The Yip Harburg Foundation website
Biography of Harburg from USPS
"A Tribute to Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz", a Democracy Now! special, including audio/video clips of Yip Harburg, and an extended interview with his son and biographer, Ernie Harburg (video, audio, and print transcript)
E. Y. Harburg papers (first installment) and E. Y. Harburg papers (second installment) held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
E. Y. Harburg scores (his personal collection), held in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Celebrated Lyricist Yip Harburg's Rhymes For The Irreverent Released February 2, 2006, article on The Freedom From Religion Foundation's website
April 29, 2006 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow . . . Rhymes for the Irreverent Freedom From Religion Foundation's Podcast
Over The Rainbow With Yip Harburg (BBC Radio 4 programme)
The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz by Amy Goodman
1920 passport photo of Yip Harburg(courtesy of the puzzlemaster, flickr.com)
Yip Harburg - Over The Rainbow
Yip Harburg - Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
E. Y. Harburg recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
1896 births
1981 deaths
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Jewish American songwriters
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
20th-century American musicians
Jewish American writers
Hollywood blacklist
American socialists
Jewish socialists
Jewish American atheists
City College of New York alumni
Townsend Harris High School alumni
People from the Lower East Side
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Accidental deaths in California
Road incident deaths in California
Burials at sea | true | [
"The Yip Yips (also known as the Martians or Aliens) are characters on the American educational children's television show Sesame Street. They are puppets depicting alien visitors from Mars. with notable physical features such as squid-like tentacles, large eyes, and antennae. Built by Caroly Wilcox, they are \"Yip Yipped\" by multiple muppeteers including Jim Henson, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, Martin P. Robinson, and Kevin Clash. The puppets have a very simple design, controlled entirely by two rods (one for the body and eyes, the other for the front of the mouth). This allows their entire bodies to be seen on camera, appearing to float in the air.\n\nThe Yip Yips appear by materialising into a room, always saying \"Yip-yip-yip-yip... Uh-huh\" upon arrival. As they come across common objects they are foreign to them, the Yip Yips consult a book they call \"Earth book\". When they fail to 'correctly' interact with an object of Earth even after consulting their book, they are known to say \"nope nope nope\". Another common trait of the Yip Yips is that when frightened, they cover their face with the lower part of their jaw while making a \"goom\" noise.\n\nSkits\n 1972 — Phone discovery by the Yip Yips \n 1972 — Grandfather clock discovery by the Yip Yips\n 1978 — Ernie wakes up and is unable to find Bert. Ernie imagines that the Martians appeared in the middle of the night and asked Bert to join them in outer space. Bert then enters the room and informs Ernie that he was only in the kitchen making oatmeal. Bert leaves the room and the Martians appear in exactly the way that Ernie had imagined. When Ernie yells to Bert asking what they should do about the visitors, Bert does not believe his story and replies, \"Ask them if they want any oatmeal,\" to which they enthusiastically agree.\n 1979 — Radio discovery by the Yip Yips\n 1986 — Luis walks away from his computer briefly, and the Yip Yips visit during that time and experiment with pressing buttons on the computer. Luis comes back to find that his computer has been changed by someone. Later in the show, the Yip Yips come back and leave a flower on the keyboard, which Luis discovers.\n 1987 — A Yip Yip contributes its voice to the Old MacDonald Cantata along with three Honkers, a Dinger, and Oscar's pet elephant Fluffy.\n 1988 — The Yip Yips observe Luis and Maria in love.\n 1988 — with Kermit, Old MacDonald, various farm animals and the Yip Yips, on a \"News Flash\" from Old MacDonald's Farm. The Yip Yips arrive in a spaceship.\n 1988 — As contestants of the Guy Smiley game show, Bring That Thing. Guy Smiley addresses them as \"Stevie and Jonathan Martian\". They need to find three things that involve light. The things that they find are a flashlight, a lamp and the moon. They won a jar of fireflies.\n 1988 — Visual appearance in \"Brush Brush Boogie\" sung by the Shagri-Las, had Maria brushing her hair, someone else using a brush, and the Yip Yips brushing their teeth, though they did not speak.\n 1989 — \"Get Along\", a song with Kermit, a cow, the Yip Yips, Twiddlebugs and Greasers\n 1989 — \"Family\" song with the Yip Yips\n 1990 — Stars, moon, pigs, Earth discovery by the Yip Yips\n 1990 — Book discovery by the Yip Yips\n 1992 — Faucet discovery by the Yip Yips\n 1994 — On Sesame Street: 25 Wonderful Years, the Yip Yips audition for Big Bird, then go back to \"stars\".\n 1995 — Wind discovery by the Yip Yips, from a fan\n 1996 — \"Outerspace Friend\", a song by Telly with the Yip Yips\n 1998 — The Yip Yips join several cast members in a limo in the special Elmopalooza.\n 2002 — In the recurring skit \"Journey to Ernie\", Big Bird found himself in outer space, where he was helped by a Yip Yip in his search for Ernie.\n 2012 — Elmo delivers a pizza box to three Yip Yips on Mars.\n 2020 — In a story being told by Samuel and Julia\n Unknown — Toaster discovery by the Yip Yips\n\nMerchandising\nAround the time of Sesame Streets 35th anniversary, licensors finally started to notice and recall the characters. In mid-to-late 2003, Hot Topic led the way with the first-known official Yip Yip merchandising, a \"vintage\"-look T-shirt with two Martians. This was followed in the fall of 2004 with Gund bean-bag toys. Light switch plates, action figures (by Palisades Toys), and stuffed toys followed. The 2006 Sesame Street calendar features the Yip Yips for November, and they make an appearance on the front cover. Costumes of the characters may be purchased, but these may not be authorized by Sesame Street.\n\nThe only real acknowledgement of the characters previous to 2003 was their mention in the 30th anniversary book Sesame Street Unpaved.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Yahoo Groups: The Yip Yip Club\n YouTube Video: Yip Yips discover a telephone\n YouTube Video: Yip Yips discover a radio\n\nFictional extraterrestrial life forms\nSesame Street Muppet characters\nTelevision characters introduced in 1972",
"Gameboy Kids is a 1992 Hong Kong action comedy film written and directed by Gordon Chan and starring Andy Lau in dual roles as an idiot savant and triad leader respectively. The plot revolves around the former being mistaken for the latter. The film was produced by Lau's own film company, Teamwork Motion Pictures.\n\nPlot\nIn Hong Kong, triad leader Uncle Eight Taels (Jeffrey Lau) is terminally ill and calls his son Wong Kau-tai (Andy Lau) back to take over his position before he dies. Eight Tael's brother, 7.5 Taels (Ng Man-tat) and his bodyguard Chung (Aaron Kwok) awaits for Wong's appearance.\n\nYip Sin-man (Andy Lau) is a grown man with a mentality of a five-year-old who is taken by two members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from China to India to study. Despite his mental condition, Yip is a quick learner. Wong Kau-tau, revealed to be three-foot tall man, is also at the Indian airport before being arrested by the airport police for breaking a telephone. In the process, Wong drops his passport and an Indian kid picks it up. Mistaking Wong for Yip, the kid hands the passport to Yip and he leaves for Hong Kong with the two ministers left behind.\n\nIn Hong Kong, Chung picks Yip up from the airport and calls him \"Big Brother\" while Yip does not know what is going on. Later, triad member Hau-tin (Danny Poon), who planning to kill Yip and take over the gang, comes to his house, Yip asks him to tie his shoes and obliviously humiliating Hau-tin. Worrying about Yip's safety, Chung teaches Yip how to use guns which he has no interest in and closely follows him with the other bodyguards although Yip feels annoyed by it. All Yip wants to do is buy toys and play.\n\nThe next day, Yip and his underlings go to the toy store and Yip sees a motorcycle. The manager refuses to sell it and later 7.5 Taels sends his henchmen to beat him up and force him to sell the bike. Yip goes to the police station and meets Superintendent Lam (Lam Sheung Yee). Yip agrees to help Lam by making his underlings participate in a \"Anti-Violence Movement\". Later at home, Yip punishes his underlings for being cruel by clipping, sticking with super glue and spanking. Chung humorous says that these punishments do not make them look like triads. Then Hau-tin arrives and Yip forbids him to trafficking drugs and makes him sell cigarettes instead.\n\nDuring this time, Chi-lam (Rosamund Kwan), the daughter of rival gang leader Master Dragon (Yuen Woo-ping), plots to kill Yip in order to help her father. Yip and Chi-lam meet at the same night in which Yip falls in love her in first sight and they go out to dinner together.\n\nThe next day, Yip and Chi-lam get married and Chi-lam plots to kill him at night. When they were about to go to bed, Yip spots the assassins and Chi-lam is later reluctant to kill him when she sees a big portrait of her in his bedroom wall. Not wanting hurt Yip anymore, Chi-lam leaves. Later Yip comes to her house and somehow knows that she wants to kill him. However, he still loves her. Chi-lam has also fallen in love with Yip. Master Dragon forbids Chi-lam to leave with him unless Yip can beat his top henchmen. Chi-lam demonstrates Yip how to fight and Yip quickly learns it and beats the henchmen. In that scene, one of Dragon's thug, who is actually Hau-tin's thug, takes Dragon's younger daughter (Vindy Chan) hostage and Yip manages to kill him. After this, Dragon approves of Yip and Chi-lam together and accepts Yip as his son in-law.\n\nSome time later, Chi-lam's sister informs her that Yip is not Wong Kau-tai and gives her a picture of an Italian mob boss who knows Wong Kau-tau and is at Hong Kong. In order to cover up Yip's identity, Chi-lam kills the mob boss at a bar. Hau-tin informs the police about this and the police come to Yip's mansion to arrest Chi-tam. During this time, it is revealed to everyone knew that Yip is not Wong. Yip leaves with 7.5 Taels and his daughter (Sandra Ng).\n\nIn the middle of the road, their car dies and Chung arrives to kill Yip under the command Kau-man Lung. Chung gives Yip a gun for a Mexican standoff, but Yip empties the bullets. At the count of 1, 2 and 3, 7.5 Taels shoots Chung with his gun. Later, it is revealed that Chung is carrying an empty gun because Yip needs to kill Hau-tin. Chi-lam's sister arrives and picks them up to the mansion.\n\nBack at the mansion, Hau-tin tries to rape Chi-lam right before Yip arrives. 7.5 Taels also arrives to the scene armed with three guns attempting to shoot at Hau-tin and his henchmen coolly but did not manage to even make a single hit. A gun battle ensues in the mansion and after all of Hau-tin's henchmen are killed, Hau-tin overpowers Yip, Chi-lam and 7.5 Taels when they run out of bullets. Later, an injured Chung comes in and shoots Hau-tin's gun and later Yip finally overpowers Hau-tin. When Yip has the chance to kill Hau-tin, he hesitated at first because he did not want to kill anyone. When Hau-tin tries to fight back, Yip finally kills him.\n\nCast\nAndy Lau as Yip Sin-man / Wong Kau-tai\nAaron Kwok as Chung\nNg Man-tat as Uncle 7.5 Taels\nDanny Poon as Hau-tin\nRosamund Kwan as Chi-lam\nSandra Ng as 7.5 Taels's daughter\nVindy Chan as Chi-lam's sister\nYuen Woo-ping as Master Dragon\nLawrence Cheng as Gay Shop Manager\nLam Sheung Yee as Superintendent Lam\nTeddy Chan\nJeffrey Lau as Uncle Eight Taels\nMark King as Italian mob boss\nDion Lam as Assassin at roadblock ambush\nLee Diy-yue as bodyguard\nSam Wong as dancer\nLeung Kai-chi as triad in meeting\nKong Miu-ting as Master Dragon's fighter\nChan Sek as Master Dragon's fighter\nKwan Yung as thug\nAdam Chan as thug\nHo Wing-cheung as thug\nSimon Cheung as policeman\nWong Man-chun as policeman\n\nBox office\nThe film grossed HK$15,001,734 at the Hong Kong box office during its theatrical run from 12 June to 1 July 1992 in Hong Kong.\n\nSee also\nAndy Lau filmography\nAaron Kwok filmography\n\nExternal links\n\nGameboy Kids at Hong Kong Cinemagic\n\nGameboy Kids Review at LoveHKFilm.com\n\nHong Kong films\n1992 films\n1992 martial arts films\n1992 action films\n1990s action comedy films\n1990s crime comedy films \nHong Kong action comedy films\nHong Kong martial arts films\nTriad films\n1990s Cantonese-language films\nFilms directed by Gordon Chan\nFilms set in Hong Kong\nFilms shot in Hong Kong\n1992 comedy films"
]
|
[
"Yip Harburg",
"Hollywood and Broadway",
"What did Yip do in Hollywood?",
"Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz,"
]
| C_ce69b2d6c0e84f2fae3a50f5286e9da2_0 | What year did he write for wizard of Oz. | 2 | What year did Yip Harburg write the lyrics for wizard of Oz? | Yip Harburg | Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow." Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said: So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he--there were eleven screenwriters on that--and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing. Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Edgar Yipsel Harburg (born Isidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (with Jay Gorney), "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his liberal sensibilities. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.
Early life and career
Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children (out of ten), was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8, 1896. His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.
He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, who bonded over a shared fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw taught his father, a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people, that 'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".
After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated from City College (later part of the City University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following the crash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 – $70,000 in debt," which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.
Gershwin introduced Harburg to Jay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for an Earl Carroll Broadway review (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, including Americana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression.
Harburg was a staunch critic of religion. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on God.
Hollywood and Broadway
Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow."
Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said:
Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, and which celebrated equality for women, Abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." Its plot satirized American financial practices and criticized reactionist politicians, mistreatment of the working classes as well as racism and the Jim Crow laws. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Blacklisting
Although never a member of the Communist Party (he was a member of the Socialist Party, and joked that "Yip" referred to the Young People's Socialist League, nicknamed the "Yipsels") he had been involved in radical groups, and he was blacklisted.
Harburg was named in a pamphlet Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television; his involvement with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and his refusal to identify reputed communists, led to him being blocked from working in Hollywood films, television, and radio for twelve full years, from 1950 to 1962. "As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country', I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy", he wrote to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. He was unable to travel abroad during this period, as his passport had been revoked. With a score by Sammy Fain and Harburg's lyrics, the musical Flahooley (1951) satirized the country's anti-communist sentiment, but it closed after forty performances at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia.
Later career
In 1966, songwriter Earl Robinson sought Harburg's help for the song "Hurry Sundown"; the two collaborated on the song and are credited as co-writers. The song was intended for the film Hurry Sundown, but was not used in the film. It was, however, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary for their 1966 album The Peter, Paul and Mary Album. The song was released as a single in 1967, and reached No. 37 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording.
Death
Harburg died while driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on March 5, 1981. While he was initially reported to have been killed in a traffic accident, it was later determined that he suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light.
Awards and recognition
In 1940 Harburg won an Oscar, shared with Harold Arlen, for Best Music, Original Song
for The Wizard of Oz (1939). In addition, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song, along with Arlen,
for Cabin in the Sky, (1943) and Best Music, Original Song
for Can't Help Singing, shared with Jerome Kern in (1944).
Harburg was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
On March 7, 2001, the results of a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Humanities ranked Judy Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" as the Number One recording of the 20th century.
On June 22, 2004, the American Film Institute broadcast AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs, a TV special announcing the 100 greatest film songs. "Over the Rainbow" was Number One, and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" was Number 82.
In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing Harburg's accomplishments. The stamp was drawn from a portrait taken by photographer Barbara Bordnick in 1978 along with a rainbow and lyric from "Over the Rainbow". The first day ceremony was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Songs
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" with composer Jay Gorney (1932)
"Riddle Me This" with composer Lewis Gensler (from the revue, "Ballyhoo of 1932", 1932)
"How Do You Do It? with composer Lewis Gensler (as above, 1932)
"April in Paris" with Vernon Duke (1932)
"It's Only a Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen (1933)
"Then I'll Be Tired of You" with Arthur Schwartz (1934)
"Last Night When We Were Young" with composer Harold Arlen (1935)
"Down with Love" with Harold Arlen (1937)
"Over the Rainbow" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"We're Off to See the Wizard" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Lydia the Tattooed Lady" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" with Harold Arlen (1943)
"Salome" with Roger Edens (1943) (for the movie Du Barry Was a Lady)
"The Eagle and Me" with Harold Arlen (1944)
"How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" with Burton Lane (1946)
"Old Devil Moon" with Burton Lane (1947)
"When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" with Burton Lane (1947)
"Free and Equal Blues" performed by Josh White
"And Russia Was Her Name" with Jerome Kern (1943)
Broadway revues
Earl Carroll's Sketchbook of 1929 (1929) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Jay Gorney
Garrick Gaieties (1930) - contributing lyricist
Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 (1930) - contributing songwriter
The Vanderbilt Revue (1930) - contributing lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 (1931) - featured lyricist for "Mailu"
Shoot the Works (1931) - contributing composer and lyricist
Ballyhoo of 1932 (1932) - lyricist
Americana (1932) - lyricist. The Revue include "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
Walk A Little Faster (1932) - lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 (1934) - primary lyricist (for about half of the numbers)
Life Begins at 8:40 (1934) - co-lyricist with Ira Gershwin
The Show is On (1936) - featured lyricist
Blue Holiday (1945) - all-Black cast - contributing composer and lyricist
At Home With Ethel Waters (1953) - featured lyricist for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe"
Post-retirement or posthumous credits:
A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine (1980) - featured lyricist for Over the Rainbow
Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1986) - featured lyricist to music by Jerome Kern
Mostly Sondheim (2002) - featured lyricist
Broadway musicals
Hooray for What! (1937) - lyricist and originator
Hold On to Your Hats (1940) - lyricist
Bloomer Girl (1944) - lyricist, originator and director for musical numbers
Finian's Rainbow (1947) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Revived in 1955, 1960, 2009
Flahooley (1951) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Jamaica (1957) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Musical
The Happiest Girl in the World (1961) - originator and lyricist to music by Jacques Offenbach and originator of the story, based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Darling of the Day (1968) - lyricist
Films
Moonlight and Pretzels (1933)
The Singing Kid (1936)
Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
At the Circus (1939)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943) (Harburg's song "Aint It The Truth", expressing religious skepticism, was removed)
Can't Help Singing (1944)
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Books
Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965)
At This Point in Rhyme (1976)
References
Further reading
Meyerson, Harold and Ernie Harburg. Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz: Yip Harburg, Lyricist, University of Michigan Press, (1993).
Alonso, Harriet. "Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist," Wesleyan University Press (2012).
External links
The Yip Harburg Foundation website
Biography of Harburg from USPS
"A Tribute to Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz", a Democracy Now! special, including audio/video clips of Yip Harburg, and an extended interview with his son and biographer, Ernie Harburg (video, audio, and print transcript)
E. Y. Harburg papers (first installment) and E. Y. Harburg papers (second installment) held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
E. Y. Harburg scores (his personal collection), held in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Celebrated Lyricist Yip Harburg's Rhymes For The Irreverent Released February 2, 2006, article on The Freedom From Religion Foundation's website
April 29, 2006 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow . . . Rhymes for the Irreverent Freedom From Religion Foundation's Podcast
Over The Rainbow With Yip Harburg (BBC Radio 4 programme)
The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz by Amy Goodman
1920 passport photo of Yip Harburg(courtesy of the puzzlemaster, flickr.com)
Yip Harburg - Over The Rainbow
Yip Harburg - Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
E. Y. Harburg recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
1896 births
1981 deaths
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Jewish American songwriters
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
20th-century American musicians
Jewish American writers
Hollywood blacklist
American socialists
Jewish socialists
Jewish American atheists
City College of New York alumni
Townsend Harris High School alumni
People from the Lower East Side
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Accidental deaths in California
Road incident deaths in California
Burials at sea | false | [
"Ruth Plumly Thompson (27 July 1891 – 6 April 1976) was an American writer of children's stories, best known for writing many novels placed in Oz, the fictional land of L. Frank Baum's classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels.\n\nLife and work\n\nAn avid reader of Baum's books and a lifelong children's writer, Thompson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While in high school she sold her first fairy tale to St. Nicholas Magazine to which she continued contributing, along with The Smart Set. \nwizard\nIn 1914 she took a job with the Philadelphia Public Ledger, writing a weekly children's column for the newspaper. She had already published her first children's book, The Perhappsy Chaps, and her second, The Princess of Cozytown, was pending publication when William Lee, vice president of Baum's publisher Reilly & Lee, solicited Thompson to continue the Oz series. (Rumors among fans that Thompson was Baum's niece were untrue.) Between 1921 and 1939, she wrote one Oz book a year. \n(Since Thompson was the primary supporter of her widowed mother and disabled sister, the annual income from the Oz books was important for her financial circumstances.)\n\nThompson's contributions to the Oz series are lively and imaginative, featuring a wide range of colorful and unusual characters. She emphasized humor to a greater extent than Baum did and more specifically targeted children as her primary audience.\n\nIllustrator John R. Neill wrote her on completing the illustrations for Kabumpo in Oz, \"Incidentally, I would like to tell you how much I enjoyed reading the [manuscript] and making the pictures. After illustrating about seventeen Oz books, I think it worthwhile to let you know this with my congratulations on having secured an author of such superior qualifications to continue the work of supplying the 'Oz books.' Every feature of the child appeal is handled with the greatest skill. The whimsical, the humor, the interest and the zip of the book make me think it one of the very best Oz books so far.\"\n\nAfter a falling out with the Oz Publisher in the 1930s she did articles for Jack and Jill, Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal.\n\nIn addition she was the initial editor of Ace Comics, King Comics and later became also editor of Magic Comics, all for David McKay Publications. In some cases she used the pen name Jo King. Her friend Marge provided illustrations for many of the pieces she contributed. 1965-1970 for Jack and Jill she did the Perky Puppet page.\n\nReturning to Oz after many years her last two books were published by The International Wizard of Oz Club: Yankee in Oz (1972) and The Enchanted Island of Oz (1976); the latter was not originally written as an Oz book.\n\nOz books by Thompson\n 1921: The Royal Book of Oz\n 1922: Kabumpo in Oz\n 1923: The Cowardly Lion of Oz\n 1924: Grampa in Oz\n 1925: The Lost King of Oz\n 1926: The Hungry Tiger of Oz\n 1927: The Gnome King of Oz\n 1928: The Giant Horse of Oz\n 1929: Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz\n 1930: The Yellow Knight of Oz\n 1931: Pirates in Oz\n 1932: The Purple Prince of Oz\n 1933: Ojo in Oz\n 1934: Speedy in Oz\n 1935: The Wishing Horse of Oz\n 1936: Captain Salt in Oz\n 1937: Handy Mandy in Oz\n 1938: The Silver Princess in Oz\n 1939: Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz\n 1972: Yankee in Oz\n 1976: The Enchanted Island of Oz\n\nA short collection of Thompson's Oz poetry, The Cheerful Citizens of Oz, was published in 1992.\n\nNon-Oz books by Thompson\n The Perhappsy Chaps, P.F. Volland Co. (1918)\n The Princess of Cozytown, P.F. Volland Co. (1922)\n The Curious Cruise of Captain Santa, Reilly & Lee (1926)\n “The Wonder Book” , Reilly & Lee (1929)\n King Kojo, illustrated by Marge, Donald MacKay (1938)\n The Wizard of Way-Up and Other Wonders, The International Wizard of Oz Club (1985), edited by James E. Haff and Douglas G. Greene\n Sissajig and Other Surprises, The International Wizard of Oz Club (2003), edited by Ruth Berman and Douglas G. Greene\n\nSee also \n\nChildren's literature\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n \n \n \n On Thompson's The Curious Cruise of Captain Santa\n\n1891 births\n1976 deaths\n20th-century American novelists\nAmerican children's writers\nAmerican fantasy writers\nAmerican women novelists\nOz (franchise)\nWomen science fiction and fantasy writers\nWriters from Philadelphia\nAmerican women children's writers\n20th-century American women writers\nNovelists from Pennsylvania",
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (2009) is an eight-issue comic book limited series adapting the L. Frank Baum novel of the same name. The series was written by Eric Shanower with art by Skottie Young and published by Marvel Comics.\n\nPlot summary\n\nWhen Kansas farm girl Dorothy Gale and her pet dog Toto are swept away to the magical Land of Oz in a cyclone, she fatally flattens the Wicked Witch of the East, liberates a talking Scarecrow, meets a Tin Woodman, a Cowardly Lion and is hailed by everyone as a great sorceress! But all Dorothy really wants to know is: how does she get back home again?\n\nCollected editions\nThe series has been collected into a single volume:\n\nThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz (192 pages, hardcover, September 2009, , softcover, March 2010, , June 2010, )\n\nReception\nThe Marvel Oz series has been met with very positive reviews, praising the art, character design and overall layout.\n\nIGN gave the issues of the series an average rating of 9.2 out of 10.\n\nIt won the 2010 Eisners for Best Limited Series or Story Arc and Best Publication for Kids.\n\nSequels\nThe series has been followed by adaptations of The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz and The Road to Oz, and The Emerald City of Oz by the same creative team. The series did not continue beyond the sixth Oz book.\n\nSee also\nThe Wizard of Oz (comics), for other adaptations\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nComics based on Oz (franchise)\nEisner Award winners"
]
|
[
"Yip Harburg",
"Hollywood and Broadway",
"What did Yip do in Hollywood?",
"Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz,",
"What year did he write for wizard of Oz.",
"I don't know."
]
| C_ce69b2d6c0e84f2fae3a50f5286e9da2_0 | What was names of some broadway shows? | 3 | What were the names of some broadway shows that Yip Harburg worked on? | Yip Harburg | Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow." Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said: So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he--there were eleven screenwriters on that--and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing. Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. CANNOTANSWER | Bloomer Girl (1944), | Edgar Yipsel Harburg (born Isidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (with Jay Gorney), "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his liberal sensibilities. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.
Early life and career
Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children (out of ten), was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8, 1896. His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.
He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, who bonded over a shared fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw taught his father, a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people, that 'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".
After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated from City College (later part of the City University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following the crash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 – $70,000 in debt," which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.
Gershwin introduced Harburg to Jay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for an Earl Carroll Broadway review (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, including Americana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression.
Harburg was a staunch critic of religion. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on God.
Hollywood and Broadway
Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow."
Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said:
Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, and which celebrated equality for women, Abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." Its plot satirized American financial practices and criticized reactionist politicians, mistreatment of the working classes as well as racism and the Jim Crow laws. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Blacklisting
Although never a member of the Communist Party (he was a member of the Socialist Party, and joked that "Yip" referred to the Young People's Socialist League, nicknamed the "Yipsels") he had been involved in radical groups, and he was blacklisted.
Harburg was named in a pamphlet Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television; his involvement with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and his refusal to identify reputed communists, led to him being blocked from working in Hollywood films, television, and radio for twelve full years, from 1950 to 1962. "As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country', I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy", he wrote to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. He was unable to travel abroad during this period, as his passport had been revoked. With a score by Sammy Fain and Harburg's lyrics, the musical Flahooley (1951) satirized the country's anti-communist sentiment, but it closed after forty performances at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia.
Later career
In 1966, songwriter Earl Robinson sought Harburg's help for the song "Hurry Sundown"; the two collaborated on the song and are credited as co-writers. The song was intended for the film Hurry Sundown, but was not used in the film. It was, however, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary for their 1966 album The Peter, Paul and Mary Album. The song was released as a single in 1967, and reached No. 37 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording.
Death
Harburg died while driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on March 5, 1981. While he was initially reported to have been killed in a traffic accident, it was later determined that he suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light.
Awards and recognition
In 1940 Harburg won an Oscar, shared with Harold Arlen, for Best Music, Original Song
for The Wizard of Oz (1939). In addition, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song, along with Arlen,
for Cabin in the Sky, (1943) and Best Music, Original Song
for Can't Help Singing, shared with Jerome Kern in (1944).
Harburg was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
On March 7, 2001, the results of a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Humanities ranked Judy Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" as the Number One recording of the 20th century.
On June 22, 2004, the American Film Institute broadcast AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs, a TV special announcing the 100 greatest film songs. "Over the Rainbow" was Number One, and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" was Number 82.
In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing Harburg's accomplishments. The stamp was drawn from a portrait taken by photographer Barbara Bordnick in 1978 along with a rainbow and lyric from "Over the Rainbow". The first day ceremony was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Songs
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" with composer Jay Gorney (1932)
"Riddle Me This" with composer Lewis Gensler (from the revue, "Ballyhoo of 1932", 1932)
"How Do You Do It? with composer Lewis Gensler (as above, 1932)
"April in Paris" with Vernon Duke (1932)
"It's Only a Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen (1933)
"Then I'll Be Tired of You" with Arthur Schwartz (1934)
"Last Night When We Were Young" with composer Harold Arlen (1935)
"Down with Love" with Harold Arlen (1937)
"Over the Rainbow" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"We're Off to See the Wizard" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Lydia the Tattooed Lady" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" with Harold Arlen (1943)
"Salome" with Roger Edens (1943) (for the movie Du Barry Was a Lady)
"The Eagle and Me" with Harold Arlen (1944)
"How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" with Burton Lane (1946)
"Old Devil Moon" with Burton Lane (1947)
"When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" with Burton Lane (1947)
"Free and Equal Blues" performed by Josh White
"And Russia Was Her Name" with Jerome Kern (1943)
Broadway revues
Earl Carroll's Sketchbook of 1929 (1929) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Jay Gorney
Garrick Gaieties (1930) - contributing lyricist
Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 (1930) - contributing songwriter
The Vanderbilt Revue (1930) - contributing lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 (1931) - featured lyricist for "Mailu"
Shoot the Works (1931) - contributing composer and lyricist
Ballyhoo of 1932 (1932) - lyricist
Americana (1932) - lyricist. The Revue include "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
Walk A Little Faster (1932) - lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 (1934) - primary lyricist (for about half of the numbers)
Life Begins at 8:40 (1934) - co-lyricist with Ira Gershwin
The Show is On (1936) - featured lyricist
Blue Holiday (1945) - all-Black cast - contributing composer and lyricist
At Home With Ethel Waters (1953) - featured lyricist for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe"
Post-retirement or posthumous credits:
A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine (1980) - featured lyricist for Over the Rainbow
Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1986) - featured lyricist to music by Jerome Kern
Mostly Sondheim (2002) - featured lyricist
Broadway musicals
Hooray for What! (1937) - lyricist and originator
Hold On to Your Hats (1940) - lyricist
Bloomer Girl (1944) - lyricist, originator and director for musical numbers
Finian's Rainbow (1947) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Revived in 1955, 1960, 2009
Flahooley (1951) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Jamaica (1957) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Musical
The Happiest Girl in the World (1961) - originator and lyricist to music by Jacques Offenbach and originator of the story, based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Darling of the Day (1968) - lyricist
Films
Moonlight and Pretzels (1933)
The Singing Kid (1936)
Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
At the Circus (1939)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943) (Harburg's song "Aint It The Truth", expressing religious skepticism, was removed)
Can't Help Singing (1944)
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Books
Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965)
At This Point in Rhyme (1976)
References
Further reading
Meyerson, Harold and Ernie Harburg. Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz: Yip Harburg, Lyricist, University of Michigan Press, (1993).
Alonso, Harriet. "Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist," Wesleyan University Press (2012).
External links
The Yip Harburg Foundation website
Biography of Harburg from USPS
"A Tribute to Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz", a Democracy Now! special, including audio/video clips of Yip Harburg, and an extended interview with his son and biographer, Ernie Harburg (video, audio, and print transcript)
E. Y. Harburg papers (first installment) and E. Y. Harburg papers (second installment) held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
E. Y. Harburg scores (his personal collection), held in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Celebrated Lyricist Yip Harburg's Rhymes For The Irreverent Released February 2, 2006, article on The Freedom From Religion Foundation's website
April 29, 2006 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow . . . Rhymes for the Irreverent Freedom From Religion Foundation's Podcast
Over The Rainbow With Yip Harburg (BBC Radio 4 programme)
The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz by Amy Goodman
1920 passport photo of Yip Harburg(courtesy of the puzzlemaster, flickr.com)
Yip Harburg - Over The Rainbow
Yip Harburg - Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
E. Y. Harburg recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
1896 births
1981 deaths
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Jewish American songwriters
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
20th-century American musicians
Jewish American writers
Hollywood blacklist
American socialists
Jewish socialists
Jewish American atheists
City College of New York alumni
Townsend Harris High School alumni
People from the Lower East Side
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Accidental deaths in California
Road incident deaths in California
Burials at sea | true | [
"Vinton Freedley (November 5, 1891 – June 5, 1969) was an American theater and television producer known for his productions of the works of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and television shows such as Talent Jackpot and Showtime U.S.A..\n\nEarly life and education\nFreedley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated Harvard University in 1914 where he was a member of The Delphic Club and The Hasty Pudding. He later attended The University of Pennsylvania where he earned a JD degree. He later became a member of the historic theatrical club, The Lambs in 1918\n\nProducing\nSoon after graduating college, Freedley met Alexander A. Aarons with whom he formed a long term producing partnership. Their first major hit was Lady Be Good! (1924) with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin and featuring Fred Astaire and Adele Astaire. Over the next ten years the pair produced some of the most important works in the Broadway musical canon, featuring some of the most famous songs ever to emerge from the tin pan alley era, part of what is commonly referred to as \"The Great American Songbook.\" The shows that followed included Tip-Toes (1925), Oh, Kay! (1926), and Funny Face (1927), again starring the Astaires. All the scores were written by the Gershwins. In 1928 Aarons and Freedley produced Here's Howe, featuring the music of Gus Kahn, Joseph Meyer, and Irving Caesar; Hold Everything!, with a score by Buddy DeSylva and Lew Brown; and Treasure Girl, with music by the Gershwins. In 1929 followed Spring Is Here and Heads Up!, both with songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Another Gershwin hit was Girl Crazy (1930). The partnership ended in 1932. Freedley produced 30 shows total on Broadway.\n\nAlvin Theatre\nAarons and Freedley built the Alvin Theatre, today known as the Neil Simon Theatre. It is a Broadway theater on 52nd Street in New York City with a capacity that fluctuates between 1400 and 1500 depending on the seating configuration. The theatre was designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp. The original name is a portmanteau of the names of the two producers: Alex Aarons and Vinton Freedley.\n\nBroadway productions\n\nTelevision\nShowtime, U.S.A., TV Series 1950, Emcee\nTalent Jackpot, TV Series 1949, Emcee\nStage Door Canteen, 1943\nA Dangerous Affair, 1919\n\nNotes\n\n1891 births\n1969 deaths\nTelevision producers from Pennsylvania\nAmerican theatre managers and producers\nUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School alumni\nBusinesspeople from Philadelphia\nHasty Pudding alumni\n20th-century American businesspeople",
"Forks is a hamlet in the town of Cheektowaga in Erie County, New York, United States. surrounded by George Urban Blvd, Dick Rd, Union Rd and Broadway St.\n\nForks is the site of what was once one of the largest coal trestles in the United States, over half a mile long, which was built in the 1880s and burned in the 1920s.\n\nThe Forks Hotel on Broadway St. was built in 1853 along the new Attica & Buffalo Railroad. The building served variously as a hotel, railroad station, post office and bar. In 1958 it was purchased by local magician Eddie Fechter, who operated it as a venue for magic shows. Fechter died in the late 1970s, and the hotel was sold, but continued to hold magic shows. The building was damaged by fire in 1998 and demolished in 2003.\n\nReferences\n\nHamlets in New York (state)\nHamlets in Erie County, New York"
]
|
[
"Yip Harburg",
"Hollywood and Broadway",
"What did Yip do in Hollywood?",
"Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz,",
"What year did he write for wizard of Oz.",
"I don't know.",
"What was names of some broadway shows?",
"Bloomer Girl (1944),"
]
| C_ce69b2d6c0e84f2fae3a50f5286e9da2_0 | Did he actually act or was part of the shows? | 4 | Did Yip Harburg actually act or was part of the broadway shows? | Yip Harburg | Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow." Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said: So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he--there were eleven screenwriters on that--and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing. Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. CANNOTANSWER | he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, | Edgar Yipsel Harburg (born Isidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (with Jay Gorney), "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his liberal sensibilities. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.
Early life and career
Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children (out of ten), was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8, 1896. His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.
He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, who bonded over a shared fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw taught his father, a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people, that 'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".
After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated from City College (later part of the City University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following the crash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 – $70,000 in debt," which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.
Gershwin introduced Harburg to Jay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for an Earl Carroll Broadway review (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, including Americana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression.
Harburg was a staunch critic of religion. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on God.
Hollywood and Broadway
Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow."
Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said:
Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, and which celebrated equality for women, Abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." Its plot satirized American financial practices and criticized reactionist politicians, mistreatment of the working classes as well as racism and the Jim Crow laws. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Blacklisting
Although never a member of the Communist Party (he was a member of the Socialist Party, and joked that "Yip" referred to the Young People's Socialist League, nicknamed the "Yipsels") he had been involved in radical groups, and he was blacklisted.
Harburg was named in a pamphlet Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television; his involvement with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and his refusal to identify reputed communists, led to him being blocked from working in Hollywood films, television, and radio for twelve full years, from 1950 to 1962. "As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country', I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy", he wrote to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. He was unable to travel abroad during this period, as his passport had been revoked. With a score by Sammy Fain and Harburg's lyrics, the musical Flahooley (1951) satirized the country's anti-communist sentiment, but it closed after forty performances at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia.
Later career
In 1966, songwriter Earl Robinson sought Harburg's help for the song "Hurry Sundown"; the two collaborated on the song and are credited as co-writers. The song was intended for the film Hurry Sundown, but was not used in the film. It was, however, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary for their 1966 album The Peter, Paul and Mary Album. The song was released as a single in 1967, and reached No. 37 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording.
Death
Harburg died while driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on March 5, 1981. While he was initially reported to have been killed in a traffic accident, it was later determined that he suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light.
Awards and recognition
In 1940 Harburg won an Oscar, shared with Harold Arlen, for Best Music, Original Song
for The Wizard of Oz (1939). In addition, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song, along with Arlen,
for Cabin in the Sky, (1943) and Best Music, Original Song
for Can't Help Singing, shared with Jerome Kern in (1944).
Harburg was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
On March 7, 2001, the results of a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Humanities ranked Judy Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" as the Number One recording of the 20th century.
On June 22, 2004, the American Film Institute broadcast AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs, a TV special announcing the 100 greatest film songs. "Over the Rainbow" was Number One, and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" was Number 82.
In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing Harburg's accomplishments. The stamp was drawn from a portrait taken by photographer Barbara Bordnick in 1978 along with a rainbow and lyric from "Over the Rainbow". The first day ceremony was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Songs
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" with composer Jay Gorney (1932)
"Riddle Me This" with composer Lewis Gensler (from the revue, "Ballyhoo of 1932", 1932)
"How Do You Do It? with composer Lewis Gensler (as above, 1932)
"April in Paris" with Vernon Duke (1932)
"It's Only a Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen (1933)
"Then I'll Be Tired of You" with Arthur Schwartz (1934)
"Last Night When We Were Young" with composer Harold Arlen (1935)
"Down with Love" with Harold Arlen (1937)
"Over the Rainbow" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"We're Off to See the Wizard" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Lydia the Tattooed Lady" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" with Harold Arlen (1943)
"Salome" with Roger Edens (1943) (for the movie Du Barry Was a Lady)
"The Eagle and Me" with Harold Arlen (1944)
"How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" with Burton Lane (1946)
"Old Devil Moon" with Burton Lane (1947)
"When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" with Burton Lane (1947)
"Free and Equal Blues" performed by Josh White
"And Russia Was Her Name" with Jerome Kern (1943)
Broadway revues
Earl Carroll's Sketchbook of 1929 (1929) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Jay Gorney
Garrick Gaieties (1930) - contributing lyricist
Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 (1930) - contributing songwriter
The Vanderbilt Revue (1930) - contributing lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 (1931) - featured lyricist for "Mailu"
Shoot the Works (1931) - contributing composer and lyricist
Ballyhoo of 1932 (1932) - lyricist
Americana (1932) - lyricist. The Revue include "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
Walk A Little Faster (1932) - lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 (1934) - primary lyricist (for about half of the numbers)
Life Begins at 8:40 (1934) - co-lyricist with Ira Gershwin
The Show is On (1936) - featured lyricist
Blue Holiday (1945) - all-Black cast - contributing composer and lyricist
At Home With Ethel Waters (1953) - featured lyricist for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe"
Post-retirement or posthumous credits:
A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine (1980) - featured lyricist for Over the Rainbow
Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1986) - featured lyricist to music by Jerome Kern
Mostly Sondheim (2002) - featured lyricist
Broadway musicals
Hooray for What! (1937) - lyricist and originator
Hold On to Your Hats (1940) - lyricist
Bloomer Girl (1944) - lyricist, originator and director for musical numbers
Finian's Rainbow (1947) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Revived in 1955, 1960, 2009
Flahooley (1951) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Jamaica (1957) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Musical
The Happiest Girl in the World (1961) - originator and lyricist to music by Jacques Offenbach and originator of the story, based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Darling of the Day (1968) - lyricist
Films
Moonlight and Pretzels (1933)
The Singing Kid (1936)
Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
At the Circus (1939)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943) (Harburg's song "Aint It The Truth", expressing religious skepticism, was removed)
Can't Help Singing (1944)
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Books
Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965)
At This Point in Rhyme (1976)
References
Further reading
Meyerson, Harold and Ernie Harburg. Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz: Yip Harburg, Lyricist, University of Michigan Press, (1993).
Alonso, Harriet. "Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist," Wesleyan University Press (2012).
External links
The Yip Harburg Foundation website
Biography of Harburg from USPS
"A Tribute to Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz", a Democracy Now! special, including audio/video clips of Yip Harburg, and an extended interview with his son and biographer, Ernie Harburg (video, audio, and print transcript)
E. Y. Harburg papers (first installment) and E. Y. Harburg papers (second installment) held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
E. Y. Harburg scores (his personal collection), held in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Celebrated Lyricist Yip Harburg's Rhymes For The Irreverent Released February 2, 2006, article on The Freedom From Religion Foundation's website
April 29, 2006 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow . . . Rhymes for the Irreverent Freedom From Religion Foundation's Podcast
Over The Rainbow With Yip Harburg (BBC Radio 4 programme)
The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz by Amy Goodman
1920 passport photo of Yip Harburg(courtesy of the puzzlemaster, flickr.com)
Yip Harburg - Over The Rainbow
Yip Harburg - Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
E. Y. Harburg recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
1896 births
1981 deaths
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Jewish American songwriters
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
20th-century American musicians
Jewish American writers
Hollywood blacklist
American socialists
Jewish socialists
Jewish American atheists
City College of New York alumni
Townsend Harris High School alumni
People from the Lower East Side
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Accidental deaths in California
Road incident deaths in California
Burials at sea | true | [
"Mabo v Queensland (No 1), was a significant court case decided in the High Court of Australia on 8 December 1988. It found that the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985, which attempted to retrospectively abolish native title rights, was not valid according to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.\n\nBackground to the case\n\nThe case was closely related to another proceeding in the High Court (Mabo v Queensland (No 2), decided in 1992) which was a dispute between the Meriam people (of the Mer Islands in the Torres Strait) and the Government of Queensland, in which several Meriam people, principally Eddie Mabo, contested that they had certain native title rights over the Murray Islands. In 1985, the Queensland Government passed the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act, which was intended to retrospectively abolish any such native title rights, if they existed.\n\nThe Meriam people sought a demurrer to prevent the Queensland Government from relying on the Coast Islands Declaratory Act in their defence to the main case.\n\nThe case\n\nThe main argument of the plaintiffs was that the Coast Islands Act was invalid, because it was contrary to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, a law passed by the Parliament of Australia. Section 109 of the Constitution of Australia provides that where an Act of a state parliament is inconsistent with an Act of the Parliament of Australia, the state act is invalid to the extent of the inconsistency. As such, the plaintiffs argued that the Queensland Government were not able to rely on the Coast Islands Act as part of their defence in the main case. The Queensland Government argued that the Act was valid, and had the effect of extinguishing any rights which the plaintiffs may have had, which may have survived annexation of the islands in 1879.{[cn}}\n\nBoth parties agreed that the case should proceed on the assumption that the plaintiffs did actually hold native title rights, although the question had not been decided yet. The court agreed that the Coast Islands Act did operate to extinguish native title rights, if indeed they did exist. The main question was thus whether the Coast Islands Act was valid.\n\nSection 10(1) of the Act provides that Commonwealth or State laws which deprive a person of one race or ethnic group of a right enjoyed by another group, then that law does not have effect. An important question was whether laws which have the effect of removing or limiting rights which are held only by a certain group falls under section 10(1).\n\nThe decision\n\nThe majority judgment of Justices Brennan, Toohey and Gaudron found that native title rights, if they did exist, should really be treated as part of a broader human right to own and inherit property. They said that the effect of the Coast Islands Act was to arbitrarily deprive the Meriam people of their traditional property, by denying their native title rights. As such, their right to own and inherit property was limited. By this reasoning, the demurrer was allowed and the Queensland Government was not allowed to rely on the Coast Islands Act.\n\nConsequences\n\nThis case was a significant step towards the recognition in the main case, Mabo v Queensland (No 2), that native title existed.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Social Justice Reports, 1994–2009 by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioners of the day\n Native Title Reports, 1994–2009 by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioners of the day\n\nNative title case law in Australia\nHigh Court of Australia cases\n1988 in Australian law\nTorres Strait Islands culture\n1988 in case law",
"The Municipal Offices Act 1710 (9 Ann c 19) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain.\n\nThis Act was partly repealed by section 1 of 3 & 4 Vict c 47.\n\nThe whole Act, so far as unrepealed, was repealed by section 307(1)(b) of, and Part IV of Schedule 11 to, the Local Government Act 1933. This repeal did not extend to Scotland, Northern Ireland or London (s. 308(2)).\n\nThe whole Act, except so far as it related to the City of London, ceased to have effect by virtue of section 205 of, and schedule 7 to, the London Government Act 1939.\n\nThe whole Act, except so far as it related to the City of London, was repealed in its application to the administrative county of London by section 207(1) of, and Schedule 8 to, the London Government Act 1939.\n\nSection 1\nThis section, from the words \"For remedy whereof\" down to the end of the section, was repealed by section 3 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision and Civil Procedure Act 1883.\n\nSection 2\nThis section was repealed by section 3 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision and Civil Procedure Act 1883.\n\nSection 3\nThis section was repealed by section 3 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision and Civil Procedure Act 1883.\n\nSection 4\nThis section was repealed by section 84(6) of the Local Government Act 1933. This repeal did not extend to Scotland, Northern Ireland or London (s. 308(2)).\n\nSection 5\nThis section was repealed by section 84(6) of the Local Government Act 1933. This repeal did not extend to Scotland, Northern Ireland or London (s. 308(2)).\n\nSection 6\nThis section was repealed by section 3 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision and Civil Procedure Act 1883.\n\nSection 7\nThis section was repealed by section 3 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision and Civil Procedure Act 1881.\n\nReferences\nHalsbury's Statutes,\n\nGreat Britain Acts of Parliament 1710"
]
|
[
"Yip Harburg",
"Hollywood and Broadway",
"What did Yip do in Hollywood?",
"Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz,",
"What year did he write for wizard of Oz.",
"I don't know.",
"What was names of some broadway shows?",
"Bloomer Girl (1944),",
"Did he actually act or was part of the shows?",
"he wrote a series of \"book\" musicals with social messages,"
]
| C_ce69b2d6c0e84f2fae3a50f5286e9da2_0 | What year did he start writing for Hollywood or Broadway. | 5 | What year did Yip Harburg start writing for Hollywood or Broadway? | Yip Harburg | Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow." Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said: So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he--there were eleven screenwriters on that--and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing. Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. CANNOTANSWER | In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, | Edgar Yipsel Harburg (born Isidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (with Jay Gorney), "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his liberal sensibilities. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.
Early life and career
Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children (out of ten), was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8, 1896. His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.
He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, who bonded over a shared fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw taught his father, a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people, that 'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".
After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated from City College (later part of the City University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following the crash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 – $70,000 in debt," which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.
Gershwin introduced Harburg to Jay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for an Earl Carroll Broadway review (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, including Americana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression.
Harburg was a staunch critic of religion. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on God.
Hollywood and Broadway
Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow."
Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said:
Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, and which celebrated equality for women, Abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." Its plot satirized American financial practices and criticized reactionist politicians, mistreatment of the working classes as well as racism and the Jim Crow laws. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Blacklisting
Although never a member of the Communist Party (he was a member of the Socialist Party, and joked that "Yip" referred to the Young People's Socialist League, nicknamed the "Yipsels") he had been involved in radical groups, and he was blacklisted.
Harburg was named in a pamphlet Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television; his involvement with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and his refusal to identify reputed communists, led to him being blocked from working in Hollywood films, television, and radio for twelve full years, from 1950 to 1962. "As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country', I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy", he wrote to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. He was unable to travel abroad during this period, as his passport had been revoked. With a score by Sammy Fain and Harburg's lyrics, the musical Flahooley (1951) satirized the country's anti-communist sentiment, but it closed after forty performances at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia.
Later career
In 1966, songwriter Earl Robinson sought Harburg's help for the song "Hurry Sundown"; the two collaborated on the song and are credited as co-writers. The song was intended for the film Hurry Sundown, but was not used in the film. It was, however, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary for their 1966 album The Peter, Paul and Mary Album. The song was released as a single in 1967, and reached No. 37 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording.
Death
Harburg died while driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on March 5, 1981. While he was initially reported to have been killed in a traffic accident, it was later determined that he suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light.
Awards and recognition
In 1940 Harburg won an Oscar, shared with Harold Arlen, for Best Music, Original Song
for The Wizard of Oz (1939). In addition, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song, along with Arlen,
for Cabin in the Sky, (1943) and Best Music, Original Song
for Can't Help Singing, shared with Jerome Kern in (1944).
Harburg was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
On March 7, 2001, the results of a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Humanities ranked Judy Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" as the Number One recording of the 20th century.
On June 22, 2004, the American Film Institute broadcast AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs, a TV special announcing the 100 greatest film songs. "Over the Rainbow" was Number One, and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" was Number 82.
In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing Harburg's accomplishments. The stamp was drawn from a portrait taken by photographer Barbara Bordnick in 1978 along with a rainbow and lyric from "Over the Rainbow". The first day ceremony was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Songs
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" with composer Jay Gorney (1932)
"Riddle Me This" with composer Lewis Gensler (from the revue, "Ballyhoo of 1932", 1932)
"How Do You Do It? with composer Lewis Gensler (as above, 1932)
"April in Paris" with Vernon Duke (1932)
"It's Only a Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen (1933)
"Then I'll Be Tired of You" with Arthur Schwartz (1934)
"Last Night When We Were Young" with composer Harold Arlen (1935)
"Down with Love" with Harold Arlen (1937)
"Over the Rainbow" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"We're Off to See the Wizard" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Lydia the Tattooed Lady" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" with Harold Arlen (1943)
"Salome" with Roger Edens (1943) (for the movie Du Barry Was a Lady)
"The Eagle and Me" with Harold Arlen (1944)
"How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" with Burton Lane (1946)
"Old Devil Moon" with Burton Lane (1947)
"When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" with Burton Lane (1947)
"Free and Equal Blues" performed by Josh White
"And Russia Was Her Name" with Jerome Kern (1943)
Broadway revues
Earl Carroll's Sketchbook of 1929 (1929) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Jay Gorney
Garrick Gaieties (1930) - contributing lyricist
Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 (1930) - contributing songwriter
The Vanderbilt Revue (1930) - contributing lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 (1931) - featured lyricist for "Mailu"
Shoot the Works (1931) - contributing composer and lyricist
Ballyhoo of 1932 (1932) - lyricist
Americana (1932) - lyricist. The Revue include "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
Walk A Little Faster (1932) - lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 (1934) - primary lyricist (for about half of the numbers)
Life Begins at 8:40 (1934) - co-lyricist with Ira Gershwin
The Show is On (1936) - featured lyricist
Blue Holiday (1945) - all-Black cast - contributing composer and lyricist
At Home With Ethel Waters (1953) - featured lyricist for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe"
Post-retirement or posthumous credits:
A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine (1980) - featured lyricist for Over the Rainbow
Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1986) - featured lyricist to music by Jerome Kern
Mostly Sondheim (2002) - featured lyricist
Broadway musicals
Hooray for What! (1937) - lyricist and originator
Hold On to Your Hats (1940) - lyricist
Bloomer Girl (1944) - lyricist, originator and director for musical numbers
Finian's Rainbow (1947) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Revived in 1955, 1960, 2009
Flahooley (1951) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Jamaica (1957) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Musical
The Happiest Girl in the World (1961) - originator and lyricist to music by Jacques Offenbach and originator of the story, based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Darling of the Day (1968) - lyricist
Films
Moonlight and Pretzels (1933)
The Singing Kid (1936)
Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
At the Circus (1939)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943) (Harburg's song "Aint It The Truth", expressing religious skepticism, was removed)
Can't Help Singing (1944)
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Books
Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965)
At This Point in Rhyme (1976)
References
Further reading
Meyerson, Harold and Ernie Harburg. Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz: Yip Harburg, Lyricist, University of Michigan Press, (1993).
Alonso, Harriet. "Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist," Wesleyan University Press (2012).
External links
The Yip Harburg Foundation website
Biography of Harburg from USPS
"A Tribute to Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz", a Democracy Now! special, including audio/video clips of Yip Harburg, and an extended interview with his son and biographer, Ernie Harburg (video, audio, and print transcript)
E. Y. Harburg papers (first installment) and E. Y. Harburg papers (second installment) held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
E. Y. Harburg scores (his personal collection), held in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Celebrated Lyricist Yip Harburg's Rhymes For The Irreverent Released February 2, 2006, article on The Freedom From Religion Foundation's website
April 29, 2006 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow . . . Rhymes for the Irreverent Freedom From Religion Foundation's Podcast
Over The Rainbow With Yip Harburg (BBC Radio 4 programme)
The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz by Amy Goodman
1920 passport photo of Yip Harburg(courtesy of the puzzlemaster, flickr.com)
Yip Harburg - Over The Rainbow
Yip Harburg - Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
E. Y. Harburg recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
1896 births
1981 deaths
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Jewish American songwriters
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
20th-century American musicians
Jewish American writers
Hollywood blacklist
American socialists
Jewish socialists
Jewish American atheists
City College of New York alumni
Townsend Harris High School alumni
People from the Lower East Side
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Accidental deaths in California
Road incident deaths in California
Burials at sea | true | [
"Joshua Lockwood Logan III (October 5, 1908 – July 12, 1988) was an American director, writer, and actor. He shared a Pulitzer Prize for co-writing the musical South Pacific and was involved in writing other musicals.\n\nEarly years\n\nLogan was born in Texarkana, Texas, the son of Susan (née Nabors) and Joshua Lockwood Logan. When he was three years old, his father committed suicide. Logan, his mother, and his younger sister, Mary Lee, then moved to his maternal grandparents' home in Mansfield, Louisiana, which Logan used 40 years later as the setting for his play The Wisteria Trees. Logan's mother remarried six years after his father's death and he then attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, where his stepfather served on the staff as a teacher. At school, he experienced his first drama class and felt at home. After his high school graduation he attended Princeton University. At Princeton, he was involved with the intercollegiate summer stock company, known as the University Players, with fellow student James Stewart and also non-students Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan. During his senior year, he served as president of the Princeton Triangle Club. Before his graduation, he won a scholarship to travel to Moscow to observe the rehearsals of Konstantin Stanislavski, and Logan left school without a diploma.\n\nBroadway\nLogan began his Broadway career as an actor in Carry Nation in 1932. He was also in I Was Waiting for You (1933).\n\nHe then spent time in London, where he staged two productions and directed a touring revival of Camille. He also worked as an assistant stage manager.\n\nDirector\nBack on Broadway he staged It's You I Want (1935) and To See Ourselves (1935) and was stage manager for Most of the Game (1935). He staged Hell Freezes Over (1935–36) and returned to acting with A Room in Red and White (1936).\n\nHe went to Hollywood where he did some dialogue directing on The Garden of Allah (1936), History Is Made at Night (1937), and Suez (1938). Logan was given the chance to co-direct the feature film I Met My Love Again (1938) for Walter Wanger.\n\nLogan returned to Broadway where he had his first major success as a director with Paul Osborn's On Borrowed Time (1938), which ran for 321 performances. He followed it with the musical I Married an Angel (1938–39), which ran for 331 performances.\n\nHe directed Knickerbocker Holiday (1938), Stars in Your Eyes (1939), Osborn's Morning's at Seven (1939–40), Two For the Show (1940), and Higher and Higher (1940, 84 performances). None of these was a break-out success but his revival of Charley's Aunt (1940–41) went for 233 performances, and the Hart-Rodgers musical By Jupiter (1942–43) with Ray Bolger went for 427 performances.\n\nWorld War II\nIn 1942, Logan was drafted by the U.S. Army. During his service in World War II, he acted as a public-relations and intelligence officer. Logan was selected to become an assistant director of Irving Berlin's This Is the Army and when in Europe organised \"jeep shows\" of entertainers serving as soldiers doing their shows near the front lines.\n\nWhen the war concluded he was discharged with the rank of captain, and returned to Broadway. He married his second wife, actress Nedda Harrigan, in 1945; Logan's previous marriage, to actress Barbara O'Neil, a colleague of his at the University Players in the 1930s, had ended in divorce.\n\nPost-war success\nLogan's directing career resumed with the musical Annie Get Your Gun (1946–49), which ran for 1,147 performances.\n\nHe followed it with Anita Loos' Happy Birthday (1948, 563 performances), and Norman Krasna's John Loves Mary (1948–49, 423 performances). Logan's golden run continued with Mister Roberts (1948–1951) which he co-wrote as well as directed; it ran for 1157 performances and earned him a Tony Award.\n\nThen he directed and co-wrote South Pacific (1949–54), which went for 1,925 performances. Logan shared the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II for co-writing South Pacific. The show earned him a Tony Award for Best Director. Despite his contributions to the musical, The New York Times originally omitted his name as co-author, and the Pulitzer Prize committee initially awarded the prize to only Rodgers and Hammerstein. Although the mistakes were corrected, Logan wrote in his autobiography: \"I knew then why people fight so hard to have their names in proper type. It's not just ego or 'the principle of the thing,' it's possibly another job or a better salary. It's reassurance. My name had been so minimized that I lived through years of having people praise South Pacific in my presence without knowing I had had anything to do with it.\"\n\nLogan wrote, produced and directed The Wisteria Tree (1950), an adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, which was a minor success.\n\nLogan cowrote, coproduced, and directed the 1952 musical Wish You Were Here. After the show was not initially successful, Logan quickly wrote 54 new pages of material, and by the ninth performance, the show looked new. In its fourth week of release, the show sold out, and continued to offer sell-out performances for the next two years.\n\nHe had another success with Picnic (1953–1954), the play by William Inge, which went for 477 performances. Krasna's Kind Sir (1953–54) lasted 166 performances, and Fanny (1953–1954) which Logan co-wrote, co-produced and directed, ran 888 performances.\n\nHollywood\nWhen director John Ford became sick, Logan reluctantly returned to Hollywood to complete the filming of Mister Roberts (1955). It was a success commercially and critically.\n\nLogan directed the film adaptation of his own Picnic (1955), for which Logan received an Oscar nomination. Bus Stop (1956) with Marilyn Monroe, his next movie, was another hit.\n\nLogan returned to Broadway, directing Middle of the Night by Paddy Chayefsky, which ran 477 performances.\n\nHe visited Japan to direct Marlon Brando in Sayonara (1957), which earned him a second Oscar nomination for Best Director. He did the movie version of South Pacific (1958).\n\nLogan went back to Broadway and directed Blue Denim (1958, 166 performances) and the hugely popular The World of Suzie Wong (1958–1960, 508 performances). He produced Epitaph for George Dillon (1958).\n\nLogan returned to Hollywood with Tall Story (1960), which introduced Jane Fonda to movie audiences. Back on Broadway, he directed There Was a Little Girl (1960), his first theatre flop in some years, running for only 16 performances. In Hollywood he did the movie adaptation of Fanny (1961).\n\nIn 1961, he was a member of the jury at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival.\n\nLogan continued to alternate Broadway and Hollywood for the rest of the 1960s. He did the Broadway musicals All American (1962, 86 performances) and Mr. President (1962–1963, 265 performances), and Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright (1962–1963, 33 performances), then made the film Ensign Pulver (1964).\n\nAfter Ready When You Are, C.B.! (1964–1965, 80 performances), he did the movies of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot (1967) and Paint Your Wagon (1969). Back on Broadway, he did Look to the Lilies (1970, 31 performances).\n\nLater career\nLogan's 1976 autobiography Josh: My Up-and-Down, In-and-Out Life gives a frank account of his bipolar disorder. He appeared with his wife in the 1977 nightclub revue Musical Moments, featuring Logan's most popular Broadway numbers. He published Movie Stars, Real People, and Me in 1978.\n\nIn 1979, he produced Larry Cohen's Trick on Broadway. He directed Horowitz and Mrs. Washington (1980), which ran for six performances.\n\nFrom 1983 to 1986, he taught theater at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. He was also responsible for bringing Carol Channing to Broadway in Lend an Ear!.\n\nPersonal life\nLogan experienced mood fluctuations for many years, which in the 1970s psychiatrist Ronald R. Fieve treated with lithium, and the two appeared on TV talk shows extolling its virtues.\n\nLogan was married briefly (1939–1940) to actress Barbara O'Neil. After the couple divorced, he was married to Nedda Harrigan from 1945 until his death from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) in New York City in 1988.\n\nIn 2019, Jane Fonda, who starred in Logan's 1960 film Tall Story, claimed both she and Logan were in love with lead actor Anthony Perkins at the time of filming, causing tension during an already difficult shoot.\n\nBibliography\n Logan, Joshua (1976). Josh: My Up and Down, In and Out Life. Delacorte Press, New York.\n Logan, Joshua (1978). Movie Stars, Real People, and Me. Delacorte Press, New York.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nJoshua Logan papers, 1723–1992 (bulk 1940–1980), held by the Library of Congress\n Joshua Logan correspondence and ephemera, 1920–1989, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts\n\n1908 births\n1988 deaths\nPeople from Texarkana, Texas\nPeople from Mansfield, Louisiana\n20th-century American memoirists\nUnited States Army personnel of World War II\nAmerican theatre directors\nBest Director Golden Globe winners\nBroadway theatre directors\nBroadway theatre producers\nDonaldson Award winners\nWriters from Shreveport, Louisiana\nPrinceton University alumni\nPulitzer Prize for Drama winners\nTony Award winners\nPeople with bipolar disorder\nFilm directors from Texas\n20th-century American dramatists and playwrights\nActors from Shreveport, Louisiana\nCulver Academies alumni\nFilm directors from Louisiana\nUnited States Army officers\nMilitary personnel from Texas",
"John Bishop (May 3, 1929 – December 20, 2006), was an American playwright and screenwriter who achieved limited success on both Broadway and in Hollywood.\n\nBishop was born in Mansfield, Ohio. He majored in theatre at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and began his career as an actor at the Cleveland Play House in Cleveland. Although his stage career led into directing, his first success on Broadway came from writing the play The Trip Back Down, which played for two months at the Longacre Theatre in early 1977. In 1987, he made it back to Broadway by writing and directing The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940, which ran for almost four months, again at the Longacre. During this time, Bishop was also a member of the acclaimed off-Broadway Circle Repertory Company. Mr. Bishop moved west after the dissolution of Circle Repertory Company in 1997 and founded Circle West, which carried on many of the artistic missions of the original Circle Repertory Company. Bishop served as artistic director until his death. Among the plays the company produced was Mr. Bishop's Legacies, a police-detective drama.\n\nAfter Broadway, Bishop began writing for Hollywood. He wrote the screenplay for The Package, a 1989 action thriller starring Gene Hackman. Although The Package earned poorly at the box office, the film was well regarded by some critics, including Roger Ebert, who gave it three stars out of four. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 64% based on 14 reviews.\n\nBishop also did writing work for Paramount Studios, where he used his knowledge of and interest in male behavior and police procedures to do rewrites for big-budget thrillers such as Clear and Present Danger and Beverly Hills Cop III.\n\nBishop fathered three children, named Matthew, Michael, and Christopher. Although a resident of Encino, he died at a clinic in Bad Heilbrunn, Germany at the age of 77 and was survived by his wife Lisa.\n\nFilm and TV \n Comedy Zone (TV series) 1984\n The Package (written by) 1989\n Sliver (rewrite) 1993\n Drop Zone (screenplay) 1994\n Clear and Present Danger (rewrite) 1994\n Beverly Hills Cop III (rewrite) 1994\n Primal Fear (rewrite) 1996\n\nTheater \n The Trip Back Down \n The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 \n Borderlines\n The Great Grandson of Jedediah Kohler\n The Harvesting\n The Beaver Coat (directed)\n El Salvador (directed)\n Florida Crackers (directed)\n Empty Hearts (written and directed)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n \n \n John Bishop's obituary in the Los Angeles Times\n\n1929 births\n2006 deaths\n20th-century American dramatists and playwrights\nAmerican male screenwriters\nPeople from Mansfield, Ohio\nCarnegie Mellon University College of Fine Arts alumni\nAmerican male dramatists and playwrights\n20th-century American male writers\n20th-century American screenwriters"
]
|
[
"Yip Harburg",
"Hollywood and Broadway",
"What did Yip do in Hollywood?",
"Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz,",
"What year did he write for wizard of Oz.",
"I don't know.",
"What was names of some broadway shows?",
"Bloomer Girl (1944),",
"Did he actually act or was part of the shows?",
"he wrote a series of \"book\" musicals with social messages,",
"What year did he start writing for Hollywood or Broadway.",
"In the 1940s, he wrote a series of \"book\" musicals with social messages,"
]
| C_ce69b2d6c0e84f2fae3a50f5286e9da2_0 | Was his writing nominated for awards? | 6 | Was Yip Harburg's writing nominated for awards? | Yip Harburg | Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow." Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said: So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he--there were eleven screenwriters on that--and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing. Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. CANNOTANSWER | he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow." | Edgar Yipsel Harburg (born Isidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (with Jay Gorney), "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his liberal sensibilities. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.
Early life and career
Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children (out of ten), was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8, 1896. His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.
He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, who bonded over a shared fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw taught his father, a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people, that 'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".
After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated from City College (later part of the City University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following the crash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 – $70,000 in debt," which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.
Gershwin introduced Harburg to Jay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for an Earl Carroll Broadway review (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, including Americana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression.
Harburg was a staunch critic of religion. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on God.
Hollywood and Broadway
Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow."
Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said:
Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, and which celebrated equality for women, Abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." Its plot satirized American financial practices and criticized reactionist politicians, mistreatment of the working classes as well as racism and the Jim Crow laws. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Blacklisting
Although never a member of the Communist Party (he was a member of the Socialist Party, and joked that "Yip" referred to the Young People's Socialist League, nicknamed the "Yipsels") he had been involved in radical groups, and he was blacklisted.
Harburg was named in a pamphlet Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television; his involvement with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and his refusal to identify reputed communists, led to him being blocked from working in Hollywood films, television, and radio for twelve full years, from 1950 to 1962. "As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country', I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy", he wrote to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. He was unable to travel abroad during this period, as his passport had been revoked. With a score by Sammy Fain and Harburg's lyrics, the musical Flahooley (1951) satirized the country's anti-communist sentiment, but it closed after forty performances at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia.
Later career
In 1966, songwriter Earl Robinson sought Harburg's help for the song "Hurry Sundown"; the two collaborated on the song and are credited as co-writers. The song was intended for the film Hurry Sundown, but was not used in the film. It was, however, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary for their 1966 album The Peter, Paul and Mary Album. The song was released as a single in 1967, and reached No. 37 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording.
Death
Harburg died while driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on March 5, 1981. While he was initially reported to have been killed in a traffic accident, it was later determined that he suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light.
Awards and recognition
In 1940 Harburg won an Oscar, shared with Harold Arlen, for Best Music, Original Song
for The Wizard of Oz (1939). In addition, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song, along with Arlen,
for Cabin in the Sky, (1943) and Best Music, Original Song
for Can't Help Singing, shared with Jerome Kern in (1944).
Harburg was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
On March 7, 2001, the results of a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Humanities ranked Judy Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" as the Number One recording of the 20th century.
On June 22, 2004, the American Film Institute broadcast AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs, a TV special announcing the 100 greatest film songs. "Over the Rainbow" was Number One, and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" was Number 82.
In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing Harburg's accomplishments. The stamp was drawn from a portrait taken by photographer Barbara Bordnick in 1978 along with a rainbow and lyric from "Over the Rainbow". The first day ceremony was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Songs
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" with composer Jay Gorney (1932)
"Riddle Me This" with composer Lewis Gensler (from the revue, "Ballyhoo of 1932", 1932)
"How Do You Do It? with composer Lewis Gensler (as above, 1932)
"April in Paris" with Vernon Duke (1932)
"It's Only a Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen (1933)
"Then I'll Be Tired of You" with Arthur Schwartz (1934)
"Last Night When We Were Young" with composer Harold Arlen (1935)
"Down with Love" with Harold Arlen (1937)
"Over the Rainbow" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"We're Off to See the Wizard" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Lydia the Tattooed Lady" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" with Harold Arlen (1943)
"Salome" with Roger Edens (1943) (for the movie Du Barry Was a Lady)
"The Eagle and Me" with Harold Arlen (1944)
"How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" with Burton Lane (1946)
"Old Devil Moon" with Burton Lane (1947)
"When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" with Burton Lane (1947)
"Free and Equal Blues" performed by Josh White
"And Russia Was Her Name" with Jerome Kern (1943)
Broadway revues
Earl Carroll's Sketchbook of 1929 (1929) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Jay Gorney
Garrick Gaieties (1930) - contributing lyricist
Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 (1930) - contributing songwriter
The Vanderbilt Revue (1930) - contributing lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 (1931) - featured lyricist for "Mailu"
Shoot the Works (1931) - contributing composer and lyricist
Ballyhoo of 1932 (1932) - lyricist
Americana (1932) - lyricist. The Revue include "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
Walk A Little Faster (1932) - lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 (1934) - primary lyricist (for about half of the numbers)
Life Begins at 8:40 (1934) - co-lyricist with Ira Gershwin
The Show is On (1936) - featured lyricist
Blue Holiday (1945) - all-Black cast - contributing composer and lyricist
At Home With Ethel Waters (1953) - featured lyricist for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe"
Post-retirement or posthumous credits:
A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine (1980) - featured lyricist for Over the Rainbow
Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1986) - featured lyricist to music by Jerome Kern
Mostly Sondheim (2002) - featured lyricist
Broadway musicals
Hooray for What! (1937) - lyricist and originator
Hold On to Your Hats (1940) - lyricist
Bloomer Girl (1944) - lyricist, originator and director for musical numbers
Finian's Rainbow (1947) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Revived in 1955, 1960, 2009
Flahooley (1951) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Jamaica (1957) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Musical
The Happiest Girl in the World (1961) - originator and lyricist to music by Jacques Offenbach and originator of the story, based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Darling of the Day (1968) - lyricist
Films
Moonlight and Pretzels (1933)
The Singing Kid (1936)
Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
At the Circus (1939)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943) (Harburg's song "Aint It The Truth", expressing religious skepticism, was removed)
Can't Help Singing (1944)
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Books
Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965)
At This Point in Rhyme (1976)
References
Further reading
Meyerson, Harold and Ernie Harburg. Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz: Yip Harburg, Lyricist, University of Michigan Press, (1993).
Alonso, Harriet. "Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist," Wesleyan University Press (2012).
External links
The Yip Harburg Foundation website
Biography of Harburg from USPS
"A Tribute to Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz", a Democracy Now! special, including audio/video clips of Yip Harburg, and an extended interview with his son and biographer, Ernie Harburg (video, audio, and print transcript)
E. Y. Harburg papers (first installment) and E. Y. Harburg papers (second installment) held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
E. Y. Harburg scores (his personal collection), held in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Celebrated Lyricist Yip Harburg's Rhymes For The Irreverent Released February 2, 2006, article on The Freedom From Religion Foundation's website
April 29, 2006 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow . . . Rhymes for the Irreverent Freedom From Religion Foundation's Podcast
Over The Rainbow With Yip Harburg (BBC Radio 4 programme)
The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz by Amy Goodman
1920 passport photo of Yip Harburg(courtesy of the puzzlemaster, flickr.com)
Yip Harburg - Over The Rainbow
Yip Harburg - Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
E. Y. Harburg recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
1896 births
1981 deaths
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Jewish American songwriters
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
20th-century American musicians
Jewish American writers
Hollywood blacklist
American socialists
Jewish socialists
Jewish American atheists
City College of New York alumni
Townsend Harris High School alumni
People from the Lower East Side
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Accidental deaths in California
Road incident deaths in California
Burials at sea | true | [
"John Zinman is a film and television writer and producer. He has worked on the NBC drama series Friday Night Lights. He often works with writing partner Patrick Massett. He has been nominated for four Writers Guild of America (WGA) Awards for his work on Friday Night Lights.\n\nCareer\n\nHe was nominated for a Writers Guild of America (WGA) Awards for Best New Series at the February 2007 ceremony for his work on the first season of Friday Night Lights. He was nominated for the WGA Award for Best Dramatic Series the following year at the February 2008 ceremony for his work on the second season of Friday Night Lights. He was nominated for Best Dramatic Series a second time at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the third season of Friday Night Lights. He was nominated for the WGA Award for Best Drama Series for the third consecutive year at the February 2010 ceremony for his work on the fourth season.\n\nJohn Zinman and writing partner Patrick Massett are the writers of the film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.\n\nFilmography\n Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001, screenplay)\n Gold (2016, co-writer, producer)\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nAmerican male screenwriters\nAmerican male television writers\nAmerican television writers",
"How to Buy a Baby is a Canadian comedy web series, which premiered in November 2017 on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's web platform and on YouTube. Created by Wendy Litner and based on her own experiences having to pursue fertility treatment to conceive a pregnancy, the series stars Meghan Heffern and Marc Bendavid as Jane and Charlie, a couple going through the fertility treatment process.\n\nIt was produced by LoCo Motion Pictures, and debuted on the CBC Comedy YouTube channel on November 13, 2017. It was transferred to CBC Gem when that platform launched in 2018. Season one was directed by Molly McGlynn and season two was directed by Adriana Maggs. The series is executive produced by Lauren Corber and Wendy Litner. It has won several accolades, including Best Comedy Series at the 9th annual Indie Series Awards. At the 46th International Emmy Awards, the show was a finalist for Best Short Form Series.\n\nReception\n\nSeason 1 \nAt the 9th annual Indie Series Awards, the series won the award for Best Comedy and McGlynn won the award for Best Direction. At the 46th International Emmy Awards, the show was a finalist for Best Short Form Series.\n\nAt the 7th Canadian Screen Awards in 2019, the series won the award for Best Original Digital Series, Fiction, and Litner was nominated for Best Writing in a Web Program or Series. How to Buy a Baby Season 2 was nominated for 6 Canadian Screen Awards in 2020. Litner won the award for Best Writing, Web Program or Series and Emma Hunter won Best Supporting Performance, Web Program or Series.\n\nThe series won Best Comedy Writing and Best Lead Female Performance at the IAWTV Awards, Best Actress and Best Screenplay at the Rolda Web Fest, and Best Editing at the T.O. Webfest.\n\nThe series was nominated for Best Fiction Series at The Rockie Awards and was an Honoree Comedy: Long Form or Series at The Webby Awards.\n\nHow to Buy a Baby won the Stand Up 'N Pitch competition at Just for Laughs in 2016.\n\nSeason 2 \nThe second season was nominated for six awards at the 8th Canadian Screen Awards in 2020; Litner won Best Writing and Emma Hunter won Best Supporting Performance in a Web Program or Series.\n\nIt was nominated for six awards at the T.O Webfest and won Best Canadian Series. Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll won Best Supporting Performance.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nCanadian comedy web series\n2010s Canadian comedy television series\n2017 Canadian television series debuts\nCBC Gem original programming\nCanadian Screen Award-winning television shows"
]
|
[
"Yip Harburg",
"Hollywood and Broadway",
"What did Yip do in Hollywood?",
"Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz,",
"What year did he write for wizard of Oz.",
"I don't know.",
"What was names of some broadway shows?",
"Bloomer Girl (1944),",
"Did he actually act or was part of the shows?",
"he wrote a series of \"book\" musicals with social messages,",
"What year did he start writing for Hollywood or Broadway.",
"In the 1940s, he wrote a series of \"book\" musicals with social messages,",
"Was his writing nominated for awards?",
"he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for \"Over the Rainbow.\""
]
| C_ce69b2d6c0e84f2fae3a50f5286e9da2_0 | What year did he win the award? | 7 | What year Yip Harburg win the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song? | Yip Harburg | Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow." Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said: So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he--there were eleven screenwriters on that--and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing. Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Edgar Yipsel Harburg (born Isidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (with Jay Gorney), "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his liberal sensibilities. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.
Early life and career
Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children (out of ten), was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8, 1896. His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.
He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, who bonded over a shared fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw taught his father, a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people, that 'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".
After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated from City College (later part of the City University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following the crash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 – $70,000 in debt," which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.
Gershwin introduced Harburg to Jay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for an Earl Carroll Broadway review (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, including Americana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression.
Harburg was a staunch critic of religion. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on God.
Hollywood and Broadway
Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow."
Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said:
Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, and which celebrated equality for women, Abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." Its plot satirized American financial practices and criticized reactionist politicians, mistreatment of the working classes as well as racism and the Jim Crow laws. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Blacklisting
Although never a member of the Communist Party (he was a member of the Socialist Party, and joked that "Yip" referred to the Young People's Socialist League, nicknamed the "Yipsels") he had been involved in radical groups, and he was blacklisted.
Harburg was named in a pamphlet Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television; his involvement with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and his refusal to identify reputed communists, led to him being blocked from working in Hollywood films, television, and radio for twelve full years, from 1950 to 1962. "As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country', I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy", he wrote to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. He was unable to travel abroad during this period, as his passport had been revoked. With a score by Sammy Fain and Harburg's lyrics, the musical Flahooley (1951) satirized the country's anti-communist sentiment, but it closed after forty performances at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia.
Later career
In 1966, songwriter Earl Robinson sought Harburg's help for the song "Hurry Sundown"; the two collaborated on the song and are credited as co-writers. The song was intended for the film Hurry Sundown, but was not used in the film. It was, however, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary for their 1966 album The Peter, Paul and Mary Album. The song was released as a single in 1967, and reached No. 37 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording.
Death
Harburg died while driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on March 5, 1981. While he was initially reported to have been killed in a traffic accident, it was later determined that he suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light.
Awards and recognition
In 1940 Harburg won an Oscar, shared with Harold Arlen, for Best Music, Original Song
for The Wizard of Oz (1939). In addition, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song, along with Arlen,
for Cabin in the Sky, (1943) and Best Music, Original Song
for Can't Help Singing, shared with Jerome Kern in (1944).
Harburg was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
On March 7, 2001, the results of a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Humanities ranked Judy Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" as the Number One recording of the 20th century.
On June 22, 2004, the American Film Institute broadcast AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs, a TV special announcing the 100 greatest film songs. "Over the Rainbow" was Number One, and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" was Number 82.
In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing Harburg's accomplishments. The stamp was drawn from a portrait taken by photographer Barbara Bordnick in 1978 along with a rainbow and lyric from "Over the Rainbow". The first day ceremony was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Songs
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" with composer Jay Gorney (1932)
"Riddle Me This" with composer Lewis Gensler (from the revue, "Ballyhoo of 1932", 1932)
"How Do You Do It? with composer Lewis Gensler (as above, 1932)
"April in Paris" with Vernon Duke (1932)
"It's Only a Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen (1933)
"Then I'll Be Tired of You" with Arthur Schwartz (1934)
"Last Night When We Were Young" with composer Harold Arlen (1935)
"Down with Love" with Harold Arlen (1937)
"Over the Rainbow" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"We're Off to See the Wizard" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Lydia the Tattooed Lady" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" with Harold Arlen (1943)
"Salome" with Roger Edens (1943) (for the movie Du Barry Was a Lady)
"The Eagle and Me" with Harold Arlen (1944)
"How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" with Burton Lane (1946)
"Old Devil Moon" with Burton Lane (1947)
"When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" with Burton Lane (1947)
"Free and Equal Blues" performed by Josh White
"And Russia Was Her Name" with Jerome Kern (1943)
Broadway revues
Earl Carroll's Sketchbook of 1929 (1929) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Jay Gorney
Garrick Gaieties (1930) - contributing lyricist
Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 (1930) - contributing songwriter
The Vanderbilt Revue (1930) - contributing lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 (1931) - featured lyricist for "Mailu"
Shoot the Works (1931) - contributing composer and lyricist
Ballyhoo of 1932 (1932) - lyricist
Americana (1932) - lyricist. The Revue include "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
Walk A Little Faster (1932) - lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 (1934) - primary lyricist (for about half of the numbers)
Life Begins at 8:40 (1934) - co-lyricist with Ira Gershwin
The Show is On (1936) - featured lyricist
Blue Holiday (1945) - all-Black cast - contributing composer and lyricist
At Home With Ethel Waters (1953) - featured lyricist for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe"
Post-retirement or posthumous credits:
A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine (1980) - featured lyricist for Over the Rainbow
Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1986) - featured lyricist to music by Jerome Kern
Mostly Sondheim (2002) - featured lyricist
Broadway musicals
Hooray for What! (1937) - lyricist and originator
Hold On to Your Hats (1940) - lyricist
Bloomer Girl (1944) - lyricist, originator and director for musical numbers
Finian's Rainbow (1947) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Revived in 1955, 1960, 2009
Flahooley (1951) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Jamaica (1957) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Musical
The Happiest Girl in the World (1961) - originator and lyricist to music by Jacques Offenbach and originator of the story, based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Darling of the Day (1968) - lyricist
Films
Moonlight and Pretzels (1933)
The Singing Kid (1936)
Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
At the Circus (1939)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943) (Harburg's song "Aint It The Truth", expressing religious skepticism, was removed)
Can't Help Singing (1944)
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Books
Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965)
At This Point in Rhyme (1976)
References
Further reading
Meyerson, Harold and Ernie Harburg. Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz: Yip Harburg, Lyricist, University of Michigan Press, (1993).
Alonso, Harriet. "Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist," Wesleyan University Press (2012).
External links
The Yip Harburg Foundation website
Biography of Harburg from USPS
"A Tribute to Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz", a Democracy Now! special, including audio/video clips of Yip Harburg, and an extended interview with his son and biographer, Ernie Harburg (video, audio, and print transcript)
E. Y. Harburg papers (first installment) and E. Y. Harburg papers (second installment) held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
E. Y. Harburg scores (his personal collection), held in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Celebrated Lyricist Yip Harburg's Rhymes For The Irreverent Released February 2, 2006, article on The Freedom From Religion Foundation's website
April 29, 2006 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow . . . Rhymes for the Irreverent Freedom From Religion Foundation's Podcast
Over The Rainbow With Yip Harburg (BBC Radio 4 programme)
The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz by Amy Goodman
1920 passport photo of Yip Harburg(courtesy of the puzzlemaster, flickr.com)
Yip Harburg - Over The Rainbow
Yip Harburg - Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
E. Y. Harburg recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
1896 births
1981 deaths
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Jewish American songwriters
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
20th-century American musicians
Jewish American writers
Hollywood blacklist
American socialists
Jewish socialists
Jewish American atheists
City College of New York alumni
Townsend Harris High School alumni
People from the Lower East Side
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Accidental deaths in California
Road incident deaths in California
Burials at sea | false | [
"The Basketball Bundesliga MVP (Most Valuable Player) is an award that is given yearly to the best player in the regular season of the Basketball Bundesliga, which is the top professional basketball league in Germany.\n\nWinners\n\nPrior to 1994, the award was given as the German Player of the Year award, and was given to the \"Best German Player\" of the season, regardless of what league he played in. So to win the award, a player didn't even have to play in the German League. From 1994 onward, the German Player of the Year award was changed to instead mark the Most Valuable Player of the Basketball Bundesliga (German Basketball League).\n\nAwards won by player\n\nAwards won by nationality\n\nAwards won by club\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nGerman League official website \n\nMost valuable player awards\nMost Valuable Player\nEuropean basketball awards",
"Alex Henning is a visual effects supervisor.\n\nOn January 24, 2012, he was nominated for an Oscar for the film Hugo, which he did win at the 84th Academy Awards in the category of Best Visual Effects. His win was shared with Ben Grossmann, Robert Legato, and Joss Williams.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\nVisual effects supervisors\nBest Visual Effects Academy Award winners\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
]
|
[
"Yip Harburg",
"Hollywood and Broadway",
"What did Yip do in Hollywood?",
"Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz,",
"What year did he write for wizard of Oz.",
"I don't know.",
"What was names of some broadway shows?",
"Bloomer Girl (1944),",
"Did he actually act or was part of the shows?",
"he wrote a series of \"book\" musicals with social messages,",
"What year did he start writing for Hollywood or Broadway.",
"In the 1940s, he wrote a series of \"book\" musicals with social messages,",
"Was his writing nominated for awards?",
"he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for \"Over the Rainbow.\"",
"What year did he win the award?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_ce69b2d6c0e84f2fae3a50f5286e9da2_0 | What other interesting things happen in his career? | 8 | Besides winning the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over The Rainbow", what other interesting things happen in Yip Harburg's career? | Yip Harburg | Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow." Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said: So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he--there were eleven screenwriters on that--and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing. Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. CANNOTANSWER | Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, | Edgar Yipsel Harburg (born Isidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (with Jay Gorney), "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his liberal sensibilities. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.
Early life and career
Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children (out of ten), was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8, 1896. His parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia.
He later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar "Yip" Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, who bonded over a shared fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw taught his father, a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people, that 'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".
After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated from City College (later part of the City University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following the crash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 – $70,000 in debt," which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.
Gershwin introduced Harburg to Jay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for an Earl Carroll Broadway review (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, including Americana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression.
Harburg was a staunch critic of religion. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on God.
Hollywood and Broadway
Harburg and Gorney were offered a contract with Paramount: in Hollywood, Harburg worked with composers Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Jule Styne, and Burton Lane, and later wrote the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz, one of the earliest known "integrated musicals," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for "Over the Rainbow."
Of his work on The Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said:
Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successful Bloomer Girl (1944), set during the Civil War, which was about temperance and women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, and which celebrated equality for women, Abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. Harburg's best known Broadway show, Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line, and features his "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich." Its plot satirized American financial practices and criticized reactionist politicians, mistreatment of the working classes as well as racism and the Jim Crow laws. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Blacklisting
Although never a member of the Communist Party (he was a member of the Socialist Party, and joked that "Yip" referred to the Young People's Socialist League, nicknamed the "Yipsels") he had been involved in radical groups, and he was blacklisted.
Harburg was named in a pamphlet Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television; his involvement with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and his refusal to identify reputed communists, led to him being blocked from working in Hollywood films, television, and radio for twelve full years, from 1950 to 1962. "As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country', I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy", he wrote to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950. He was unable to travel abroad during this period, as his passport had been revoked. With a score by Sammy Fain and Harburg's lyrics, the musical Flahooley (1951) satirized the country's anti-communist sentiment, but it closed after forty performances at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia.
Later career
In 1966, songwriter Earl Robinson sought Harburg's help for the song "Hurry Sundown"; the two collaborated on the song and are credited as co-writers. The song was intended for the film Hurry Sundown, but was not used in the film. It was, however, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary for their 1966 album The Peter, Paul and Mary Album. The song was released as a single in 1967, and reached No. 37 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording.
Death
Harburg died while driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on March 5, 1981. While he was initially reported to have been killed in a traffic accident, it was later determined that he suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light.
Awards and recognition
In 1940 Harburg won an Oscar, shared with Harold Arlen, for Best Music, Original Song
for The Wizard of Oz (1939). In addition, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song, along with Arlen,
for Cabin in the Sky, (1943) and Best Music, Original Song
for Can't Help Singing, shared with Jerome Kern in (1944).
Harburg was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.
On March 7, 2001, the results of a poll conducted by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Humanities ranked Judy Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" as the Number One recording of the 20th century.
On June 22, 2004, the American Film Institute broadcast AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs, a TV special announcing the 100 greatest film songs. "Over the Rainbow" was Number One, and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" was Number 82.
In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing Harburg's accomplishments. The stamp was drawn from a portrait taken by photographer Barbara Bordnick in 1978 along with a rainbow and lyric from "Over the Rainbow". The first day ceremony was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Songs
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" with composer Jay Gorney (1932)
"Riddle Me This" with composer Lewis Gensler (from the revue, "Ballyhoo of 1932", 1932)
"How Do You Do It? with composer Lewis Gensler (as above, 1932)
"April in Paris" with Vernon Duke (1932)
"It's Only a Paper Moon" with Harold Arlen (1933)
"Then I'll Be Tired of You" with Arthur Schwartz (1934)
"Last Night When We Were Young" with composer Harold Arlen (1935)
"Down with Love" with Harold Arlen (1937)
"Over the Rainbow" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"We're Off to See the Wizard" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Lydia the Tattooed Lady" with Harold Arlen (1939)
"Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" with Harold Arlen (1943)
"Salome" with Roger Edens (1943) (for the movie Du Barry Was a Lady)
"The Eagle and Me" with Harold Arlen (1944)
"How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" with Burton Lane (1946)
"Old Devil Moon" with Burton Lane (1947)
"When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" with Burton Lane (1947)
"Free and Equal Blues" performed by Josh White
"And Russia Was Her Name" with Jerome Kern (1943)
Broadway revues
Earl Carroll's Sketchbook of 1929 (1929) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Jay Gorney
Garrick Gaieties (1930) - contributing lyricist
Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 (1930) - contributing songwriter
The Vanderbilt Revue (1930) - contributing lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 (1931) - featured lyricist for "Mailu"
Shoot the Works (1931) - contributing composer and lyricist
Ballyhoo of 1932 (1932) - lyricist
Americana (1932) - lyricist. The Revue include "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
Walk A Little Faster (1932) - lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 (1934) - primary lyricist (for about half of the numbers)
Life Begins at 8:40 (1934) - co-lyricist with Ira Gershwin
The Show is On (1936) - featured lyricist
Blue Holiday (1945) - all-Black cast - contributing composer and lyricist
At Home With Ethel Waters (1953) - featured lyricist for "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe"
Post-retirement or posthumous credits:
A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine (1980) - featured lyricist for Over the Rainbow
Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1986) - featured lyricist to music by Jerome Kern
Mostly Sondheim (2002) - featured lyricist
Broadway musicals
Hooray for What! (1937) - lyricist and originator
Hold On to Your Hats (1940) - lyricist
Bloomer Girl (1944) - lyricist, originator and director for musical numbers
Finian's Rainbow (1947) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Revived in 1955, 1960, 2009
Flahooley (1951) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Jamaica (1957) - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Musical
The Happiest Girl in the World (1961) - originator and lyricist to music by Jacques Offenbach and originator of the story, based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Darling of the Day (1968) - lyricist
Films
Moonlight and Pretzels (1933)
The Singing Kid (1936)
Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
At the Circus (1939)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943) (Harburg's song "Aint It The Truth", expressing religious skepticism, was removed)
Can't Help Singing (1944)
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Books
Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965)
At This Point in Rhyme (1976)
References
Further reading
Meyerson, Harold and Ernie Harburg. Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz: Yip Harburg, Lyricist, University of Michigan Press, (1993).
Alonso, Harriet. "Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist," Wesleyan University Press (2012).
External links
The Yip Harburg Foundation website
Biography of Harburg from USPS
"A Tribute to Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz", a Democracy Now! special, including audio/video clips of Yip Harburg, and an extended interview with his son and biographer, Ernie Harburg (video, audio, and print transcript)
E. Y. Harburg papers (first installment) and E. Y. Harburg papers (second installment) held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
E. Y. Harburg scores (his personal collection), held in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Celebrated Lyricist Yip Harburg's Rhymes For The Irreverent Released February 2, 2006, article on The Freedom From Religion Foundation's website
April 29, 2006 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow . . . Rhymes for the Irreverent Freedom From Religion Foundation's Podcast
Over The Rainbow With Yip Harburg (BBC Radio 4 programme)
The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz by Amy Goodman
1920 passport photo of Yip Harburg(courtesy of the puzzlemaster, flickr.com)
Yip Harburg - Over The Rainbow
Yip Harburg - Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
E. Y. Harburg recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
1896 births
1981 deaths
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Jewish American songwriters
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
20th-century American musicians
Jewish American writers
Hollywood blacklist
American socialists
Jewish socialists
Jewish American atheists
City College of New York alumni
Townsend Harris High School alumni
People from the Lower East Side
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Accidental deaths in California
Road incident deaths in California
Burials at sea | true | [
"Q&A is an interview series on the C-SPAN network that typically airs every Sunday night. It is hosted by C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb. Its stated purpose is to feature discussions with \"interesting people who are making things happen in politics, the media, education, and science & technology in hour-long conversations about their lives and their work.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n2006\nQandA",
"Q&A is an interview series on the C-SPAN network that typically airs every Sunday night. It is hosted by C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb. Its stated purpose is to feature discussions with \"interesting people who are making things happen in politics, the media, education, and science & technology in hour-long conversations about their lives and their work.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n2013\nQandA"
]
|
[
"Scarlett Johansson",
"Early roles (1996-2002)"
]
| C_5988d1dc06044704bdb4154afa470ce2_1 | what was her first role? | 1 | what was Scarlett Johansson's first role? | Scarlett Johansson | Johansson's first leading role was as Amanda, the younger sister of a pregnant teenager who runs away from her foster home in Manny & Lo (1996) alongside Aleksa Palladino and her brother, Hunter. Her performance received positive reviews: one written for the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson," while critic Mick LaSalle, writing for the same paper, commented on her "peaceful aura", and believed, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress." Johansson earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female for the role. After appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 (both 1997), Johansson attracted wider attention for her performance in the film The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford. The drama film, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Nicholas Evans, tells the story of a talented trainer with a gift for understanding horses, who is hired to help an injured teenager played by Johansson. The actress received an "introducing" credit on this film, although it was her seventh role. On Johansson's maturity, Redford described her as "13 going on 30". Todd McCarthy of Variety commented that Johansson "convincingly conveys the awkwardness of her age and the inner pain of a carefree girl suddenly laid low by horrible happenstance". For the film, she was nominated for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress. She believed that the film changed many things in her life, realizing that acting is the ability to manipulate one's emotions. On finding good roles as a teenager, Johansson said it was hard for her as adults wrote the scripts and they "portray kids like mall rats and not seriously ... Kids and teenagers just aren't being portrayed with any real depth". Johansson later appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the neo-noir, Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). Her breakthrough came playing a cynical outcast in Terry Zwigoff's black comedy Ghost World (2001), an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel of same name. Johansson auditioned for the film via a tape from New York, and Zwigoff believed her to be "a unique, eccentric person, and right for that part". The film premiered at the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival; it was a box office failure, but has since developed a cult status. Johansson was credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age" by an Austin Chronicle critic, and won a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. With David Arquette, Johansson appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002), about a collection of spiders that are exposed to toxic waste, causing them to grow to gigantic proportions and begin killing and harvesting. After graduating from PCS that year, she applied to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; she decided to focus on her film career when she was rejected. CANNOTANSWER | Johansson's first leading role was as Amanda, the younger sister of a pregnant teenager who runs away from her foster home in Manny & Lo ( | Scarlett Ingrid Johansson (; born November 22, 1984) is an American actress. The world's highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, she has featured multiple times on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. Her films have grossed over billion worldwide, making Johansson the ninth-highest-grossing box office star of all time. She has received various accolades, including a Tony Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.
Johansson aspired to be an actress from an early age and first appeared on stage in an Off-Broadway play as a child actor. She made her film debut in the fantasy comedy North (1994), and gained early recognition for her roles in Manny & Lo (1996), The Horse Whisperer (1998), and Ghost World (2001). Johansson shifted to adult roles in 2003 with her performances in Lost in Translation, which won her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, and Girl with a Pearl Earring. She was nominated for Golden Globe Awards for these films, and for playing a troubled teenager in the drama A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) and a seductress in psychological thriller Match Point (2005). The latter was her first collaboration with Woody Allen, who later directed her in Scoop (2006) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Johansson's other works of this period include The Prestige (2006) and the albums Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008) and Break Up (2009), both of which charted on the Billboard 200.
In 2010, Johansson debuted on Broadway in a revival of A View from the Bridge, which won her a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, and began portraying Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Iron Man 2. She reprised the role in eight films, most recently in her solo feature Black Widow (2021), gaining global recognition for her performances. During this period, Johansson starred in the science fiction films Her (2013), Under the Skin (2013) and Lucy (2014). She received two simultaneous Academy Award nominations—Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress—for the respective roles of an actress going through a divorce in the drama Marriage Story (2019) and a single mother in Nazi Germany in the satire Jojo Rabbit (2019).
Labeled a sex symbol, Johansson has been referred to as one of the world's most attractive women by various media outlets. She is a prominent brand endorser and supports several charitable causes. Divorced from actor Ryan Reynolds and businessman Romain Dauriac, Johansson has been married to comedian Colin Jost since 2020. She has two children, one with Dauriac and another with Jost.
Early life
Johansson was born on November 22, 1984, in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Her father, Karsten Olaf Johansson, is an architect originally from Copenhagen, Denmark. Her paternal grandfather, Ejner Johansson, was an art historian, screenwriter, and film director, whose own father was Swedish. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, a New Yorker, has worked as a producer; she comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Poland and Russia, originally surnamed Schlamberg, and Johansson describes herself as Jewish. She has an older sister, Vanessa, also an actress; an older brother, Adrian; and a twin brother, Hunter. She also has an older half-brother, Christian, from her father's first marriage. Johansson holds dual American and Danish citizenship. She discovered that her maternal great-grandfather's family died during the Holocaust in the Warsaw Ghetto on a 2017 episode of PBS's Finding Your Roots.
Johansson attended PS 41, an elementary school in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Her parents divorced when she was thirteen. She was particularly close to her maternal grandmother, Dorothy Sloan, a bookkeeper and schoolteacher; they often spent time together and Johansson considered Dorothy her best friend. Interested in a career in the spotlight from an early age, Johansson often put on song-and-dance routines for her family. She was particularly fond of musical theater and jazz hands. She took lessons in tap dance, and states that her parents were supportive of her career choice. She has described her childhood as very ordinary.
As a child, Johansson practiced acting by staring in the mirror until she made herself cry, wanting to be Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis. At age seven, she was devastated when a talent agent signed one of her brothers instead of her, but she later decided to become an actress anyway. She enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and began auditioning for commercials, but soon lost interest: "I didn't want to promote Wonder Bread." She shifted her focus to film and theater, making her first stage appearance in the Off-Broadway play Sophistry with Ethan Hawke, in which she had two lines. Around this time, she began studying at Professional Children's School (PCS), a private educational institution for aspiring child actors in Manhattan.
Acting career
Early work and breakthrough (1994–2002)
At age nine, Johansson made her film debut as John Ritter's daughter in the fantasy comedy North (1994). She says that when she was on the film set, she knew intuitively what to do. She later played minor roles such as the daughter of Sean Connery's and Kate Capshaw's characters in the mystery thriller Just Cause (1995), and an art student in If Lucy Fell (1996). Johansson's first leading role was as Amanda, the younger sister of a pregnant teenager who runs away from her foster home in Manny & Lo (1996) alongside Aleksa Palladino and her brother, Hunter. Her performance received positive reviews: one written for the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson," while critic Mick LaSalle, writing for the same paper, commented on her "peaceful aura", and believed, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress." Johansson earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female for the role.
After appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 (both 1997), Johansson attracted wider attention for her performance in the film The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford. The drama film, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Nicholas Evans, tells the story of a trainer with a gift for understanding horses, who is hired to help an injured teenager played by Johansson. The actress received an "introducing" credit on this film, although it was her seventh role. On Johansson's maturity, Redford described her as "13 going on 30". Todd McCarthy of Variety commented that Johansson "convincingly conveys the awkwardness of her age and the inner pain of a carefree girl suddenly laid low by horrible happenstance". For the film, she was nominated for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress. She believed that the film changed many things in her life, realizing that acting is the ability to manipulate one's emotions. On finding good roles as a teenager, Johansson said it was hard for her as adults wrote the scripts and they "portray kids like mall rats and not seriously ... Kids and teenagers just aren't being portrayed with any real depth".
Johansson later appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the neo-noir, Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). Her breakthrough came playing a cynical outcast in Terry Zwigoff's black comedy Ghost World (2001), an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel of the same name. Johansson auditioned for the film via a tape from New York, and Zwigoff believed her to be "a unique, eccentric person, and right for that part". The film premiered at the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival; it was a box office failure, but has since developed a cult status. Johansson was credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age" by an Austin Chronicle critic, and won a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
With David Arquette, Johansson appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002), about a collection of spiders that are exposed to toxic waste, causing them to grow to gigantic proportions and begin killing and harvesting. After graduating from Professional Children's School that year, she applied to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; she decided to focus on her film career when she was rejected.
Transition to adult roles (2003–2004)
Johansson transitioned from teen to adult roles with two films in 2003: the romantic comedy-drama Lost in Translation and the drama Girl with a Pearl Earring. In the former, directed by Sofia Coppola, she plays Charlotte, a listless and lonely young wife, opposite Bill Murray. Coppola had first noticed Johansson in Manny & Lo, and compared her to a young Lauren Bacall; Coppola based the film's story on the relationship between Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946). Johansson found the experience of working with a female director different because of Coppola's ability to empathize with her. Made on a budget of $4million, the film grossed $119million at the box office and received critical acclaim. Roger Ebert was pleased with the film and described the lead actors' performances as "wonderful", and Entertainment Weekly wrote of Johansson's "embracing, restful serenity". The New York Times praised Johansson, aged 17 at the time of filming, for playing an older character.
In Peter Webber's Girl with a Pearl Earring, which is based on the novel of the same name by Tracy Chevalier, Johansson played Griet, a young 17th-century servant in the household of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (played by Colin Firth). Webber interviewed 150 actors before casting Johansson. Johansson found the character moving, but did not read the novel, as she thought it was better to approach the story with a fresh start. Girl with a Pearl Earring received positive reviews and was profitable. In his review for The New Yorker, Anthony Lane thought that her presence kept the film "alive", writing, "She is often wordless and close to plain onscreen, but wait for the ardor with which she can summon a closeup and bloom under its gaze; this is her film, not Vermeer's, all the way." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly noted her "nearly silent performance", remarking, "The interplay on her face of fear, ignorance, curiosity, and sex is intensely dramatic." She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress for both films in 2003, winning the former for Lost in Translation.
In Varietys opinion, Johansson's roles in Lost in Translation and Girl with a Pearl Earring established her as among the most versatile actresses of her generation. Johansson had five releases in 2004, three of which—the teen heist film The Perfect Score, the drama A Love Song for Bobby Long, and the drama A Good Woman—were critical and commercial failures. Co-starring with John Travolta, Johansson played a discontented teenager in A Love Song for Bobby Long, which is based on the novel Off Magazine Street by Ronald Everett Capps. David Rooney of Variety wrote that Johansson's and Travolta's performances rescued the film. Johansson earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama nomination for the film.
In her fourth release in 2004, the live-action animated comedy The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Johansson voiced Princess Mindy, the daughter of King Neptune. She agreed to the project because of her love of cartoons, particularly The Ren & Stimpy Show. The film was her most commercially successful release that year. She would then reprise her role as Mindy in the video game adaptation of the film. She followed it with In Good Company, a comedy-drama in which she complicates the life of her father when she dates his much younger boss. Reviews of the film were generally positive, describing it as "witty and charming". Roger Ebert was impressed with Johansson's portrayal, writing that she "continues to employ the gravitational pull of quiet fascination".
Collaborations with Woody Allen (2005–2009)
Johansson played Nola, an aspiring actress who begins an affair with a married man (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in Woody Allen's drama Match Point in 2005. After replacing Kate Winslet with Johansson for the role, Allen changed the character's nationality from British to American. An admirer of Allen's films, Johansson liked the idea of working with him, but felt nervous her first day on the set. The New York Times was impressed with the performances of Johansson and Rhys Meyers, and Mick LaSalle, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, stated that Johansson "is a powerhouse from the word go", with a performance that "borders on astonishing". The film, a box office success, earned Johansson nominations for the Golden Globe and the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress. Also that year, Johansson underwent a tonsillectomy, after which she starred with Ewan McGregor in Michael Bay's science fiction film The Island, in dual roles as Sarah Jordan and her clone, Jordan Two Delta. Johansson found her filming schedule exhausting: she had to shoot for 14 hours a day, and she hit her head and injured herself. The film received mixed reviews and grossed $163million against a $126million budget.
Two of Johansson's films in 2006 explored the world of stage magicians, both opposite Hugh Jackman. Allen cast her opposite Jackman and himself in the film Scoop (2006), in which she played a journalism student. The film was a modest worldwide box office success, but polarized critics. Ebert was critical of the film, but found Johansson "lovely as always", and Mick LaSalle noted the freshness she brought to her part. She also appeared in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia, a film noir shot in Los Angeles and Bulgaria. Johansson later said she was a fan of DePalma and had wanted to work with him on the film, but thought that she was unsuitable for the part. Anne Billson of The Daily Telegraph likewise found her miscast. However, CNN said that she "takes to the pulpy period atmosphere as if it were oxygen".
Also in 2006, Johansson starred in the short film When the Deal Goes Down to accompany Bob Dylan's song "When the Deal Goes Down..." from the album Modern Times. Johansson had a supporting role of assistant and lover of Jackman's character, an aristocratic magician, in Christopher Nolan's mystery thriller The Prestige (2006). Nolan thought Johansson possessed "ambiguity" and "a shielded quality". She was fascinated with Nolan's directing methods and liked working with him. The film was a critical and box office success, recommended by the Los Angeles Times as "an adult, provocative piece of work". Some critics were skeptical of her performance: Billson again judged her miscast, and Dan Jolin of Empire criticized her English accent.
Johansson's sole release of 2007 was the critically panned comedy-drama The Nanny Diaries alongside Chris Evans and Laura Linney, in which she played a college graduate working as a nanny. Reviews of her performance were mixed; Variety wrote, "[She] essays an engaging heroine", and The New Yorker criticized her for looking "merely confused" while "trying to give the material a plausible emotional center". In 2008, Johansson starred, with Natalie Portman and Eric Bana, in The Other Boleyn Girl, which also earned mixed reviews. Promoting the film, Johansson and Portman appeared on the cover of W, discussing with the magazine the public's reception of them. In Rolling Stone, Pete Travers criticized the film for "[moving] in frustrating herks and jerks", but thought that the duo were the only positive aspect of the production. Variety credited the cast as "almost flawless ... at the top of its game", citing "Johansson's quieter Mary ... as the [film's] emotional center".
In her third collaboration with Woody Allen, the romantic comedy-drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), which was filmed in Spain, Johansson plays one of the love interests of Javier Bardem's character alongside Penélope Cruz. The film was one of Allen's most profitable and received favorable reviews. A reviewer in Variety described Johansson as "open and malleable" compared to the other actors. She also played the femme fatale Silken Floss in The Spirit, based on the newspaper comic strip of the same name by Will Eisner. It received poor reviews from critics, who deemed it melodramatic, unoriginal, and sexist. Johansson's only role in 2009 was as Anna Marks, a yoga instructor, in the ensemble comedy-drama He's Just Not That into You (2009). The film was released to tepid reviews, but was a box office success.
Marvel Cinematic Universe and worldwide recognition (2010–2013)
Aspiring to appear on Broadway since childhood, Johansson made her debut in a 2010 revival of Arthur Miller's drama A View from the Bridge. Set in the 1950s in an Italian-American neighborhood in New York, it tells the tragic tale of Eddie (Liev Schreiber), who has an inappropriate love for his wife's orphaned niece, Catherine (Johansson). After initial reservations about playing a teenage character, Johansson was convinced by a friend to take on the part. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote Johansson "melts into her character so thoroughly that her nimbus of celebrity disappears". Varietys David Rooney was impressed with the play and Johansson in particular, describing her as the chief performer. She won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. Some critics and Broadway actors criticized the award committee's decision to reward the work of mainstream Hollywood actors, including Johansson. In response, she said that she understood the frustration, but had worked hard for her accomplishments.
Johansson played Black Widow in Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2 (2010), a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Before she secured the role, she dyed her hair red to convince Favreau that she was right for the part, and undertook stunt and strength training to prepare for the role. Johansson said the character resonated with her, and she admired the superhero's human traits. The film earned $623.9million against its $200million budget, and received generally positive reviews from critics, although reviewers criticized how her character was written. Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph and Matt Goldberg thought that she had little to do but look attractive. In 2011, Johansson played the role of Kelly, a zookeeper in the family film We Bought a Zoo alongside Matt Damon. The film got mainly favorable reviews, and Anne Billson praised Johansson for bringing depth to a rather uninteresting character. Johansson earned a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress: Drama nomination for her performance.
Johansson learned some Russian from a former teacher on the phone for her role as Black Widow in The Avengers (2012), another entry from the MCU. The film received mainly positive reviews and broke many box office records, becoming the third highest-grossing film both in the United States and worldwide. For her performance, she was nominated for two Teen Choice Awards and three People's Choice Awards. Later that year, Johansson portrayed actress Janet Leigh in Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock, a behind-the-scenes drama about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho. Roger Ebert wrote that Johansson did not look much like Leigh, but conveyed her spunk, intelligence, and sense of humor.
In January 2013, Johansson starred in a Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Rob Ashford. Set in the Mississippi Delta, it examines the relationships within the family of Big Daddy (Ciarán Hinds), primarily between his son Brick (Benjamin Walker) and Maggie (Johansson). Her performance received mixed reviews. Entertainment Weeklys Thom Geier wrote Johansson "brings a fierce fighting spirit" to her part, but Joe Dziemianowicz from Daily News called her performance "alarmingly one-note". The 2013 Sundance Film Festival hosted the premiere of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut, Don Jon. In this romantic comedy-drama, she played the pornography-addicted title character's girlfriend. Gordon-Levitt wrote the role for Johansson, who had previously admired his acting work. The film received positive reviews and Johansson's performance was highlighted by critics. Claudia Puig of USA Today considered it to be one of her best performances.
In 2013, Johansson voiced the character Samantha, a self-aware computer operating system, in Spike Jonze's film Her, replacing Samantha Morton in the role. The film premiered at the 8th Rome International Film Festival, where Johansson won Best Actress; she was also nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress. Johansson was intimidated by the role's complexity, and found her recording sessions for the role challenging but liberating. Peter Travers believed Johansson's voice in the film was "sweet, sexy, caring, manipulative, scary [and] award-worthy". Times Richard Corliss called her performance "seductive and winning", and Her was rated as one of the best films of 2013.
She also won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 40th Saturn Awards in 2014 for her performance. Johansson was cast in Jonathan Glazer's science fiction film Under the Skin (2013) as an extraterrestrial creature disguised as a human femme fatale who preys on men in Scotland. The project, an adaptation of Michel Faber's novel of the same name, took nine years to complete. For the role, she learned to drive a van and speak in an English accent. Johansson improvised conversations with non-professional actors on the street, who did not know they were being filmed. It was released to generally positive reviews, with particular praise for Johansson. Erin Whitney, writing for The Huffington Post, considered it to be her finest performance to that point, and noted that it was her first fully nude role. Author Maureen Foster wrote, "How much depth, breadth, and range Johansson mines from her character's very limited allowance of emotional response is a testament to her acting prowess that is, as the film goes on, increasingly stunning." It earned Johansson a BIFA Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a British Independent Film nomination.
Blockbuster films and critical acclaim (2014–2020)
Continuing her work in the MCU, Johansson reprised her role as Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). In the film, she joins forces with Captain America (Chris Evans) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to uncover a conspiracy within S.H.I.E.L.D., while facing a mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Johansson and Evans wrote their own dialogue for several scenes they had together. Johansson was attracted to her character's way of doing her job, employing her feminine wiles and not her physical appeal. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $714million worldwide. Critic Odie Henderson saw "a genuine emotional shorthand at work, especially from Johansson, who is excellent here". The role earned her a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination.
Johansson played a supporting role in the film Chef (2014), alongside Robert Downey, Jr., Sofía Vergara, and director Jon Favreau. It grossed over $45million at the box office and was well received by critics. The Chicago Sun-Times writer Richard Roeper found the film "funny, quirky and insightful, with a bounty of interesting supporting characters". In Luc Besson's science fiction action film Lucy (2014), Johansson starred as the title character, who gains psychokinetic abilities when a nootropic drug is absorbed into her bloodstream. Besson discussed the role with several actresses, and cast Johansson based on her strong reaction to the script and her discipline. Critics generally praised the film's themes, visuals, and Johansson's performance; some found the plot nonsensical. IGN's Jim Vejvoda attributed the film's success to her acting and Besson's style. The film grossed $458million on a budget of $40million to become the 18th highest-grossing film of 2014.
In 2015 and 2016, Johansson again played Black Widow in the MCU films Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. During filming of the former, a mixture of close-ups, concealing costumes, stunt doubles and visual effects were used to hide her pregnancy. Both films earned more than $1.1billion, ranking among the highest-grossing films of all time. For Civil War, Johansson earned her second nomination for Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie and her fourth for Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Earlier in 2016, Johansson had featured in the Coen brothers' well-received comedy film Hail, Caesar! about a "fixer" working in the classical Hollywood cinema, trying to discover what happened to a cast member who vanished during the filming of a biblical epic; Johansson plays an actress who becomes pregnant while her film is in production. She also voiced Kaa in Jon Favreau's live-action adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book, and Ash in the animated musical comedy film Sing (both 2016). That year she also narrated an audiobook of Lewis Carroll's children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Johansson played Motoko Kusanagi in Rupert Sanders's 2017 film adaptation of the Ghost in the Shell franchise. The film was praised for its visual style, acting, and cinematography, but was the subject of controversy for whitewashing the cast, particularly Johansson's character, a cyborg who was meant to hold the memories of a Japanese woman. Responding to the backlash, the actress asserted she would never play a non-white character, but wanted to take the rare opportunity to star in a female-led franchise. Ghost in the Shell grossed $169.8million worldwide against a production budget of $110million. In March 2017, Johansson hosted Saturday Night Live for the fifth time, making her the 17th person, and the fourth woman, to enter the NBC sketch comedy's prestigious Five-Timers Club. Johansson's next 2017 film was the comedy Rough Night, where she played Jess Thayer, one of the five friends—alongside Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, and Zoë Kravitz—whose bachelorette party goes wrong after a male stripper dies. The film had a mixed critical reception and moderate box office returns. In 2018, Johansson voiced show dog Nutmeg in Wes Anderson's stop-motion animated film Isle of Dogs, released in March, and reprised her MCU role as Black Widow in Avengers: Infinity War, which followed the next month. Johansson was due to star in Rub & Tug, a biographical film in which she would have played Dante "Tex" Gill, a transgender man who operated a massage parlor and prostitution ring in the 1970s and 1980s. She dropped out of the project following backlash to the casting of a cisgender woman to play a transgender man.
In 2019, Johansson once again reprised her role as Black Widow in Avengers: Endgame, which is the highest-grossing film of all time. She next starred in Noah Baumbach's Netflix film Marriage Story, in which Adam Driver and she played a warring couple who file for divorce. Johansson found a connection with her character, as she was amid her own divorce proceedings at the time. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian commended her "brilliantly textured" performance in it. She also took on the supporting role of a young boy's mother who shelters a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany in Taika Waititi's satire Jojo Rabbit. Waititi modeled the character on his own mother, and cast Johansson to provide her a rare opportunity to perform comedy. The film received polarizing reviews, but Stephanie Zacharek labeled her the "lustrous soul of the movie". Johansson received her first two Academy Award nominations, for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for her performances in Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit, respectively, becoming the eleventh performer to be nominated for two Oscars in the same year. She also received two BAFTA nominations for these films, and a Golden Globe nomination for the former.
Black Widow and lawsuit (2021–present)
After a one-year screen absence, Johansson reprised her role as Black Widow in her own solo prequel film in 2021, on which she also served as an executive producer. Also starring Florence Pugh, the film is set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, and sees Johansson's character on the run and forced to confront her past. Director Cate Shortland, who wanted to make a standalone film on her character, watched Johansson's previous appearances as Black Widow to prepare. Johansson felt proud of the film and that her work playing the role was now complete. She saw this as an opportunity to show her character's ability to be on her own and make choices for herself while facing difficult times, and noted that her vulnerability distinguished her from other Avengers. Critics were generally favorable in their reviews of the film, mainly praising Johansson and Pugh's performances. In a review published in The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney thought the film was "a stellar vehicle" for Johansson. Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood found the actress "again a great presence in the role, showing expert action and acting chops throughout". For the film, Johansson won The Female Movie Star of 2021 at the 47th People's Choice Awards.
In July 2021, Johansson filed a lawsuit against Disney claiming that the simultaneous release of Black Widow on their streaming service Disney+ breached a clause in her contract that the film receive exclusive theatrical release. She alleged that the release on Disney+ exempted her from receiving additional bonus from box-office profits, to which she was entitled. In response, Disney said her lawsuit showed an indifference to the "horrific and prolonged" effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company also stated that Johansson already received $20million for the film and that the Disney+ Premier Access release would only earn her additional compensation. The Hollywood Reporter described Disney's response as "aggressive". Accusing Disney of intentionally violating their contract with Johansson, Creative Artists Agency co-chairman Bryan Lourd criticized the company for falsely portraying Johansson as insensitive to the effects of the pandemic, which he considered a "direct attack on her character". Lourd further stated that the company including her salary in their public statement was to try to "weaponize her success as an artist and businesswoman". Later that September, both parties announced that they had resolved their dispute, with the terms of the settlement remaining undisclosed.
Music career
In 2006, Johansson sang the track "Summertime" for Unexpected DreamsSongs From the Stars, a non-profit collection of songs recorded by Hollywood actors. She performed with the Jesus and Mary Chain for a Coachella reunion show in Indio, California, in April 2007. The following year, Johansson appeared as the leading lady in Justin Timberlake's music video, for "What Goes Around... Comes Around", which was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year.
In May 2008, Johansson released her debut album Anywhere I Lay My Head, which consists of one original song and ten cover versions of Tom Waits songs, and features David Bowie and members from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Celebration. Reviews of the album were mixed. Spin was not particularly impressed with Johansson's singing. Some critics found it to be "surprisingly alluring", "a bravely eccentric selection", and "a brilliant album" with "ghostly magic". NME named the album the "23rd best album of 2008", and it peaked at number126 on the Billboard 200. Johansson started listening to Waits when she was 11 or 12 years old, and said of him, "His melodies are so beautiful, his voice is so distinct and I had my own way of doing Tom Waits songs."
In September 2009, Johansson and singer-songwriter Pete Yorn released a collaborative album, Break Up, inspired by Serge Gainsbourg's duets with Brigitte Bardot. The album reached number 41 in the US. In 2010, Steel Train released Terrible Thrills Vol.1, which includes their favorite female artists singing songs from their self-titled album. Johansson is the first artist on the album, singing "Bullet". Johansson sang "One Whole Hour" for the 2011 soundtrack of the documentary film Wretches & Jabberers (2010). and in 2012 sang on a J.Ralph track entitled "Before My Time" for the end credits of the climate documentary Chasing Ice (2012)
In February 2015, Johansson formed a band called the Singles with Este Haim from HAIM, Holly Miranda, Kendra Morris, and Julia Haltigan. The group's first single was called "Candy". Johansson was issued a cease and desist order from the lead singer of the Los Angeles-based rock band the Singles, demanding she stop using their name. In 2016, she performed "Trust in Me" for The Jungle Book soundtrack and "Set It All Free" and "I Don't Wanna" for Sing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. In 2018, Johansson collaborated with Pete Yorn again for an EP titled Apart, released June 1.
Public image
Johansson has been called "ScarJo" by the media and fans, and dislikes being called this, finding it lazy, flippant and insulting. She has no social media profiles, saying she does not see the need "to continuously share details of [her] everyday life."
Johansson is described as a sex symbol by the media. The Sydney Morning Herald describes her as "the embodiment of male fantasy". During the filming of Match Point, director Woody Allen remarked upon her attractiveness, calling her "beautiful" and "sexually overwhelming". In 2014, The New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane wrote that "she is evidently, and profitably, aware of her sultriness, and of how much, down to the last inch, it contributes to the contours of her reputation." Johansson has expressed displeasure at being sexualized, and maintains that a preoccupation with one's attractiveness does not last. She lost the role of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), because the film's director David Fincher found her "too sexy" for the part.
Johansson ranks highly in several beauty listings. Maxim included her in their Hot 100 list from 2006 to 2014. She has been named "Sexiest Woman Alive" twice by Esquire (2006 and 2013), and has been included in similar listings by Playboy (2007), Men's Health (2011), and FHM (since 2005). She was named GQs Babe of the Year in 2010. Madame Tussauds New York museum unveiled a wax statue of her in 2015.
Johansson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2004. In 2006, she appeared on Forbes Celebrity 100 list, and again in 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2012. In 2021, she appeared on the Time 100, Times annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Johansson was included on Forbes annual list of the world's highest-paid actresses from 2014 to 2016, with respective earnings of $17million, $35.5million and $25million. She would later top the list in 2018 and 2019, with earnings of $40.5million and $56million, respectively. She was the highest-grossing actor of 2016, with a total of $1.2billion. As a result, IndieWire credited her for taking on risky roles. , her films have grossed over billion in North America and over billion worldwide, making Johansson the third-highest-grossing box-office star of all time both domestically and worldwide as well as the highest-grossing actress of all time in North America.
Johansson has appeared in advertising campaigns for Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, L'Oréal, and Louis Vuitton, and has represented the Spanish brand Mango since 2009. She was the first Hollywood celebrity to represent a champagne producer, appearing in advertisements for Moët & Chandon. In January 2014, the Israeli company SodaStream, which makes home-carbonation products, hired Johansson as its first global brand ambassador, a relationship that commenced with a television commercial during Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2, 2014. This created some controversy, as SodaStream at that time operated a plant in Israeli-occupied territory in the West Bank.
Personal life
While attending PCS, Johansson dated classmate Jack Antonoff from 2001 to 2002. She dated her Black Dahlia co-star Josh Hartnett for about two years until the end of 2006. Hartnett said they broke up because their busy schedules kept them apart. Johansson began dating Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds in 2007. They became engaged in May 2008, married in September 2008 on Vancouver Island, separated in December 2010 and divorced in July 2011.
In November 2012, Johansson began dating Frenchman Romain Dauriac, the owner of an advertising agency. They became engaged the following September. The pair divided their time between New York City and Paris. She gave birth to their daughter, Rose Dorothy Dauriac, in 2014. Johansson and Dauriac married that October in Philipsburg, Montana. They separated in mid-2016 and divorced in September 2017. Johansson began dating Saturday Night Live co-head writer and Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost in May 2017. In May 2019, the two were engaged. They married in October 2020, at their New York home. She gave birth to their son, Cosmo, in August 2021. Johansson resides in New York and Los Angeles.
In September 2011, nude photographs of Johansson hacked from her cell phone were leaked online. She said the pictures had been sent to her then-husband, Ryan Reynolds, three years before the incident. Following an FBI investigation, the hacker was arrested, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to ten years in prison. In 2014, Johansson won a lawsuit against French publisher JC Lattès over defamatory statements about her relationships in the novel The First Thing We Look At by Grégoire Delacourt. She was awarded $3,400; she had claimed $68,000.
Johansson has criticized the media for promoting an image that causes unhealthy diets and eating disorders among women. In an essay she wrote for The Huffington Post, she encouraged people to maintain a healthy body. She posed nude on the March 2006 cover of Vanity Fair alongside actress Keira Knightley and fully clothed fashion designer Tom Ford, who jumped in last minute on the day of the shoot to replace Rachel McAdams after she walked out. The photograph sparked controversy, as some believed it demonstrated that women are forced to flaunt their sexuality more often than men.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Johansson has supported various charitable organizations, including Aid Still Required, Cancer Research UK, Stand Up To Cancer, Too Many Women (which works against breast cancer), and USA Harvest, which provides food for people in need. In 2005, Johansson became a global ambassador for the aid and development agency Oxfam. In 2007, she took part in the anti-poverty campaign ONE, which was organized by U2's lead singer Bono. In March 2008, a UK-based bidder paid £20,000 on an eBay auction to benefit Oxfam, winning a hair and makeup treatment, a pair of tickets, and a chauffeured trip to accompany her on a 20-minute date to the world premiere of He's Just Not That into You.
In January 2014, Johansson resigned from her Oxfam position after criticism of her promotion of SodaStream, whose main factory was based in Mishor Adumim, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank; Oxfam opposes all trade with such Israeli settlements. Oxfam stated that it was thankful for her contributions in raising funds to fight poverty. Together with her Avengers costars, Johansson raised $500,000 for the victims of Hurricane Maria.
In 2018, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up the Time's Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination. Johansson took part in the Women's March in Los Angeles in January 2018, where she spoke on topics such as abuses of power, sharing her own experience. She received backlash for calling out fellow actor James Franco on allegations of sexual misconduct as in the past she had defended working with Woody Allen amid an accusation by his daughter Dylan Farrow.
Johansson has given support to Operation Warrior Wellness, a division of the David Lynch Foundation that helps veterans learn Transcendental Meditation. Her grand-uncle, Phillip Schlamberg, was the last American pilot to have been killed during WWII. He had gone on a bombing mission with Jerry Yellin, who went on to become co-founder of Operation Warrior Wellness.
Politics
Johansson was registered as an independent, at least through 2008, and campaigned for Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 United States presidential election. When George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, she said she was disappointed.
In January 2008, her campaign for Democratic candidate Barack Obama included appearances in Iowa targeted at younger voters, an appearance at Cornell College, and a speaking engagement at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, on Super Tuesday, 2008. Johansson appeared in the music video for rapper will.i.am's song, "Yes We Can" (2008), directed by Jesse Dylan; the song was inspired by Obama's speech after the 2008 New Hampshire primary. In February 2012, Johansson and Anna Wintour hosted a fashion launch of pro-Obama clothing, bags, and accessories, the proceeds of which went to the President's re-election campaign. She addressed voters at the Democratic National Convention in September 2012, calling for Obama's re-election and for more engagement from young voters. She encouraged women to vote for Obama and condemned Mitt Romney for his opposition to Planned Parenthood.
Johansson publicly endorsed and supported Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's 2013 run for New York City Comptroller by hosting a series of fundraisers. To encourage people to vote in the 2016 presidential election, in which Johansson endorsed Hillary Clinton, she appeared in a commercial alongside her Marvel Cinematic Universe co-star Robert Downey Jr., and Joss Whedon. In 2017, she spoke at the Women's March on Washington, addressing Donald Trump's presidency and stating that she would support the president if he works for women's rights and stops withdrawing federal funding for Planned Parenthood. In the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Johansson endorsed Elizabeth Warren, referring to Warren as "thoughtful and progressive but realistic".
In December 2020, three members of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an Egyptian civil rights organization, were released from prison in Egypt, after Johansson had described their detention circumstances and demanded the trio's release.
Notes
See also
List of actors nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year
References
Further reading
External links
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
1984 births
Actresses from New York City
American child actresses
American film actresses
American people of Danish descent
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American people of Swedish descent
American stage actresses
American voice actresses
American women film producers
Atco Records artists
Best Actress BAFTA Award winners
César Honorary Award recipients
Danish people of Polish-Jewish descent
Danish people of Russian-Jewish descent
Danish people of Swedish descent
Female models from New York (state)
Fraternal twin actresses
Jewish American actresses
Jewish singers
Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute alumni
Living people
Method actors
People from Manhattan
Theatre World Award winners
Time 100
Tony Award winners
Twin people from the United States | true | [
"The Bodil Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role () is one of the merit categories presented by the Danish Film Critics Association at the annual Bodil Awards. Created in 1948, it is one of the oldest film awards in Europe, and it honours the best performance by an actor in a supporting role in a Danish produced film. The jury can decide not to hand out the award, which happened numerous times between 1950 and 1985. Since 1986, it has been awarded every year.\n\nHonorees\n\n1940s \n 1948: Ellen Gottschalch won for her role in \n 1949: Karin Nellemose won for her role in\n\n1950s \n 1950: Not awarded\n 1951: Not awarded\n 1952: Sigrid Neiiendam won for her role in \n 1953: Not awarded\n 1954: Not awarded\n 1955: Not awarded\n 1956: Not awarded\n 1957: Not awarded\n 1958: Not awarded\n 1959: Not awarded\n\n1960s \n 1960: Not awarded\n 1961: Not awarded\n 1962: Not awarded\n 1963: Not awarded\n 1964: Not awarded\n 1965: Not awarded\n 1966: Not awarded\n 1967: Not awarded\n 1968: Not awarded\n 1969: won for her role in\n\n1970s \n 1970: Not awarded\n 1971: Not awarded\n 1972: Not awarded\n 1973: won for her role in Oh, to Be on the Bandwagon!\n 1974: Not awarded\n 1975: Not awarded\n 1976: won for her role as Sylvie in A Happy Divorce\n 1977: Bodil Kjer won for her role as Sabine Lund in Strømer\n 1978: Not awarded\n 1979: Grethe Holmer won for her role as Kirsten's mother in In My Life\n\n1980s \n 1980: Berthe Qvistgaard won for her role in Johnny Larsen\n 1981: Helle Fastrup won for her role in \n 1982: Ghita Nørby won for her role in \n 1983: Not awarded\n 1984: Birgitte Raaberg won for her role in In the Middle of the Night\n 1985: Not awarded\n 1986: Catherine Poul Jupont for her role in The Dark Side of the Moon\n 1987: Sofie Gråbøl won for her role in The Wolf at the Door\n 1988: won for her role in Pelle the Conqueror\n 1989: won for her role in Katinka\n\n1990s \n 1990: Kirsten Rolffes won for her role in Waltzing Regitze\n 1991: won for her role in \n 1992: Ditte Gråbøl won for her role in \n 1993: Birthe Neumann won for her role in Pain of Love\n 1994: Pernille Højmark won for her role in Black Harvest\n 1995: won for her role in Nightwatch\n 1996: Anneke von der Lippe won for her role as Eva in Pan\n 1997: Katrin Cartlidge won for her role in Breaking the Waves\n 1998: Birgitte Raaberg won for her role as Judith Petersen in Riget II\n 1999: Anne Louise Hassing won for her role in The Idiots\n\n2000s \n 2000: Paprika Steen won for her role as Stella in The One and Only\n 2001: Lene Tiemroth won for her role as Karen's mother in Italian for Beginners\n was nominated for her role as Liv in The Bench\n was nominated for her role as Connie in The Bench\n 2002: won for her role as Heidi in One-Hand Clapping\n Birthe Neumann was nominated for her role as Elly in Chop Chop\n 2003: Paprika Steen won for her role as Maria in Open Hearts\n Julia Davis was nominated for her role as Moira in Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself\n was nominated for her role in Minor Mishaps\n Birthe Neumann was nominated for her role as Hanne in Open Hearts\n 2004: Ditte Gråbøl won for her role in Move Me\n Bronagh Gallagher was nominated for her role as Sophie in Skagerrak\n Lisa Werlinder was nominated for her role as Maria in The Inheritance\n 2005: Trine Dyrholm won for her role in In Your Hands\n was nominated for her role as Lone Kjeldsen in King's Game\n was nominated for her role in Aftermath\n Sonja Richter was nominated for her role in In Your Hands\n was nominated for her role in \n 2006: Charlotte Fich won for her role as Lisbeth in Manslaughter\n was nominated for her role in Murk\n Tuva Novotny was nominated for her role in Bang Bang Orangutang\n Pernille Valentin Brandt was nominated for her role as Gunnar in Nordkraft\n 2007: Stine Fischer Christensen won for her role in After the Wedding\n Mette Riber Christoffersen was nominated for her role in Life Hits\n Bodil Jørgensen was nominated for her role in \n Sofie Stougaard was nominated for her role in Lotto\n Mia Lyhne was nominated for her role in The Boss of It All\n 2008: Charlotte Fich won for her role as Mette in Just Another Love Story\n was nominated for her role in \n Stine Fischer Christensen was nominated for her role in Echo\n Trine Dyrholm was nominated for her role as Eva in Daisy Diamond\n was nominated for her role as Mother in The Art of Crying\n 2009: won for her role as Karen in Worlds Apart\n was nominated for her role as Selma in Fear Me Not'\n Ghita Nørby was nominated for her role as Sigrid in What No One Knows Paprika Steen was nominated for her role in Fear Me Not 2010s \n 2010: won for her role as Scarlett in Deliver Us from Evil was nominated for her role in Love and Rage Charlotte Fich was nominated for her role in Love and Rage Solbjørg Højfeldt was nominated for her role in Lea Høyer was nominated for her role in 2011: Patricia Schumann won for her role as Sofie in Submarino was nominated for her role as Helena in Everything Will Be Fine Laura Skaarup Jensen was nominated for her role as Karen in The Experiment Rosalinde Mynster was nominated for her role as Julie in Truth About Men Paprika Steen was nominated for her role as Siri in Everything Will Be Fine 2012: Paprika Steen won for her role as Anna in SuperClásico was nominated for her role as Susan in Rebounce Charlotte Gainsbourg was nominated for her role as Claire in Melancholia Anne Louise Hassing was nominated for her role as Sanne in A Family Charlotte Rampling was nominated for her role as Gaby in Melancholia 2013: Frederikke Dahl Hansen won for her role as Maria in You & Me Forever Emilie Kruse was nominated for her role as Christine in You & Me Forever Elsebeth Stentoft was nominated for her role as Ingrid in Teddy Bear was nominated for her role in Trine Dyrholm was nominated for her role as Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in A Royal Affair 2014: Susse Wold won for her role as Grethe in The Hunt Anne Louise Hassing was nominated for her role as Agnes in The Hunt Kristin Scott Thomas was nominated for her role as Crystal in Only God Forgives Sonja Richter was nominated for her role as Merete Lynggaard in The Keeper of Lost Causes Uma Thurman was nominated for her role as Mrs H in Nymphomaniac 2015: won for her role in Klumpfisken 2016: Trine Pallesen won for her role as Katrine in Key House Mirror 2017: won for her role in In the Blood 2018: Julie Christiansen won for her role in : won for her role in A Fortunate Man 2020s \n : won for her role in Daniel : Sidse Babett Knudsen won for her role in ''\n\nSee also \n\n Robert Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1948 establishments in Denmark\nAwards established in 1948\nActress in a supporting role\nFilm awards for supporting actress",
"Shirley Ann Hemphill (July 1, 1947 – December 10, 1999) was an American stand-up comedian and actress.\n\nA native of Asheville, North Carolina, Hemphill moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s to pursue a career as a stand-up comedian. After working the Los Angeles comedy club circuit, her routine eventually attracted attention leading to her being cast in guest starring roles on television. In 1976, she landed the role of brassy waitress Shirley Wilson on the sitcom What's Happening!! The series was a modest hit for ABC, but production and cast problems caused ABC to cancel the series in 1979. The following year, Hemphill was cast in her own sitcom, One in a Million. The series failed to attract an audience and was canceled in June 1980.\n\nIn 1985, Hemphill reprised her role as Shirley Wilson in the syndicated revival of What's Happening!! titled What's Happening Now!!, only now her character is co-owner of the restaurant she works at. Like its predecessor, What's Happening Now!! aired for three seasons. After the show's cancellation, Hemphill returned to stand-up comedy and also made occasional appearances in films and television until her death in December 1999.\n\nEarly life and career\nHemphill was born in Asheville, North Carolina, to Richard and Mozella Hemphill. She had a brother, William. Hemphill attended Hill Street School and Stephens-Lee High School, and later won an athletics scholarship to Morristown College where she majored in physical education. Hemphill returned to Asheville two years later where she got a job in a factory manufacturing nylons.\n\nAn aspiring stand-up comedian, Hemphill sent a cassette tape of one of her comedy routines to Flip Wilson. Wilson was impressed by her routine and in turn, sent her a cassette recorder and a dozen roses. Wilson also invited Hemphill to visit the set of The Flip Wilson Show. After the visit, Hemphill returned to her job in Asheville but decided to pursue a career in comedy instead. She quit her job and traveled to Los Angeles by bus. Hemphill got a job waitressing during the day and performed at The Comedy Store at night.\n\nBy 1976, Hemphill's stand-up routine started to get noticed and caught the attention of casting agent Joan Murray. Murray cast Hemphill in a guest role on Good Times which led to another guest starring role on All's Fair. After seeing her performance on Good Times, Norman Lear offered Hemphill her own spin-off series but she turned it down. Instead, she auditioned and won the role of waitress Shirley Wilson on the ABC sitcom What's Happening!!. Loosely based on Eric Monte's 1975 film Cooley High, the series follows the adventures of three teenaged boys: Raj (Ernest Thomas), Rerun (Fred Berry), and Dwayne (Haywood Nelson). Hemphill's character worked at Rob's Place, the restaurant the boys frequented. The series was a modest hit for ABC but was beset with behind the scene problems. In the series' second season, Fred Berry and Ernest Thomas staged a walkout over their dressing room conditions which they claimed were unsuitable. During the series' third season, Fred Berry demanded more money and reportedly convinced Ernest Thomas and Haywood Nelson to join him in a strike. Producers opted to cancel the series instead of increasing the actors' salaries.\n\nFollowing the cancellation of What's Happening, Hemphill auditioned for the role of the cook on Archie Bunker's Place, but the role went to Anne Meara. The day after losing the role, Hemphill was offered the starring role in her own sitcom One in a Million. On the series, she portrayed Shirley Simmons, a taxi driver who inherited a huge corporation and fortune from one of her customers. The series debuted on ABC on January 8, 1980, but failed to attract a sufficient audience. ABC canceled the series in June 1980.\n\nAfterward, Hemphill spent most of the early 1980s working in nightclubs around the U.S. and doing the occasional guest appearance on TV shows, including The Love Boat and Trapper John, M.D.. In 1985, she was invited to co-star on the revival of What's Happening!! entitled What's Happening Now!!, which aired in syndication from 1985 to 1988. After What's Happening Now!! ended its three-year run, she again worked the nightclub scene and doing the occasional acting gig on a number of '90s comedy sitcoms, including Martin and The Wayans Bros.. In 1993, she appeared in her first movie, CB4, starring Chris Rock. Two years later she co-starred in her second movie, Shoot the Moon, starring Whitney Anderson.\n\nThroughout her career, Hemphill performed her stand-up routine on a number of popular TV shows including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, A&E's An Evening at the Improv, BET's Black Comedy Showcase and Black Comedy Tonight. She was also a regular at The Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles. A year before her death, Hemphill appeared in an episode of The Jenny Jones Show in a What's Happening!! reunion show; actors Ernest Thomas and Haywood Nelson also appeared.\n\nDeath\nOn December 10, 1999, Hemphill was found dead at her home in West Covina, California. Her body was discovered by a gardener who looked through a window and saw her lying on her bedroom floor. An autopsy determined that Hemphill died of kidney failure. Hemphill was cremated.\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n \n\n1947 births\n1999 deaths\n20th-century American actresses\nActresses from North Carolina\nAmerican stand-up comedians\nAmerican women comedians\nDeaths from kidney failure\nPeople from Asheville, North Carolina\nAfrican-American actresses\nAmerican television actresses\nAmerican film actresses\n20th-century American comedians\n20th-century African-American women\n20th-century African-American people"
]
|
[
"Scarlett Johansson",
"Early roles (1996-2002)",
"what was her first role?",
"Johansson's first leading role was as Amanda, the younger sister of a pregnant teenager who runs away from her foster home in Manny & Lo ("
]
| C_5988d1dc06044704bdb4154afa470ce2_1 | was it successful? | 2 | was the movie Manny & Lo successful? | Scarlett Johansson | Johansson's first leading role was as Amanda, the younger sister of a pregnant teenager who runs away from her foster home in Manny & Lo (1996) alongside Aleksa Palladino and her brother, Hunter. Her performance received positive reviews: one written for the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson," while critic Mick LaSalle, writing for the same paper, commented on her "peaceful aura", and believed, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress." Johansson earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female for the role. After appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 (both 1997), Johansson attracted wider attention for her performance in the film The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford. The drama film, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Nicholas Evans, tells the story of a talented trainer with a gift for understanding horses, who is hired to help an injured teenager played by Johansson. The actress received an "introducing" credit on this film, although it was her seventh role. On Johansson's maturity, Redford described her as "13 going on 30". Todd McCarthy of Variety commented that Johansson "convincingly conveys the awkwardness of her age and the inner pain of a carefree girl suddenly laid low by horrible happenstance". For the film, she was nominated for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress. She believed that the film changed many things in her life, realizing that acting is the ability to manipulate one's emotions. On finding good roles as a teenager, Johansson said it was hard for her as adults wrote the scripts and they "portray kids like mall rats and not seriously ... Kids and teenagers just aren't being portrayed with any real depth". Johansson later appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the neo-noir, Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). Her breakthrough came playing a cynical outcast in Terry Zwigoff's black comedy Ghost World (2001), an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel of same name. Johansson auditioned for the film via a tape from New York, and Zwigoff believed her to be "a unique, eccentric person, and right for that part". The film premiered at the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival; it was a box office failure, but has since developed a cult status. Johansson was credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age" by an Austin Chronicle critic, and won a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. With David Arquette, Johansson appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002), about a collection of spiders that are exposed to toxic waste, causing them to grow to gigantic proportions and begin killing and harvesting. After graduating from PCS that year, she applied to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; she decided to focus on her film career when she was rejected. CANNOTANSWER | " Johansson earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female for the role. | Scarlett Ingrid Johansson (; born November 22, 1984) is an American actress. The world's highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, she has featured multiple times on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. Her films have grossed over billion worldwide, making Johansson the ninth-highest-grossing box office star of all time. She has received various accolades, including a Tony Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.
Johansson aspired to be an actress from an early age and first appeared on stage in an Off-Broadway play as a child actor. She made her film debut in the fantasy comedy North (1994), and gained early recognition for her roles in Manny & Lo (1996), The Horse Whisperer (1998), and Ghost World (2001). Johansson shifted to adult roles in 2003 with her performances in Lost in Translation, which won her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, and Girl with a Pearl Earring. She was nominated for Golden Globe Awards for these films, and for playing a troubled teenager in the drama A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) and a seductress in psychological thriller Match Point (2005). The latter was her first collaboration with Woody Allen, who later directed her in Scoop (2006) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Johansson's other works of this period include The Prestige (2006) and the albums Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008) and Break Up (2009), both of which charted on the Billboard 200.
In 2010, Johansson debuted on Broadway in a revival of A View from the Bridge, which won her a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, and began portraying Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Iron Man 2. She reprised the role in eight films, most recently in her solo feature Black Widow (2021), gaining global recognition for her performances. During this period, Johansson starred in the science fiction films Her (2013), Under the Skin (2013) and Lucy (2014). She received two simultaneous Academy Award nominations—Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress—for the respective roles of an actress going through a divorce in the drama Marriage Story (2019) and a single mother in Nazi Germany in the satire Jojo Rabbit (2019).
Labeled a sex symbol, Johansson has been referred to as one of the world's most attractive women by various media outlets. She is a prominent brand endorser and supports several charitable causes. Divorced from actor Ryan Reynolds and businessman Romain Dauriac, Johansson has been married to comedian Colin Jost since 2020. She has two children, one with Dauriac and another with Jost.
Early life
Johansson was born on November 22, 1984, in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Her father, Karsten Olaf Johansson, is an architect originally from Copenhagen, Denmark. Her paternal grandfather, Ejner Johansson, was an art historian, screenwriter, and film director, whose own father was Swedish. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, a New Yorker, has worked as a producer; she comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Poland and Russia, originally surnamed Schlamberg, and Johansson describes herself as Jewish. She has an older sister, Vanessa, also an actress; an older brother, Adrian; and a twin brother, Hunter. She also has an older half-brother, Christian, from her father's first marriage. Johansson holds dual American and Danish citizenship. She discovered that her maternal great-grandfather's family died during the Holocaust in the Warsaw Ghetto on a 2017 episode of PBS's Finding Your Roots.
Johansson attended PS 41, an elementary school in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Her parents divorced when she was thirteen. She was particularly close to her maternal grandmother, Dorothy Sloan, a bookkeeper and schoolteacher; they often spent time together and Johansson considered Dorothy her best friend. Interested in a career in the spotlight from an early age, Johansson often put on song-and-dance routines for her family. She was particularly fond of musical theater and jazz hands. She took lessons in tap dance, and states that her parents were supportive of her career choice. She has described her childhood as very ordinary.
As a child, Johansson practiced acting by staring in the mirror until she made herself cry, wanting to be Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis. At age seven, she was devastated when a talent agent signed one of her brothers instead of her, but she later decided to become an actress anyway. She enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and began auditioning for commercials, but soon lost interest: "I didn't want to promote Wonder Bread." She shifted her focus to film and theater, making her first stage appearance in the Off-Broadway play Sophistry with Ethan Hawke, in which she had two lines. Around this time, she began studying at Professional Children's School (PCS), a private educational institution for aspiring child actors in Manhattan.
Acting career
Early work and breakthrough (1994–2002)
At age nine, Johansson made her film debut as John Ritter's daughter in the fantasy comedy North (1994). She says that when she was on the film set, she knew intuitively what to do. She later played minor roles such as the daughter of Sean Connery's and Kate Capshaw's characters in the mystery thriller Just Cause (1995), and an art student in If Lucy Fell (1996). Johansson's first leading role was as Amanda, the younger sister of a pregnant teenager who runs away from her foster home in Manny & Lo (1996) alongside Aleksa Palladino and her brother, Hunter. Her performance received positive reviews: one written for the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson," while critic Mick LaSalle, writing for the same paper, commented on her "peaceful aura", and believed, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress." Johansson earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female for the role.
After appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 (both 1997), Johansson attracted wider attention for her performance in the film The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford. The drama film, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Nicholas Evans, tells the story of a trainer with a gift for understanding horses, who is hired to help an injured teenager played by Johansson. The actress received an "introducing" credit on this film, although it was her seventh role. On Johansson's maturity, Redford described her as "13 going on 30". Todd McCarthy of Variety commented that Johansson "convincingly conveys the awkwardness of her age and the inner pain of a carefree girl suddenly laid low by horrible happenstance". For the film, she was nominated for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress. She believed that the film changed many things in her life, realizing that acting is the ability to manipulate one's emotions. On finding good roles as a teenager, Johansson said it was hard for her as adults wrote the scripts and they "portray kids like mall rats and not seriously ... Kids and teenagers just aren't being portrayed with any real depth".
Johansson later appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the neo-noir, Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). Her breakthrough came playing a cynical outcast in Terry Zwigoff's black comedy Ghost World (2001), an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel of the same name. Johansson auditioned for the film via a tape from New York, and Zwigoff believed her to be "a unique, eccentric person, and right for that part". The film premiered at the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival; it was a box office failure, but has since developed a cult status. Johansson was credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age" by an Austin Chronicle critic, and won a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
With David Arquette, Johansson appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002), about a collection of spiders that are exposed to toxic waste, causing them to grow to gigantic proportions and begin killing and harvesting. After graduating from Professional Children's School that year, she applied to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; she decided to focus on her film career when she was rejected.
Transition to adult roles (2003–2004)
Johansson transitioned from teen to adult roles with two films in 2003: the romantic comedy-drama Lost in Translation and the drama Girl with a Pearl Earring. In the former, directed by Sofia Coppola, she plays Charlotte, a listless and lonely young wife, opposite Bill Murray. Coppola had first noticed Johansson in Manny & Lo, and compared her to a young Lauren Bacall; Coppola based the film's story on the relationship between Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946). Johansson found the experience of working with a female director different because of Coppola's ability to empathize with her. Made on a budget of $4million, the film grossed $119million at the box office and received critical acclaim. Roger Ebert was pleased with the film and described the lead actors' performances as "wonderful", and Entertainment Weekly wrote of Johansson's "embracing, restful serenity". The New York Times praised Johansson, aged 17 at the time of filming, for playing an older character.
In Peter Webber's Girl with a Pearl Earring, which is based on the novel of the same name by Tracy Chevalier, Johansson played Griet, a young 17th-century servant in the household of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (played by Colin Firth). Webber interviewed 150 actors before casting Johansson. Johansson found the character moving, but did not read the novel, as she thought it was better to approach the story with a fresh start. Girl with a Pearl Earring received positive reviews and was profitable. In his review for The New Yorker, Anthony Lane thought that her presence kept the film "alive", writing, "She is often wordless and close to plain onscreen, but wait for the ardor with which she can summon a closeup and bloom under its gaze; this is her film, not Vermeer's, all the way." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly noted her "nearly silent performance", remarking, "The interplay on her face of fear, ignorance, curiosity, and sex is intensely dramatic." She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress for both films in 2003, winning the former for Lost in Translation.
In Varietys opinion, Johansson's roles in Lost in Translation and Girl with a Pearl Earring established her as among the most versatile actresses of her generation. Johansson had five releases in 2004, three of which—the teen heist film The Perfect Score, the drama A Love Song for Bobby Long, and the drama A Good Woman—were critical and commercial failures. Co-starring with John Travolta, Johansson played a discontented teenager in A Love Song for Bobby Long, which is based on the novel Off Magazine Street by Ronald Everett Capps. David Rooney of Variety wrote that Johansson's and Travolta's performances rescued the film. Johansson earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama nomination for the film.
In her fourth release in 2004, the live-action animated comedy The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Johansson voiced Princess Mindy, the daughter of King Neptune. She agreed to the project because of her love of cartoons, particularly The Ren & Stimpy Show. The film was her most commercially successful release that year. She would then reprise her role as Mindy in the video game adaptation of the film. She followed it with In Good Company, a comedy-drama in which she complicates the life of her father when she dates his much younger boss. Reviews of the film were generally positive, describing it as "witty and charming". Roger Ebert was impressed with Johansson's portrayal, writing that she "continues to employ the gravitational pull of quiet fascination".
Collaborations with Woody Allen (2005–2009)
Johansson played Nola, an aspiring actress who begins an affair with a married man (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in Woody Allen's drama Match Point in 2005. After replacing Kate Winslet with Johansson for the role, Allen changed the character's nationality from British to American. An admirer of Allen's films, Johansson liked the idea of working with him, but felt nervous her first day on the set. The New York Times was impressed with the performances of Johansson and Rhys Meyers, and Mick LaSalle, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, stated that Johansson "is a powerhouse from the word go", with a performance that "borders on astonishing". The film, a box office success, earned Johansson nominations for the Golden Globe and the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress. Also that year, Johansson underwent a tonsillectomy, after which she starred with Ewan McGregor in Michael Bay's science fiction film The Island, in dual roles as Sarah Jordan and her clone, Jordan Two Delta. Johansson found her filming schedule exhausting: she had to shoot for 14 hours a day, and she hit her head and injured herself. The film received mixed reviews and grossed $163million against a $126million budget.
Two of Johansson's films in 2006 explored the world of stage magicians, both opposite Hugh Jackman. Allen cast her opposite Jackman and himself in the film Scoop (2006), in which she played a journalism student. The film was a modest worldwide box office success, but polarized critics. Ebert was critical of the film, but found Johansson "lovely as always", and Mick LaSalle noted the freshness she brought to her part. She also appeared in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia, a film noir shot in Los Angeles and Bulgaria. Johansson later said she was a fan of DePalma and had wanted to work with him on the film, but thought that she was unsuitable for the part. Anne Billson of The Daily Telegraph likewise found her miscast. However, CNN said that she "takes to the pulpy period atmosphere as if it were oxygen".
Also in 2006, Johansson starred in the short film When the Deal Goes Down to accompany Bob Dylan's song "When the Deal Goes Down..." from the album Modern Times. Johansson had a supporting role of assistant and lover of Jackman's character, an aristocratic magician, in Christopher Nolan's mystery thriller The Prestige (2006). Nolan thought Johansson possessed "ambiguity" and "a shielded quality". She was fascinated with Nolan's directing methods and liked working with him. The film was a critical and box office success, recommended by the Los Angeles Times as "an adult, provocative piece of work". Some critics were skeptical of her performance: Billson again judged her miscast, and Dan Jolin of Empire criticized her English accent.
Johansson's sole release of 2007 was the critically panned comedy-drama The Nanny Diaries alongside Chris Evans and Laura Linney, in which she played a college graduate working as a nanny. Reviews of her performance were mixed; Variety wrote, "[She] essays an engaging heroine", and The New Yorker criticized her for looking "merely confused" while "trying to give the material a plausible emotional center". In 2008, Johansson starred, with Natalie Portman and Eric Bana, in The Other Boleyn Girl, which also earned mixed reviews. Promoting the film, Johansson and Portman appeared on the cover of W, discussing with the magazine the public's reception of them. In Rolling Stone, Pete Travers criticized the film for "[moving] in frustrating herks and jerks", but thought that the duo were the only positive aspect of the production. Variety credited the cast as "almost flawless ... at the top of its game", citing "Johansson's quieter Mary ... as the [film's] emotional center".
In her third collaboration with Woody Allen, the romantic comedy-drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), which was filmed in Spain, Johansson plays one of the love interests of Javier Bardem's character alongside Penélope Cruz. The film was one of Allen's most profitable and received favorable reviews. A reviewer in Variety described Johansson as "open and malleable" compared to the other actors. She also played the femme fatale Silken Floss in The Spirit, based on the newspaper comic strip of the same name by Will Eisner. It received poor reviews from critics, who deemed it melodramatic, unoriginal, and sexist. Johansson's only role in 2009 was as Anna Marks, a yoga instructor, in the ensemble comedy-drama He's Just Not That into You (2009). The film was released to tepid reviews, but was a box office success.
Marvel Cinematic Universe and worldwide recognition (2010–2013)
Aspiring to appear on Broadway since childhood, Johansson made her debut in a 2010 revival of Arthur Miller's drama A View from the Bridge. Set in the 1950s in an Italian-American neighborhood in New York, it tells the tragic tale of Eddie (Liev Schreiber), who has an inappropriate love for his wife's orphaned niece, Catherine (Johansson). After initial reservations about playing a teenage character, Johansson was convinced by a friend to take on the part. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote Johansson "melts into her character so thoroughly that her nimbus of celebrity disappears". Varietys David Rooney was impressed with the play and Johansson in particular, describing her as the chief performer. She won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. Some critics and Broadway actors criticized the award committee's decision to reward the work of mainstream Hollywood actors, including Johansson. In response, she said that she understood the frustration, but had worked hard for her accomplishments.
Johansson played Black Widow in Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2 (2010), a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Before she secured the role, she dyed her hair red to convince Favreau that she was right for the part, and undertook stunt and strength training to prepare for the role. Johansson said the character resonated with her, and she admired the superhero's human traits. The film earned $623.9million against its $200million budget, and received generally positive reviews from critics, although reviewers criticized how her character was written. Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph and Matt Goldberg thought that she had little to do but look attractive. In 2011, Johansson played the role of Kelly, a zookeeper in the family film We Bought a Zoo alongside Matt Damon. The film got mainly favorable reviews, and Anne Billson praised Johansson for bringing depth to a rather uninteresting character. Johansson earned a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress: Drama nomination for her performance.
Johansson learned some Russian from a former teacher on the phone for her role as Black Widow in The Avengers (2012), another entry from the MCU. The film received mainly positive reviews and broke many box office records, becoming the third highest-grossing film both in the United States and worldwide. For her performance, she was nominated for two Teen Choice Awards and three People's Choice Awards. Later that year, Johansson portrayed actress Janet Leigh in Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock, a behind-the-scenes drama about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho. Roger Ebert wrote that Johansson did not look much like Leigh, but conveyed her spunk, intelligence, and sense of humor.
In January 2013, Johansson starred in a Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Rob Ashford. Set in the Mississippi Delta, it examines the relationships within the family of Big Daddy (Ciarán Hinds), primarily between his son Brick (Benjamin Walker) and Maggie (Johansson). Her performance received mixed reviews. Entertainment Weeklys Thom Geier wrote Johansson "brings a fierce fighting spirit" to her part, but Joe Dziemianowicz from Daily News called her performance "alarmingly one-note". The 2013 Sundance Film Festival hosted the premiere of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut, Don Jon. In this romantic comedy-drama, she played the pornography-addicted title character's girlfriend. Gordon-Levitt wrote the role for Johansson, who had previously admired his acting work. The film received positive reviews and Johansson's performance was highlighted by critics. Claudia Puig of USA Today considered it to be one of her best performances.
In 2013, Johansson voiced the character Samantha, a self-aware computer operating system, in Spike Jonze's film Her, replacing Samantha Morton in the role. The film premiered at the 8th Rome International Film Festival, where Johansson won Best Actress; she was also nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress. Johansson was intimidated by the role's complexity, and found her recording sessions for the role challenging but liberating. Peter Travers believed Johansson's voice in the film was "sweet, sexy, caring, manipulative, scary [and] award-worthy". Times Richard Corliss called her performance "seductive and winning", and Her was rated as one of the best films of 2013.
She also won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 40th Saturn Awards in 2014 for her performance. Johansson was cast in Jonathan Glazer's science fiction film Under the Skin (2013) as an extraterrestrial creature disguised as a human femme fatale who preys on men in Scotland. The project, an adaptation of Michel Faber's novel of the same name, took nine years to complete. For the role, she learned to drive a van and speak in an English accent. Johansson improvised conversations with non-professional actors on the street, who did not know they were being filmed. It was released to generally positive reviews, with particular praise for Johansson. Erin Whitney, writing for The Huffington Post, considered it to be her finest performance to that point, and noted that it was her first fully nude role. Author Maureen Foster wrote, "How much depth, breadth, and range Johansson mines from her character's very limited allowance of emotional response is a testament to her acting prowess that is, as the film goes on, increasingly stunning." It earned Johansson a BIFA Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a British Independent Film nomination.
Blockbuster films and critical acclaim (2014–2020)
Continuing her work in the MCU, Johansson reprised her role as Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). In the film, she joins forces with Captain America (Chris Evans) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to uncover a conspiracy within S.H.I.E.L.D., while facing a mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Johansson and Evans wrote their own dialogue for several scenes they had together. Johansson was attracted to her character's way of doing her job, employing her feminine wiles and not her physical appeal. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $714million worldwide. Critic Odie Henderson saw "a genuine emotional shorthand at work, especially from Johansson, who is excellent here". The role earned her a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination.
Johansson played a supporting role in the film Chef (2014), alongside Robert Downey, Jr., Sofía Vergara, and director Jon Favreau. It grossed over $45million at the box office and was well received by critics. The Chicago Sun-Times writer Richard Roeper found the film "funny, quirky and insightful, with a bounty of interesting supporting characters". In Luc Besson's science fiction action film Lucy (2014), Johansson starred as the title character, who gains psychokinetic abilities when a nootropic drug is absorbed into her bloodstream. Besson discussed the role with several actresses, and cast Johansson based on her strong reaction to the script and her discipline. Critics generally praised the film's themes, visuals, and Johansson's performance; some found the plot nonsensical. IGN's Jim Vejvoda attributed the film's success to her acting and Besson's style. The film grossed $458million on a budget of $40million to become the 18th highest-grossing film of 2014.
In 2015 and 2016, Johansson again played Black Widow in the MCU films Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. During filming of the former, a mixture of close-ups, concealing costumes, stunt doubles and visual effects were used to hide her pregnancy. Both films earned more than $1.1billion, ranking among the highest-grossing films of all time. For Civil War, Johansson earned her second nomination for Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie and her fourth for Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Earlier in 2016, Johansson had featured in the Coen brothers' well-received comedy film Hail, Caesar! about a "fixer" working in the classical Hollywood cinema, trying to discover what happened to a cast member who vanished during the filming of a biblical epic; Johansson plays an actress who becomes pregnant while her film is in production. She also voiced Kaa in Jon Favreau's live-action adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book, and Ash in the animated musical comedy film Sing (both 2016). That year she also narrated an audiobook of Lewis Carroll's children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Johansson played Motoko Kusanagi in Rupert Sanders's 2017 film adaptation of the Ghost in the Shell franchise. The film was praised for its visual style, acting, and cinematography, but was the subject of controversy for whitewashing the cast, particularly Johansson's character, a cyborg who was meant to hold the memories of a Japanese woman. Responding to the backlash, the actress asserted she would never play a non-white character, but wanted to take the rare opportunity to star in a female-led franchise. Ghost in the Shell grossed $169.8million worldwide against a production budget of $110million. In March 2017, Johansson hosted Saturday Night Live for the fifth time, making her the 17th person, and the fourth woman, to enter the NBC sketch comedy's prestigious Five-Timers Club. Johansson's next 2017 film was the comedy Rough Night, where she played Jess Thayer, one of the five friends—alongside Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, and Zoë Kravitz—whose bachelorette party goes wrong after a male stripper dies. The film had a mixed critical reception and moderate box office returns. In 2018, Johansson voiced show dog Nutmeg in Wes Anderson's stop-motion animated film Isle of Dogs, released in March, and reprised her MCU role as Black Widow in Avengers: Infinity War, which followed the next month. Johansson was due to star in Rub & Tug, a biographical film in which she would have played Dante "Tex" Gill, a transgender man who operated a massage parlor and prostitution ring in the 1970s and 1980s. She dropped out of the project following backlash to the casting of a cisgender woman to play a transgender man.
In 2019, Johansson once again reprised her role as Black Widow in Avengers: Endgame, which is the highest-grossing film of all time. She next starred in Noah Baumbach's Netflix film Marriage Story, in which Adam Driver and she played a warring couple who file for divorce. Johansson found a connection with her character, as she was amid her own divorce proceedings at the time. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian commended her "brilliantly textured" performance in it. She also took on the supporting role of a young boy's mother who shelters a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany in Taika Waititi's satire Jojo Rabbit. Waititi modeled the character on his own mother, and cast Johansson to provide her a rare opportunity to perform comedy. The film received polarizing reviews, but Stephanie Zacharek labeled her the "lustrous soul of the movie". Johansson received her first two Academy Award nominations, for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for her performances in Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit, respectively, becoming the eleventh performer to be nominated for two Oscars in the same year. She also received two BAFTA nominations for these films, and a Golden Globe nomination for the former.
Black Widow and lawsuit (2021–present)
After a one-year screen absence, Johansson reprised her role as Black Widow in her own solo prequel film in 2021, on which she also served as an executive producer. Also starring Florence Pugh, the film is set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, and sees Johansson's character on the run and forced to confront her past. Director Cate Shortland, who wanted to make a standalone film on her character, watched Johansson's previous appearances as Black Widow to prepare. Johansson felt proud of the film and that her work playing the role was now complete. She saw this as an opportunity to show her character's ability to be on her own and make choices for herself while facing difficult times, and noted that her vulnerability distinguished her from other Avengers. Critics were generally favorable in their reviews of the film, mainly praising Johansson and Pugh's performances. In a review published in The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney thought the film was "a stellar vehicle" for Johansson. Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood found the actress "again a great presence in the role, showing expert action and acting chops throughout". For the film, Johansson won The Female Movie Star of 2021 at the 47th People's Choice Awards.
In July 2021, Johansson filed a lawsuit against Disney claiming that the simultaneous release of Black Widow on their streaming service Disney+ breached a clause in her contract that the film receive exclusive theatrical release. She alleged that the release on Disney+ exempted her from receiving additional bonus from box-office profits, to which she was entitled. In response, Disney said her lawsuit showed an indifference to the "horrific and prolonged" effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company also stated that Johansson already received $20million for the film and that the Disney+ Premier Access release would only earn her additional compensation. The Hollywood Reporter described Disney's response as "aggressive". Accusing Disney of intentionally violating their contract with Johansson, Creative Artists Agency co-chairman Bryan Lourd criticized the company for falsely portraying Johansson as insensitive to the effects of the pandemic, which he considered a "direct attack on her character". Lourd further stated that the company including her salary in their public statement was to try to "weaponize her success as an artist and businesswoman". Later that September, both parties announced that they had resolved their dispute, with the terms of the settlement remaining undisclosed.
Music career
In 2006, Johansson sang the track "Summertime" for Unexpected DreamsSongs From the Stars, a non-profit collection of songs recorded by Hollywood actors. She performed with the Jesus and Mary Chain for a Coachella reunion show in Indio, California, in April 2007. The following year, Johansson appeared as the leading lady in Justin Timberlake's music video, for "What Goes Around... Comes Around", which was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year.
In May 2008, Johansson released her debut album Anywhere I Lay My Head, which consists of one original song and ten cover versions of Tom Waits songs, and features David Bowie and members from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Celebration. Reviews of the album were mixed. Spin was not particularly impressed with Johansson's singing. Some critics found it to be "surprisingly alluring", "a bravely eccentric selection", and "a brilliant album" with "ghostly magic". NME named the album the "23rd best album of 2008", and it peaked at number126 on the Billboard 200. Johansson started listening to Waits when she was 11 or 12 years old, and said of him, "His melodies are so beautiful, his voice is so distinct and I had my own way of doing Tom Waits songs."
In September 2009, Johansson and singer-songwriter Pete Yorn released a collaborative album, Break Up, inspired by Serge Gainsbourg's duets with Brigitte Bardot. The album reached number 41 in the US. In 2010, Steel Train released Terrible Thrills Vol.1, which includes their favorite female artists singing songs from their self-titled album. Johansson is the first artist on the album, singing "Bullet". Johansson sang "One Whole Hour" for the 2011 soundtrack of the documentary film Wretches & Jabberers (2010). and in 2012 sang on a J.Ralph track entitled "Before My Time" for the end credits of the climate documentary Chasing Ice (2012)
In February 2015, Johansson formed a band called the Singles with Este Haim from HAIM, Holly Miranda, Kendra Morris, and Julia Haltigan. The group's first single was called "Candy". Johansson was issued a cease and desist order from the lead singer of the Los Angeles-based rock band the Singles, demanding she stop using their name. In 2016, she performed "Trust in Me" for The Jungle Book soundtrack and "Set It All Free" and "I Don't Wanna" for Sing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. In 2018, Johansson collaborated with Pete Yorn again for an EP titled Apart, released June 1.
Public image
Johansson has been called "ScarJo" by the media and fans, and dislikes being called this, finding it lazy, flippant and insulting. She has no social media profiles, saying she does not see the need "to continuously share details of [her] everyday life."
Johansson is described as a sex symbol by the media. The Sydney Morning Herald describes her as "the embodiment of male fantasy". During the filming of Match Point, director Woody Allen remarked upon her attractiveness, calling her "beautiful" and "sexually overwhelming". In 2014, The New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane wrote that "she is evidently, and profitably, aware of her sultriness, and of how much, down to the last inch, it contributes to the contours of her reputation." Johansson has expressed displeasure at being sexualized, and maintains that a preoccupation with one's attractiveness does not last. She lost the role of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), because the film's director David Fincher found her "too sexy" for the part.
Johansson ranks highly in several beauty listings. Maxim included her in their Hot 100 list from 2006 to 2014. She has been named "Sexiest Woman Alive" twice by Esquire (2006 and 2013), and has been included in similar listings by Playboy (2007), Men's Health (2011), and FHM (since 2005). She was named GQs Babe of the Year in 2010. Madame Tussauds New York museum unveiled a wax statue of her in 2015.
Johansson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2004. In 2006, she appeared on Forbes Celebrity 100 list, and again in 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2012. In 2021, she appeared on the Time 100, Times annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Johansson was included on Forbes annual list of the world's highest-paid actresses from 2014 to 2016, with respective earnings of $17million, $35.5million and $25million. She would later top the list in 2018 and 2019, with earnings of $40.5million and $56million, respectively. She was the highest-grossing actor of 2016, with a total of $1.2billion. As a result, IndieWire credited her for taking on risky roles. , her films have grossed over billion in North America and over billion worldwide, making Johansson the third-highest-grossing box-office star of all time both domestically and worldwide as well as the highest-grossing actress of all time in North America.
Johansson has appeared in advertising campaigns for Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, L'Oréal, and Louis Vuitton, and has represented the Spanish brand Mango since 2009. She was the first Hollywood celebrity to represent a champagne producer, appearing in advertisements for Moët & Chandon. In January 2014, the Israeli company SodaStream, which makes home-carbonation products, hired Johansson as its first global brand ambassador, a relationship that commenced with a television commercial during Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2, 2014. This created some controversy, as SodaStream at that time operated a plant in Israeli-occupied territory in the West Bank.
Personal life
While attending PCS, Johansson dated classmate Jack Antonoff from 2001 to 2002. She dated her Black Dahlia co-star Josh Hartnett for about two years until the end of 2006. Hartnett said they broke up because their busy schedules kept them apart. Johansson began dating Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds in 2007. They became engaged in May 2008, married in September 2008 on Vancouver Island, separated in December 2010 and divorced in July 2011.
In November 2012, Johansson began dating Frenchman Romain Dauriac, the owner of an advertising agency. They became engaged the following September. The pair divided their time between New York City and Paris. She gave birth to their daughter, Rose Dorothy Dauriac, in 2014. Johansson and Dauriac married that October in Philipsburg, Montana. They separated in mid-2016 and divorced in September 2017. Johansson began dating Saturday Night Live co-head writer and Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost in May 2017. In May 2019, the two were engaged. They married in October 2020, at their New York home. She gave birth to their son, Cosmo, in August 2021. Johansson resides in New York and Los Angeles.
In September 2011, nude photographs of Johansson hacked from her cell phone were leaked online. She said the pictures had been sent to her then-husband, Ryan Reynolds, three years before the incident. Following an FBI investigation, the hacker was arrested, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to ten years in prison. In 2014, Johansson won a lawsuit against French publisher JC Lattès over defamatory statements about her relationships in the novel The First Thing We Look At by Grégoire Delacourt. She was awarded $3,400; she had claimed $68,000.
Johansson has criticized the media for promoting an image that causes unhealthy diets and eating disorders among women. In an essay she wrote for The Huffington Post, she encouraged people to maintain a healthy body. She posed nude on the March 2006 cover of Vanity Fair alongside actress Keira Knightley and fully clothed fashion designer Tom Ford, who jumped in last minute on the day of the shoot to replace Rachel McAdams after she walked out. The photograph sparked controversy, as some believed it demonstrated that women are forced to flaunt their sexuality more often than men.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Johansson has supported various charitable organizations, including Aid Still Required, Cancer Research UK, Stand Up To Cancer, Too Many Women (which works against breast cancer), and USA Harvest, which provides food for people in need. In 2005, Johansson became a global ambassador for the aid and development agency Oxfam. In 2007, she took part in the anti-poverty campaign ONE, which was organized by U2's lead singer Bono. In March 2008, a UK-based bidder paid £20,000 on an eBay auction to benefit Oxfam, winning a hair and makeup treatment, a pair of tickets, and a chauffeured trip to accompany her on a 20-minute date to the world premiere of He's Just Not That into You.
In January 2014, Johansson resigned from her Oxfam position after criticism of her promotion of SodaStream, whose main factory was based in Mishor Adumim, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank; Oxfam opposes all trade with such Israeli settlements. Oxfam stated that it was thankful for her contributions in raising funds to fight poverty. Together with her Avengers costars, Johansson raised $500,000 for the victims of Hurricane Maria.
In 2018, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up the Time's Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination. Johansson took part in the Women's March in Los Angeles in January 2018, where she spoke on topics such as abuses of power, sharing her own experience. She received backlash for calling out fellow actor James Franco on allegations of sexual misconduct as in the past she had defended working with Woody Allen amid an accusation by his daughter Dylan Farrow.
Johansson has given support to Operation Warrior Wellness, a division of the David Lynch Foundation that helps veterans learn Transcendental Meditation. Her grand-uncle, Phillip Schlamberg, was the last American pilot to have been killed during WWII. He had gone on a bombing mission with Jerry Yellin, who went on to become co-founder of Operation Warrior Wellness.
Politics
Johansson was registered as an independent, at least through 2008, and campaigned for Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 United States presidential election. When George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, she said she was disappointed.
In January 2008, her campaign for Democratic candidate Barack Obama included appearances in Iowa targeted at younger voters, an appearance at Cornell College, and a speaking engagement at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, on Super Tuesday, 2008. Johansson appeared in the music video for rapper will.i.am's song, "Yes We Can" (2008), directed by Jesse Dylan; the song was inspired by Obama's speech after the 2008 New Hampshire primary. In February 2012, Johansson and Anna Wintour hosted a fashion launch of pro-Obama clothing, bags, and accessories, the proceeds of which went to the President's re-election campaign. She addressed voters at the Democratic National Convention in September 2012, calling for Obama's re-election and for more engagement from young voters. She encouraged women to vote for Obama and condemned Mitt Romney for his opposition to Planned Parenthood.
Johansson publicly endorsed and supported Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's 2013 run for New York City Comptroller by hosting a series of fundraisers. To encourage people to vote in the 2016 presidential election, in which Johansson endorsed Hillary Clinton, she appeared in a commercial alongside her Marvel Cinematic Universe co-star Robert Downey Jr., and Joss Whedon. In 2017, she spoke at the Women's March on Washington, addressing Donald Trump's presidency and stating that she would support the president if he works for women's rights and stops withdrawing federal funding for Planned Parenthood. In the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Johansson endorsed Elizabeth Warren, referring to Warren as "thoughtful and progressive but realistic".
In December 2020, three members of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an Egyptian civil rights organization, were released from prison in Egypt, after Johansson had described their detention circumstances and demanded the trio's release.
Notes
See also
List of actors nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year
References
Further reading
External links
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
1984 births
Actresses from New York City
American child actresses
American film actresses
American people of Danish descent
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American people of Swedish descent
American stage actresses
American voice actresses
American women film producers
Atco Records artists
Best Actress BAFTA Award winners
César Honorary Award recipients
Danish people of Polish-Jewish descent
Danish people of Russian-Jewish descent
Danish people of Swedish descent
Female models from New York (state)
Fraternal twin actresses
Jewish American actresses
Jewish singers
Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute alumni
Living people
Method actors
People from Manhattan
Theatre World Award winners
Time 100
Tony Award winners
Twin people from the United States | true | [
"Merry Legs (1911-1932) was a Tennessee Walking Horse mare who was given foundation registration for her influence as a broodmare. She was also a successful show horse.\n\nLife\nMerry Legs was foaled in April 1911. She was a bay with sabino markings. She was sired by the foundation stallion Black Allan F-1, out of the American Saddlebred mare Nell Dement, registration number F-3, and bred by the early breeder Albert Dement. She was a large mare at maturity, standing high and weighing . Merry Legs was a successful show horse; as a three-year-old, she won the stake class at the Tennessee State Fair. She was also successful as a broodmare, giving birth to 13 foals, among them the well-known Bud Allen, Last Chance, Major Allen, and Merry Boy. For her influence on the breed, she was given the foundation number F-4 when the TWHBEA was formed in 1935. She died in 1932.\n\nReferences\n\nIndividual Tennessee Walking Horses\n1911 animal births\n1932 animal deaths",
"The UCI Road World Championships – Men's team time trial was a world championship for road bicycle racing in the discipline of team time trial (TTT). It is organized by the world governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).\n\nNational teams (1962–1994)\nA championship for national teams was introduced in 1962 and held until 1994. It was held annually, except that from 1972 onward, the TTT was not held in Olympic years. There were 4 riders per team on a route around 100 kilometres long. Italy is the most successful nation with seven victories.\n\nMedal winners\n\nMedals by nation\n\nMost successful riders\n\nUCI teams (2012–2018)\nThere was a long break until a championship for trade teams was introduced in 2012. There were 6 riders per team. The championship was held up to 2018.\n\nMedal winners\n\nMost successful teams\n\nMost successful riders\n\nReferences \n \n \n\n \nMen's Team Time Trial\nRecurring sporting events established in 1962\nUCI World Tour races\nMen's road bicycle races\nLists of UCI Road World Championships medalists\nRecurring sporting events disestablished in 2018"
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| C_5988d1dc06044704bdb4154afa470ce2_1 | what else did she act in? | 3 | Other than Manny & Lo, what else did Scarlett Johansson act in? | Scarlett Johansson | Johansson's first leading role was as Amanda, the younger sister of a pregnant teenager who runs away from her foster home in Manny & Lo (1996) alongside Aleksa Palladino and her brother, Hunter. Her performance received positive reviews: one written for the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson," while critic Mick LaSalle, writing for the same paper, commented on her "peaceful aura", and believed, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress." Johansson earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female for the role. After appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 (both 1997), Johansson attracted wider attention for her performance in the film The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford. The drama film, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Nicholas Evans, tells the story of a talented trainer with a gift for understanding horses, who is hired to help an injured teenager played by Johansson. The actress received an "introducing" credit on this film, although it was her seventh role. On Johansson's maturity, Redford described her as "13 going on 30". Todd McCarthy of Variety commented that Johansson "convincingly conveys the awkwardness of her age and the inner pain of a carefree girl suddenly laid low by horrible happenstance". For the film, she was nominated for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress. She believed that the film changed many things in her life, realizing that acting is the ability to manipulate one's emotions. On finding good roles as a teenager, Johansson said it was hard for her as adults wrote the scripts and they "portray kids like mall rats and not seriously ... Kids and teenagers just aren't being portrayed with any real depth". Johansson later appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the neo-noir, Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). Her breakthrough came playing a cynical outcast in Terry Zwigoff's black comedy Ghost World (2001), an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel of same name. Johansson auditioned for the film via a tape from New York, and Zwigoff believed her to be "a unique, eccentric person, and right for that part". The film premiered at the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival; it was a box office failure, but has since developed a cult status. Johansson was credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age" by an Austin Chronicle critic, and won a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. With David Arquette, Johansson appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002), about a collection of spiders that are exposed to toxic waste, causing them to grow to gigantic proportions and begin killing and harvesting. After graduating from PCS that year, she applied to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; she decided to focus on her film career when she was rejected. CANNOTANSWER | appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 (both 1997), Johansson attracted wider attention for her performance in the film The Horse Whisperer (1998), | Scarlett Ingrid Johansson (; born November 22, 1984) is an American actress. The world's highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, she has featured multiple times on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. Her films have grossed over billion worldwide, making Johansson the ninth-highest-grossing box office star of all time. She has received various accolades, including a Tony Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.
Johansson aspired to be an actress from an early age and first appeared on stage in an Off-Broadway play as a child actor. She made her film debut in the fantasy comedy North (1994), and gained early recognition for her roles in Manny & Lo (1996), The Horse Whisperer (1998), and Ghost World (2001). Johansson shifted to adult roles in 2003 with her performances in Lost in Translation, which won her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, and Girl with a Pearl Earring. She was nominated for Golden Globe Awards for these films, and for playing a troubled teenager in the drama A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) and a seductress in psychological thriller Match Point (2005). The latter was her first collaboration with Woody Allen, who later directed her in Scoop (2006) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Johansson's other works of this period include The Prestige (2006) and the albums Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008) and Break Up (2009), both of which charted on the Billboard 200.
In 2010, Johansson debuted on Broadway in a revival of A View from the Bridge, which won her a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, and began portraying Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Iron Man 2. She reprised the role in eight films, most recently in her solo feature Black Widow (2021), gaining global recognition for her performances. During this period, Johansson starred in the science fiction films Her (2013), Under the Skin (2013) and Lucy (2014). She received two simultaneous Academy Award nominations—Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress—for the respective roles of an actress going through a divorce in the drama Marriage Story (2019) and a single mother in Nazi Germany in the satire Jojo Rabbit (2019).
Labeled a sex symbol, Johansson has been referred to as one of the world's most attractive women by various media outlets. She is a prominent brand endorser and supports several charitable causes. Divorced from actor Ryan Reynolds and businessman Romain Dauriac, Johansson has been married to comedian Colin Jost since 2020. She has two children, one with Dauriac and another with Jost.
Early life
Johansson was born on November 22, 1984, in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Her father, Karsten Olaf Johansson, is an architect originally from Copenhagen, Denmark. Her paternal grandfather, Ejner Johansson, was an art historian, screenwriter, and film director, whose own father was Swedish. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, a New Yorker, has worked as a producer; she comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Poland and Russia, originally surnamed Schlamberg, and Johansson describes herself as Jewish. She has an older sister, Vanessa, also an actress; an older brother, Adrian; and a twin brother, Hunter. She also has an older half-brother, Christian, from her father's first marriage. Johansson holds dual American and Danish citizenship. She discovered that her maternal great-grandfather's family died during the Holocaust in the Warsaw Ghetto on a 2017 episode of PBS's Finding Your Roots.
Johansson attended PS 41, an elementary school in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Her parents divorced when she was thirteen. She was particularly close to her maternal grandmother, Dorothy Sloan, a bookkeeper and schoolteacher; they often spent time together and Johansson considered Dorothy her best friend. Interested in a career in the spotlight from an early age, Johansson often put on song-and-dance routines for her family. She was particularly fond of musical theater and jazz hands. She took lessons in tap dance, and states that her parents were supportive of her career choice. She has described her childhood as very ordinary.
As a child, Johansson practiced acting by staring in the mirror until she made herself cry, wanting to be Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis. At age seven, she was devastated when a talent agent signed one of her brothers instead of her, but she later decided to become an actress anyway. She enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and began auditioning for commercials, but soon lost interest: "I didn't want to promote Wonder Bread." She shifted her focus to film and theater, making her first stage appearance in the Off-Broadway play Sophistry with Ethan Hawke, in which she had two lines. Around this time, she began studying at Professional Children's School (PCS), a private educational institution for aspiring child actors in Manhattan.
Acting career
Early work and breakthrough (1994–2002)
At age nine, Johansson made her film debut as John Ritter's daughter in the fantasy comedy North (1994). She says that when she was on the film set, she knew intuitively what to do. She later played minor roles such as the daughter of Sean Connery's and Kate Capshaw's characters in the mystery thriller Just Cause (1995), and an art student in If Lucy Fell (1996). Johansson's first leading role was as Amanda, the younger sister of a pregnant teenager who runs away from her foster home in Manny & Lo (1996) alongside Aleksa Palladino and her brother, Hunter. Her performance received positive reviews: one written for the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson," while critic Mick LaSalle, writing for the same paper, commented on her "peaceful aura", and believed, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress." Johansson earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female for the role.
After appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 (both 1997), Johansson attracted wider attention for her performance in the film The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford. The drama film, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Nicholas Evans, tells the story of a trainer with a gift for understanding horses, who is hired to help an injured teenager played by Johansson. The actress received an "introducing" credit on this film, although it was her seventh role. On Johansson's maturity, Redford described her as "13 going on 30". Todd McCarthy of Variety commented that Johansson "convincingly conveys the awkwardness of her age and the inner pain of a carefree girl suddenly laid low by horrible happenstance". For the film, she was nominated for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress. She believed that the film changed many things in her life, realizing that acting is the ability to manipulate one's emotions. On finding good roles as a teenager, Johansson said it was hard for her as adults wrote the scripts and they "portray kids like mall rats and not seriously ... Kids and teenagers just aren't being portrayed with any real depth".
Johansson later appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the neo-noir, Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). Her breakthrough came playing a cynical outcast in Terry Zwigoff's black comedy Ghost World (2001), an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel of the same name. Johansson auditioned for the film via a tape from New York, and Zwigoff believed her to be "a unique, eccentric person, and right for that part". The film premiered at the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival; it was a box office failure, but has since developed a cult status. Johansson was credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age" by an Austin Chronicle critic, and won a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
With David Arquette, Johansson appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002), about a collection of spiders that are exposed to toxic waste, causing them to grow to gigantic proportions and begin killing and harvesting. After graduating from Professional Children's School that year, she applied to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; she decided to focus on her film career when she was rejected.
Transition to adult roles (2003–2004)
Johansson transitioned from teen to adult roles with two films in 2003: the romantic comedy-drama Lost in Translation and the drama Girl with a Pearl Earring. In the former, directed by Sofia Coppola, she plays Charlotte, a listless and lonely young wife, opposite Bill Murray. Coppola had first noticed Johansson in Manny & Lo, and compared her to a young Lauren Bacall; Coppola based the film's story on the relationship between Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946). Johansson found the experience of working with a female director different because of Coppola's ability to empathize with her. Made on a budget of $4million, the film grossed $119million at the box office and received critical acclaim. Roger Ebert was pleased with the film and described the lead actors' performances as "wonderful", and Entertainment Weekly wrote of Johansson's "embracing, restful serenity". The New York Times praised Johansson, aged 17 at the time of filming, for playing an older character.
In Peter Webber's Girl with a Pearl Earring, which is based on the novel of the same name by Tracy Chevalier, Johansson played Griet, a young 17th-century servant in the household of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (played by Colin Firth). Webber interviewed 150 actors before casting Johansson. Johansson found the character moving, but did not read the novel, as she thought it was better to approach the story with a fresh start. Girl with a Pearl Earring received positive reviews and was profitable. In his review for The New Yorker, Anthony Lane thought that her presence kept the film "alive", writing, "She is often wordless and close to plain onscreen, but wait for the ardor with which she can summon a closeup and bloom under its gaze; this is her film, not Vermeer's, all the way." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly noted her "nearly silent performance", remarking, "The interplay on her face of fear, ignorance, curiosity, and sex is intensely dramatic." She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress for both films in 2003, winning the former for Lost in Translation.
In Varietys opinion, Johansson's roles in Lost in Translation and Girl with a Pearl Earring established her as among the most versatile actresses of her generation. Johansson had five releases in 2004, three of which—the teen heist film The Perfect Score, the drama A Love Song for Bobby Long, and the drama A Good Woman—were critical and commercial failures. Co-starring with John Travolta, Johansson played a discontented teenager in A Love Song for Bobby Long, which is based on the novel Off Magazine Street by Ronald Everett Capps. David Rooney of Variety wrote that Johansson's and Travolta's performances rescued the film. Johansson earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama nomination for the film.
In her fourth release in 2004, the live-action animated comedy The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Johansson voiced Princess Mindy, the daughter of King Neptune. She agreed to the project because of her love of cartoons, particularly The Ren & Stimpy Show. The film was her most commercially successful release that year. She would then reprise her role as Mindy in the video game adaptation of the film. She followed it with In Good Company, a comedy-drama in which she complicates the life of her father when she dates his much younger boss. Reviews of the film were generally positive, describing it as "witty and charming". Roger Ebert was impressed with Johansson's portrayal, writing that she "continues to employ the gravitational pull of quiet fascination".
Collaborations with Woody Allen (2005–2009)
Johansson played Nola, an aspiring actress who begins an affair with a married man (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in Woody Allen's drama Match Point in 2005. After replacing Kate Winslet with Johansson for the role, Allen changed the character's nationality from British to American. An admirer of Allen's films, Johansson liked the idea of working with him, but felt nervous her first day on the set. The New York Times was impressed with the performances of Johansson and Rhys Meyers, and Mick LaSalle, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, stated that Johansson "is a powerhouse from the word go", with a performance that "borders on astonishing". The film, a box office success, earned Johansson nominations for the Golden Globe and the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress. Also that year, Johansson underwent a tonsillectomy, after which she starred with Ewan McGregor in Michael Bay's science fiction film The Island, in dual roles as Sarah Jordan and her clone, Jordan Two Delta. Johansson found her filming schedule exhausting: she had to shoot for 14 hours a day, and she hit her head and injured herself. The film received mixed reviews and grossed $163million against a $126million budget.
Two of Johansson's films in 2006 explored the world of stage magicians, both opposite Hugh Jackman. Allen cast her opposite Jackman and himself in the film Scoop (2006), in which she played a journalism student. The film was a modest worldwide box office success, but polarized critics. Ebert was critical of the film, but found Johansson "lovely as always", and Mick LaSalle noted the freshness she brought to her part. She also appeared in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia, a film noir shot in Los Angeles and Bulgaria. Johansson later said she was a fan of DePalma and had wanted to work with him on the film, but thought that she was unsuitable for the part. Anne Billson of The Daily Telegraph likewise found her miscast. However, CNN said that she "takes to the pulpy period atmosphere as if it were oxygen".
Also in 2006, Johansson starred in the short film When the Deal Goes Down to accompany Bob Dylan's song "When the Deal Goes Down..." from the album Modern Times. Johansson had a supporting role of assistant and lover of Jackman's character, an aristocratic magician, in Christopher Nolan's mystery thriller The Prestige (2006). Nolan thought Johansson possessed "ambiguity" and "a shielded quality". She was fascinated with Nolan's directing methods and liked working with him. The film was a critical and box office success, recommended by the Los Angeles Times as "an adult, provocative piece of work". Some critics were skeptical of her performance: Billson again judged her miscast, and Dan Jolin of Empire criticized her English accent.
Johansson's sole release of 2007 was the critically panned comedy-drama The Nanny Diaries alongside Chris Evans and Laura Linney, in which she played a college graduate working as a nanny. Reviews of her performance were mixed; Variety wrote, "[She] essays an engaging heroine", and The New Yorker criticized her for looking "merely confused" while "trying to give the material a plausible emotional center". In 2008, Johansson starred, with Natalie Portman and Eric Bana, in The Other Boleyn Girl, which also earned mixed reviews. Promoting the film, Johansson and Portman appeared on the cover of W, discussing with the magazine the public's reception of them. In Rolling Stone, Pete Travers criticized the film for "[moving] in frustrating herks and jerks", but thought that the duo were the only positive aspect of the production. Variety credited the cast as "almost flawless ... at the top of its game", citing "Johansson's quieter Mary ... as the [film's] emotional center".
In her third collaboration with Woody Allen, the romantic comedy-drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), which was filmed in Spain, Johansson plays one of the love interests of Javier Bardem's character alongside Penélope Cruz. The film was one of Allen's most profitable and received favorable reviews. A reviewer in Variety described Johansson as "open and malleable" compared to the other actors. She also played the femme fatale Silken Floss in The Spirit, based on the newspaper comic strip of the same name by Will Eisner. It received poor reviews from critics, who deemed it melodramatic, unoriginal, and sexist. Johansson's only role in 2009 was as Anna Marks, a yoga instructor, in the ensemble comedy-drama He's Just Not That into You (2009). The film was released to tepid reviews, but was a box office success.
Marvel Cinematic Universe and worldwide recognition (2010–2013)
Aspiring to appear on Broadway since childhood, Johansson made her debut in a 2010 revival of Arthur Miller's drama A View from the Bridge. Set in the 1950s in an Italian-American neighborhood in New York, it tells the tragic tale of Eddie (Liev Schreiber), who has an inappropriate love for his wife's orphaned niece, Catherine (Johansson). After initial reservations about playing a teenage character, Johansson was convinced by a friend to take on the part. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote Johansson "melts into her character so thoroughly that her nimbus of celebrity disappears". Varietys David Rooney was impressed with the play and Johansson in particular, describing her as the chief performer. She won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. Some critics and Broadway actors criticized the award committee's decision to reward the work of mainstream Hollywood actors, including Johansson. In response, she said that she understood the frustration, but had worked hard for her accomplishments.
Johansson played Black Widow in Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2 (2010), a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Before she secured the role, she dyed her hair red to convince Favreau that she was right for the part, and undertook stunt and strength training to prepare for the role. Johansson said the character resonated with her, and she admired the superhero's human traits. The film earned $623.9million against its $200million budget, and received generally positive reviews from critics, although reviewers criticized how her character was written. Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph and Matt Goldberg thought that she had little to do but look attractive. In 2011, Johansson played the role of Kelly, a zookeeper in the family film We Bought a Zoo alongside Matt Damon. The film got mainly favorable reviews, and Anne Billson praised Johansson for bringing depth to a rather uninteresting character. Johansson earned a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress: Drama nomination for her performance.
Johansson learned some Russian from a former teacher on the phone for her role as Black Widow in The Avengers (2012), another entry from the MCU. The film received mainly positive reviews and broke many box office records, becoming the third highest-grossing film both in the United States and worldwide. For her performance, she was nominated for two Teen Choice Awards and three People's Choice Awards. Later that year, Johansson portrayed actress Janet Leigh in Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock, a behind-the-scenes drama about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho. Roger Ebert wrote that Johansson did not look much like Leigh, but conveyed her spunk, intelligence, and sense of humor.
In January 2013, Johansson starred in a Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Rob Ashford. Set in the Mississippi Delta, it examines the relationships within the family of Big Daddy (Ciarán Hinds), primarily between his son Brick (Benjamin Walker) and Maggie (Johansson). Her performance received mixed reviews. Entertainment Weeklys Thom Geier wrote Johansson "brings a fierce fighting spirit" to her part, but Joe Dziemianowicz from Daily News called her performance "alarmingly one-note". The 2013 Sundance Film Festival hosted the premiere of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut, Don Jon. In this romantic comedy-drama, she played the pornography-addicted title character's girlfriend. Gordon-Levitt wrote the role for Johansson, who had previously admired his acting work. The film received positive reviews and Johansson's performance was highlighted by critics. Claudia Puig of USA Today considered it to be one of her best performances.
In 2013, Johansson voiced the character Samantha, a self-aware computer operating system, in Spike Jonze's film Her, replacing Samantha Morton in the role. The film premiered at the 8th Rome International Film Festival, where Johansson won Best Actress; she was also nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress. Johansson was intimidated by the role's complexity, and found her recording sessions for the role challenging but liberating. Peter Travers believed Johansson's voice in the film was "sweet, sexy, caring, manipulative, scary [and] award-worthy". Times Richard Corliss called her performance "seductive and winning", and Her was rated as one of the best films of 2013.
She also won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 40th Saturn Awards in 2014 for her performance. Johansson was cast in Jonathan Glazer's science fiction film Under the Skin (2013) as an extraterrestrial creature disguised as a human femme fatale who preys on men in Scotland. The project, an adaptation of Michel Faber's novel of the same name, took nine years to complete. For the role, she learned to drive a van and speak in an English accent. Johansson improvised conversations with non-professional actors on the street, who did not know they were being filmed. It was released to generally positive reviews, with particular praise for Johansson. Erin Whitney, writing for The Huffington Post, considered it to be her finest performance to that point, and noted that it was her first fully nude role. Author Maureen Foster wrote, "How much depth, breadth, and range Johansson mines from her character's very limited allowance of emotional response is a testament to her acting prowess that is, as the film goes on, increasingly stunning." It earned Johansson a BIFA Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a British Independent Film nomination.
Blockbuster films and critical acclaim (2014–2020)
Continuing her work in the MCU, Johansson reprised her role as Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). In the film, she joins forces with Captain America (Chris Evans) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to uncover a conspiracy within S.H.I.E.L.D., while facing a mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Johansson and Evans wrote their own dialogue for several scenes they had together. Johansson was attracted to her character's way of doing her job, employing her feminine wiles and not her physical appeal. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $714million worldwide. Critic Odie Henderson saw "a genuine emotional shorthand at work, especially from Johansson, who is excellent here". The role earned her a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination.
Johansson played a supporting role in the film Chef (2014), alongside Robert Downey, Jr., Sofía Vergara, and director Jon Favreau. It grossed over $45million at the box office and was well received by critics. The Chicago Sun-Times writer Richard Roeper found the film "funny, quirky and insightful, with a bounty of interesting supporting characters". In Luc Besson's science fiction action film Lucy (2014), Johansson starred as the title character, who gains psychokinetic abilities when a nootropic drug is absorbed into her bloodstream. Besson discussed the role with several actresses, and cast Johansson based on her strong reaction to the script and her discipline. Critics generally praised the film's themes, visuals, and Johansson's performance; some found the plot nonsensical. IGN's Jim Vejvoda attributed the film's success to her acting and Besson's style. The film grossed $458million on a budget of $40million to become the 18th highest-grossing film of 2014.
In 2015 and 2016, Johansson again played Black Widow in the MCU films Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. During filming of the former, a mixture of close-ups, concealing costumes, stunt doubles and visual effects were used to hide her pregnancy. Both films earned more than $1.1billion, ranking among the highest-grossing films of all time. For Civil War, Johansson earned her second nomination for Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie and her fourth for Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Earlier in 2016, Johansson had featured in the Coen brothers' well-received comedy film Hail, Caesar! about a "fixer" working in the classical Hollywood cinema, trying to discover what happened to a cast member who vanished during the filming of a biblical epic; Johansson plays an actress who becomes pregnant while her film is in production. She also voiced Kaa in Jon Favreau's live-action adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book, and Ash in the animated musical comedy film Sing (both 2016). That year she also narrated an audiobook of Lewis Carroll's children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Johansson played Motoko Kusanagi in Rupert Sanders's 2017 film adaptation of the Ghost in the Shell franchise. The film was praised for its visual style, acting, and cinematography, but was the subject of controversy for whitewashing the cast, particularly Johansson's character, a cyborg who was meant to hold the memories of a Japanese woman. Responding to the backlash, the actress asserted she would never play a non-white character, but wanted to take the rare opportunity to star in a female-led franchise. Ghost in the Shell grossed $169.8million worldwide against a production budget of $110million. In March 2017, Johansson hosted Saturday Night Live for the fifth time, making her the 17th person, and the fourth woman, to enter the NBC sketch comedy's prestigious Five-Timers Club. Johansson's next 2017 film was the comedy Rough Night, where she played Jess Thayer, one of the five friends—alongside Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, and Zoë Kravitz—whose bachelorette party goes wrong after a male stripper dies. The film had a mixed critical reception and moderate box office returns. In 2018, Johansson voiced show dog Nutmeg in Wes Anderson's stop-motion animated film Isle of Dogs, released in March, and reprised her MCU role as Black Widow in Avengers: Infinity War, which followed the next month. Johansson was due to star in Rub & Tug, a biographical film in which she would have played Dante "Tex" Gill, a transgender man who operated a massage parlor and prostitution ring in the 1970s and 1980s. She dropped out of the project following backlash to the casting of a cisgender woman to play a transgender man.
In 2019, Johansson once again reprised her role as Black Widow in Avengers: Endgame, which is the highest-grossing film of all time. She next starred in Noah Baumbach's Netflix film Marriage Story, in which Adam Driver and she played a warring couple who file for divorce. Johansson found a connection with her character, as she was amid her own divorce proceedings at the time. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian commended her "brilliantly textured" performance in it. She also took on the supporting role of a young boy's mother who shelters a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany in Taika Waititi's satire Jojo Rabbit. Waititi modeled the character on his own mother, and cast Johansson to provide her a rare opportunity to perform comedy. The film received polarizing reviews, but Stephanie Zacharek labeled her the "lustrous soul of the movie". Johansson received her first two Academy Award nominations, for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for her performances in Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit, respectively, becoming the eleventh performer to be nominated for two Oscars in the same year. She also received two BAFTA nominations for these films, and a Golden Globe nomination for the former.
Black Widow and lawsuit (2021–present)
After a one-year screen absence, Johansson reprised her role as Black Widow in her own solo prequel film in 2021, on which she also served as an executive producer. Also starring Florence Pugh, the film is set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, and sees Johansson's character on the run and forced to confront her past. Director Cate Shortland, who wanted to make a standalone film on her character, watched Johansson's previous appearances as Black Widow to prepare. Johansson felt proud of the film and that her work playing the role was now complete. She saw this as an opportunity to show her character's ability to be on her own and make choices for herself while facing difficult times, and noted that her vulnerability distinguished her from other Avengers. Critics were generally favorable in their reviews of the film, mainly praising Johansson and Pugh's performances. In a review published in The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney thought the film was "a stellar vehicle" for Johansson. Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood found the actress "again a great presence in the role, showing expert action and acting chops throughout". For the film, Johansson won The Female Movie Star of 2021 at the 47th People's Choice Awards.
In July 2021, Johansson filed a lawsuit against Disney claiming that the simultaneous release of Black Widow on their streaming service Disney+ breached a clause in her contract that the film receive exclusive theatrical release. She alleged that the release on Disney+ exempted her from receiving additional bonus from box-office profits, to which she was entitled. In response, Disney said her lawsuit showed an indifference to the "horrific and prolonged" effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company also stated that Johansson already received $20million for the film and that the Disney+ Premier Access release would only earn her additional compensation. The Hollywood Reporter described Disney's response as "aggressive". Accusing Disney of intentionally violating their contract with Johansson, Creative Artists Agency co-chairman Bryan Lourd criticized the company for falsely portraying Johansson as insensitive to the effects of the pandemic, which he considered a "direct attack on her character". Lourd further stated that the company including her salary in their public statement was to try to "weaponize her success as an artist and businesswoman". Later that September, both parties announced that they had resolved their dispute, with the terms of the settlement remaining undisclosed.
Music career
In 2006, Johansson sang the track "Summertime" for Unexpected DreamsSongs From the Stars, a non-profit collection of songs recorded by Hollywood actors. She performed with the Jesus and Mary Chain for a Coachella reunion show in Indio, California, in April 2007. The following year, Johansson appeared as the leading lady in Justin Timberlake's music video, for "What Goes Around... Comes Around", which was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year.
In May 2008, Johansson released her debut album Anywhere I Lay My Head, which consists of one original song and ten cover versions of Tom Waits songs, and features David Bowie and members from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Celebration. Reviews of the album were mixed. Spin was not particularly impressed with Johansson's singing. Some critics found it to be "surprisingly alluring", "a bravely eccentric selection", and "a brilliant album" with "ghostly magic". NME named the album the "23rd best album of 2008", and it peaked at number126 on the Billboard 200. Johansson started listening to Waits when she was 11 or 12 years old, and said of him, "His melodies are so beautiful, his voice is so distinct and I had my own way of doing Tom Waits songs."
In September 2009, Johansson and singer-songwriter Pete Yorn released a collaborative album, Break Up, inspired by Serge Gainsbourg's duets with Brigitte Bardot. The album reached number 41 in the US. In 2010, Steel Train released Terrible Thrills Vol.1, which includes their favorite female artists singing songs from their self-titled album. Johansson is the first artist on the album, singing "Bullet". Johansson sang "One Whole Hour" for the 2011 soundtrack of the documentary film Wretches & Jabberers (2010). and in 2012 sang on a J.Ralph track entitled "Before My Time" for the end credits of the climate documentary Chasing Ice (2012)
In February 2015, Johansson formed a band called the Singles with Este Haim from HAIM, Holly Miranda, Kendra Morris, and Julia Haltigan. The group's first single was called "Candy". Johansson was issued a cease and desist order from the lead singer of the Los Angeles-based rock band the Singles, demanding she stop using their name. In 2016, she performed "Trust in Me" for The Jungle Book soundtrack and "Set It All Free" and "I Don't Wanna" for Sing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. In 2018, Johansson collaborated with Pete Yorn again for an EP titled Apart, released June 1.
Public image
Johansson has been called "ScarJo" by the media and fans, and dislikes being called this, finding it lazy, flippant and insulting. She has no social media profiles, saying she does not see the need "to continuously share details of [her] everyday life."
Johansson is described as a sex symbol by the media. The Sydney Morning Herald describes her as "the embodiment of male fantasy". During the filming of Match Point, director Woody Allen remarked upon her attractiveness, calling her "beautiful" and "sexually overwhelming". In 2014, The New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane wrote that "she is evidently, and profitably, aware of her sultriness, and of how much, down to the last inch, it contributes to the contours of her reputation." Johansson has expressed displeasure at being sexualized, and maintains that a preoccupation with one's attractiveness does not last. She lost the role of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), because the film's director David Fincher found her "too sexy" for the part.
Johansson ranks highly in several beauty listings. Maxim included her in their Hot 100 list from 2006 to 2014. She has been named "Sexiest Woman Alive" twice by Esquire (2006 and 2013), and has been included in similar listings by Playboy (2007), Men's Health (2011), and FHM (since 2005). She was named GQs Babe of the Year in 2010. Madame Tussauds New York museum unveiled a wax statue of her in 2015.
Johansson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2004. In 2006, she appeared on Forbes Celebrity 100 list, and again in 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2012. In 2021, she appeared on the Time 100, Times annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Johansson was included on Forbes annual list of the world's highest-paid actresses from 2014 to 2016, with respective earnings of $17million, $35.5million and $25million. She would later top the list in 2018 and 2019, with earnings of $40.5million and $56million, respectively. She was the highest-grossing actor of 2016, with a total of $1.2billion. As a result, IndieWire credited her for taking on risky roles. , her films have grossed over billion in North America and over billion worldwide, making Johansson the third-highest-grossing box-office star of all time both domestically and worldwide as well as the highest-grossing actress of all time in North America.
Johansson has appeared in advertising campaigns for Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, L'Oréal, and Louis Vuitton, and has represented the Spanish brand Mango since 2009. She was the first Hollywood celebrity to represent a champagne producer, appearing in advertisements for Moët & Chandon. In January 2014, the Israeli company SodaStream, which makes home-carbonation products, hired Johansson as its first global brand ambassador, a relationship that commenced with a television commercial during Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2, 2014. This created some controversy, as SodaStream at that time operated a plant in Israeli-occupied territory in the West Bank.
Personal life
While attending PCS, Johansson dated classmate Jack Antonoff from 2001 to 2002. She dated her Black Dahlia co-star Josh Hartnett for about two years until the end of 2006. Hartnett said they broke up because their busy schedules kept them apart. Johansson began dating Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds in 2007. They became engaged in May 2008, married in September 2008 on Vancouver Island, separated in December 2010 and divorced in July 2011.
In November 2012, Johansson began dating Frenchman Romain Dauriac, the owner of an advertising agency. They became engaged the following September. The pair divided their time between New York City and Paris. She gave birth to their daughter, Rose Dorothy Dauriac, in 2014. Johansson and Dauriac married that October in Philipsburg, Montana. They separated in mid-2016 and divorced in September 2017. Johansson began dating Saturday Night Live co-head writer and Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost in May 2017. In May 2019, the two were engaged. They married in October 2020, at their New York home. She gave birth to their son, Cosmo, in August 2021. Johansson resides in New York and Los Angeles.
In September 2011, nude photographs of Johansson hacked from her cell phone were leaked online. She said the pictures had been sent to her then-husband, Ryan Reynolds, three years before the incident. Following an FBI investigation, the hacker was arrested, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to ten years in prison. In 2014, Johansson won a lawsuit against French publisher JC Lattès over defamatory statements about her relationships in the novel The First Thing We Look At by Grégoire Delacourt. She was awarded $3,400; she had claimed $68,000.
Johansson has criticized the media for promoting an image that causes unhealthy diets and eating disorders among women. In an essay she wrote for The Huffington Post, she encouraged people to maintain a healthy body. She posed nude on the March 2006 cover of Vanity Fair alongside actress Keira Knightley and fully clothed fashion designer Tom Ford, who jumped in last minute on the day of the shoot to replace Rachel McAdams after she walked out. The photograph sparked controversy, as some believed it demonstrated that women are forced to flaunt their sexuality more often than men.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Johansson has supported various charitable organizations, including Aid Still Required, Cancer Research UK, Stand Up To Cancer, Too Many Women (which works against breast cancer), and USA Harvest, which provides food for people in need. In 2005, Johansson became a global ambassador for the aid and development agency Oxfam. In 2007, she took part in the anti-poverty campaign ONE, which was organized by U2's lead singer Bono. In March 2008, a UK-based bidder paid £20,000 on an eBay auction to benefit Oxfam, winning a hair and makeup treatment, a pair of tickets, and a chauffeured trip to accompany her on a 20-minute date to the world premiere of He's Just Not That into You.
In January 2014, Johansson resigned from her Oxfam position after criticism of her promotion of SodaStream, whose main factory was based in Mishor Adumim, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank; Oxfam opposes all trade with such Israeli settlements. Oxfam stated that it was thankful for her contributions in raising funds to fight poverty. Together with her Avengers costars, Johansson raised $500,000 for the victims of Hurricane Maria.
In 2018, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up the Time's Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination. Johansson took part in the Women's March in Los Angeles in January 2018, where she spoke on topics such as abuses of power, sharing her own experience. She received backlash for calling out fellow actor James Franco on allegations of sexual misconduct as in the past she had defended working with Woody Allen amid an accusation by his daughter Dylan Farrow.
Johansson has given support to Operation Warrior Wellness, a division of the David Lynch Foundation that helps veterans learn Transcendental Meditation. Her grand-uncle, Phillip Schlamberg, was the last American pilot to have been killed during WWII. He had gone on a bombing mission with Jerry Yellin, who went on to become co-founder of Operation Warrior Wellness.
Politics
Johansson was registered as an independent, at least through 2008, and campaigned for Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 United States presidential election. When George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, she said she was disappointed.
In January 2008, her campaign for Democratic candidate Barack Obama included appearances in Iowa targeted at younger voters, an appearance at Cornell College, and a speaking engagement at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, on Super Tuesday, 2008. Johansson appeared in the music video for rapper will.i.am's song, "Yes We Can" (2008), directed by Jesse Dylan; the song was inspired by Obama's speech after the 2008 New Hampshire primary. In February 2012, Johansson and Anna Wintour hosted a fashion launch of pro-Obama clothing, bags, and accessories, the proceeds of which went to the President's re-election campaign. She addressed voters at the Democratic National Convention in September 2012, calling for Obama's re-election and for more engagement from young voters. She encouraged women to vote for Obama and condemned Mitt Romney for his opposition to Planned Parenthood.
Johansson publicly endorsed and supported Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's 2013 run for New York City Comptroller by hosting a series of fundraisers. To encourage people to vote in the 2016 presidential election, in which Johansson endorsed Hillary Clinton, she appeared in a commercial alongside her Marvel Cinematic Universe co-star Robert Downey Jr., and Joss Whedon. In 2017, she spoke at the Women's March on Washington, addressing Donald Trump's presidency and stating that she would support the president if he works for women's rights and stops withdrawing federal funding for Planned Parenthood. In the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Johansson endorsed Elizabeth Warren, referring to Warren as "thoughtful and progressive but realistic".
In December 2020, three members of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an Egyptian civil rights organization, were released from prison in Egypt, after Johansson had described their detention circumstances and demanded the trio's release.
Notes
See also
List of actors nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year
References
Further reading
External links
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
1984 births
Actresses from New York City
American child actresses
American film actresses
American people of Danish descent
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American people of Swedish descent
American stage actresses
American voice actresses
American women film producers
Atco Records artists
Best Actress BAFTA Award winners
César Honorary Award recipients
Danish people of Polish-Jewish descent
Danish people of Russian-Jewish descent
Danish people of Swedish descent
Female models from New York (state)
Fraternal twin actresses
Jewish American actresses
Jewish singers
Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute alumni
Living people
Method actors
People from Manhattan
Theatre World Award winners
Time 100
Tony Award winners
Twin people from the United States | true | [
"Allyson Brown (born 1984 or 1985, sometimes credited as Allyson Ava-Brown) is a British actress and singer. She is best known for playing Beatrice in Bear Behaving Badly. Allyson Brown has also appeared in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Sea of Souls, Holby City and Earth 2. Allyson Brown won a MOBO Award for being the Best Unsigned Act in 1998. Allyson was in the 2008-2009 Les Misérables London Production playing Fantine. She also went on The Voice and sang \"Somebody Else's Guy\" but did not get through. In 2015 Allyson starred in the critically acclaimed theatre production The Etienne Sisters, written and directed by Che Walker, and in 2019 assumed the role of Angelica Schuyler in the West End production of Hamilton.\n\nReferences\n\n1980s births\nBritish actresses\nLiving people\n21st-century British women singers",
"Else Meier (born Else Wagner: 24 February 1901 – 2 August 1933) was a German politician (KPD) who died young.\n\nLife \nElse Wagner was born in Magdeburg. After leaving school she became a metal worker. She married the paint shop worker Otto Meier and became politically active in the Communist Party which she joined after the First World War. By 1932 she had relocated and was living in Wedding, a quarter of Berlin in the city's north-central area. In April 1932 she was elected a member of the Prussian regional parliament (Landtag).\n\nIn the general election of 5 March 1933 Else Meier stood for election not to a regional parliament but to the national parliament (Reichstag). She was elected as a communist member representing the Potsdam electoral district. However, the election took place two months after the Nazi power seizure, since when the government had been systematically transforming the country into a one-party dictatorship. Following the Reichstag fire at the end of February 1933 - officially blamed, with implausible haste, on \"communists\" - the authorities had placed dealing with the Communist Party high on their agenda. On 30 March 1933, a week after the president had signed the Enabling Act of 1933, all 81 communist members of the Reichstag, including Else Meier, were by law deprived of their places in the parliament.\n\nElse Meier died in Berlin on 2 August 1933. Unclarity surrounds the circumstances of her death. Research indicates that she may have died as the result of a violent assault by Nazi paramilitaries. However, that she died as the result of an incurable disease is also a possibility.\n\nReferences\n\nPoliticians from Magdeburg\nPrussian politicians\nMembers of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic\nCommunist Party of Germany politicians\n1901 births\n1933 deaths"
]
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| C_5988d1dc06044704bdb4154afa470ce2_1 | what was a major role for her? | 4 | Other than The Horse Whisperer, what was a major role for Scarlett Johansson? | Scarlett Johansson | Johansson's first leading role was as Amanda, the younger sister of a pregnant teenager who runs away from her foster home in Manny & Lo (1996) alongside Aleksa Palladino and her brother, Hunter. Her performance received positive reviews: one written for the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson," while critic Mick LaSalle, writing for the same paper, commented on her "peaceful aura", and believed, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress." Johansson earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female for the role. After appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 (both 1997), Johansson attracted wider attention for her performance in the film The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford. The drama film, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Nicholas Evans, tells the story of a talented trainer with a gift for understanding horses, who is hired to help an injured teenager played by Johansson. The actress received an "introducing" credit on this film, although it was her seventh role. On Johansson's maturity, Redford described her as "13 going on 30". Todd McCarthy of Variety commented that Johansson "convincingly conveys the awkwardness of her age and the inner pain of a carefree girl suddenly laid low by horrible happenstance". For the film, she was nominated for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress. She believed that the film changed many things in her life, realizing that acting is the ability to manipulate one's emotions. On finding good roles as a teenager, Johansson said it was hard for her as adults wrote the scripts and they "portray kids like mall rats and not seriously ... Kids and teenagers just aren't being portrayed with any real depth". Johansson later appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the neo-noir, Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). Her breakthrough came playing a cynical outcast in Terry Zwigoff's black comedy Ghost World (2001), an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel of same name. Johansson auditioned for the film via a tape from New York, and Zwigoff believed her to be "a unique, eccentric person, and right for that part". The film premiered at the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival; it was a box office failure, but has since developed a cult status. Johansson was credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age" by an Austin Chronicle critic, and won a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. With David Arquette, Johansson appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002), about a collection of spiders that are exposed to toxic waste, causing them to grow to gigantic proportions and begin killing and harvesting. After graduating from PCS that year, she applied to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; she decided to focus on her film career when she was rejected. CANNOTANSWER | Her breakthrough came playing a cynical outcast in Terry Zwigoff's black comedy Ghost World (2001), | Scarlett Ingrid Johansson (; born November 22, 1984) is an American actress. The world's highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, she has featured multiple times on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. Her films have grossed over billion worldwide, making Johansson the ninth-highest-grossing box office star of all time. She has received various accolades, including a Tony Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.
Johansson aspired to be an actress from an early age and first appeared on stage in an Off-Broadway play as a child actor. She made her film debut in the fantasy comedy North (1994), and gained early recognition for her roles in Manny & Lo (1996), The Horse Whisperer (1998), and Ghost World (2001). Johansson shifted to adult roles in 2003 with her performances in Lost in Translation, which won her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, and Girl with a Pearl Earring. She was nominated for Golden Globe Awards for these films, and for playing a troubled teenager in the drama A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) and a seductress in psychological thriller Match Point (2005). The latter was her first collaboration with Woody Allen, who later directed her in Scoop (2006) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Johansson's other works of this period include The Prestige (2006) and the albums Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008) and Break Up (2009), both of which charted on the Billboard 200.
In 2010, Johansson debuted on Broadway in a revival of A View from the Bridge, which won her a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, and began portraying Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Iron Man 2. She reprised the role in eight films, most recently in her solo feature Black Widow (2021), gaining global recognition for her performances. During this period, Johansson starred in the science fiction films Her (2013), Under the Skin (2013) and Lucy (2014). She received two simultaneous Academy Award nominations—Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress—for the respective roles of an actress going through a divorce in the drama Marriage Story (2019) and a single mother in Nazi Germany in the satire Jojo Rabbit (2019).
Labeled a sex symbol, Johansson has been referred to as one of the world's most attractive women by various media outlets. She is a prominent brand endorser and supports several charitable causes. Divorced from actor Ryan Reynolds and businessman Romain Dauriac, Johansson has been married to comedian Colin Jost since 2020. She has two children, one with Dauriac and another with Jost.
Early life
Johansson was born on November 22, 1984, in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Her father, Karsten Olaf Johansson, is an architect originally from Copenhagen, Denmark. Her paternal grandfather, Ejner Johansson, was an art historian, screenwriter, and film director, whose own father was Swedish. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, a New Yorker, has worked as a producer; she comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Poland and Russia, originally surnamed Schlamberg, and Johansson describes herself as Jewish. She has an older sister, Vanessa, also an actress; an older brother, Adrian; and a twin brother, Hunter. She also has an older half-brother, Christian, from her father's first marriage. Johansson holds dual American and Danish citizenship. She discovered that her maternal great-grandfather's family died during the Holocaust in the Warsaw Ghetto on a 2017 episode of PBS's Finding Your Roots.
Johansson attended PS 41, an elementary school in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Her parents divorced when she was thirteen. She was particularly close to her maternal grandmother, Dorothy Sloan, a bookkeeper and schoolteacher; they often spent time together and Johansson considered Dorothy her best friend. Interested in a career in the spotlight from an early age, Johansson often put on song-and-dance routines for her family. She was particularly fond of musical theater and jazz hands. She took lessons in tap dance, and states that her parents were supportive of her career choice. She has described her childhood as very ordinary.
As a child, Johansson practiced acting by staring in the mirror until she made herself cry, wanting to be Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis. At age seven, she was devastated when a talent agent signed one of her brothers instead of her, but she later decided to become an actress anyway. She enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and began auditioning for commercials, but soon lost interest: "I didn't want to promote Wonder Bread." She shifted her focus to film and theater, making her first stage appearance in the Off-Broadway play Sophistry with Ethan Hawke, in which she had two lines. Around this time, she began studying at Professional Children's School (PCS), a private educational institution for aspiring child actors in Manhattan.
Acting career
Early work and breakthrough (1994–2002)
At age nine, Johansson made her film debut as John Ritter's daughter in the fantasy comedy North (1994). She says that when she was on the film set, she knew intuitively what to do. She later played minor roles such as the daughter of Sean Connery's and Kate Capshaw's characters in the mystery thriller Just Cause (1995), and an art student in If Lucy Fell (1996). Johansson's first leading role was as Amanda, the younger sister of a pregnant teenager who runs away from her foster home in Manny & Lo (1996) alongside Aleksa Palladino and her brother, Hunter. Her performance received positive reviews: one written for the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "[the film] grows on you, largely because of the charm of ... Scarlett Johansson," while critic Mick LaSalle, writing for the same paper, commented on her "peaceful aura", and believed, "If she can get through puberty with that aura undisturbed, she could become an important actress." Johansson earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female for the role.
After appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3 (both 1997), Johansson attracted wider attention for her performance in the film The Horse Whisperer (1998), directed by Robert Redford. The drama film, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Nicholas Evans, tells the story of a trainer with a gift for understanding horses, who is hired to help an injured teenager played by Johansson. The actress received an "introducing" credit on this film, although it was her seventh role. On Johansson's maturity, Redford described her as "13 going on 30". Todd McCarthy of Variety commented that Johansson "convincingly conveys the awkwardness of her age and the inner pain of a carefree girl suddenly laid low by horrible happenstance". For the film, she was nominated for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress. She believed that the film changed many things in her life, realizing that acting is the ability to manipulate one's emotions. On finding good roles as a teenager, Johansson said it was hard for her as adults wrote the scripts and they "portray kids like mall rats and not seriously ... Kids and teenagers just aren't being portrayed with any real depth".
Johansson later appeared in My Brother the Pig (1999) and in the neo-noir, Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001). Her breakthrough came playing a cynical outcast in Terry Zwigoff's black comedy Ghost World (2001), an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel of the same name. Johansson auditioned for the film via a tape from New York, and Zwigoff believed her to be "a unique, eccentric person, and right for that part". The film premiered at the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival; it was a box office failure, but has since developed a cult status. Johansson was credited with "sensitivity and talent [that] belie her age" by an Austin Chronicle critic, and won a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
With David Arquette, Johansson appeared in the horror comedy Eight Legged Freaks (2002), about a collection of spiders that are exposed to toxic waste, causing them to grow to gigantic proportions and begin killing and harvesting. After graduating from Professional Children's School that year, she applied to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; she decided to focus on her film career when she was rejected.
Transition to adult roles (2003–2004)
Johansson transitioned from teen to adult roles with two films in 2003: the romantic comedy-drama Lost in Translation and the drama Girl with a Pearl Earring. In the former, directed by Sofia Coppola, she plays Charlotte, a listless and lonely young wife, opposite Bill Murray. Coppola had first noticed Johansson in Manny & Lo, and compared her to a young Lauren Bacall; Coppola based the film's story on the relationship between Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946). Johansson found the experience of working with a female director different because of Coppola's ability to empathize with her. Made on a budget of $4million, the film grossed $119million at the box office and received critical acclaim. Roger Ebert was pleased with the film and described the lead actors' performances as "wonderful", and Entertainment Weekly wrote of Johansson's "embracing, restful serenity". The New York Times praised Johansson, aged 17 at the time of filming, for playing an older character.
In Peter Webber's Girl with a Pearl Earring, which is based on the novel of the same name by Tracy Chevalier, Johansson played Griet, a young 17th-century servant in the household of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (played by Colin Firth). Webber interviewed 150 actors before casting Johansson. Johansson found the character moving, but did not read the novel, as she thought it was better to approach the story with a fresh start. Girl with a Pearl Earring received positive reviews and was profitable. In his review for The New Yorker, Anthony Lane thought that her presence kept the film "alive", writing, "She is often wordless and close to plain onscreen, but wait for the ardor with which she can summon a closeup and bloom under its gaze; this is her film, not Vermeer's, all the way." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly noted her "nearly silent performance", remarking, "The interplay on her face of fear, ignorance, curiosity, and sex is intensely dramatic." She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress for both films in 2003, winning the former for Lost in Translation.
In Varietys opinion, Johansson's roles in Lost in Translation and Girl with a Pearl Earring established her as among the most versatile actresses of her generation. Johansson had five releases in 2004, three of which—the teen heist film The Perfect Score, the drama A Love Song for Bobby Long, and the drama A Good Woman—were critical and commercial failures. Co-starring with John Travolta, Johansson played a discontented teenager in A Love Song for Bobby Long, which is based on the novel Off Magazine Street by Ronald Everett Capps. David Rooney of Variety wrote that Johansson's and Travolta's performances rescued the film. Johansson earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama nomination for the film.
In her fourth release in 2004, the live-action animated comedy The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Johansson voiced Princess Mindy, the daughter of King Neptune. She agreed to the project because of her love of cartoons, particularly The Ren & Stimpy Show. The film was her most commercially successful release that year. She would then reprise her role as Mindy in the video game adaptation of the film. She followed it with In Good Company, a comedy-drama in which she complicates the life of her father when she dates his much younger boss. Reviews of the film were generally positive, describing it as "witty and charming". Roger Ebert was impressed with Johansson's portrayal, writing that she "continues to employ the gravitational pull of quiet fascination".
Collaborations with Woody Allen (2005–2009)
Johansson played Nola, an aspiring actress who begins an affair with a married man (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in Woody Allen's drama Match Point in 2005. After replacing Kate Winslet with Johansson for the role, Allen changed the character's nationality from British to American. An admirer of Allen's films, Johansson liked the idea of working with him, but felt nervous her first day on the set. The New York Times was impressed with the performances of Johansson and Rhys Meyers, and Mick LaSalle, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, stated that Johansson "is a powerhouse from the word go", with a performance that "borders on astonishing". The film, a box office success, earned Johansson nominations for the Golden Globe and the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress. Also that year, Johansson underwent a tonsillectomy, after which she starred with Ewan McGregor in Michael Bay's science fiction film The Island, in dual roles as Sarah Jordan and her clone, Jordan Two Delta. Johansson found her filming schedule exhausting: she had to shoot for 14 hours a day, and she hit her head and injured herself. The film received mixed reviews and grossed $163million against a $126million budget.
Two of Johansson's films in 2006 explored the world of stage magicians, both opposite Hugh Jackman. Allen cast her opposite Jackman and himself in the film Scoop (2006), in which she played a journalism student. The film was a modest worldwide box office success, but polarized critics. Ebert was critical of the film, but found Johansson "lovely as always", and Mick LaSalle noted the freshness she brought to her part. She also appeared in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia, a film noir shot in Los Angeles and Bulgaria. Johansson later said she was a fan of DePalma and had wanted to work with him on the film, but thought that she was unsuitable for the part. Anne Billson of The Daily Telegraph likewise found her miscast. However, CNN said that she "takes to the pulpy period atmosphere as if it were oxygen".
Also in 2006, Johansson starred in the short film When the Deal Goes Down to accompany Bob Dylan's song "When the Deal Goes Down..." from the album Modern Times. Johansson had a supporting role of assistant and lover of Jackman's character, an aristocratic magician, in Christopher Nolan's mystery thriller The Prestige (2006). Nolan thought Johansson possessed "ambiguity" and "a shielded quality". She was fascinated with Nolan's directing methods and liked working with him. The film was a critical and box office success, recommended by the Los Angeles Times as "an adult, provocative piece of work". Some critics were skeptical of her performance: Billson again judged her miscast, and Dan Jolin of Empire criticized her English accent.
Johansson's sole release of 2007 was the critically panned comedy-drama The Nanny Diaries alongside Chris Evans and Laura Linney, in which she played a college graduate working as a nanny. Reviews of her performance were mixed; Variety wrote, "[She] essays an engaging heroine", and The New Yorker criticized her for looking "merely confused" while "trying to give the material a plausible emotional center". In 2008, Johansson starred, with Natalie Portman and Eric Bana, in The Other Boleyn Girl, which also earned mixed reviews. Promoting the film, Johansson and Portman appeared on the cover of W, discussing with the magazine the public's reception of them. In Rolling Stone, Pete Travers criticized the film for "[moving] in frustrating herks and jerks", but thought that the duo were the only positive aspect of the production. Variety credited the cast as "almost flawless ... at the top of its game", citing "Johansson's quieter Mary ... as the [film's] emotional center".
In her third collaboration with Woody Allen, the romantic comedy-drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), which was filmed in Spain, Johansson plays one of the love interests of Javier Bardem's character alongside Penélope Cruz. The film was one of Allen's most profitable and received favorable reviews. A reviewer in Variety described Johansson as "open and malleable" compared to the other actors. She also played the femme fatale Silken Floss in The Spirit, based on the newspaper comic strip of the same name by Will Eisner. It received poor reviews from critics, who deemed it melodramatic, unoriginal, and sexist. Johansson's only role in 2009 was as Anna Marks, a yoga instructor, in the ensemble comedy-drama He's Just Not That into You (2009). The film was released to tepid reviews, but was a box office success.
Marvel Cinematic Universe and worldwide recognition (2010–2013)
Aspiring to appear on Broadway since childhood, Johansson made her debut in a 2010 revival of Arthur Miller's drama A View from the Bridge. Set in the 1950s in an Italian-American neighborhood in New York, it tells the tragic tale of Eddie (Liev Schreiber), who has an inappropriate love for his wife's orphaned niece, Catherine (Johansson). After initial reservations about playing a teenage character, Johansson was convinced by a friend to take on the part. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote Johansson "melts into her character so thoroughly that her nimbus of celebrity disappears". Varietys David Rooney was impressed with the play and Johansson in particular, describing her as the chief performer. She won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. Some critics and Broadway actors criticized the award committee's decision to reward the work of mainstream Hollywood actors, including Johansson. In response, she said that she understood the frustration, but had worked hard for her accomplishments.
Johansson played Black Widow in Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2 (2010), a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Before she secured the role, she dyed her hair red to convince Favreau that she was right for the part, and undertook stunt and strength training to prepare for the role. Johansson said the character resonated with her, and she admired the superhero's human traits. The film earned $623.9million against its $200million budget, and received generally positive reviews from critics, although reviewers criticized how her character was written. Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph and Matt Goldberg thought that she had little to do but look attractive. In 2011, Johansson played the role of Kelly, a zookeeper in the family film We Bought a Zoo alongside Matt Damon. The film got mainly favorable reviews, and Anne Billson praised Johansson for bringing depth to a rather uninteresting character. Johansson earned a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress: Drama nomination for her performance.
Johansson learned some Russian from a former teacher on the phone for her role as Black Widow in The Avengers (2012), another entry from the MCU. The film received mainly positive reviews and broke many box office records, becoming the third highest-grossing film both in the United States and worldwide. For her performance, she was nominated for two Teen Choice Awards and three People's Choice Awards. Later that year, Johansson portrayed actress Janet Leigh in Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock, a behind-the-scenes drama about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho. Roger Ebert wrote that Johansson did not look much like Leigh, but conveyed her spunk, intelligence, and sense of humor.
In January 2013, Johansson starred in a Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Rob Ashford. Set in the Mississippi Delta, it examines the relationships within the family of Big Daddy (Ciarán Hinds), primarily between his son Brick (Benjamin Walker) and Maggie (Johansson). Her performance received mixed reviews. Entertainment Weeklys Thom Geier wrote Johansson "brings a fierce fighting spirit" to her part, but Joe Dziemianowicz from Daily News called her performance "alarmingly one-note". The 2013 Sundance Film Festival hosted the premiere of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut, Don Jon. In this romantic comedy-drama, she played the pornography-addicted title character's girlfriend. Gordon-Levitt wrote the role for Johansson, who had previously admired his acting work. The film received positive reviews and Johansson's performance was highlighted by critics. Claudia Puig of USA Today considered it to be one of her best performances.
In 2013, Johansson voiced the character Samantha, a self-aware computer operating system, in Spike Jonze's film Her, replacing Samantha Morton in the role. The film premiered at the 8th Rome International Film Festival, where Johansson won Best Actress; she was also nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress. Johansson was intimidated by the role's complexity, and found her recording sessions for the role challenging but liberating. Peter Travers believed Johansson's voice in the film was "sweet, sexy, caring, manipulative, scary [and] award-worthy". Times Richard Corliss called her performance "seductive and winning", and Her was rated as one of the best films of 2013.
She also won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 40th Saturn Awards in 2014 for her performance. Johansson was cast in Jonathan Glazer's science fiction film Under the Skin (2013) as an extraterrestrial creature disguised as a human femme fatale who preys on men in Scotland. The project, an adaptation of Michel Faber's novel of the same name, took nine years to complete. For the role, she learned to drive a van and speak in an English accent. Johansson improvised conversations with non-professional actors on the street, who did not know they were being filmed. It was released to generally positive reviews, with particular praise for Johansson. Erin Whitney, writing for The Huffington Post, considered it to be her finest performance to that point, and noted that it was her first fully nude role. Author Maureen Foster wrote, "How much depth, breadth, and range Johansson mines from her character's very limited allowance of emotional response is a testament to her acting prowess that is, as the film goes on, increasingly stunning." It earned Johansson a BIFA Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a British Independent Film nomination.
Blockbuster films and critical acclaim (2014–2020)
Continuing her work in the MCU, Johansson reprised her role as Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). In the film, she joins forces with Captain America (Chris Evans) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to uncover a conspiracy within S.H.I.E.L.D., while facing a mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Johansson and Evans wrote their own dialogue for several scenes they had together. Johansson was attracted to her character's way of doing her job, employing her feminine wiles and not her physical appeal. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $714million worldwide. Critic Odie Henderson saw "a genuine emotional shorthand at work, especially from Johansson, who is excellent here". The role earned her a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination.
Johansson played a supporting role in the film Chef (2014), alongside Robert Downey, Jr., Sofía Vergara, and director Jon Favreau. It grossed over $45million at the box office and was well received by critics. The Chicago Sun-Times writer Richard Roeper found the film "funny, quirky and insightful, with a bounty of interesting supporting characters". In Luc Besson's science fiction action film Lucy (2014), Johansson starred as the title character, who gains psychokinetic abilities when a nootropic drug is absorbed into her bloodstream. Besson discussed the role with several actresses, and cast Johansson based on her strong reaction to the script and her discipline. Critics generally praised the film's themes, visuals, and Johansson's performance; some found the plot nonsensical. IGN's Jim Vejvoda attributed the film's success to her acting and Besson's style. The film grossed $458million on a budget of $40million to become the 18th highest-grossing film of 2014.
In 2015 and 2016, Johansson again played Black Widow in the MCU films Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. During filming of the former, a mixture of close-ups, concealing costumes, stunt doubles and visual effects were used to hide her pregnancy. Both films earned more than $1.1billion, ranking among the highest-grossing films of all time. For Civil War, Johansson earned her second nomination for Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie and her fourth for Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Earlier in 2016, Johansson had featured in the Coen brothers' well-received comedy film Hail, Caesar! about a "fixer" working in the classical Hollywood cinema, trying to discover what happened to a cast member who vanished during the filming of a biblical epic; Johansson plays an actress who becomes pregnant while her film is in production. She also voiced Kaa in Jon Favreau's live-action adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book, and Ash in the animated musical comedy film Sing (both 2016). That year she also narrated an audiobook of Lewis Carroll's children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Johansson played Motoko Kusanagi in Rupert Sanders's 2017 film adaptation of the Ghost in the Shell franchise. The film was praised for its visual style, acting, and cinematography, but was the subject of controversy for whitewashing the cast, particularly Johansson's character, a cyborg who was meant to hold the memories of a Japanese woman. Responding to the backlash, the actress asserted she would never play a non-white character, but wanted to take the rare opportunity to star in a female-led franchise. Ghost in the Shell grossed $169.8million worldwide against a production budget of $110million. In March 2017, Johansson hosted Saturday Night Live for the fifth time, making her the 17th person, and the fourth woman, to enter the NBC sketch comedy's prestigious Five-Timers Club. Johansson's next 2017 film was the comedy Rough Night, where she played Jess Thayer, one of the five friends—alongside Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer, and Zoë Kravitz—whose bachelorette party goes wrong after a male stripper dies. The film had a mixed critical reception and moderate box office returns. In 2018, Johansson voiced show dog Nutmeg in Wes Anderson's stop-motion animated film Isle of Dogs, released in March, and reprised her MCU role as Black Widow in Avengers: Infinity War, which followed the next month. Johansson was due to star in Rub & Tug, a biographical film in which she would have played Dante "Tex" Gill, a transgender man who operated a massage parlor and prostitution ring in the 1970s and 1980s. She dropped out of the project following backlash to the casting of a cisgender woman to play a transgender man.
In 2019, Johansson once again reprised her role as Black Widow in Avengers: Endgame, which is the highest-grossing film of all time. She next starred in Noah Baumbach's Netflix film Marriage Story, in which Adam Driver and she played a warring couple who file for divorce. Johansson found a connection with her character, as she was amid her own divorce proceedings at the time. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian commended her "brilliantly textured" performance in it. She also took on the supporting role of a young boy's mother who shelters a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany in Taika Waititi's satire Jojo Rabbit. Waititi modeled the character on his own mother, and cast Johansson to provide her a rare opportunity to perform comedy. The film received polarizing reviews, but Stephanie Zacharek labeled her the "lustrous soul of the movie". Johansson received her first two Academy Award nominations, for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for her performances in Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit, respectively, becoming the eleventh performer to be nominated for two Oscars in the same year. She also received two BAFTA nominations for these films, and a Golden Globe nomination for the former.
Black Widow and lawsuit (2021–present)
After a one-year screen absence, Johansson reprised her role as Black Widow in her own solo prequel film in 2021, on which she also served as an executive producer. Also starring Florence Pugh, the film is set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, and sees Johansson's character on the run and forced to confront her past. Director Cate Shortland, who wanted to make a standalone film on her character, watched Johansson's previous appearances as Black Widow to prepare. Johansson felt proud of the film and that her work playing the role was now complete. She saw this as an opportunity to show her character's ability to be on her own and make choices for herself while facing difficult times, and noted that her vulnerability distinguished her from other Avengers. Critics were generally favorable in their reviews of the film, mainly praising Johansson and Pugh's performances. In a review published in The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney thought the film was "a stellar vehicle" for Johansson. Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood found the actress "again a great presence in the role, showing expert action and acting chops throughout". For the film, Johansson won The Female Movie Star of 2021 at the 47th People's Choice Awards.
In July 2021, Johansson filed a lawsuit against Disney claiming that the simultaneous release of Black Widow on their streaming service Disney+ breached a clause in her contract that the film receive exclusive theatrical release. She alleged that the release on Disney+ exempted her from receiving additional bonus from box-office profits, to which she was entitled. In response, Disney said her lawsuit showed an indifference to the "horrific and prolonged" effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company also stated that Johansson already received $20million for the film and that the Disney+ Premier Access release would only earn her additional compensation. The Hollywood Reporter described Disney's response as "aggressive". Accusing Disney of intentionally violating their contract with Johansson, Creative Artists Agency co-chairman Bryan Lourd criticized the company for falsely portraying Johansson as insensitive to the effects of the pandemic, which he considered a "direct attack on her character". Lourd further stated that the company including her salary in their public statement was to try to "weaponize her success as an artist and businesswoman". Later that September, both parties announced that they had resolved their dispute, with the terms of the settlement remaining undisclosed.
Music career
In 2006, Johansson sang the track "Summertime" for Unexpected DreamsSongs From the Stars, a non-profit collection of songs recorded by Hollywood actors. She performed with the Jesus and Mary Chain for a Coachella reunion show in Indio, California, in April 2007. The following year, Johansson appeared as the leading lady in Justin Timberlake's music video, for "What Goes Around... Comes Around", which was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year.
In May 2008, Johansson released her debut album Anywhere I Lay My Head, which consists of one original song and ten cover versions of Tom Waits songs, and features David Bowie and members from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Celebration. Reviews of the album were mixed. Spin was not particularly impressed with Johansson's singing. Some critics found it to be "surprisingly alluring", "a bravely eccentric selection", and "a brilliant album" with "ghostly magic". NME named the album the "23rd best album of 2008", and it peaked at number126 on the Billboard 200. Johansson started listening to Waits when she was 11 or 12 years old, and said of him, "His melodies are so beautiful, his voice is so distinct and I had my own way of doing Tom Waits songs."
In September 2009, Johansson and singer-songwriter Pete Yorn released a collaborative album, Break Up, inspired by Serge Gainsbourg's duets with Brigitte Bardot. The album reached number 41 in the US. In 2010, Steel Train released Terrible Thrills Vol.1, which includes their favorite female artists singing songs from their self-titled album. Johansson is the first artist on the album, singing "Bullet". Johansson sang "One Whole Hour" for the 2011 soundtrack of the documentary film Wretches & Jabberers (2010). and in 2012 sang on a J.Ralph track entitled "Before My Time" for the end credits of the climate documentary Chasing Ice (2012)
In February 2015, Johansson formed a band called the Singles with Este Haim from HAIM, Holly Miranda, Kendra Morris, and Julia Haltigan. The group's first single was called "Candy". Johansson was issued a cease and desist order from the lead singer of the Los Angeles-based rock band the Singles, demanding she stop using their name. In 2016, she performed "Trust in Me" for The Jungle Book soundtrack and "Set It All Free" and "I Don't Wanna" for Sing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. In 2018, Johansson collaborated with Pete Yorn again for an EP titled Apart, released June 1.
Public image
Johansson has been called "ScarJo" by the media and fans, and dislikes being called this, finding it lazy, flippant and insulting. She has no social media profiles, saying she does not see the need "to continuously share details of [her] everyday life."
Johansson is described as a sex symbol by the media. The Sydney Morning Herald describes her as "the embodiment of male fantasy". During the filming of Match Point, director Woody Allen remarked upon her attractiveness, calling her "beautiful" and "sexually overwhelming". In 2014, The New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane wrote that "she is evidently, and profitably, aware of her sultriness, and of how much, down to the last inch, it contributes to the contours of her reputation." Johansson has expressed displeasure at being sexualized, and maintains that a preoccupation with one's attractiveness does not last. She lost the role of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), because the film's director David Fincher found her "too sexy" for the part.
Johansson ranks highly in several beauty listings. Maxim included her in their Hot 100 list from 2006 to 2014. She has been named "Sexiest Woman Alive" twice by Esquire (2006 and 2013), and has been included in similar listings by Playboy (2007), Men's Health (2011), and FHM (since 2005). She was named GQs Babe of the Year in 2010. Madame Tussauds New York museum unveiled a wax statue of her in 2015.
Johansson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2004. In 2006, she appeared on Forbes Celebrity 100 list, and again in 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2012. In 2021, she appeared on the Time 100, Times annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Johansson was included on Forbes annual list of the world's highest-paid actresses from 2014 to 2016, with respective earnings of $17million, $35.5million and $25million. She would later top the list in 2018 and 2019, with earnings of $40.5million and $56million, respectively. She was the highest-grossing actor of 2016, with a total of $1.2billion. As a result, IndieWire credited her for taking on risky roles. , her films have grossed over billion in North America and over billion worldwide, making Johansson the third-highest-grossing box-office star of all time both domestically and worldwide as well as the highest-grossing actress of all time in North America.
Johansson has appeared in advertising campaigns for Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, L'Oréal, and Louis Vuitton, and has represented the Spanish brand Mango since 2009. She was the first Hollywood celebrity to represent a champagne producer, appearing in advertisements for Moët & Chandon. In January 2014, the Israeli company SodaStream, which makes home-carbonation products, hired Johansson as its first global brand ambassador, a relationship that commenced with a television commercial during Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2, 2014. This created some controversy, as SodaStream at that time operated a plant in Israeli-occupied territory in the West Bank.
Personal life
While attending PCS, Johansson dated classmate Jack Antonoff from 2001 to 2002. She dated her Black Dahlia co-star Josh Hartnett for about two years until the end of 2006. Hartnett said they broke up because their busy schedules kept them apart. Johansson began dating Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds in 2007. They became engaged in May 2008, married in September 2008 on Vancouver Island, separated in December 2010 and divorced in July 2011.
In November 2012, Johansson began dating Frenchman Romain Dauriac, the owner of an advertising agency. They became engaged the following September. The pair divided their time between New York City and Paris. She gave birth to their daughter, Rose Dorothy Dauriac, in 2014. Johansson and Dauriac married that October in Philipsburg, Montana. They separated in mid-2016 and divorced in September 2017. Johansson began dating Saturday Night Live co-head writer and Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost in May 2017. In May 2019, the two were engaged. They married in October 2020, at their New York home. She gave birth to their son, Cosmo, in August 2021. Johansson resides in New York and Los Angeles.
In September 2011, nude photographs of Johansson hacked from her cell phone were leaked online. She said the pictures had been sent to her then-husband, Ryan Reynolds, three years before the incident. Following an FBI investigation, the hacker was arrested, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to ten years in prison. In 2014, Johansson won a lawsuit against French publisher JC Lattès over defamatory statements about her relationships in the novel The First Thing We Look At by Grégoire Delacourt. She was awarded $3,400; she had claimed $68,000.
Johansson has criticized the media for promoting an image that causes unhealthy diets and eating disorders among women. In an essay she wrote for The Huffington Post, she encouraged people to maintain a healthy body. She posed nude on the March 2006 cover of Vanity Fair alongside actress Keira Knightley and fully clothed fashion designer Tom Ford, who jumped in last minute on the day of the shoot to replace Rachel McAdams after she walked out. The photograph sparked controversy, as some believed it demonstrated that women are forced to flaunt their sexuality more often than men.
Other ventures
Philanthropy
Johansson has supported various charitable organizations, including Aid Still Required, Cancer Research UK, Stand Up To Cancer, Too Many Women (which works against breast cancer), and USA Harvest, which provides food for people in need. In 2005, Johansson became a global ambassador for the aid and development agency Oxfam. In 2007, she took part in the anti-poverty campaign ONE, which was organized by U2's lead singer Bono. In March 2008, a UK-based bidder paid £20,000 on an eBay auction to benefit Oxfam, winning a hair and makeup treatment, a pair of tickets, and a chauffeured trip to accompany her on a 20-minute date to the world premiere of He's Just Not That into You.
In January 2014, Johansson resigned from her Oxfam position after criticism of her promotion of SodaStream, whose main factory was based in Mishor Adumim, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank; Oxfam opposes all trade with such Israeli settlements. Oxfam stated that it was thankful for her contributions in raising funds to fight poverty. Together with her Avengers costars, Johansson raised $500,000 for the victims of Hurricane Maria.
In 2018, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up the Time's Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination. Johansson took part in the Women's March in Los Angeles in January 2018, where she spoke on topics such as abuses of power, sharing her own experience. She received backlash for calling out fellow actor James Franco on allegations of sexual misconduct as in the past she had defended working with Woody Allen amid an accusation by his daughter Dylan Farrow.
Johansson has given support to Operation Warrior Wellness, a division of the David Lynch Foundation that helps veterans learn Transcendental Meditation. Her grand-uncle, Phillip Schlamberg, was the last American pilot to have been killed during WWII. He had gone on a bombing mission with Jerry Yellin, who went on to become co-founder of Operation Warrior Wellness.
Politics
Johansson was registered as an independent, at least through 2008, and campaigned for Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 United States presidential election. When George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, she said she was disappointed.
In January 2008, her campaign for Democratic candidate Barack Obama included appearances in Iowa targeted at younger voters, an appearance at Cornell College, and a speaking engagement at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, on Super Tuesday, 2008. Johansson appeared in the music video for rapper will.i.am's song, "Yes We Can" (2008), directed by Jesse Dylan; the song was inspired by Obama's speech after the 2008 New Hampshire primary. In February 2012, Johansson and Anna Wintour hosted a fashion launch of pro-Obama clothing, bags, and accessories, the proceeds of which went to the President's re-election campaign. She addressed voters at the Democratic National Convention in September 2012, calling for Obama's re-election and for more engagement from young voters. She encouraged women to vote for Obama and condemned Mitt Romney for his opposition to Planned Parenthood.
Johansson publicly endorsed and supported Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's 2013 run for New York City Comptroller by hosting a series of fundraisers. To encourage people to vote in the 2016 presidential election, in which Johansson endorsed Hillary Clinton, she appeared in a commercial alongside her Marvel Cinematic Universe co-star Robert Downey Jr., and Joss Whedon. In 2017, she spoke at the Women's March on Washington, addressing Donald Trump's presidency and stating that she would support the president if he works for women's rights and stops withdrawing federal funding for Planned Parenthood. In the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Johansson endorsed Elizabeth Warren, referring to Warren as "thoughtful and progressive but realistic".
In December 2020, three members of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an Egyptian civil rights organization, were released from prison in Egypt, after Johansson had described their detention circumstances and demanded the trio's release.
Notes
See also
List of actors nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year
References
Further reading
External links
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
1984 births
Actresses from New York City
American child actresses
American film actresses
American people of Danish descent
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American people of Swedish descent
American stage actresses
American voice actresses
American women film producers
Atco Records artists
Best Actress BAFTA Award winners
César Honorary Award recipients
Danish people of Polish-Jewish descent
Danish people of Russian-Jewish descent
Danish people of Swedish descent
Female models from New York (state)
Fraternal twin actresses
Jewish American actresses
Jewish singers
Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute alumni
Living people
Method actors
People from Manhattan
Theatre World Award winners
Time 100
Tony Award winners
Twin people from the United States | true | [
"The Bodil Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role () is one of the merit categories presented by the Danish Film Critics Association at the annual Bodil Awards. Created in 1948, it is one of the oldest film awards in Europe, and it honours the best performance by an actor in a supporting role in a Danish produced film. The jury can decide not to hand out the award, which happened numerous times between 1950 and 1985. Since 1986, it has been awarded every year.\n\nHonorees\n\n1940s \n 1948: Ellen Gottschalch won for her role in \n 1949: Karin Nellemose won for her role in\n\n1950s \n 1950: Not awarded\n 1951: Not awarded\n 1952: Sigrid Neiiendam won for her role in \n 1953: Not awarded\n 1954: Not awarded\n 1955: Not awarded\n 1956: Not awarded\n 1957: Not awarded\n 1958: Not awarded\n 1959: Not awarded\n\n1960s \n 1960: Not awarded\n 1961: Not awarded\n 1962: Not awarded\n 1963: Not awarded\n 1964: Not awarded\n 1965: Not awarded\n 1966: Not awarded\n 1967: Not awarded\n 1968: Not awarded\n 1969: won for her role in\n\n1970s \n 1970: Not awarded\n 1971: Not awarded\n 1972: Not awarded\n 1973: won for her role in Oh, to Be on the Bandwagon!\n 1974: Not awarded\n 1975: Not awarded\n 1976: won for her role as Sylvie in A Happy Divorce\n 1977: Bodil Kjer won for her role as Sabine Lund in Strømer\n 1978: Not awarded\n 1979: Grethe Holmer won for her role as Kirsten's mother in In My Life\n\n1980s \n 1980: Berthe Qvistgaard won for her role in Johnny Larsen\n 1981: Helle Fastrup won for her role in \n 1982: Ghita Nørby won for her role in \n 1983: Not awarded\n 1984: Birgitte Raaberg won for her role in In the Middle of the Night\n 1985: Not awarded\n 1986: Catherine Poul Jupont for her role in The Dark Side of the Moon\n 1987: Sofie Gråbøl won for her role in The Wolf at the Door\n 1988: won for her role in Pelle the Conqueror\n 1989: won for her role in Katinka\n\n1990s \n 1990: Kirsten Rolffes won for her role in Waltzing Regitze\n 1991: won for her role in \n 1992: Ditte Gråbøl won for her role in \n 1993: Birthe Neumann won for her role in Pain of Love\n 1994: Pernille Højmark won for her role in Black Harvest\n 1995: won for her role in Nightwatch\n 1996: Anneke von der Lippe won for her role as Eva in Pan\n 1997: Katrin Cartlidge won for her role in Breaking the Waves\n 1998: Birgitte Raaberg won for her role as Judith Petersen in Riget II\n 1999: Anne Louise Hassing won for her role in The Idiots\n\n2000s \n 2000: Paprika Steen won for her role as Stella in The One and Only\n 2001: Lene Tiemroth won for her role as Karen's mother in Italian for Beginners\n was nominated for her role as Liv in The Bench\n was nominated for her role as Connie in The Bench\n 2002: won for her role as Heidi in One-Hand Clapping\n Birthe Neumann was nominated for her role as Elly in Chop Chop\n 2003: Paprika Steen won for her role as Maria in Open Hearts\n Julia Davis was nominated for her role as Moira in Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself\n was nominated for her role in Minor Mishaps\n Birthe Neumann was nominated for her role as Hanne in Open Hearts\n 2004: Ditte Gråbøl won for her role in Move Me\n Bronagh Gallagher was nominated for her role as Sophie in Skagerrak\n Lisa Werlinder was nominated for her role as Maria in The Inheritance\n 2005: Trine Dyrholm won for her role in In Your Hands\n was nominated for her role as Lone Kjeldsen in King's Game\n was nominated for her role in Aftermath\n Sonja Richter was nominated for her role in In Your Hands\n was nominated for her role in \n 2006: Charlotte Fich won for her role as Lisbeth in Manslaughter\n was nominated for her role in Murk\n Tuva Novotny was nominated for her role in Bang Bang Orangutang\n Pernille Valentin Brandt was nominated for her role as Gunnar in Nordkraft\n 2007: Stine Fischer Christensen won for her role in After the Wedding\n Mette Riber Christoffersen was nominated for her role in Life Hits\n Bodil Jørgensen was nominated for her role in \n Sofie Stougaard was nominated for her role in Lotto\n Mia Lyhne was nominated for her role in The Boss of It All\n 2008: Charlotte Fich won for her role as Mette in Just Another Love Story\n was nominated for her role in \n Stine Fischer Christensen was nominated for her role in Echo\n Trine Dyrholm was nominated for her role as Eva in Daisy Diamond\n was nominated for her role as Mother in The Art of Crying\n 2009: won for her role as Karen in Worlds Apart\n was nominated for her role as Selma in Fear Me Not'\n Ghita Nørby was nominated for her role as Sigrid in What No One Knows Paprika Steen was nominated for her role in Fear Me Not 2010s \n 2010: won for her role as Scarlett in Deliver Us from Evil was nominated for her role in Love and Rage Charlotte Fich was nominated for her role in Love and Rage Solbjørg Højfeldt was nominated for her role in Lea Høyer was nominated for her role in 2011: Patricia Schumann won for her role as Sofie in Submarino was nominated for her role as Helena in Everything Will Be Fine Laura Skaarup Jensen was nominated for her role as Karen in The Experiment Rosalinde Mynster was nominated for her role as Julie in Truth About Men Paprika Steen was nominated for her role as Siri in Everything Will Be Fine 2012: Paprika Steen won for her role as Anna in SuperClásico was nominated for her role as Susan in Rebounce Charlotte Gainsbourg was nominated for her role as Claire in Melancholia Anne Louise Hassing was nominated for her role as Sanne in A Family Charlotte Rampling was nominated for her role as Gaby in Melancholia 2013: Frederikke Dahl Hansen won for her role as Maria in You & Me Forever Emilie Kruse was nominated for her role as Christine in You & Me Forever Elsebeth Stentoft was nominated for her role as Ingrid in Teddy Bear was nominated for her role in Trine Dyrholm was nominated for her role as Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in A Royal Affair 2014: Susse Wold won for her role as Grethe in The Hunt Anne Louise Hassing was nominated for her role as Agnes in The Hunt Kristin Scott Thomas was nominated for her role as Crystal in Only God Forgives Sonja Richter was nominated for her role as Merete Lynggaard in The Keeper of Lost Causes Uma Thurman was nominated for her role as Mrs H in Nymphomaniac 2015: won for her role in Klumpfisken 2016: Trine Pallesen won for her role as Katrine in Key House Mirror 2017: won for her role in In the Blood 2018: Julie Christiansen won for her role in : won for her role in A Fortunate Man 2020s \n : won for her role in Daniel : Sidse Babett Knudsen won for her role in ''\n\nSee also \n\n Robert Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1948 establishments in Denmark\nAwards established in 1948\nActress in a supporting role\nFilm awards for supporting actress",
"The Bodil Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role () is one of the merit categories presented by the Danish Film Critics Association at the annual Bodil Awards. Created in 1948, it is one of the oldest film awards in Europe, and it honours the best performance by an actress in a leading role in a Danish produced film. The jury can decide not to hand out the award; this has happened 12 times since 1953.\n\nHonorees\n\n1940s \n 1948: Bodil Kjer won for her role as Jenny Christensen in Jenny and the Soldier\n 1949: Karin Nellemose won for her role as Thyra Sabroe in Kampen mod uretten\n\n1950s \n 1950: Astrid Villaume won for her role as Susanne Drewes in Susanne\n 1951: Not awarded\n 1952: Bodil Kjer won for her role as Musen Polyhymnia in Mød mig på Cassiopeia\n 1953: Not awarded\n 1954: Tove Maës won for her role as in \n 1955: Birgitte Federspiel won for her role as Inger Borgen in Ordet\n 1956: Sigrid Horne-Rasmussen won for her role as Helga Nielsen in Altid ballade\n 1957: Birgit Sadolin won for her role as Johanne 'Joe' Hansen in \n 1958: Clara Pontoppidan won for her role as Enkefru Tang in En kvinde er overflødig\n 1959: Birgitte Federspiel won for her role as Vibeke in\n\n1960s \n 1960: Bodil Ipsen won for her role as Bedstemor Gunhild in Tro, håb og trolddom\n 1961: Lise Ringheim won for her role as Eva Sørensen in Den sidste vinter\n 1962: Not awarded\n 1963: Helle Virkner won for her role as Emilie in Den kære familie\n 1964: won for her role as Gudrun in Gudrun\n 1965: Lone Hertz won for her role as Tine Bølling in Tine\n 1966: Not awarded\n 1967: Lone Hertz won for her role as Lene in \n 1968: Harriet Andersson won for her role as Sofia Persson in Mennesker mødes og sød musik opstår i hjertet\n 1969: Not awarded\n\n1970s \n 1970: won for her role as Vera Bagger in Jazz All Around\n 1971: Tove Maës won for her role as Gerda Knudsen in \n 1972: Not awarded\n 1973: Lotte Tarp won for her role as Birthe Kold in \n 1974: Not awarded\n 1975: Agneta Ekmanner won for her role as Marianne Lorentzen in Per\n 1976: Ghita Nørby won for her role as Kirsten in \n 1977: Not awarded\n 1978: Not awarded\n 1979: Kirsten Olesen won for her role as Kirsten in In My Life\n\n1980s \n 1980: Not awarded\n 1981: Karen Lykkehus won for her role as Dagmar Larsen in Next Stop Paradise\n 1982: Solbjørg Højfeldt won for her role as Karen in \n 1983: Tove Maës won for her role as Inger Marie Maage in \n 1984: Line Arlien-Søborg won for her role as Mette in Beauty and the Beast\n 1985: Not awarded\n 1986: won for her role as Molly in \n 1987: won for her role as Henriette 'Henry in \n 1988: Not awarded\n 1989: won for her role as Maria in\n\n1990s \n 1990: Ghita Nørby won for her role as Regitze in Waltzing Regitze\n 1991: Trine Dyrholm won for her role as Pauline in \n 1992: Ghita Nørby won for her role as Rosha Cohen in Freud's Leaving Home\n 1993: Anne Louise Hassing won for her role as Kirsten in Pain of Love\n 1994: Sofie Gråbøl won for her role as Clara Uldahl-Ege in Black Harvest\n 1995: Kirsten Rolffes won for her role as Sigrid Drusse in The Kingdom\n 1996: Puk Scharbau won for her role as Lise (20-30 years) in \n was nominated for her role as Frederik's mother in \n Charlotte Sieling was nominated for her role as Hannah in \n 1997: Emily Watson won for her role as Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves\n 1998: Sidse Babett Knudsen won for her role as Julie in Let's Get Lost\n was nominated for her role as Johanne in \n Anneke von der Lippe was nominated for her role as Barbara in Barbara\n 1999: Bodil Jørgensen won for her role as Karen in The Idiots\n\n2000s \n 2000: Sidse Babett Knudsen won for her role as Sus in The One and Only\n 2001: Björk won for her role as Selma in Dancer in the Dark\n 2002: Stine Stengade won for her role as Kira in Kira's Reason: A Love Story\n 2003: Paprika Steen won for her role as Nete in Okay\n 2004: Birthe Neumann won for her role as Sara in Move Me\n 2005: Connie Nielsen won for her role in Brothers\n 2006: Trine Dyrholm won for her role as My Larsen in \n 2007: Trine Dyrholm won for her role as Charlotte in A Soap\n 2008: Noomi Rapace won for her role in Daisy Diamond\n 2009: won for her role in Terribly Happy\n\n2010s \n 2010: Charlotte Gainsbourg won for her role as She in Antichrist\n Lærke Winther Andersen was nominated for her role as Katrine in \n was nominated for her role as Charlotte in \n was nominated for her role as Barbara in \n Paprika Steen was nominated for her role as Thea Barfoed in Applause\n 2011: Trine Dyrholm won for her role as Marianne in Hævnen\n Julie Brochorst Andersen was nominated for her role as Sara in Hold Me Tight\n Ellen Hillingsø was nominated for her role as Nurse Gert in Eksperimentet\n Bodil Jørgensen was nominated for her role as Ingeborg in Smukke mennesker\n was nominated for her role in Smukke mennesker\n 2012: won for her role as Ditte in En familie\n Frederikke Dahl Hansen was nominated for her role as Louise in Frit fald\n Kirsten Dunst was nominated for her role as Justine in Melancholia\n was nominated for her role as Lina in Magi i luften\n 2013: won for her role as Helene in \n Trine Dyrholm was nominated for her role as Ida in Den skaldede frisør\n Alicia Vikander was nominated for her role as Caroline Matilda of Great Britain in En kongelig affære\n Bodil Jørgensen was nominated for her role as Gudrun Fiil in Hvidsten gruppen\n Julie Brochorst Andersen was nominated for her role as Laura in You & Me Forever\n 2014: Charlotte Gainsbourg won for her role as Joe in Nymphomaniac\n Sofie Gråbøl was nominated for her role as Helen in The Hour of the Lynx\n Stacy Martin was nominated for her role as Young Joe in Nymphomaniac\n Helle Fagralíð was nominated for her role as Signe in Sorrow and Joy\n 2015: Danica Curcic won for her role in Silent Heart\n 2016: won for her role as Ellen in \n 2017: Trine Dyrholm won for her role in The Commune\n 2018: Amanda Collin won for her role in En frygtelig kvinde\n : won for her role in Holiday\n\n2020s \n : Trine Dyrholm won for her role in Queen of Hearts\n : won for her role in A Perfectly Normal Family\n\nSee also \n\n Robert Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1948 establishments in Denmark\nAwards established in 1948\nActress in a Leading Role\nFilm awards for lead actress"
]
|
[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification"
]
| C_81609a9baa6d4e12ac620dd4c7c4ae4b_0 | was audio frequency amplification something he studied about? | 1 | Was audio frequency amplification something Lee de Forest studied about? | Lee de Forest | One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER | One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, | Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
Naval Consulting Board
Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni
People from Council Bluffs, Iowa
Radio pioneers
Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni | true | [
"An audion receiver makes use of a single vacuum tube or transistor to detect and amplify signals. It is so called because it originally used the audion tube as the active element. Unlike a crystal detector or Fleming valve detector, the audion provided amplification of the signal as well as detection. The audion was invented by Lee De Forest.\n\nIn its operation, the circuit demodulates the radio frequency (RF) signal by rectification or square-law detection, and then amplifies this demodulated signal. The capacitor in series with the grid and parallel resistance forms a grid-leak detector which allow the grid to cathode to be used as a diode. \n\nIn 1915 Edwin Armstrong developed an improved \"regenerative\" form of audion receiver that used the same vacuum tube for RF amplification, RF detection, and audio amplification.\n\nSee also\n Tuned radio frequency receiver\n\nReferences\n\nTypes of radios",
"A reflex radio receiver, occasionally called a reflectional receiver, is a radio receiver design in which the same amplifier is used to amplify the high-frequency radio signal (RF) and low-frequency audio (sound) signal (AF). It was first invented in 1914 by German scientists Wilhelm Schloemilch and Otto von Bronk, and rediscovered and extended to multiple tubes in 1917 by Marius Latour<ref name=\"Latour\">US Patent no. 1405523, Marius Latour Audion or lamp relay or amplifying apparatus, filed December 28, 1917; granted February 7, 1922</ref> and William H. Priess. The radio signal from the antenna and tuned circuit passes through an amplifier, is demodulated in a detector which extracts the audio signal from the radio carrier, and the resulting audio signal passes again through the same amplifier for audio amplification before being applied to the earphone or loudspeaker. The reason for using the amplifier for \"double duty\" was to reduce the number of active devices, vacuum tubes or transistors, required in the circuit, to reduce the cost. The economical reflex circuit was used in inexpensive vacuum tube radios in the 1920s, and was revived again in simple portable tube radios in the 1930s.\n\nHow it works\n\nThe block diagram shows the general form of a simple reflex receiver. The receiver functions as a tuned radio frequency (TRF) receiver. The radio frequency (RF) signal from the tuned circuit (bandpass filter) is amplified, then passes through the high pass filter to the demodulator, which extracts the audio frequency (AF) (modulation) signal from the carrier wave. The audio signal is added back into the input of the amplifier, and is amplified again. At the output of the amplifier the audio is separated from the RF signal by the low pass filter and is applied to the earphone. The amplifier could be a single stage or multiple stages. It can be seen that since each active device (tube or transistor) is used to amplify the signal twice, the reflex circuit is equivalent to an ordinary receiver with double the number of active devices. \n\nThe reflex receiver should not be confused with a regenerative receiver, in which the same signal is fed back from the output of the amplifier to its input. In the reflex circuit it is only the audio extracted by the demodulator which is added to the amplifier input, so there are two separate signals at different frequencies passing through the amplifier at the same time.\n\nThe reason the two signals, the RF and AF currents, can pass simultaneously through the amplifier without interfering is due to the superposition principle because the amplifier is linear. Since the two signals have different frequencies, they can be separated at the output with frequency selective filters. Therefore the proper functioning of the circuit depends on the amplifier operating in the linear region of its transfer curve. If the amplifier is significantly nonlinear, intermodulation distortion will occur and the audio signal will modulate the RF signal, resulting in audio feedback which can cause a shrieking in the earphone. The presence of the audio return circuit from the amplifier output to input made the reflex circuit vulnerable to such parasitic oscillation problems. \n\n Applications \nThe most common application of the reflex circuit in the 1920s was in inexpensive single tube receivers, because many consumers could not afford more than one vacuum tube, and the reflex circuit got the most out of a single tube, it was equivalent to a two-tube set. During this period the demodulator was usually a carborundum point contact diode, but sometimes a vacuum tube grid-leak detector. However multitube receivers like the TRF and superheterodyne were also made with some of their amplifier stages \"reflexed\".\n\nThe reflex principle was used in compact superheterodyne radio receivers from the 1930s to the early 1950s; the intermediate frequency amplifier stage was also the first audio frequency stage using a reflex arrangement. That arrangement provided similar performance, in a four-tube radio, as one with five tubes. At least one type of tube was specially designed for this kind of receiver design.\n\nExample\n\nThe diagram (right) shows one of the most common single tube reflex circuits from the early 1920s. It functioned as a TRF receiver with one stage of RF and one stage of audio amplification. The radio frequency (RF) signal from the antenna passes through the bandpass filter C1, L1, L2, C2 and is applied to the grid of the directly heated triode, V1. The capacitor C6 bypasses the RF signal around the audio transformer winding T2 which would block it. The amplified signal from the plate of the tube is applied to the RF transformer L3, L4 while C3 bypasses the RF signal around the headphone coils. The tuned secondary L4, C5 which is tuned to the input frequency, serves as a second bandpass filter as well as blocking the audio signal in the plate circuit from getting to the detector. Its output is rectified by semiconductor diode D, which was a carborundum point contact type. \n\nThe resulting audio signal extracted by the diode from the RF signal is coupled back into the grid circuit by audio transformer T1, T2 whose iron core serves as a choke to help prevent RF from getting back into the grid circuit and causing feedback. The capacitor C4 provides more protection against feedback, blocking the pulses of RF from the diode, but is usually not needed since the transformer's winding T1 normally has enough parasitic capacitance. The audio signal is applied to the grid of the tube and amplified. The amplified audio signal from the plate passes easily through the low inductance RF primary winding L3 and is applied to the earphones T. The rheostat 'R1''' controlled the filament current, and in these early sets was used as a volume control.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nSchematic of FADA model 160 neutrodyne radio, a reflectional receiver from the 1920s.\nSchematic of General Electric model F40 radio, a Super-Heterodyne receiver first manufactured in 1937.\n\nReceiver (radio)\nRadio electronics"
]
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[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification",
"was audio frequency amplification something he studied about?",
"One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals,"
]
| C_81609a9baa6d4e12ac620dd4c7c4ae4b_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 2 | Are there any other interesting aspects about Lee de Forest other than his research about improving reception signals? | Lee de Forest | One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER | July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. | Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
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Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni | 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"
]
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[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification",
"was audio frequency amplification something he studied about?",
"One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000."
]
| C_81609a9baa6d4e12ac620dd4c7c4ae4b_0 | Did he work alone in his research? | 3 | Did Lee de Forest work alone on the patents that AT&T bought? | Lee de Forest | One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER | an associate, John Stone Stone, | Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
Naval Consulting Board
Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni
People from Council Bluffs, Iowa
Radio pioneers
Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni | true | [
"Max Hugo Weigold (27 May 1886 – 9 July 1973) was a German zoologist and a pioneer bird bander who worked at the Heligoland Bird Observatory, one of the world's first bird-ringing sites.\n\nWeigold was born in Dresden. He studied natural sciences and geography in Jena and Leipzig. Here he was influenced by Ernst Haeckel, Richard Woltereck, Otto zur Strassen and Carl Chun. He worked for the Scientific Commission for Marine Research in Heligoland, a German island in the North Sea, where he continued the work of Heinrich Gätke (who died in 1897) in bird migration studies, setting up the bird observatory in 1910 to trap and band the migratory birds passing through the island.\n\nFor six years Weigold carried out zoological research in China and Tibet and was the first Westerner to see a live giant panda in the wild, buying a cub (which did not survive for long) while part of the Stoetzner Expedition in 1916. He later became Director of Natural Sciences at the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover. He died in Bruckberg, Lower Bavaria.\n\nWeigold collected a large number of specimens, nearly 3800 during his 1913-16 expedition and 1000 from 1931–32. He named 5 subspecies alone and 7 co-authored with Otto Kleinschmidt. There were 13 other new descriptions including ones with Ernst Hartert and Erwin Stresemann. About six bird species and seven vertebrates are named after him.\n\nReferences\n\n1886 births\n1973 deaths\n20th-century German zoologists\nGerman ornithologists\nHeligoland\nGiant pandas",
"The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone is a non-fiction book written by Olivia Laing. The book was first published by Picador in 2016 and, like Laing's previous works, it blends research, biography and memoir. \n\nThe majority of the research for the book took place when Laing was living alone in New York City after having been abruptly left by a partner. Her reflections on the isolation she felt during this time make their way into the book.\n\nOverview\nThe book is divided into eight chapters, with each chapter beginning with Laing's experiences being alone in New York, before devolving into reflections on artists and the way in which loneliness permeated their work. In order, the artists discussed are:\n\nEdward Hopper (and his wife Josephine Hopper)\nAndy Warhol\nDavid Wojnarowicz\nHenry Darger\nKlaus Nomi\nJosh Harris\nZoe Leonard\n\nReception\nThe book was well-received, earning generally positive reviews.\n\nReferences\n\nBooks about artists\nBooks about New York City\n2016 non-fiction books"
]
|
[
"Lee de Forest",
"Audio frequency amplification",
"was audio frequency amplification something he studied about?",
"One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000.",
"Did he work alone in his research?",
"an associate, John Stone Stone,"
]
| C_81609a9baa6d4e12ac620dd4c7c4ae4b_0 | What kinds of things could be done with audio frequency amplification? | 4 | What kinds of things could Lee de Forest do with audio frequency amplification? | Lee de Forest | One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions. At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Due to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that by improving the tube's design, it could be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to successfully operate at telephone line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented). After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco. CANNOTANSWER | Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals | Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and early pioneer in radio and in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 300 patents worldwide, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although de Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Early life
Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret ( Robbins) and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th century due to religious persecution.
De Forest's father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would also become a pastor. In 1879 the elder de Forest became president of the American Missionary Association's Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, a school "open to all of either sex, without regard to sect, race, or color", and which educated primarily African-Americans. Many of the local white citizens resented the school and its mission, and Lee spent most of his youth in Talladega isolated from the white community, with several close friends among the black children of the town.
De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys' School in Mount Hermon, Massachusetts for two years, beginning in 1891. In 1893, he enrolled in a three-year course of studies at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in New Haven, Connecticut, on a $300 per year scholarship that had been established for relatives of David de Forest. Convinced that he was destined to become a famous—and rich—inventor, and perpetually short of funds, he sought to interest companies with a series of devices and puzzles he created, and expectantly submitted essays in prize competitions, all with little success.
After completing his undergraduate studies, in September 1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his electrical experiments had a tendency to blow fuses, causing building-wide blackouts. Even after being warned to be more careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles S. Hastings, who responded by having de Forest expelled from Sheffield.
With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, de Forest enrolled in the Connecticut Volunteer Militia Battery as a bugler, but the war ended and he was mustered out without ever leaving the state. He then completed his studies at Yale's Sloane Physics Laboratory, earning a Doctorate in 1899 with a dissertation on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", supervised by theoretical physicist Willard Gibbs. He was scientist
Early radio work
Reflecting his pioneering work, de Forest has sometimes been credited as the "Father of Radio", an honorific which he adopted as the title of his 1950 autobiography. In the late 1800s he became convinced there was a great future in radiotelegraphic communication (then known as "wireless telegraphy"), but Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who received his first patent in 1896, was already making impressive progress in both Europe and the United States. One drawback of Marconi's approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was also slow (after each received Morse code dot or dash, it had to be tapped to restore operation), insensitive, and not very reliable. De Forest was determined to devise a better system, including a self-restoring detector that could receive transmissions by ear, thus making it capable of receiving weaker signals and also allowing faster Morse code sending speeds.
After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi, de Forest struck out on his own. His first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Company's telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass. Their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses. De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called "responders".
A series of short-term positions followed, including three unproductive months with Professor Warren S. Johnson's American Wireless Telegraph Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and work as an assistant editor of the Western Electrician in Chicago. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a night teaching position at the Lewis Institute, which freed him to conduct experiments at the Armour Institute. By 1900, using a spark-coil transmitter and his responder receiver, de Forest expanded his transmitting range to about seven kilometers (four miles). Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forest's work and developed a new type of spark transmitter.
De Forest soon felt that Smythe and Freeman were holding him back, so in the fall of 1901 he made the bold decision to go to New York to compete directly with Marconi in transmitting race results for the International Yacht races. Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers' Press Association.
The race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down—in a fit of rage, de Forest threw it overboard—and had to be replaced by an ordinary spark coil. Even worse, the American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company, which claimed its ownership of Amos Dolbear's 1886 patent for wireless communication meant it held a monopoly for all wireless communication in the United States, had also set up a powerful transmitter. None of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. Although an attempt was made to have the three systems avoid conflicts by rotating operations over five-minute intervals, the agreement broke down, resulting in chaos as the simultaneous transmissions clashed with each other. De Forest ruefully noted that under these conditions the only successful "wireless" communication was done by visual semaphore "wig-wag" flags. (The 1903 International Yacht races would be a repeat of 1901—Marconi worked for the Associated Press, de Forest for the Publishers' Press Association, and the unaffiliated International Wireless Company (successor to 1901's American Wireless Telephone and Telegraph) operated a high-powered transmitter that was used primarily to drown out the other two.)
American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company
Despite this setback, de Forest remained in the New York City area, in order to raise interest in his ideas and capital to replace the small working companies that had been formed to promote his work thus far. In January 1902 he met a promoter, Abraham White, who would become de Forest's main sponsor for the next five years. White envisioned bold and expansive plans that enticed the inventor—however, he was also dishonest and much of the new enterprise would be built on wild exaggeration and stock fraud. To back de Forest's efforts, White incorporated the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, with himself as the company's president, and de Forest the Scientific Director. The company claimed as its goal the development of "world-wide wireless".
The original "responder" receiver (also known as the "goo anti-coherer") proved to be too crude to be commercialized, and de Forest struggled to develop a non-infringing device for receiving radio signals. In 1903, Reginald Fessenden demonstrated an electrolytic detector, and de Forest developed a variation, which he called the "spade detector", claiming it did not infringe on Fessenden's patents. Fessenden, and the U.S. courts, did not agree, and court injunctions enjoined American De Forest from using the device.
Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer SS Haimun, which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of The Times of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there).
The company's most important early contract was the construction, in 1905–1906, of five high-powered radiotelegraph stations for the U.S. Navy, located in Panama, Pensacola and Key West, Florida, Guantanamo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It also installed shore stations along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes, and equipped shipboard stations. But the main focus was selling stock at ever more inflated prices, spurred by the construction of promotional inland stations. Most of these inland stations had no practical use and were abandoned once the local stock sales slowed.
De Forest eventually came into conflict with his company's management. His main complaint was the limited support he got for conducting research, while company officials were upset with de Forest's inability to develop a practical receiver free of patent infringement. (This problem was finally resolved with the invention of the carborundum crystal detector by another company employee, General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody). On November 28, 1906, in exchange for $1000 (half of which was claimed by an attorney) and the rights to some early Audion detector patents, de Forest turned in his stock and resigned from the company that bore his name. American DeForest was then reorganized as the United Wireless Telegraph Company, and would be the dominant U.S. radio communications firm, albeit propped up by massive stock fraud, until its bankruptcy in 1912.
Radio Telephone Company
De Forest moved quickly to re-establish himself as an independent inventor, working in his own laboratory in the Parker Building in New York City. The Radio Telephone Company was incorporated in order to promote his inventions, with James Dunlop Smith, a former American DeForest salesman, as president, and de Forest the vice president (De Forest preferred the term radio, which up to now had been primarily used in Europe, over wireless).
Arc radiotelephone development
At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Valdemar Poulsen had presented a paper on an arc transmitter, which unlike the discontinuous pulses produced by spark transmitters, created steady "continuous wave" signals that could be used for amplitude modulated (AM) audio transmissions. Although Poulsen had patented his invention, de Forest claimed to have come up with a variation that allowed him to avoid infringing on Poulsen's work. Using his "sparkless" arc transmitter, de Forest first transmitted audio across a lab room on December 31, 1906, and by February was making experimental transmissions, including music produced by Thaddeus Cahill's telharmonium, that were heard throughout the city.
On July 18, 1907, de Forest made the first ship-to-shore transmissions by radiotelephone—race reports for the Annual Inter-Lakes Yachting Association (I-LYA) Regatta held on Lake Erie—which were sent from the steam yacht Thelma to his assistant, Frank E. Butler, located in the Fox's Dock Pavilion on South Bass Island. De Forest also interested the U.S. Navy in his radiotelephone, which placed a rush order to have 26 arc sets installed for its Great White Fleet around-the-world voyage that began in late 1907. However, at the conclusion of the circumnavigation the sets were declared to be too unreliable to meet the Navy's needs and removed.
The company set up a network of radiotelephone stations along the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, for coastal ship navigation. However, the installations proved unprofitable, and by 1911 the parent company and its subsidiaries were on the brink of bankruptcy.
Initial broadcasting experiments
De Forest also used the arc-transmitter to conduct some of the earliest experimental entertainment radio broadcasts. Eugenia Farrar sang "I Love You Truly" in an unpublicized test from his laboratory in 1907, and in 1908, on de Forest's Paris honeymoon, musical selections were broadcast from the Eiffel Tower as a part of demonstrations of the arc-transmitter. In early 1909, in what may have been the first public speech by radio, de Forest's mother-in-law, Harriot Stanton Blatch, made a broadcast supporting women's suffrage.
More ambitious demonstrations followed. A series of tests in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City were conducted to determine whether it was practical to broadcast opera performances live from the stage. Tosca was performed on January 12, 1910, and the next day's test included Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. On February 24, the Manhattan Opera Company's Mme. Mariette Mazarin sang "La Habanera" from Carmen over a transmitter located in de Forest's lab. But these tests showed that the idea was not yet technically feasible, and de Forest would not make any additional entertainment broadcasts until late 1916, when more capable vacuum-tube equipment became available.
"Grid" Audion detector
De Forest's most famous invention was the "grid Audion", which was the first successful three-element (triode) vacuum tube, and the first device which could amplify electrical signals. He traced its inspiration to 1900, when, experimenting with a spark-gap transmitter, he briefly thought that the flickering of a nearby gas flame might be in response to electromagnetic pulses. With further tests he soon determined that the cause of the flame fluctuations actually was due to air pressure changes produced by the loud sound of the spark. Still, he was intrigued by the idea that, properly configured, it might be possible to use a flame or something similar to detect radio signals.
After determining that an open flame was too susceptible to ambient air currents, de Forest investigated whether ionized gases, heated and enclosed in a partially evacuated glass tube, could be used instead. In 1905 to 1906 he developed various configurations of glass-tube devices, which he gave the general name of "Audions". The first Audions had only two electrodes, and on October 25, 1906, de Forest filed a patent for diode vacuum tube detector, that was granted U.S. patent number 841387 on January 15, 1907. Subsequently, a third "control" electrode was added, originally as a surrounding metal cylinder or a wire coiled around the outside of the glass tube. None of these initial designs worked particularly well. De Forest gave a presentation of his work to date to the October 26, 1906 New York meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was reprinted in two parts in late 1907 in the Scientific American Supplement. He was insistent that a small amount of residual gas was necessary for the tubes to operate properly. However, he also admitted that "I have arrived as yet at no completely satisfactory theory as to the exact means by which the high-frequency oscillations affect so markedly the behavior of an ionized gas."
In late 1906, de Forest made a breakthrough when he reconfigured the control electrode, moving it from outside the tube envelope to a position inside the tube between the filament and the plate. He called the intermediate electrode a grid, reportedly due to its similarity to the "gridiron" lines on American football playing fields. Experiments conducted with his assistant, John V. L. Hogan, convinced him that he had discovered an important new radio detector. He quickly prepared a patent application which was filed on January 29, 1907, and received on February 18, 1908. Because the grid-control Audion was the only configuration to become commercially valuable, the earlier versions were forgotten, and the term Audion later became synonymous with just the grid type. It later also became known as the triode.
The grid Audion was the first device to amplify, albeit only slightly, the strength of received radio signals. However, to many observers it appeared that de Forest had done nothing more than add the grid electrode to an existing detector configuration, the Fleming valve, which also consisted of a filament and plate enclosed in an evacuated glass tube. De Forest passionately denied the similarly of the two devices, claiming his invention was a relay that amplified currents, while the Fleming valve was merely a rectifier that converted alternating current to direct current. (For this reason, de Forest objected to his Audion being referred to as "a valve".) The U.S. courts were not convinced, and ruled that the grid Audion did in fact infringe on the Fleming valve patent, now held by Marconi. In contrast, Marconi admitted that the addition of the third electrode was a patentable improvement, and the two sides agreed to license each other so that both could manufacture three-electrode tubes in the United States. (De Forest's European patents had lapsed because he did not have the funds needed to renew them).
Because of its limited uses and the great variability in the quality of individual units, the grid Audion would be rarely used during the first half-decade after its invention. In 1908, John V. L. Hogan reported that "The Audion is capable of being developed into a really efficient detector, but in its present forms is quite unreliable and entirely too complex to be properly handled by the usual wireless operator."
Employment at Federal Telegraph
In May 1910, the Radio Telephone Company and its subsidiaries were reorganized as the North American Wireless Corporation, but financial difficulties meant that the company's activities had nearly come to a halt. De Forest moved to San Francisco, California, and in early 1911 took a research job at the Federal Telegraph Company, which produced long-range radiotelegraph systems using high-powered Poulsen arcs.
Audio frequency amplification
One of de Forest's areas of research at Federal Telegraph was improving the reception of signals, and he came up with the idea of strengthening the audio frequency output from a grid Audion by feeding it into a second tube for additional amplification. He called this a "cascade amplifier", which eventually consisted of chaining together up to three Audions.
At this time the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was researching ways to amplify telephone signals to provide better long-distance service, and it was recognized that de Forest's device had potential as a telephone line repeater. In mid-1912 an associate, John Stone Stone, contacted AT&T to arrange for de Forest to demonstrate his invention. It was found that de Forest's "gassy" version of the Audion could not handle even the relatively low voltages used by telephone lines. (Owing to the way he constructed the tubes, de Forest's Audions would cease to operate with too high a vacuum.) However, careful research by Dr. Harold D. Arnold and his team at AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary determined that improving the tube's design would allow it to be more fully evacuated, and the high vacuum allowed it to operate at telephone-line voltages. With these changes the Audion evolved into a modern electron-discharge vacuum tube, using electron flows rather than ions. (Dr. Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Corporation made similar findings, and both he and Arnold attempted to patent the "high vacuum" construction, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1931 that this modification could not be patented).
After a delay of ten months, in July 1913 AT&T, through a third party who disguised his link to the telephone company, purchased the wire rights to seven Audion patents for $50,000. De Forest had hoped for a higher payment, but was again in bad financial shape and was unable to bargain for more. In 1915, AT&T used the innovation to conduct the first transcontinental telephone calls, in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco.
Reorganized Radio Telephone Company
Radio Telephone Company officials had engaged in some of the same stock selling excesses that had taken place at American DeForest, and as part of the U.S. government's crackdown on stock fraud, in March 1912 de Forest, plus four other company officials, were arrested and charged with "use of the mails to defraud". Their trials took place in late 1913, and while three of the defendants were found guilty, de Forest was acquitted. With the legal problems behind him, de Forest reorganized his company as the DeForest Radio Telephone Company, and established a laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City. The company's limited finances were boosted by the sale, in October 1914, of the commercial Audion patent rights for radio signalling to AT&T for $90,000, with de Forest retaining the rights for sales for "amateur and experimental use". In October 1915 AT&T conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia that were heard as far away as Paris and Hawaii.
The Radio Telephone Company began selling "Oscillion" power tubes to amateurs, suitable for radio transmissions. The company wanted to keep a tight hold on the tube business, and originally maintained a policy that retailers had to require their customers to return a worn-out tube before they could get a replacement. This style of business encouraged others to make and sell unlicensed vacuum tubes which did not impose a return policy. One of the boldest was Audio Tron Sales Company founded in 1915 by Elmer T. Cunningham of San Francisco, whose Audio Tron tubes cost less but were of equal or higher quality. The de Forest company sued Audio Tron Sales, eventually settling out of court.
In April 1917, the company's remaining commercial radio patent rights were sold to AT&T's Western Electric subsidiary for $250,000. During World War I, the Radio Telephone Company prospered from sales of radio equipment to the military. However, it also became known for the poor quality of its vacuum tubes, especially compared to those produced by major industrial manufacturers such as General Electric and Western Electric.
Regeneration controversy
Beginning in 1912, there was increased investigation of vacuum-tube capabilities, simultaneously by numerous inventors in multiple countries, who identified additional important uses for the device. These overlapping discoveries led to complicated legal disputes over priority, perhaps the most bitter being one in the United States between de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong over the discovery of regeneration (also known as the "feedback circuit" and, by de Forest, as the "ultra-audion").
Beginning in 1913 Armstrong prepared papers and gave demonstrations that comprehensively documented how to employ three-element vacuum tubes in circuits that amplified signals to stronger levels than previously thought possible, and that could also generate high-power oscillations usable for radio transmission. In late 1913 Armstrong applied for patents covering the regenerative circuit, and on October 6, 1914 was issued for his discovery.
U.S. patent law included a provision for challenging grants if another inventor could prove prior discovery. With an eye to increasing the value of the patent portfolio that would be sold to Western Electric in 1917, beginning in 1915 de Forest filed a series of patent applications that largely copied Armstrong's claims, in the hopes of having the priority of the competing applications upheld by an interference hearing at the patent office. Based on a notebook entry recorded at the time, de Forest asserted that, while working on the cascade amplifier, he had stumbled on August 6, 1912 across the feedback principle, which was then used in the spring of 1913 to operate a low-powered transmitter for heterodyne reception of Federal Telegraph arc transmissions. However, there was also strong evidence that de Forest was unaware of the full significance of this discovery, as shown by his lack of follow-up and continuing misunderstanding of the physics involved. In particular, it appeared that he was unaware of the potential for further development until he became familiar with Armstrong's research. De Forest was not alone in the interference determination—the patent office identified four competing claimants for its hearings, consisting of Armstrong, de Forest, General Electric's Langmuir, and a German, Alexander Meissner, whose application would be seized by the Office of Alien Property Custodian during World War I.
The subsequent legal proceedings become divided between two groups of court cases. The first court action began in January 1920 when Armstrong, with Westinghouse, which purchased his patent, sued the De Forest Company in district court for infringement of patent 1,113,149. On May 17, 1921 the court ruled that the lack of awareness and understanding on de Forest's part, in addition to the fact that he had made no immediate advances beyond his initial observation, made implausible his attempt to prevail as inventor.
However, a second series of court cases, which were the result of the patent office interference proceeding, had a different outcome. The interference board had also sided with Armstrong, and de Forest appealed its decision to the District of Columbia district court. On May 8, 1924, that court concluded that the evidence, beginning with the 1912 notebook entry, was sufficient to establish de Forest's priority. Now on the defensive, Armstrong's side tried to overturn the decision, but these efforts, which twice went before the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1928 and 1934, were unsuccessful.
This judicial ruling meant that Lee de Forest was now legally recognized in the United States as the inventor of regeneration. However, much of the engineering community continued to consider Armstrong to be the actual developer, with de Forest viewed as someone who skillfully used the patent system to get credit for an invention to which he had barely contributed. Following the 1934 Supreme Court decision, Armstrong attempted to return his Institute of Radio Engineers (present-day Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Medal of Honor, which had been awarded to him in 1917 "in recognition of his work and publications dealing with the action of the oscillating and non-oscillating audion", but the organization's board refused to let him, stating that it "strongly affirms the original award". The practical effect of de Forest's victory was that his company was free to sell products that used regeneration, for during the controversy, which became more a personal feud than a business dispute, Armstrong tried to block the company from even being licensed to sell equipment under his patent.
De Forest regularly responded to articles which he thought exaggerated Armstrong's contributions with animosity that continued even after Armstrong's 1954 suicide. Following the publication of Carl Dreher's "E. H. Armstrong, the Hero as Inventor" in the August 1956 Harper's magazine, de Forest wrote the author, describing Armstrong as "exceedingly arrogant, brow beating, even brutal...", and defending the Supreme Court decision in his favor.
Renewed broadcasting activities
In the summer of 1915, the company received an Experimental license for station 2XG, located at its Highbridge laboratory. In late 1916, de Forest renewed the entertainment broadcasts he had suspended in 1910, now using the superior capabilities of vacuum-tube equipment. 2XG's debut program aired on October 26, 1916, as part of an arrangement with the Columbia Graphophone Company to promote its recordings, which included "announcing the title and 'Columbia Gramophone [sic] Company' with each playing". Beginning November 1, the "Highbridge Station" offered a nightly schedule featuring the Columbia recordings.
These broadcasts were also used to advertise "the products of the DeForest Radio Co., mostly the radio parts, with all the zeal of our catalogue and price list", until comments by Western Electric engineers caused de Forest enough embarrassment to make him decide to eliminate the direct advertising. The station also made the first audio broadcast of election reports—in earlier elections, stations that broadcast results had used Morse code—providing news of the November 1916 Wilson-Hughes presidential election. The New York American installed a private wire and bulletins were sent out every hour. About 2,000 listeners heard The Star-Spangled Banner and other anthems, songs, and hymns.
With the entry of the United States into World War I on April 6, 1917, all civilian radio stations were ordered to shut down, so 2XG was silenced for the duration of the war. The ban on civilian stations was lifted on October 1, 1919, and 2XG soon renewed operation, with the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company now supplying the phonograph records. In early 1920, de Forest moved the station's transmitter from the Bronx to Manhattan, but did not have permission to do so, so district Radio Inspector Arthur Batcheller ordered the station off the air. De Forest's response was to return to San Francisco in March, taking 2XG's transmitter with him. A new station, 6XC, was established as "The California Theater station", which de Forest later stated was the "first radio-telephone station devoted solely" to broadcasting to the public.
Later that year a de Forest associate, Clarence "C.S." Thompson, established Radio News & Music, Inc., in order to lease de Forest radio transmitters to newspapers interested in setting up their own broadcasting stations. In August 1920, The Detroit News began operation of "The Detroit News Radiophone", initially with the callsign 8MK, which later became broadcasting station WWJ.
Phonofilm sound-on-film process
In 1921, de Forest ended most of his radio research in order to concentrate on developing an optical sound-on-film process called Phonofilm. In 1919 he filed the first patent for the new system, which improved upon earlier work by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt and the German partnership Tri-Ergon. Phonofilm recorded the electrical waveforms produced by a microphone photographically onto film, using parallel lines of variable shades of gray, an approach known as "variable density", in contrast to "variable area" systems used by processes such as RCA Photophone. When the movie film was projected, the recorded information was converted back into sound, in synchronization with the picture.
From October 1921 to September 1922, de Forest lived in Berlin, Germany, meeting the Tri-Ergon developers (German inventors Josef Engl (1893–1942), Hans Vogt (1890–1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889–1957)) and investigating other European sound film systems. In April 1922 he announced that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On March 12, 1923 he demonstrated Phonofilm to the press; this was followed on April 12, 1923 by a private demonstration to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Building's Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City.
In November 1922, de Forest established the De Forest Phonofilm Company, located at 314 East 48th Street in New York City. But none of the Hollywood movie studios expressed interest in his invention, and because at this time these studios controlled all the major theater chains, this meant de Forest was limited to showing his experimental films in independent theaters (The Phonofilm Company would file for bankruptcy in September 1926.).
After recording stage performances (such as in vaudeville), speeches, and musical acts, on April 15, 1923 de Forest premiered 18 Phonofilm short films at the independent Rivoli Theater in New York City. Starting in May 1924, Max and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tune series of cartoons—featuring the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" gimmick. However, de Forest's choice of primarily filming short vaudeville acts, instead of full-length features, limited the appeal of Phonofilm to Hollywood studios.
De Forest also worked with Freeman Harrison Owens and Theodore Case, using their work to perfect the Phonofilm system. However, de Forest had a falling out with both men. Due to de Forest's continuing misuse of Theodore Case's inventions and failure to publicly acknowledge Case's contributions, the Case Research Laboratory proceeded to build its own camera. That camera was used by Case and his colleague Earl Sponable to record Calvin Coolidge on August 11, 1924, which was one of the films shown by de Forest and claimed by him to be the product of his inventions.
Believing that de Forest was more concerned with his own fame and recognition than he was with actually creating a workable system of sound film, and because of his continuing attempts to downplay the contributions of the Case Research Laboratory in the creation of Phonofilm, Case severed his ties with de Forest in the fall of 1925. Case successfully negotiated an agreement to use his patents with studio head William Fox, owner of Fox Film Corporation, who marketed the innovation as Fox Movietone. Warner Brothers introduced a competing method for sound film, the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process developed by Western Electric, with the August 6, 1926 release of the John Barrymore film Don Juan.
In 1927 and 1928, Hollywood expanded its use of sound-on-film systems, including Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone. Meanwhile, theater chain owner Isadore Schlesinger purchased the UK rights to Phonofilm and released short films of British music hall performers from September 1926 to May 1929. Almost 200 Phonofilm shorts were made, and many are preserved in the collections of the Library of Congress and the British Film Institute.
Later years and death
In April 1923, the De Forest Radio Telephone & Telegraph Company, which manufactured de Forest's Audions for commercial use, was sold to a group headed by Edward Jewett of Jewett-Paige Motors, which expanded the company's factory to cope with rising demand for radios. The sale also bought the services of de Forest, who was focusing his attention on newer innovations. De Forest's finances were badly hurt by the stock market crash of 1929, and research in mechanical television proved unprofitable. In 1934, he established a small shop to produce diathermy machines, and, in a 1942 interview, still hoped "to make at least one more great invention".
De Forest was a vocal critic of many of the developments in the entertainment side of the radio industry. In 1940 he sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie." That same year, de Forest and early TV engineer Ulises Armand Sanabria presented the concept of a primitive unmanned combat air vehicle using a television camera and a jam-resistant radio control in a Popular Mechanics issue. In 1950 his autobiography, Father of Radio, was published, although it sold poorly.
De Forest was the guest celebrity on the May 22, 1957, episode of the television show This Is Your Life, where he was introduced as "the father of radio and the grandfather of television". He suffered a severe heart attack in 1958, after which he remained mostly bedridden. He died in Hollywood on June 30, 1961, aged 87, and was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. De Forest died relatively poor, with just $1,250 in his bank account.
Legacy
The grid Audion, which de Forest called "my greatest invention", and the vacuum tubes developed from it, dominated the field of electronics for forty years, making possible long-distance telephone service, radio broadcasting, television, and many other applications. It could also be used as an electronic switching element, and was later used in early digital electronics, including the first electronic computers, although the 1948 invention of the transistor would lead to microchips that eventually supplanted vacuum-tube technology. For this reason de Forest has been called one of the founders of the "electronic age".
According to Donald Beaver, his intense desire to overcome the deficiencies of his childhood account for his independence, self-reliance, and inventiveness. He displayed a strong desire to achieve, to conquer hardship, and to devote himself to a career of invention. "He possessed the qualities of the traditional tinkerer-inventor: visionary faith, self-confidence, perseverance, the capacity for sustained hard work."<ref>John A. Garraty, ed., encyclopedia of American biography 1974 pp 268–269. </ref>
De Forest's archives were donated by his widow to the Perham Electronic Foundation, which in 1973 opened the Foothills Electronics Museum at Foothill College in Los Altos Hils, California. In 1991 the college closed the museum, breaking its contract. The foundation won a lawsuit and was awarded $775,000. The holdings were placed in storage for twelve years, before being acquired in 2003 by History San José and put on display as The Perham Collection of Early Electronics.
Awards and recognition
Charter member, in 1912, of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).
Received the 1922 IRE Medal of Honor, in "recognition for his invention of the three-electrode amplifier and his other contributions to radio".
Awarded the 1923 Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal for "inventions embodied in the Audion".
Received the 1946 American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal, "For the profound technical and social consequences of the grid-controlled vacuum tube which he had introduced".
Honorary Academy Award Oscar presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1960, in recognition of "his pioneering inventions which brought sound to the motion picture".
Honored February 8, 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
DeVry University was originally named the De Forest Training School by its founder Dr. Herman A. De Vry, who was a friend and colleague of de Forest.
Personal life
Marriages
De Forest was married four times, with the first three marriages ending in divorce:
Lucille Sheardown in February 1906. Divorced before the end of the year.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883–1971) on February 14, 1908. They had a daughter, Harriet, but were separated by 1909 and divorced in 1912.
Mary Mayo (1892–1957) in December 1912. According to census records, in 1920 they were living with their infant daughter, Deena (born ca. 1919); divorced October 5, 1930 (per Los Angeles Times). Mayo died December 30, 1957 in a fire in Los Angeles.
Marie Mosquini (1899–1983) on October 10, 1930; Mosquini was a silent film actress, and they remained married until his death in 1961.
Politics
De Forest was a conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist and anti-fascist. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt, but later came to resent him, calling Roosevelt America's "first Fascist president". In 1949, he "sent letters to all members of Congress urging them to vote against socialized medicine, federally subsidized housing, and an excess profits tax". In 1952, he wrote to the newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon, urging him to "prosecute with renewed vigor your valiant fight to put out Communism from every branch of our government". In December 1953, he cancelled his subscription to The Nation, accusing it of being "lousy with Treason, crawling with Communism."
Religious views
Although raised in a strongly religious Protestant household, de Forest later became an agnostic. In his autobiography, he wrote that in the summer of 1894 there was an important shift in his beliefs: "Through that Freshman vacation at Yale I became more of a philosopher than I have ever since. And thus, one by one, were my childhood's firm religious beliefs altered or reluctantly discarded."
Quotes
De Forest was given to expansive predictions, many of which were not borne out, but he also made many correct predictions, including microwave communication and cooking.
"I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite."
"I foresee great refinements in the field of short-pulse microwave signaling, whereby several simultaneous programs may occupy the same channel, in sequence, with incredibly swift electronic communication. [...] Short waves will be generally used in the kitchen for roasting and baking, almost instantaneously." – 1952
"So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, yet commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need not waste little time in dreaming." – 1926
"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." – 1957
"I do not foresee 'spaceships' to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!" – 1952
"As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." – 1952
"I came, I saw, I invented—it's that simple—no need to sit and think—it's all in your imagination."
PatentsPatent images in TIFF format "Wireless Signaling Device" (directional antenna), filed December 1902, issued January 1904;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector diode), filed January 1906, issued June 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System" (separate transmitting and receiving antennas), filed December 1905, issued July 1906;
"Wireless Telegraph System," filed January 1906 issued July 1906;
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed May 1906, issued November 1906;
"Wireless Telegraphy" (tunable vacuum tube detector – no grid), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" (...), filed August 1906, issued January 1907;
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitting System" (antenna coupler), filed May 1904, issued January 1908;
"Space Telegraphy" (increased sensitivity detector – clearly shows grid), filed January 1907, issued February 18, 1908;
"Wireless Telegraphy";
"Wireless Telegraph Tuning Device";
"Wireless Telegraph Transmitter," filed February 1906, issued July 1909;
"Space Telegraphy";
"Space Telephony";
"Oscillation Responsive Device" (parallel plates in Bunsen flame) filed February 1905, issued December 1910;
"Transmission of Music by Electromagnetic Waves";
"Wireless Telegraphy" (directional antenna/direction finder), filed June 1906, issued June 1914;
"Wireless Telegraphy."
See also
Birth of public radio broadcasting
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts
Robert von Lieben
References
Further reading
Adams, Mike. Lee de Forest: king of radio, television, and film (Springer Science & Business Media, 2011).
Adams, Mike. "Lee de Forest and the Invention of Sound Movies, 1918–1926" The AWA Review (vol. 26, 2013).
Aitken, , Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932 (1985).
De Forest, Lee. Father of radio: the autobiography of Lee de Forest' (Wilcox & Follett, 1950).
Chipman, Robert A. "De Forest and the Triode Detector" Scientific American, March 1965, pp. 93–101.
Hijiya, James A. Lee de Forest and the Fatherhood of Radio (Lehigh UP, 1992).
Lubell, Samuel. "'Magnificent Failure'" Saturday Evening Post, three parts: January 17, 1942 (pp. 9–11, 75–76, 78, 80), January 24, 1942 (pp. 20–21, 27–28, 38, and 43), and January 31, 1942 (pp. 27, 38, 40–42, 46, 48–49).
Tyne, Gerald E. J. Saga of the Vacuum Tube (Howard W. Sams and Company, 1977). Tyne was a research associate with the Smithsonian Institution. Details de Forest's activities from the invention of the Audion to 1930.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio by Ken Burns a PBS Documentary Video 1992. Focuses on three of the individuals who made significant contributions to the early radio industry in the United States: De Forest, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. LINK
External links
Lee de Forest, American Inventor (leedeforest.com)
Lee de Forest biography (ethw.org)
Lee de Forest biography at National Inventors Hall of Fame
"Who said Lee de Forest was the 'Father of Radio'?" by Stephen Greene, Mass Comm Review, February 1991.
"Practical Pointers on the Audion" by A. B. Cole, Sales Manager – De Forest Radio Tel. & Tel. Co., QST'', March 1916, pp. 41–44. (wikisource.org)
"A History of the Regeneration Circuit: From Invention to Patent Litigation" by Sungook Hong, Seoul National University (PDF)
"De Forest Phonofilm Co. Inc. on White House grounds" (1924) (shorpy.com)
Guide to the Lee De Forest Papers 1902–1953 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1873 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American inventors
Academy Honorary Award recipients
American agnostics
American anti-fascists
American electrical engineers
Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
California Republicans
History of radio
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
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Naval Consulting Board
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Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science alumni | true | [
"Bi-amping and tri-amping is the practice of using two or three audio amplifiers to amplify different audio frequency ranges, with the amplified signals being routed to different speaker drivers, such as woofers, subwoofers and tweeters. Biamping can be done with a single power amplifier if the device has more than one amplifier, as the case with a stereo power amp. Triamping cannot be done with a stereo power amp; a mono power amp would need to be added or a home theatre receiver (often 5 or more amplifiers) could be used. With bi-amping and tri-amping, an audio crossover is used to divide a sound signal into different frequency ranges, each of which is then separately amplified and routed to separate loudspeaker drivers. In some bass amplifiers using bi-amping, the woofer and horn-loaded tweeter are in the same speaker enclosure. In some bi-amp set-ups, the drivers are in separate speaker enclosures, such as with home stereos that contain two speakers and a separate subwoofer.\n\nDescription\n\n\"Bi-amping\" is the use of two channels of amplification to power each loudspeaker within an audio system. \"Tri-amping\" is the practice of connecting three channels of amplification to a loudspeaker unit: one to power the bass driver (woofer), one to power the mid-range and the third to power the treble driver (tweeter). The terms derive from the prefix bi- meaning 'two', tri- meaning 'three', and amp the abbreviation for \"amplifier\".\n\nCrossover \nIt differs from the conventional arrangement in which each channel of amplification powers a single speaker. Bi-amping typically consists of a crossover network and two or more drivers. With ordinary loudspeakers, a single amplifier can power the woofer, mid-range and tweeter through an audio crossover, which filters the signal into high- medium- and low-frequencies (or high- and low-frequencies in 2-way speakers) – a mechanism that protects each driver from signals outside its frequency range. However, the passive crossover itself is inefficient, so splitting the frequencies electronically before these are amplified is a way to avoid this problem. In such a case, an amplifier each powers a frequency range determined by an active crossover to each of the drive units. The technique is primarily used in large-scale audio applications such as sound amplification for concerts, in portable powered speakers and by hi-fi enthusiasts.\n\nWiring \nA speaker system has to be wired to accommodate either configuration, typically with two sets of binding posts, one set for the bass and one set for the mid-highs. A single amplifier can usually power a woofer and a tweeter only through a post-amplifier crossover filter, which protects each driver from signals outside its frequency range.\n\nBi-amping of speakers requires double the channels of amplification and can be accomplished using two ordinary amplifiers in either a vertical or horizontal arrangement.\n Horizontal bi-amping uses one amplifier to power both bass drivers (woofers) and the second amplifier to power both treble drivers (tweeter) or the midrange and treble drivers together. Horizontal bi-amping has the advantage of allowing two different amplifiers that sound better than each other for bass or for treble.\n Vertical bi-amping uses two channels of an amplifier per loudspeaker, with a dedicated channel for the bass driver and a dedicated channel for the treble or the treble and the midrange post-amplifier together. Vertical bi-amping has the advantage of not having to use a single amp to power both bass sections, which can be very taxing on the amplifier, especially at higher volume or if the bass driver has a particularly low impedance at certain frequencies.\n\nBenefits \nMost audible differences are subtle. If at all noticeable, benefits of bi-amping cannot be realized if passive crossover networks of a speaker system are not removed. Benefits include transients are less likely to cause amplifier overload (clipping) and/or speaker damage, and reduced intermodulation distortion, elimination of errors introduced by low frequency passive crossover, reduction of load presented to the power amplifier, better matching of power amplifier and speaker driver and others.\nIn large professional sound systems, Bi-amping is pretty much the norm with the greater benefits easily outweighing the costs. All speakers are two-way transducers and a can introduce current back into the driving circuit from ambient sound. The driving amplifier tries to control the effect of this with its damping factor (having a high resistance to such current), but with a passive crossover, this current can still leak across to the other driver units in the circuit. A Bi-amped system is therefore able to better resist ambient sound feeding back into the circuit. With high volumes and larger venues, such ambient feedback can have a significant damaging effect to the overall sound.\n\nSee also \n Active crossover\n Bi-wiring\n Powered speakers\n\nReferences\n\nAudio amplifiers",
"An audion receiver makes use of a single vacuum tube or transistor to detect and amplify signals. It is so called because it originally used the audion tube as the active element. Unlike a crystal detector or Fleming valve detector, the audion provided amplification of the signal as well as detection. The audion was invented by Lee De Forest.\n\nIn its operation, the circuit demodulates the radio frequency (RF) signal by rectification or square-law detection, and then amplifies this demodulated signal. The capacitor in series with the grid and parallel resistance forms a grid-leak detector which allow the grid to cathode to be used as a diode. \n\nIn 1915 Edwin Armstrong developed an improved \"regenerative\" form of audion receiver that used the same vacuum tube for RF amplification, RF detection, and audio amplification.\n\nSee also\n Tuned radio frequency receiver\n\nReferences\n\nTypes of radios"
]
|
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment"
]
| C_cf339e35765c4560b597ea3cccd24ff5_1 | How did she make her return to entertainment? | 1 | How did Ai Kago make her return to entertainment? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"Huh Chan-mi (; born April 6, 1992), is a South Korean singer. Huh first made her debut as a member of a South Korean co-ed group Coed School in 2010 and following the co-ed group were split, Huh later became the girl unit F-ve Dolls in 2011 until her departure from the group in February 2012. Huh briefly returned to training and appeared on several survival shows Produce 101 (2016) and Mix Nine (2017). Following her appearance on survival shows, Huh signed to FirstOne Entertainment as a solo artist in 2020, prior to the release of her debut solo single album \"Highlight\".\n\nLife and career\n\n1992–2012: Early life and career beginnings\nHuh was born on April 6, 1992 in Namyangju, South Korea.\n\nHuh became a trainee in S.M. Entertainment in 2004. She initially trained to become a tenth member of Girls' Generation, however due to the limited-nine member line-up she did not make the final cut of the group because she was too young, and only in seventh grade. She went to Anyang School of Arts and graduated in 2011.\n\nAfter leaving SM Entertainment, Huh signed with Core Contents Media and made her official debut in 2010 as a main vocal of the group Coed School. The group debuted with a single \"Too Late\". By mid 2011, Coed School split into two sub units: Speed and F-ve Dolls. Huh was part of the latter, along with the remaining three female Coed School members and a new member Eunkyo. The group released two promotional videos for singles \"Lip Stains\" and \"Your Words\" in which Huh was the protagonist along with bandmate Lee Soomi and singer Jay Park. F-ve Dolls released one more single titled \"Like This Or That\" before Huh's departure from the group and Core Contents Media in 2012. At the time, Huh wrote on Twitter that she was in the process of looking for another agency.\n\n2013–2018: Further training, Produce 101 and Mix Nine \nHuh joined Pledis Entertainment as a trainee for a brief period of time in 2013. She performed in one of the Like Seventeen concert shows on Seventeen TV along other Pledis trainees . Shortly after, she left the company and joined Duble Kick Entertainment. In 2016, Huh joined the Mnet survival show Produce 101 to compete against 101 other female K-pop trainees. She placed in the \"A\" category after her first evaluation and made it into the final 35 contestants, thus being able to record a song for release. Huh was eliminated from the show in the 10th episode, landing in 26th place. In an interview from March 2019, Huh alleged that the show was edited to create a bad impression of her.\n\nIn 2016, Duble Kick's own survival show \"Finding Momoland\" began airing on Mnet, to form a new girl group called Momoland. Huh did not take part in the show as she was to debut in a different girlgroup. In November, Huh featured on MC Mong's album U.F.O on the album track \"And You\". The song also featured singer New-a, Huh's future bandmate in the girlgroup High Color from Mostable Music. The four-member group joined YG Entertainment's survival show Mix Nine where she recorded a song produced by MC Mong titled \"Like a Star\". Huh was eliminated from Mix Nine in the 13th episode with her final rank being 20th place. Soon after the show ended, Huh left High Color and did not make any public appearances in 2018.\n\nIn February 2019, Huh graduated from Dongduk Women's University after seven years, majoring in practical music.\n\n2020–present: Solo career \nIn January 2020, Huh signed a contract with FirstOne Entertainment and started a personal YouTube channel, under her new romanized stage name Huh Chan Mi. Her first video was a cover of \"Señorita\" by Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes, which was popular in South Korea. In June, it was announced that Huh was preparing to release an album the following month. Huh released the self-composed song, \"I'm fine thanks\", along with a performance trailer on July 9, as a pre-release before her solo album. The song was reported to be about how Huh had to overcome difficulties and grow in the entertainment industry while hiding her unhappiness. Huh released her solo album Highlight on July 23 along with first single \"Lights\".\n\nDiscography\n\nSingle albums \n Highlight (2020)\n Chanmi's Trot: Haeundae Beach (2021)\n\nSingles\n\nFeatured artist\n\nCompilation appearances\n\nFilmography\n\nTelevision\n\nReferences \n\n1992 births\nLiving people\nMBK Entertainment artists\nPeople from Namyangju\n21st-century South Korean singers\nSouth Korean women pop singers\nSouth Korean female idols\nProduce 101 contestants\n21st-century South Korean women singers",
"Fat Cat (; born March 14, 1990), also known as Defconn Girl (), is a South Korean singer.\n\nCareer\nFat Cat gained notice after appearing in the music video for rapper Defconn's song \"How Rappers Break Up Part 2,\" as well as for her participation in live performances with him. Her debut single, \"Indifferent Love\", was released on September 24.\n\nOn September 25, she debuted on SBS' Inkigayo with \"Indifferent Love\" and impressed many viewers including choreographer Bae Sang Mi, who created her \"Tik Tok\" dance for the song.\n\nLater on, drama production company Curtain Call Media signed her up for a joint management deal in November 2011.\n\nOn January 5, 2012, Fat Cat released her second single album, \"Is Being Pretty Everything\". On January 5, the music video was released after previously releasing two teasers, and the following day, she made her return on KBS Music Bank.\n\nOn March 9, 2012, Fat Cat released her third single, \"It's Like a Dream,\" which she promoted on Korean music shows. However, Fat Cat was diagnosed with a kidney disorder resulting in idiopathic edema on March 11, 2012, causing her activities for \"It's Like a Dream\" to be halted while she was hospitalized.\n\nFat Cat spent some time recovering from her illness and expected to resume activities in November 2012 or early 2013.\n\nIn Oct 2012, Fat Cat signed a three-year contract with Japanese recording company Victor-JVC and Japanese artist management and record company Rainbow Entertainment in preparation for her debut in Japan. She debuted with the single \"Make Up\" in July 2013.\n\nDiscography\n\nSingles\n\nMV\n Defconn – 래퍼들이 헤어지는 방법 (How to Leave a Rapper, Part 2)\n\nCollaboration\n Paul Baek (폴백) – \"Hello, my ex\"\n\nModeling\n Vogue Girl\n Maxim\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n – Victor Entertainment\n \n\n1990 births\nLiving people\nK-pop singers\nSouth Korean dance musicians\nSouth Korean female idols\nSouth Korean women pop singers\n21st-century South Korean singers\n21st-century South Korean women singers"
]
|
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"How did she make her return to entertainment?",
"her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara."
]
| C_cf339e35765c4560b597ea3cccd24ff5_1 | Did she get signed? | 2 | Did Ai Kago get signed? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"Chen Hsiao-chuan (; born May 18, 1985 in Hualien, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese female football player. She usually plays as defender.\n\nIn April 2010, she passed Real Valladolid Femenino's tryout and signed with the Spanish club with compatriot Tan Wen-lin. Her shirt name is \"Rona\". She made her debut in a pre-season friendly match against CD Amigos del Duero, in which she scored six goals for RVF. She earns 300 euros a month like her compatriots from Taiwan and because of such a low wage rumors have it she and her compatriots will try to sign for a club that will pay better. Rumors say she recently did a tryout for Real Madrid but did not get accepted.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Chen Hsia-chuan's profile at Real Valladolid official web site\n\n1985 births\nLiving people\nTaiwanese women's footballers\nPeople from Hualien County\nExpatriate women's footballers in Spain\nTaiwanese expatriates in Spain\nWomen's association football midfielders",
"Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! is a 1966 DeLuxe Color American comedy film starring Bob Hope and Elke Sommer. This film marked the first of three film collaborations for Hope and comedian Phyllis Diller, and was followed by Eight on the Lam in 1967 and The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell in 1968.\n\nPlot \nA gorgeous French actress named Didi (Elke Sommer) has become more famous for commercials involving bubble baths than for acting. Fed up with the situation, she winds up running away for a while to Oregon, where she encounters a middle-aged married realtor (Bob Hope) who agrees to secretly assist her and thereby becomes enmeshed in various complications.\n\nCast\n Bob Hope as Tom Meade\n Elke Sommer as Didi\n Phyllis Diller as Lily\n Cesare Danova as Pepe Pepponi\n Marjorie Lord as Mrs. Martha Meade\n Kelly Thordsen as Detective Shawn Regan\n Benny Baker as Detective Lt. Schwartz\n Terry Burnham as Doris Meade\n Joyce Jameson as Telephone operator\n Harry von Zell as Newscaster / Off-Screen Narrator\n Kevin Burchett as Larry Meade\n Keith Taylor as Plympton\n\nProduction\nThe film was Bob Hope's second with Edward Small. Filming started in October 1965. It marked Phyllis Diller's film debut as a lead – she signed for five more pictures with Hope.\n\nReception \nWith Bob Hope's film career on the downswing by the '60s, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! was critically panned and compared to a \"90-minute TV sitcom\". The critic for The New York Times drew parallels with Up in Mabel's Room which Edward Small had made twenty years previously. Reviews were poor. However it performed well at the box office. Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! was listed in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time.\n\nSee also\n List of American films of 1966\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n \n \n\n1966 films\nAmerican films\n1966 comedy films\nEnglish-language films\nFilms directed by George Marshall\nAmerican comedy films\nFilms produced by Edward Small\nUnited Artists films"
]
|
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"How did she make her return to entertainment?",
"her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara.",
"Did she get signed?",
"Josei Seven published an interview with her mother,"
]
| C_cf339e35765c4560b597ea3cccd24ff5_1 | Did she release anything new? | 3 | Did Ai Kago release anything new? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | false | [
"\"Anything Goes!\" is a song by Japanese recording artist Maki Ohguro, her 32nd single in her over twenty-year-long career. The song serves as the opening theme of the 2010-2011 Kamen Rider Series Kamen Rider OOO. The single for the song was released on November 17, 2010, as a standard CD release and a CD+DVD release featuring the music video for the song. On September 15, 2010, Avex released the opening sequence edit of the song to digital music outlets. The single includes 3 variations of the song: the single cut, a ska edit, and the instrumental track. Japan-based rapper Rah-D is featured on the track. \"Anything Goes!\" is Maki Ohguro's first single in 11 years to break the top 10 of the Oricon at number 7, after selling 33,000 copies in its first week of release.\n\nA balladic version of the song titled \"Anything Goes! “Ballad”\" was played during the final scenes of the finale of Kamen Rider OOO. Ohguro stated that she thought that the song would also work as a slow ballad, especially after she has been watching how the series has progressed, and recorded the song during her hiatus from releases. She also expressed how she think her children would react when they grow up and watch the future Kamen Rider shows, believing they will think she was cool for having recorded the Kamen Rider OOO theme song. The balladic version was initially to be released as a single on October 19, 2011, but was eventually pushed back to December 7 of that year.\n\nTrack listing\nThe complete track listing has not been confirmed.\n\n\"Anything Goes!\" — 3:33\n\"Anything Goes! (Ska Foundation Edit.)\" — 3:13\n\"Anything Goes! (Instrumental)\" — 3:31\n\nDVD track listing\n\"Anything Goes! (Music Film)\"\n\nDigital release\n\"Anything Goes! (TV ver.)\" — 1:12\n\nCharts\n\nSales and certifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nKamen Rider OOO site at Avex Group\n\"Anything Goes!\" at Maki Ohguro's official site\n\n2010 singles\nJapanese-language songs\nJapanese television drama theme songs\nSongs with lyrics by Shoko Fujibayashi\nKamen Rider\nAvex Trax singles\n2010 songs",
"\"Be Anything (but Be Mine)\" is a popular song composed by Irving Gordon, which was published in 1952.\n\nRecorded versions\nThe most successful version of the song was that by Eddy Howard was released as Mercury 5815, which reached number 13 in the spring of 1952.The song marked the debut release of Peggy Lee on Decca Records, being recorded on April 3, 1952 and issued on Decca (catalog number 8142). This version reached number 21.\nA version by Champ Butler (Columbia 39690) reached No. 26. \nA version by Helen O'Connell (Capitol 2011) (number 30)\nMercury Records also cut a version for the R&B market with Wini Brown & her Boyfriends; released as Mercury 8270, the track reportedly featured the Ravens as the male chorale. \nRuth Brown also recorded \"Be Anything (but be Mine)\" (Atlantic 2015) but her version was relegated to the B-side of the track \"5-10-15 Hours\".\nGloria Lynne recorded \"Be Anything (but Be Mine)\" early in 1964 as her debut release on Mercury Records' Fontana label (Fontana 1890). The track entered the Hot 100 in April 1964, but rose no higher than number 88, its hit potential stymied by a lawsuit which barred the sales of any Fontana releases by Lynne, the singer's prior label Everest Records contending to still have Lynne contractually obligated. Fontana was prevented from releasing product by Lynne until February 1965, when her version of \"Be Anything (but Be Mine)\" made its album debut on her album Intimate Moments.\n\"Be Anything (but Be Mine)\" did again become a major hit in 1964 via a remake by Connie Francis recorded in an April 8, 1964 session in New York City produced by Danny Davis with Alan Lorber as arranger/conductor. With \"Be Anything (but Be Mine)\", Francis returned to the mode of remaking traditional pop songs which had provided her with most of her early Top Ten hits, although in the 1960s she had abandoned that formula, with the exception of \"Together\", a number 8 hit in 1961. \"Be Anything (but Be Mine)\" did not return Francis to the Top Ten, but did maintain her recent profile as a moderate chart presence with a number 25 peak on Billboard Hot 100, where it would mark Francis' final appearance in the Top 40.1 On the Easy Listening chart, which is now the Adult Contemporary chart, it peaked at number 9. In Australia, Francis' \"Be Anything (but Be Mine)\" charted at number 48.\"Be Anything (but Be Mine)\" peaked at number 24 on the Cash Box Pop 100 where Francis would subsequently reach the Top 40 with \"Looking For Love\" (number 34), \"Don't Ever Leave Me\" (number 37), \"For Mamma (La Mamma)\" (number 35) and \"Jealous Heart\" (number 29).\nBetty Everett recorded a version of 'Be Anything (But Be Mine)' on her cult 1974 album Love Rhymes. The track was produced by Johnny Guitar Watson and David Axelrod.\n\nOther recordings\nThe song has also been recorded by:\nPetula Clark\nDoris Day\nQueen Latifah\nVera Lynn\nLou Rawls\nEva Svobodová \n(cs) (as \"Buď Můj\")\nJerry Vale\nSarah Vaughan\nTimi Yuro.\n\nReferences\n\n1952 songs\n1964 singles\nConnie Francis songs\nSongs written by Irving Gordon"
]
|
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"How did she make her return to entertainment?",
"her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara.",
"Did she get signed?",
"Josei Seven published an interview with her mother,",
"Did she release anything new?",
"On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu )."
]
| C_cf339e35765c4560b597ea3cccd24ff5_1 | Was the book successful? | 4 | Was Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho successful? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"The biographical book, The ultimate entrepreneur: the story of Ken Olsen and Digital Equipment Corporation, chronicles the experiences of Ken Olsen racing to design minicomputers at the company of his own founding, Digital Equipment Corporation. At the time the book was published by two computer journal writers, Ken Olsen was competing with other Massachusetts computing companies such as Data General (founded by his former employee), Prime Computer, Wang Laboratories, Symbolics, Lotus Development Corporation, and Apollo Computer. While believing in the value of software, he did not believe in the value of software separate from hardware, and missed the opportunity to fund Lotus 1-2-3 or Visicalc. He also missed the importance of the personal computer, but his futuristic vision of the Client–server model helped to launch Ethernet.\n\nContext\nThe book was written after the book The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder, which was highly influential in local computing circles. That book documents the competition between Data General and DEC to create a 32-bit minicomputer. Both companies missed the opportunity to launch successful micro-computers and by the time the book was published, the IBM PC had already become a de facto standard. The year 1988 heralded a financial crisis that hit both companies hard, and started a downward slide in sales from which they never recovered.\n\nHowever, at the time the book was published, the minicomputer market was still quite healthy, and Olsen was known as a dependable and trustworthy employer. DEC's community service projects were well known, most specifically his commitment to higher education and his donations of PDP-8 computers to local high schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut.\n\nThemes\nThough the book today serves partially as a historical document of the computing industry, some valuable business lessons can be learned from it. The most important lesson is that a company's culture must change as its operating environment changes. In many ways, Ken Olsen was responsible for much of the innovation that created the personal computer, even though DEC failed to produce any successful personal computer product itself before the book was published.\n\nThe title of the book focuses on Ken Olsen's major career success, namely his successful introduction of the minicomputer for small to medium businesses. It is therefore ironic that he failed to see that the next major innovation would be a smaller, personal, home-based computer. To his credit, the massive success of his early minicomputers was such that he was kept busy with improvements to his Programmed Data Processor productline, attempting upward compatibility from the PDP-1 onwards, producing the highly successful PDP-8, and PDP-10. One of his chief engineers, Edson de Castro, left after failing to get permission to design a 16-bit version of the 8-bit PDP-8 and founded Data General. Both men then competed to create a 32-bit version. This competition is well documented in the book The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. The VAX became the cash cow for Digital Equipment, and the successful collaboration with Xerox and Intel on the introduction of a local area network solution called Ethernet resulted in a decade of successful growth for the company.\n\nReferences\n The ultimate entrepreneur: the story of Ken Olsen and Digital Equipment Corporation entry in Google Books, by Glenn Rifkin, George Harrar, 1988, Chicago : Contemporary Books, \n The Soul of a New Machine entry in Google Books, by Tracy Kidder, Reprint from 1981, Back Bay Books, 2000. \n\n1988 non-fiction books\nComputer books\nDigital Equipment Corporation",
"99 Francs is a 2000 novel by French writer Frédéric Beigbeder. The book was released in France on August 2000 through Grasset & Fasquelle and has since been re-released under the titles € 14.99 and € 5.90. Shortly after the book's initial release Beigbeder was fired from his advertising job after his employers read 99 Francs.\n\nIn 2007 the book was adapted into a film by the same name that was directed by Jan Kounen and written by Nicolas & Bruno.\n\nSummary\nThe book follows Octave Parengo, a successful copywriter that appears to have it all. Not only is his job going well, but he has surrounded himself with expensive material goods, beautiful women, and much cocaine. That easygoing life ends when he becomes disillusioned with his life and his job after a meeting with a client.\n\nReception\nJonathan Evans questioned the book's 2002 English translation, which changed the book's setting from France to England as well as changing francs to pounds. Guardian reviewer Nicholas Lezard also commented on the changes to the book, stating that the \"geographical and cultural translations are by no means consistent or necessarily successful\".\n\nAdaptations\n\nTheater\nA stage production of 99 Francs was performed in the Treviso Theater that was directed by Stéphane Aucante.\n\nFilm\n\nIn 2004 it was announced that a film adaptation of 99 Francs was in development. The film was released on September 26, 2007 and was praised by Agora Vox as being \"uncompromising\".\n\nReferences\n\n2000 French novels\nFrench autobiographical novels\nFrench novels adapted into films\nNovels about advertising"
]
|
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"How did she make her return to entertainment?",
"her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara.",
"Did she get signed?",
"Josei Seven published an interview with her mother,",
"Did she release anything new?",
"On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ).",
"Was the book successful?",
"On her blog, she described the book as \"a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams.\""
]
| C_cf339e35765c4560b597ea3cccd24ff5_1 | Did she write any other books? | 5 | Did Ai Kago write any other books other than Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
Happy 7 members
Living people
Minimoni members
Morning Musume members
Tanpopo members
Writers from Nara Prefecture
Salt5 members
W (group) members
Japanese idols
Musicians from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese actresses
21st-century Japanese actresses
Actors from Nara Prefecture
20th-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese women singers | false | [
"The Sword of Knowledge is a trilogy of shared world fantasy novels credited to the authors C. J. Cherryh, Leslie Fish, Nancy Asire, and Mercedes Lackey. The three novels in the series were all published by Baen Books in 1989: A Dirge for Sabis (Cherryh and Fish), Wizard Spawn (Cherryh and Asire), and Reap the Whirlwind (Cherryh and Lackey). The books were first released as a complete trilogy in an omnibus edition in 1995.\n\nAlthough Cherryh is credited as a co-author on each of the books, she apparently did not write any of them. She did write a foreword for each book and may have helped plan the storylines, and therefore was credited as a co-author for all three novels. The publisher, however, eliminated Cherryh's introduction from most or all editions of the book.\n\nThe novels are unusual for the genre in their treatment of magic. Specifically, although wizards exist in the books, they do not cast magic spells in the manner typical of works of high fantasy or tales of Sword and Sorcery. Instead, individuals with magical powers in these books are capable of only two feats: wishing good things upon people, and wishing ill upon people.\n\nAdditionally, the books take place in a culture beginning to develop cannon and other technology appropriate for a Late Middle Ages-style setting. Because of the limits of magical powers in these books and the technical developments portrayed in them, the novels could be considered examples of the Low Fantasy subgenre.\n\nReferences\n Cherryh, C. J. and Leslie Fish. A Dirge for Sabis, Baen Books, 1989.\n Cherryh, C. J. and Nancy Asire. Wizard Spawn, Baen Books, 1989.\n Cherryh, C. J. and Mercedes Lackey. Reap the Whirlwind, Baen Books, 1989.\n Cherryh, C. J. et al. The Sword of Knowledge (Omnibus), Baen Books, 1995 (Paperback); 2005 (Hardcover).\n\nC. J. Cherryh\nFantasy novel series\n1989 novels\nBaen Books books",
"Victoria Aveyard (born July 27, 1990) is an American writer of young adult and fantasy fiction and screenplays. She is known for her fantasy novel Red Queen. Aveyard wrote the novel a year after graduating from University of Southern California's screenwriting program in 2012. Sony Pictures teamed up with her to write spec screenplay Eternal.\n\nPersonal life\nAveyard was born in Massachusetts, but moved to California at the age of eighteen when she got accepted into USC, where she studied screenwriting. She is of Scottish and Italian descent and resides in Santa Monica, were she lives with her partner and dog.\n\nCareer\nAveyard did not write any books until after she graduated from USC. She said she was inspired to write Red Queen after she graduated college with a lot of student loan debt and did not see any way to get out of it, she used that and growing up in a post 9/11 world to write Red Queen. Victoria did not traditionally query, she signed with Suzie Townsend after she heard about her work when she was at USC's writing programme. Red Queen was published in 2015 and was met with positive reviews, for praise with it's storyline and diversity within the characters and plot twists. Three sequels came out after that and one prequel, Aveyard also worked on another book series called Realm Breaker which has reached number one on the New York Time's bestseller list. Originally, Red Queen was planned to be a film franchise with universal and Elizabeth Banks directing. In 2021, it was announced that the project will be a television series with Peacock, with Banks directing and appearing in a recurring role. Before production even began, Aveyard announced on Instagram that the series was renewed for a second season. Aveyard also wrote the pilot script for Red Queen.\n\nBibliography\n\nRed Queen\n Red Queen (2015)\n Glass Sword (2016)\n King's Cage (2017)\n War Storm (2018)\n\nNovellas\n Cruel Crown (2016, Collects both the novellas Queen Song and Steel Scars)\n Queen Song (2015)\n Steel Scars (2016)\n Broken Throne (2019)\n\nRealm Breaker \n\n Realm Breaker (2021)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Personal blog\n\nAmerican women novelists\nAmerican fantasy writers\nLiving people\nPeople from East Longmeadow, Massachusetts\nNovelists from Massachusetts\n21st-century American novelists\nUSC School of Cinematic Arts alumni\n21st-century American women writers\nWomen science fiction and fantasy writers\n1990 births"
]
|
[
"Ai Kago",
"2008-2010: Return to entertainment",
"How did she make her return to entertainment?",
"her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara.",
"Did she get signed?",
"Josei Seven published an interview with her mother,",
"Did she release anything new?",
"On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ).",
"Was the book successful?",
"On her blog, she described the book as \"a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams.\"",
"Did she write any other books?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_cf339e35765c4560b597ea3cccd24ff5_1 | What else did she do when she returned to entertainment? | 6 | What else did Ai Kago do when she returned to entertainment other than writing a book? | Ai Kago | After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists. Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled Kago Ai Live--Miseinen Hakusho (LIVE--Wei Cheng Nian Bai Shu ). On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams." During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic. CANNOTANSWER | During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. | is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago departed from Morning Musume and became part of the duo W with Nozomi Tsuji.
In 2006, Kago was suspended from her agency for underage smoking and subsequently dismissed in 2007. In 2008, she returned to entertainment as an actress, appearing in Kung Fu Chefs (2009), Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009), and Battle of Demons (2009). In 2009, Kago returned to music as well, releasing her debut solo single, "No Hesitation" (2009), followed by her jazz album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz (2010). She also formed her own girl group, Girls Beat!!, in 2013, of which she remained a member until 2016.
Career
2000–2004: Morning Musume and Mini-Moni
At age 12, Kago won the 4th National Audition of Morning Musume held by the Up-Front Works in 2000. On April 15, she, along with Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa, and Nozomi Tsuji, were inducted into the idol group Morning Musume as its fourth generation. Their recording debut was in the group's ninth single "Happy Summer Wedding".
Kago and Tsuji's addition to the group received positive critical response. With an increasing fan base, they, along with Morning Musume member Mari Yaguchi and Coconuts Musume member Mika Todd, formed a new subgroup named Mini-Moni. In addition to this, Kago was also admitted into established subgroup Tanpopo as a second generation member. From 2001 to 2004 Kago participated in the annual Hello! Project shuffle units (3-nin Matsuri in 2001, Happy 7 in 2002, Salt5 in 2003, and H.P. All Stars in 2004).
2004–2007: W
In August 2004, Kago and Tsuji graduated from Morning Musume together after Minimoni began their indefinite hiatus. Under the arrangement of their agency, Kago and Tsuji formed a new pop duo, W, releasing two albums and six singles together.
Before the release of their seventh single and their third album, W3: Faithful, on February 9, 2006, Friday published photos showing Kago smoking. She was 15 at the time the photos were taken. The following day, her agency issued a press statement saying that she and W's activities had been suspended "indefinitely." Kago spent the remainder of the year under house arrest at her family's residence in Nara. During this time, she was not allowed to have contact with Tsuji or any of the other members from her agency, and she was caught smoking again during her probation period.
In 2007 Up-Front Works reported that they were working on her comeback. In late March 2007, photos of Kago going to an onsen with a man 18 years her senior and smoking for a third time circulated in the media, further tarnishing her reputation. Not long after, Yuukichi Kawaguchi, the director of Up-Front Works, issued a statement announcing that she had been dismissed from the agency.
2008–2010: Return to entertainment
After Kago departed from Up-Front Agency, her mother attempted to sign her to a new talent agency in her hometown, Nara. Later that year, Josei Seven published an interview with her mother, revealing that Kago left Japan and started residing in New York City. Kago herself later revealed that she had actually not gone to New York, but rather to Los Angeles for three months because she felt like a criminal in Japan. During her stay, she met people who encouraged her, including Winona Ryder, and was able to reflect on her situation. She also considered suicide and cut her wrists.
Kago made a well-publicized return to the entertainment industry in 2008 with plans of pursuing an acting career. She began appearing in multiple Hong Kong movies, including Kung Fu Chefs. On August 25, 2008, Kago released a book entitled . On her blog, she described the book as "a book where I talk to young teens about their various troubles and dreams."
During 2009, Kago also focused on rebuilding her music career. On June 24, 2009, she released her first solo single "No HesitAtIon" [sic] on independent record label In Da Groove. On February 16, 2010, she held her first jazz concert at bar JZ Brat in Tokyo. Kago's first jazz album, Ai Kago meets Jazz: The First Door, was released on March 31, 2010 through P-Vine Records and Avex Marketing. In August 2010 she was invited to perform at music festival Summer Sonic.
2011–present: Personal struggles and Girls Beat!!
Throughout the second half of 2010, Kago became unhappy with the direction of her work. Around the same time, she began dating restaurant owner Haruhiko Ando, who acted as an in-between for her agency and herself. Since beginning a relationship with Ando, Kago cancelled several jobs at the last minute, causing her agency to suspend her activities. Despite this, she participated in a live performance and opened a separate blog without permission.
Kago parted ways with R&A Promotions in November 2010 despite her contract ending in March 2013. As a response, in 2011, Kazuyuki Ito, president of Mainstream (an associate of R&A Promotions), declared that the agency planned on suing for in damages for contract violations. During that time, Kago's career was also derailed by her personal life.
After spending 2012 out of the public eye with the birth of her daughter, Minami, Kago transferred to a new agency in 2013. Planning to revive her music career, she formed an idol group, which was later named Girls Beat!! The group would be crowd-sourced using lyrics, music, and costume ideas submitted by fans. Remi Kita and Ryona Himeno were recruited as the other two members after passing the auditions.
Girls Beat!! released their first single, "Sekai Seifuku" on July 22, 2014. Their activities were abruptly put on hold when an arrest warrant was put out for Ando in October on suspicions of loaning money at illegal interest rates. Kago later filed for divorce, planning to continue activities once the divorce was finalized. Although Kago was eventually successful in doing so, in August 2015, her contract with her agency expired, though she continued activities with Girls Beat!! in November. On February 29, 2016, she graduated from the group.
Personal life
Public image
During Kago's years in Mini-Moni, she was known for keeping her hair in curled twin tails. Manga artist Arina Tanemura used her hairstyle as inspiration for Mitsuki Koyama, the main character of Full Moon o Sagashite. Her official nickname in Hello! Project was "Aibon."
Kago and Tsuji shared the world record for the largest hula hoop spun at in diameter. They set their record on January 1, 2004, during a live New Year's Day television special at Nippon Television Network, Tokyo, Japan. The record appeared in the 2005 and 2006 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records before it was broken by Ashrita Furman in September 2005.
Relationships and family
During Kago's house arrest in 2006, her parents divorced. In 2009, Kago was involved in a relationship with actor Hidejiro Mizumoto. Mizumoto's wife, Asato, sued them both, stating that she had proof of the affair and that it was the cause for her pending divorce. On May 24, 2009, a family court found in Asato's favor and ordered Mizumoto to hand over his home in Kumamoto and his car to Asato as well as in child support every month for his three children. Shukan Josei reported in 2010 that Kago was romantically linked to model Takeshi Mikawai. Her agency released a statement claiming that while they dated, they were not a couple.
Kago began dating Haruhiko Ando, a restaurant owner in Roppongi, in August 2010, who acted as an in-between between her agency and herself. In September 2011, Ando was arrested for alleged extortion and claiming to have connections with the yakuza. Kago had been taken in for questioning. In the same month, Kago was rushed to a nearby hospital after agency officials found her on the floor of her apartment with cuts to her wrists. Her life was reported to be not in danger, though there were speculations that it was a planned suicide. Following the incident, she and Ando registered their marriage, and Kago became pregnant. and he took on her family name, Kago. From their marriage, Kago gave birth to her first child, Minami, on June 22, 2012.
The police issued an arrest warrant for Ando in October 2014 on suspicion of loaning money at illegal interest rates. This affected both Kago's career and image. In 2015, Kago announced through her official blog that they were living separately and were in the process of working towards a divorce. She attempted to file for divorce in April, but dropped charges due to insufficient funds. On June 9, Ando was arrested on domestic violence charges stemming from an incident on May 12 where he allegedly shoved and kicked Kago in their home in Roppongi, leaving her with injuries that took ten days to heal. Kago agreed to drop all charges in exchange for divorce, which was finalized later that month.
On August 8, 2016, Kago announced that she had married a 38-year-old beautician whose name was not disclosed to the public. On September 23, 2016, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. On February 23, 2017, she announced on her blog that she gave birth her second child, a boy named Yoshitsugu.
Discography
Singles
Albums
AI KAGO meets JAZZ (March 31, 2010 P-Vine)
Compilations
(Various Artists, February 10, 2010 P-Vine)
Lum no Love Song (Urusei Yatsura OP) / Ai Kago × Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy)
Himitsu no Akko-chan (Himitsu no Akko-chan OP) / Ai Kago × Paolo Scotti
Filmography
Film
Television
Publications
Books
Photobooks
DVDs
References
External links
Official blog
1988 births
Japanese child singers
Japanese women jazz singers
Japanese women pop singers
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Writers from Nara Prefecture
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21st-century Japanese women singers | true | [
"Else Meidner (born Else Meyer; 2 September 1901 – 7 May 1987) was a German-Jewish painter.\n\nBiography\nMeidner was born in Berlin and studied there between 1918 and 1925 before spending two years in Cologne. In 1927 she married the painter Ludwig Meidner and they emigrated to England in August 1939. There Else Meidner worked as a domestic.\n\nAfter World War II the couple drifted apart, both emotionally and artistically and Ludwig returned to Germany in 1952 while Else stayed in London. In 1951 the Meidner's son, David (born 1929), emigrated to Israel. Else returned to Germany in 1963 to take care of the ailing Ludwig, but eventually returned to London. She died in London.\n\nCareer\nElse Meidner exhibited in Berlin before fleeing to London, and after the war she exhibited at the Ben Uri Gallery, London; the Galerie Hanna Bekker vom Rath, Frankfurt; the Matthiesen Gallery, London; the Beaux Arts Gallery, London; and the Leicester Gallery, London.\n\nSee also\n List of German women artists\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1901 births\n1987 deaths\n20th-century German painters\n20th-century German women artists\nArtists from Berlin\nJewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom\nGerman Expressionist painters\nGerman women painters\nJewish women artists",
"Al-Rumaikiyya () was an Andalusian poet, consort of Emir Al-Mu'tamid of Seville. She is believed to have been born between 1045 and 1047.\n\nBiography \n\nShe was of humble origin and was servant (slave) to a Moor of Seville named Jachach, who employed her in driving beasts of burden. One day, the future king met her in the street and was so impressed by her abilities and beauty that he at once removed her and made her his wife. This was greatly displeasing to the prince’s father, Emir Al-Mu'tadid, who however was soon captivated by Al-Rumaikiyya, especially after she had given him a grandson.\n\nDespite her lowly background, Al-Rumaikiyya carried out her duties as consort wonderfully well, even in a court so magnificent as that of Seville. It may also be said that she loved her husband dearly, matching Al-Mu'tamid’s love for her. When her husband succeeded to the throne, he complied with every whim of his wife, to the extent that his subjects could not stop themselves expressing their dissatisfaction. This mutual passion between husband and wife led each to compose inspired and deeply felt poetry for the other, although only one poem of Al-Rumaikiyya’s remains to us.\n\nIt is evident that the queen was not occupied solely in indulging her caprices and writing poems. An inscription kept in the Museum of Seville shows that it was she who caused the tower to be built at the mosque that once occupied the present site of the Church of San Juan de la Palma; indeed the mosque as a whole may have been her work.\n\nAfter Al-Mu'tamid was dethroned by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, she with her husband and children were taken to a fort at Aghmat, where she is thought to have died. Her misfortune was mourned by her contemporaries.\n\nChildren and descendants \n\n Prince Abbad. Died in battle. \n Prince Arradi. Died in battle. \n Prince Al-Ma'maún. Died in battle. \n Prince Rashid. Crown Prince of the Taifa of Seville. \n Prince Al-Motab. \n Prince Abu Hashem. \n Princess Buthaina. Poet.\n\nIn legend\n\nThe relationship of the King of Seville with Rumaikiyya was the source of many stories, one of them being the following famous Spanish story:\n\nOne day, the earl spoke with his counselor as follows:\n\n\"Patronio, look what happens with a man: he often asks me to help and succor him some money; but every time I do so, he gives me tokens of appreciation, but if he is not happy with the money I give, he is unhappy and seems to have forgotten the favors I've done to him earlier. As I know your judgment, please let me your advice on how to behave with that man.\"\n\n\"My lord, I think, that what happens between you and this man is the same thing that happened to King Al-Motamid of Seville with Al-Rumaikiyya, his wife.\"\n\nThe count asked what had happened.\n\n\"My lord, the king Al-Motamid was married to Al-Rumaikiyya, and loved her more than anyone in the world. She was very good and the Saracens still remembered her for her words and deeds, which are exemplary. But sometimes, she was a whimsical and capricious woman.\n\n\"It happened that one day, in Córdoba in the month of February, snow fell and when Al-Rumaikiyya saw snow, she began to mourn. The king asked why she was crying, and she told him she was crying because he never let her go to the places where it snowed. The king, to please her, because Córdoba is a city of warm temperature and there is rarely snow, planted almond trees sent from the mountains above Córdoba so that when they bloomed in February, they appeared to be covered with snow and the queen saw her desire fulfilled.\n\n\"And again, while Al-Rumaikiyya was in her room, which was next to the river, she saw a barefoot woman who collected mud to make bricks. And when she saw this the queen began to mourn. The king asked her why she was crying, and she said she could never do what she wanted, unlike that humble woman. The king, to please her, sent for rosewater to fill a large lake in Córdoba; then ordered that the land taken out of the lake should be filled with sugar, cinnamon, lavender, clove, musk, amber and civet, and a number of spices that smell good. When the lake was full of all these things and the mud was as you can imagine, the king told his wife to take off her shoes and step out, and then she could make mud bricks all she wanted.\n\n\"Again, she was craving something else, and she began to mourn. The king asked why she was crying, and she replied that she would not mourn if he ever did anything to please her. The good king, seeing that she did not appreciate all that he had done for her, not knowing what else he could do, he said these words in Arabic: \"Not even the day you played with mud?\" for her to understand that by the mud she should always remember that he had tried his best to satisfy her.\n\n\"And so, my lord, if that man forgets, and does not thank you for all you've done for him, simply because you have not done as he would like, I advise you not to do anything to harm him. And I also advise that if someone did a favor for you, but then does not do everything you want, do not forget the good that person has done to you.\"\n\nTo the count this seemed good advice, and he followed it and did very well.''\n\nReferences\n\nArabic-language women poets\nArabic-language poets\nPeople from Córdoba, Spain\n11th-century women writers\n11th-century writers\nWomen poets of Al-Andalus\n1040s births\nYear of birth uncertain\nYear of death unknown\nSlaves of Al-Andalus"
]
|
[
"Edward Weston",
"Darkroom"
]
| C_7efe68873f1f4b09adc565dfd928bf98_1 | What kind of photographs did Weston take? | 1 | What kind of photographs did Edward Weston take? | Edward Weston | Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight in order to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days. When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives." In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life. Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints. CANNOTANSWER | Weston always made contact prints, | Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still-lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a "quintessentially American, and especially Californian, approach to modern photography" because of his focus on the people and places of the American West. In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 × 10 view camera. Some of his most famous
photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
Weston was born in Chicago and moved to California when he was 21. He knew he wanted to be a photographer from an early age, and initially his work was typical of the soft focus pictorialism that was popular at the time. Within a few years, however he abandoned that style and went on to be one of the foremost champions of highly detailed photographic images.
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he soon stopped photographing. He spent the remaining ten years of his life overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.
Life and work
1886–1906: Early life
Weston was born in Highland Park, Illinois, the second child and only son of Edward Burbank Weston, an obstetrician, and Alice Jeanette Brett, a Shakespearean actress. His mother died when he was five years old and he was raised mostly by his sister Mary, whom he called "May" or "Maisie". She was nine years older than he, and they developed a very close bond that was one of the few steady relationships in Weston's life.
His father remarried when he was nine, but neither Weston nor his sister got along with their new stepmother and stepbrother. After May was married and left their home in 1897, Weston's father devoted most of his time to his new wife and her son. Weston was left on his own much of the time; he stopped going to school and withdrew into his own room in their large home.
As a present for his 16th birthday Weston's father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Bull's-Eye No. 2, which was a simple box camera. He took it on vacation in the Midwest, and by the time he returned home his interest in photography was enough to lead him to purchase a used 5 × 7 inch view camera. He began photographing in Chicago parks and a farm owned by his aunt, and developed his own film and prints. Later he would remember that even at that early age his work showed strong artistic merit. He said, "I feel that my earliest work of 1903 ‒ though immature ‒ is related more closely, both with technique and composition, to my latest work than are several of my photographs dating from 1913 to 1920, a period in which I was trying to be artistic."
In 1904 May and her family moved to California, leaving Weston further isolated in Chicago. He earned a living by taking a job at a local department store, but he continued to spend most of his free time taking photos, Within two years he felt confident enough of his photography that he submitted his work to the magazine Camera and Darkroom, and in the April 1906 issue they published a full-page reproduction of his picture Spring, Chicago. This is the first known publication of any of his photographs.
In September 1904, Weston took part in the men's double American round archery event at the 1904 Summer Olympics with his father also taking part in the same event.
1906–23: Becoming a photographer
At his sister's urging Weston left Chicago in the spring of 1906 and moved near May's home in Tropico, California (now a neighborhood in Glendale). He decided to stay there and pursue a career in photography, but he soon realized he needed more professional training. A year later he moved to Effingham, Illinois, to enroll in the Illinois College of Photography. They taught a nine-month course, but Weston finished all of the class work in six months. The school refused to give him a diploma unless he paid for the full nine months; Weston refused and instead moved back to California in the spring of 1908.
He briefly worked at the photography studio of George Steckel in Los Angeles, as a negative retoucher. Within a few months he moved to the more established studio of Louis Mojonier. For the next several years he learned the techniques and business of operating a photography studio under Mojonier's direction.
Within days of his visit to Tropico, Weston was introduced to his sister's best friend, Flora May Chandler. She was a graduate of the Normal School, later to become UCLA. She assumed the position of a grade-school teacher in Tropico.
She was seven years older than Weston and a distant relative of Harry Chandler, who at that time was described as the head of "the single most powerful family in Southern California". This fact did not go unnoticed by Weston and his biographers.
On January 30, 1909, Weston and Chandler married in a simple ceremony. The first of their four sons, Edward Chandler Weston (1910–1993), known as Chandler, was born on April 26, 1910.
Named Edward Chandler, after Weston and his wife, he later became an excellent photographer on his own. He clearly learned much by being an assistant to his father in the bungalow studio. In 1923 he bid farewell to his mother and sibling brothers and sailed off to Mexico with his father and his then-muse, Tina Modotti. He gave up any aspirations in pursuing photography as a career after his adventures in Mexico. The lifestyle of fame and its fortune affected him greatly. His later photographs, as a hobbyist, albeit rare, certainly reflect an innate talent for the form.
In 1910 Weston opened his own business, called "The Little Studio", in Tropico. His sister later asked him why he opened his studio in Tropico rather than in the nearby metropolis of Los Angeles, and he replied "Sis, I'm going to make my name so famous that it won't matter where I live."
For the next three years he worked, alone and sometimes with the assistance of family members in his studio. Even at that early stage of his career he was highly particular about his work; in an interview at that time he said "[photographic] plates are nothing to me unless I get what I want. I have used thirty of them at a sitting if I did not secure the effect to suit me."
His critical eye paid off for him and he quickly gained more recognition for his work. He won prizes in national competitions, published several more photographs and wrote articles for magazines such as Photo-Era and American Photography, championing the pictorial style.
On December 16, 1911, Weston's second son, Theodore Brett Weston (1911–1993), was born. He became a long-time artistic collaborator with his father and an important photographer on his own.
Sometime in the fall of 1913, Los Angeles photographer, Margrethe Mather visited Weston's studio because of his growing reputation, and within a few months they developed an intense relationship. Weston was a quiet Midwestern transplant to California, and Mather was a part of the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was very outgoing and artistic in a flamboyant way, and her permissive sexual morals were far different from the conservative Weston at the time – Mather had been a prostitute and was bisexual with a preference for women. Mather presented a stark contrast to Weston's home life; his wife Flora was described as a "homely, rigid Puritan, and an utterly conventional woman, with whom he had little in common since he abhorred conventions" ‒ and he found Mather's uninhibited lifestyle irresistible and her photographic vision intriguing.
He asked Mather to be his studio assistant, and for the next decade they worked closely together, making individual and jointly signed portraits of writers Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. A joint exhibition of their work in 2001 revealed that during this period Weston emulated Mather's style and, later, her choice of subjects. On her own Mather photographed "fans, hands, eggs, melons, waves, bathroom fixtures, seashells and birds wings, all subjects that Weston would also explore." A decade later he described her as "the first important person in my life, and perhaps even now, though personal contact has gone, the most important."
In early 1915 Weston began keeping detailed journals he later came to call his "Daybooks". For the next two decades he recorded his thoughts about his work, observations about photography, and his interactions with friends, lovers and family. On December 6, 1916, a third son, Lawrence Neil Weston, was born. He also followed in the footsteps of his father and became a well-known photographer. It was during this period that Weston first met photographer Johan Hagemeyer, whom Weston mentored and lent his studio to from time to time. Later, Hagemeyer would return the favor by letting Weston use his studio in Carmel after he returned from Mexico. For the next several years Weston continued to earn a living by taking portraits in his small studio which he called "the shack".
Meanwhile, Flora was spending all of her time caring for their children. Their fourth son, Cole Weston (1919–2003), was born on January 30, 1919, and afterward she rarely had time to leave their home.
Over the summer of 1920 Weston met two people who were part of the growing Los Angeles cultural scene: Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, known as "Robo" and a woman he called his wife, Tina Modotti. Modotti, who was then known only as a stage and film actress, was never married to Robo, but they pretended to be for the sake of his family. Weston and Modotti were immediately attracted to each other, and they soon became lovers. Richey knew of Modotti's affair, but he continued to be friends with Weston and later invited him to come to Mexico and share his studio.
The following year Weston agreed to allow Mather to become an equal partner in his studio. For several months they took portraits that they signed with both of their names. This was the only time in his long career that Weston shared credit with another photographer.
Sometime in 1920 he began photographing nude models for the first time. His first models were his wife Flora and their children, but soon thereafter he took at least three nude studies of Mather. He followed these with several more photographs of nude models, the first of dozens of figure studies he would make of friends and lovers over the next twenty years.
Until now Weston had kept his relationships with other women a secret from his wife, but as he began to photograph more nudes Flora became suspicious about what went on with him and his models. Chandler recalled that his mother regularly sent him on "errands" to his father's studio and asked him to tell her who was there and what they were doing.
One of the first who agreed to model nude for Weston was Modotti. She became his primary model for the next several years.
In 1922 he visited his sister May, who had moved to Middletown, Ohio. While there he made five or six photographs of the tall smoke stacks at the nearby Armco steel mill. These images signaled a change in Weston's photographic style, a transition from the soft-focus pictorialism of the past to a new, cleaner-edge style. He immediately recognized the change and later recorded it in his notes: "The Middletown visit was something to remember...most of all in importance was my photographing of 'Armco'...That day I made great photographs, even Stieglitz thought they were important!"
At that time New York City was the cultural center for photography as an art form in America, and Alfred Stieglitz was the most influential figure in photography. Weston badly wanted to go to New York to meet with him, but he did not have enough money to make the trip. His brother-in-law gave him enough money to continue on from Middletown to New York City, and he spent most of October and early November there. While there he met artist Charles Sheeler and photographers Clarence H. White, Gertrude Kasebier, as well as Stieglitz. Weston wrote that Stieglitz told him, "Your work and attitude reassures me. You have shown me at least several prints which have given me a great deal of joy. And I can seldom say that of photographs."
Soon after Weston returned from New York, Robo moved to Mexico and set up a studio there to create batiks. Within a short while he had arranged for a joint exhibition of his work and of photographs by Weston, Mather and a few others. In early 1923 Modotti left by train to be with Robo in Mexico, but he contracted smallpox and died shortly before she arrived. Modotti was grief-stricken, but within a few weeks she felt well enough that she decided to stay and carry out the exhibition that Robo had planned. The show was a success, and due in no small part to his nude studies of Modotti, it firmly established Weston's artistic reputation in Mexico.
After the show closed Modotti returned to California, and Weston and she made plans to return to Mexico together. He wanted to spend a couple of months there photographing and promoting his work, and, conveniently, he could travel under the pretense of Modotti being his assistant and translator.
The week before he left for Mexico, Weston briefly reunited with Mather and took several nudes of her lying in the sand at Redondo Beach. These images were very different from his previous nude studies – sharply focused and showing her entire body in relation to the natural setting. They have been called the artistic prototypes for his most famous nudes, those of Charis Wilson which he would take more than a decade later.
1923–27: Mexico
On July 30, 1923, Weston, his son Chandler, and Modotti left on a steamer for the extended trip to Mexico. His wife, Flora, and their other three sons waved goodbye to them at the dock. It's unknown what Flora understood or thought about the relationship between Weston and Modotti, but she is reported to have called out at the dock, "Tina, take good care of my boys."
They arrived in Mexico City on August 11 and rented a large hacienda outside of the city. Within a month he had arranged for an exhibition of his work at the Aztec Land Gallery, and on October 17 the show opened to glowing press reviews. He was particularly proud of a review by Marius de Zayas that said "Photography is beginning to be photography, for until now it has only been art."
The different culture and scenery in Mexico forced Weston to look at things in new ways. He became more responsive to what was in front of him, and he turned his camera on everyday objects like toys, doorways and bathroom fixtures. He also made several intimate nudes and portraits of Modotti. He wrote in his Daybooks:
The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself...I feel definite in the belief that the approach to photography is through realism.
Weston continued to photograph the people and things around him, and his reputation in Mexico increased the longer he stayed. He had a second exhibition at the Aztec Land Gallery in 1924, and he had a steady stream of local socialites asking him to take their portraits. At the same time, Weston began to miss his other sons back in the U.S. As with many of his actions, though, it was a woman who motivated him most. He had recently corresponded with a woman he had known for several years named Miriam Lerner, and as her letters became more passionate he longed to see her again.
He and Chandler returned to San Francisco at the end of 1924, and the next month he set up a studio with Johan Hagemeyer. Weston seemed to be struggling with his past and his future during this period. He burned all of his pre-Mexico journals, as though trying to erase the past, and started a new series of nudes with Lerner and with his son Neil. He wrote that these images were "the start of a new period in my approach and attitude towards photography."
His new relationship with Lerner did not last long, and in August 1925 he returned to Mexico, this time with his son Brett. Modotti had arranged a joint show of their photographs, and it opened the week he returned. He received new critical acclaim and six of his prints were purchased for the State Museum. For the next several months he concentrated once again on photographing folk art, toys and local scenes. One of his strongest images of this period is of three black clay pots that art historian Rene d'Harnoncourt described as "the beginning of a new art."
In May 1926 Weston signed a contract with writer Anita Brenner for $1,000 to make photographs for a book she was writing about Mexican folk art. In June he, Modotti and Brett started traveling around the country in search of lesser known native arts and crafts. His contract required him to give Brenner three finished prints from 400 8x10 negatives, and it took him until November of that year to complete the work. During their travels, Brett received a crash course in photography from his father, and he made more than two dozen prints which his father judged to be of exceptional quality.
By the time they returned from their trip, Weston and Modotti's relationship had crumbled, and within less than two weeks he and Brett returned to California. He never traveled to Mexico again.
1927–35: Glendale to Carmel
Weston initially returned to his old studio in Glendale (previously called Tropico). He hastily arranged a dual exhibition at University of California of the photographs that he and Brett had made the year before. The father showed 100 prints and the son showed 20. Brett was only 15 years old at the time.
In February he started a new series of nudes, this time of dancer Bertha Wardell. One of this series, of her kneeling body cut off at the shoulders, is one of Weston's most well-known figure studies. At this same time he met Canadian painter Henrietta Shore, whom he asked to comment on the photos of Wardell. He was surprised by her honest critique: "I wish you would not do so many nudes – you are getting used to them, the subject no longer amazes you ‒ most of these are just nudes."
He asked to look at her work and was intrigued by her large paintings of sea shells. He borrowed several shells from her, thinking he might find some inspiration for a new still life series. Over the next few weeks he explored many different kinds of shell and background combinations – in his log of photographs taken for 1927 he listed fourteen negatives of shells. One of these, simply called Nautilus, 1927" (sometimes called Shell, 1927), became one of his most famous images. Modotti called the image "mystical and erotic," and when she showed it to Rene d'Harnoncourt he said he felt "weak at the knees." Weston is known to have made at least twenty-eight prints of this image, more than he had made of any other shell image.
In September of that year Weston had a major exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. At the opening of the show he met fellow photographer Willard Van Dyke, who later introduced Weston to Ansel Adams.
In May 1928, Weston and Brett made a brief but important trip to the Mojave Desert. It was there that he first explored and photographed landscapes as an art form. He found the stark rock forms and empty spaces to be a visual revelation, and over a long weekend he took twenty-seven photographs. In his journal he declared "these negatives are the most important I have ever done."
Later that year he and Brett moved to San Francisco, where they lived and worked in a small studio owned by Hagemeyer. He made portraits to earn an income, but he longed to get away by himself and get back to his art. In early 1929 he moved to Hagemeyer's cottage in Carmel, and it was there that he finally found the solitude and the inspiration that he was seeking. He placed a sign in studio window that said, "Edward Weston, photographer, Unretouched Portraits, Prints for Collectors."
He started making regular trips to nearby Point Lobos, where he would continue to photograph until the end of his career. It was there that he learned to fine-tune his photographic vision to match the visual space of his view camera, and the images he took there, of kelp, rocks and wind-blown trees, are among his finest. Looking at his work from this period, one biographer wrote:
"Weston arranged his compositions so that things happened on the edges; lines almost cross or meet and circular lines just touch the edges tangentially; his compositions were now created exclusively for a space with the proportions of eight by ten. There is no extraneous space nor is there too little."
In early April 1929, Weston met photographer Sonya Noskowiak at a party, and by the end of the month she was living with him. As with many of his other relationships, she became his model, muse, pupil and assistant. They would continue to live together for five years.
Intrigued by the many kinds and shapes of kelp he found on the beaches near Carmel, in 1930 Weston began taking close-ups of vegetables and fruits. He made a variety of photographs of cabbage, kale, onions, bananas, and finally, his most iconic image, peppers. In August of that year Noskowiak brought him several green peppers, and over a four-day period he shot at least thirty different negatives. Of these, Pepper No. 30, is among the all-time masterpieces of photography.
Weston had a series of important one-man exhibitions in 1930–31. The first was at Alma Reed's Delphic Studio Gallery in New York, followed closely by a mounting of the same show at the Denny Watrous Gallery in Carmel. Both received rave reviews, including a two-page article in the New York Times Magazine. These were followed by shows at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Galerie Jean Naert in Paris.
Although he was succeeding professionally his personal life was very complex. For most of their marriage, Flora was able to take care of their children because of an inheritance from her parents. However, the Wall Street crash of 1929 had wiped out most of her savings, and Weston felt increased pressure to help provide more for her and his sons. He described this time as "the most trying economic period of my life."
In 1932, The Art of Edward Weston, the first book devoted exclusively to Weston's work, was published. It was edited by Merle Armitage and dedicated to Alice Rohrer, an admirer and patron of Weston whose $500 donation helped pay for the book to be published.
During the same time a small group of like-minded photographers in the San Francisco area, led by Van Dyke and Ansel Adams, began informally meeting to discuss their common interest and aesthetics. Inspired by Weston's show at the De Young Museum the previous year, they approached the museum with the idea of mounting a group exhibition of their work. They named themselves Group f/64, and in November 1932, an exhibition of 80 of their prints opened at the museum. The show was a critical success.
In 1933 Weston bought a 4 × 5 Graflex camera, which was much smaller and lighter than the large view camera he had used for many years. He began taking close-up nudes of Noskowiak and other models. The smaller camera allowed him to interact more with his models, while at the same time the nudes he took during this period began to resemble some of the contorted root and vegetables he had taken the year before.
In early 1934, "a new and important chapter opened" in Weston's life when he met Charis Wilson at a concert. Even more than with his previous lovers, Weston was immediately captivated by her beauty and her personality. He wrote: "A new love came into my life, a most beautiful one, one which will, I believe, stand the test of time." On April 22 he photographed her nude for the first time, and they entered into an intense relationship. He was still living with Noskowiak at that time, but within two weeks he asked her to move out, declaring that for him other women were "as inevitable as the tides".
Perhaps because of the intensity of his new relationship, he stopped writing in his Daybooks at this same time. Six months later he wrote one final entry, looking back from April 22:
After eight months we are closer together than ever. Perhaps C. will be remembered as the great love of my life. Already I have achieved certain heights reached with no other love.
1935–45: Guggenheim grant to Wildcat Hill
In January 1935 Weston was facing increasing financial difficulties. He closed his studio in Carmel and moved to Santa Monica Canyon, California, where he opened a new studio with Brett. He implored Wilson to come and live with him, and in August 1935 she finally agreed. While she had an intense interest in his work, Wilson was the first woman Weston had lived with since Flora who had no interest in becoming a photographer. This allowed Weston to concentrate on her as his muse and model, and in turn Wilson devoted her time to promoting Weston's art as his assistant and quasi-agent.
Almost immediately he began taking a new series of nudes with Wilson as the model. One of the first photographs he took of her, on the balcony of their home, became one of his most published images (Nude (Charis, Santa Monica)). Soon after they took the first of several trips to Oceano Dunes. It was there that Weston made some of his most daring and intimate photographs of any of his models, capturing Wilson in completely uninhibited poses in the sand dunes. He exhibited only one or two of this series in his lifetime, thinking several of the others were "too erotic" for the general public.
Although his recent work had received critical acclaim, he was not earning enough income from his artistic images to provide a steady income. Rather than going back to relying solely on portraiture, he started the "Edward Weston Print of the Month Club", offering selections of his photos for a monthly $5 subscription. Each month subscribers would receive a new print from Weston, with a limited edition of 40 copies of each print. Although he created these prints with the same high standards that he did for his exhibition prints, it is thought that he never had more than eleven subscribers.
At the suggestion of Beaumont Newhall, Weston decided to apply for a Guggenheim Foundation grant (now known as a Guggenheim Fellowship). He wrote a two-sentence description about his work, assembled thirty-five of his favorite prints, and sent it in. Afterward Dorothea Lange and her husband suggested that the application was too brief to be seriously considered, and Weston resubmitted it with a four-page letter and work plan. He did not mention that Wilson had written the new application for him.
On March 22, 1937, Weston received notification that he had been awarded a Guggenheim grant, the first ever given to a photographer. The award was $2,000 for one year, a significant amount of money at that time. He was able to further capitalize on the award by arranging to provide the editor of AAA Westway Magazine with 8–10 photos per month for $50 during their travels, with Wilson getting an additional $15 monthly for photo captions and short narratives. They purchased a new car and set out on Weston's dream trip to go and photograph whatever he wanted. Over the next twelve months they made seventeen trips and covered 16,697 miles according to Wilson's detailed log. Weston made 1,260 negatives during the trip.
The freedom of this trip with the "love of his life", combined with all of his sons now reaching the age of adulthood, gave Weston the motivation to finally divorce his wife. They had been living apart for sixteen years.
Due to the success of the past year, Weston applied for and received a second year of Guggenheim support. Although he wanted to do some additional traveling, he intended to use most of the money to allow him to print his past year's work. He commissioned Neil to build a small home in the Carmel Highlands on property owned by Wilson's father. They named the place "Wildcat Hill" because of the many domestic cats that soon occupied the grounds.
Wilson set up a writing studio in what was intended to be a small garage behind the house, and she spent several months writing and editing stories from their travels.
In 1939, Seeing California with Edward Weston was published, with photographs by Weston and writing by Wilson. Finally relieved from the financial stresses of the past and inordinately happy with his work and his relationship, Weston married Wilson in a small ceremony on April 24.
Buoyed by the success of their first book, in 1940 they published California and the West. The first edition, featuring 96 of Weston's photos with text by Wilson, sold for $3.95. Over the summer, Weston taught photography at the first Ansel Adams Workshop at Yosemite National Park.
Just as the Guggenheim money was running out, Weston was invited to illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He would receive $1,000 for photographs and $500 travel expenses. Weston insisted on having artistic control of the images he would take and insisted that he would not be taking literal illustrations of Whitman's text. On May 28 he and Wilson began a trip that would cover 20,000 miles through 24 states; he took between 700 and 800 8x10 negatives as well as dozens of Graflex portraits.
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the United States entered World War II. Weston was near the end of the Whitman trip, and he was deeply affected by the outbreak of the war. He wrote: "When the war broke out we scurried home. Charis did not want to scurry. I did."
He spent the first few months of 1942 organizing and printing the negatives from the Whitman trip. Of the hundreds of images he took, forty-nine were selected for publication.
Due to the war, Point Lobos was closed to the public for several years. Weston continued to work on images centered on Wildcat Hill, including shots of the many cats that lived there. Weston treated them with the same serious intent that he applied to all of his other subjects, and Charis assembled the results into their most unusual publication, The Cats of Wildcat Hill, which was finally published in 1947.
The year 1945 marked the beginning of significant changes for Weston. He began to experience the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease, a debilitating ailment that gradually stole his strength and his ability to photograph. He withdrew from Wilson, who at the same time began to become more involved in local politics and the Carmel cultural scene. A strength that originally brought them together – her lack of interest in becoming a photographer herself – eventually led to their break-up. She wrote, "My flight from Edward was also partly an escape from photography, which had taken up so much room in my life for so many years."
While working on a major retrospective exhibition for the Museum of Modern Art, he and Wilson separated. Weston returned to Glendale since the land for their cabin at Wildcat Hill still belonged to Wilson's father. Within a few months she moved out and arranged to sell the property to him.
1946–58: Final years
In February 1946, Weston's major retrospective opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He and Beaumont Newhall selected 313 prints for the exhibition, and eventually 250 photographs were displayed along with 11 negatives. At that time many of his prints were still for sale, and he sold 97 prints from the exhibit at $25 per print. Later that year, Weston was asked by Dr. George L. Waters of Kodak to produce 8 × 10 Kodachrome transparencies for their advertising campaign. Weston had never worked in color before, primarily because he had no means of developing or printing the more complicated color process. He accepted their offer in no small part because they offered him $250 per image, the highest amount he would be paid for any single work in his lifetime. He eventually sold seven color works to Kodak of landscapes and scenery at Point Lobos and nearby Monterey harbor.
In 1947 as his Parkinson's disease progressed, Weston began looking for an assistant. Serendipitously, an eager young photographic enthusiast, Dody Weston Thompson, contacted him in search of employment.
Weston mentioned he had just that morning written a letter to Ansel Adams, looking for someone seeking to learn photography in exchange for carrying his bulky large-format camera and to provide a much needed automobile. There was a swift meeting of creative minds. For the remainder of 1947 through the beginning of 1948, Dody commuted from San Francisco on weekends to learn from Weston the basics of photography. In early 1948, Dody moved into "Bodie House," the guest cottage at Edward's Wildcat Hill compound, as his full-time assistant.
By late 1948 he was no longer physically able to use his large view camera. That year he took his last photographs, at Point Lobos. His final negative was an image he called, "Rocks and Pebbles, 1948". Although diminished in his capacity, Weston never stopped being a photographer. He worked with his sons and Dody to catalog his images and especially to oversee the publication and printing of his work. In 1950 there was a major retrospective of his work at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris, and in 1952 he published a Fiftieth Anniversary portfolio, with images printed by Brett.
During this time he worked with Cole, Brett, and Dody Thompson (Brett's wife by 1952), to select and have them print a master set of what he considered his best work. They spent many long hours together in the darkroom, and by 1956 they had produced what Weston called "The Project Prints", eight sets of 8" × 10" prints from 830 of his negatives. The only complete set today is housed at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Later that same year the Smithsonian Institution displayed nearly 100 of these prints at a major exhibit, "The World of Edward Weston", paying tribute to his accomplishments in American photography.
Weston died at his home on Wildcat Hill on New Year's Day, 1958. His sons scattered his ashes into the Pacific Ocean at an area then known as Pebbly Beach on Point Lobos. Due to Weston's significant influence in the area, the beach was later renamed Weston Beach. He had $300 in his bank account at the time of his death.
Equipment and techniques
Cameras and lenses
During his lifetime Weston worked with several cameras. He began as a more serious photographer in 1902 when he purchased a 5 × 7 camera. When he moved to Tropico, now part of Glendale, and opened his studio in 1911, he acquired an enormous 11 x 14 Graf Variable studio portrait camera. Roi Partridge, Imogen Cunningham's husband, later made an etching of Weston in his studio, dwarfed by the giant camera in front of him. After he began taking more portraits of children, he bought a 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ Graflex in 1912 to better capture their quickly changing expressions.
When he went to Mexico in 1924 he took an 8 × 10 Seneca folding-bed view camera with several lenses, including a Graf Variable and a Wollensak Verito. While in Mexico he purchased a used Rapid Rectilinear lens which was his primary lens for many years. The lens, now in the George Eastman House, did not have a manufacturer's name. He also took to Mexico a 3¼ × 4¼ Graflex with a ƒ/4.5 Tessar lens, which he used for portraits.
In 1933 he purchased a 4 × 5 R. B. Auto-Graflex] and used it thereafter for all portraits. He continued to use the Seneca view camera for all other work.
In 1939 he listed the following items as his standard equipment:
8 x 10 Century Universal
Triple convertible Turner Reich, 12", 21", 28"
K2, G, A filters
12 film holders
Paul Ries Tripod
He continued to use this equipment throughout his life.
Film
Prior to 1921 Weston used an orthochromatic sheet film, but when panchromatic film became widely available in 1921 he switched to it for all of his work. According to his son Cole, after Agfa Isopan film came out in the 1930s Weston used it for his black-and-white images for the rest of his life. This film was rated at about ISO 25, but the developing technique Weston used reduced the effective rating to about ISO 12.
The 8 × 10 cameras he preferred were large and heavy, and due to the weight and the cost of the film he never carried more than twelve sheet film holders with him. At the end of each day, he had to go into a darkroom, unload the film holders and load them with new film. This was especially challenging when he was traveling since he had to find a darkened room somewhere or else set up a makeshift darkroom made from heavy canvas.
In spite of the bulky size of the view camera, Weston boasted he could "set up the tripod, fasten the camera securely to it, attach the lens to the camera, open the shutter, study the image on the ground glass, focus it, close the shutter, insert the plate holder, cock the shutter, set it to the appropriate aperture and speed, remove the slide from the plate holder, make the exposure, replace the slide, and remove the plate holder in two minutes and twenty seconds."
The smaller Graflex cameras he used had the advantage of using film magazines that held either 12 or 18 sheets of film. Weston preferred these cameras when taking portraits because he could respond more quickly to the sitter. He reported that with his Graflex he once made three dozen negatives of Tina Modotti within 20 minutes.In 1946 a representative from Kodak asked Weston to try out their new Kodachrome film, and over the next two years he made at least 60 8 x 10 color images using this film." They were some of the last photographs he took, since by late 1948 he was no longer able to operate a camera due to the effects of his Parkinson's disease.
Exposures
During the first 20 years of his photography Weston determined all of his exposure settings by estimation based on his previous experiences and the relatively narrow tolerances of the film at that time. He said, "I dislike to figure out time, and find my exposures more accurate when only "felt"." In the late 1930s he acquired a Weston exposure meter and continued to use it as an aid to determine exposures throughout his career. Photo historian Nancy Newhall wrote that "Young photographers are confused and amazed when they behold him measuring with his meter every value in the sphere where he intends to work, from the sky to the ground under his feet. He is "feeling the light" and checking his own observations. After which he puts the meter away and does what he thinks. Often he adds up everything ‒ filters, extension, film, speed, and so on ‒ and doubles the computation." Weston, Newhall noted, believed in "massive exposure", which he then compensated for by hand-processing the film in a weak developer solution and individually inspecting each negative as it continued to develop to get the right balance of highlights and shadows.
The low ISO rating of the sheet film Weston used necessitated very long exposures when using his view camera, ranging from 1 to 3 seconds for outdoor landscape exposures to as long as 4½ hours for still lifes such as peppers or shells. When he used one of the Graflex cameras the exposure times were much shorter (usually less than ¼ second), and he was sometimes able to work without a tripod.
Darkroom
Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days.
When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives."
In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life.
Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints.
Paper
Early in his career Weston printed on several kinds of paper, including Velox, Apex, Convira, Defender Velour Black and Haloid. When he went to Mexico he learned how to use platinum and palladium paper, made by Willis & Clement and imported from England. After his return to California, he abandoned platinum and palladium printing due to the scarcity and increasing price of the paper. Eventually he was able to get most of the same qualities he preferred with Kodak's Azo glossy silver gelatin paper developed in Amidol. He continued to use this paper almost exclusively until he stopped printing.
Writings
Weston was a prolific writer. His Daybooks were published in two volumes totaling more than 500 pages in the first edition. This does not include the years of the journal he kept between 1915 and 1923; for reasons he never made clear he destroyed those before leaving for Mexico. He also wrote dozens of articles and commentaries, beginning in 1906 and ending in 1957. He hand-wrote or typed at least 5,000 letters to colleagues, friends, lovers, his wives and his children.
In addition, Weston kept very thorough notes on the technical and business aspects of his work. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, which now houses most of Weston's archives, reports that it houses 75 linear feet of pages from his Daybooks, correspondence, financial records, memorabilia, and other personal documents in his possession when he died.
Among Weston's most important early writings are those that provide insights into his development of the concept of previsualization. He first spoke and wrote about the concept in 1922, at least a decade before Ansel Adams began utilizing the term, and he continued to expand upon this idea both in writing and in his teachings. Historian Beaumont Newhall noted the significance of Weston's innovation in his book The History of Photography, saying "The most important part of Edward Weston's approach was his insistence that the photographer should previsualize the final print before making the exposure."
In his Daybooks he provided an unusually detailed record of his evolution as an artist. Although he initially denied that his images reflect his own interpretations of the subject matter, by 1932 his writings revealed that he had come to accept the importance of artistic impression in his work. When combined with his photographs, his writings provide an extraordinarily vivid series of insights into his development as an artist and his impact of future generations of photographers.
Quotations
"Form follows function." Who said this I don't know, but the writer spoke well.
I am not a technician and have no interest in technique for its own sake. If my technique is adequate to present my seeing then I need nothing more.
I see no reason for recording the obvious.
If there is symbolism in my work, it can only be the seeing of parts ‒ fragments ‒ as universal symbols. All basic forms are so closely related as to be visually equivalent.
My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.
My work-purpose, my theme, can most nearly be stated as the recognition, recording and presentation of the interdependence, the relativity, of all things ‒ the universality of basic form.
The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.
What then is the end toward which I work? To present the significance of facts, so that they are transformed from things seen to things known.
When money enters in ‒ then, for a price, I become a liar ‒ and a good one I can be whether with pencil or subtle lighting or viewpoint. I hate it all, but so do I support not only my family, but my own work.
Legacy
As of 2013, two of Weston's photographs feature among the most expensive photographs ever sold. The Nude, 1925 taken in 1925 was bought by the gallerist Peter MacGill for $1.6 million in 2008. Nautilus of 1927 was sold for $1.1 million in 2010, also to MacGill.
Major exhibitions
1970, the Rencontres d'Arles festival (France) presented an exhibition "Hommage à Edward Weston" and an evening screening of the film The Photographer (1948) by Willard Van Dyke.
November 25, 1986 – March 29, 1987 Edward Weston in Los Angeles at Huntington Library
1986 Edward Weston: Color Photography at Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
May 13 – August 27, 1989 Edward Weston in New Mexico at Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe
Edward Weston : the Last Years in Carmel at The Art Institute of Chicago, June 2 – September 16, 2001, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mar. 1 – July 9, 2002.
List of photographs
The artistic career of Weston spanned more than forty years, from roughly 1915 to 1956. A prolific photographer, he produced more than 1,000 black-and-white photographs and some 50 color images. This list is an incomplete selection of Weston's better-known photographs.
Notes
References
Sources
Abbott, Brett. Edward Weston: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005.
Alinder, Mary Street. Group f.64: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists Who Revolutionized American Photography. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2014.
Bunnell, Peter C. Edward Weston on Photography. Salt Lake City: P. Smith Books, 1983.
Bunnell, Peter C., David Featherston et al. EW 100: Centennial Essays in Honor of Edward Weston. Carmel, Calif. : Friends of Photography, 1986.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston in Mexico, 1923–1926. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983.
Conger, Amy (1992). Edward Weston – Photographs From the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1992.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston: The Form of The Nude. NY: Phaidon, 2006.
Edward Weston : Color Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1986.
Enyeart, James. Edward Weston's California landscapes. Boston : Little, Brown, 1984.
Foley, Kathy Kelsey. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister. Dayton: Dayton Art Institute, 1978.
Heyman, There Thau. Seeing Straight: The f.64 Revolution in Photography. Oakland: Oakland Art Museum, 1992.
Higgins, Gary. Truth, Myth and Erasure: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston. Tempe, Ariz. : School of Art, Arizona State University, 1991.
Hochberg, Judith and Michael P. Mattis. Edward Weston: Life Work. Photographs from the Collection of Judith G. Hochberg and Michael P. Mattis. Revere, Pa.: Lodima Press, c2003.
Hooks, Margaret. Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary. London: Pandora, 1993.
Lowe, Sarah M. Tina Modotti and Edward Weston the Mexico Years. London: Merrell, 2004.
Maddow, Ben. Edward Weston: Fifty Years; The Definitive Volume of His Photographic Work. Millerton, N.Y., Aperture, 1973. ,
Maggia, Filippo. Edward Weston. New York: Skira, 2013.
Mora, Gilles (ed.). Edward Weston: Forms of Passion. NY: Abrams, 1995.
Morgan, Susan. Portraits / Edward Weston. NY: Aperture, 1995.
Newhall, Beaumont (1984). Edward Weston Omnibus: A Critical Anthology. Salt Lake City : Peregrine Smith Books, 1984.
Newhall, Beaumont . Supreme Instants: The Photography of Edward Weston. Boston : Little, Brown, 1986.
Newhall, Nancy (ed.). Edward Weston; The Flame of Recognition: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY: Aperture, 1971.
Pitts, Terence. Edward Weston 1886–1958. Köln: Taschen, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E., Karen Quinn and Leslie Furth. Edward Weston : Photography and Modernism. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E. Weston's Westons : Portraits and Nudes. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989.
Travis, David. Edward Weston, The Last Years in Carmel. Chicago: Art Institute, 2001.
Warren, Beth Gates. Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011.
Warren, Beth Gates. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister and Other Photographs. NY: Sotheby's, 2008.
Warren, Beth Gates (2001). Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration. NY: Norton, 2001.
Watts, Jennifer A. (ed.). Edward Weston : A Legacy. London: Merrell, 2003.
Weston, Edward (1964). The Daybooks of Edward Weston. Edited by Nancy Nehall. NY: Horizon Press, 1961–1964. 2 vols.
Weston, Edward. My Camera on Point Lobos; 30 Photographs and Excerpts from E. W.’s Daybook. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950.
Weston, Paulette. Laughing Eyes: a Book of Letters Between Edward and Cole Weston 1923–1946. Carmel: Carmel Publishing Co., 1999.
Wilson, Charis. Edward Weston Nudes: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY : Aperture, 1977.
Wilson, Charis. Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Woods, John. Dune: Edward & Brett Weston. Kalispell, MT: Wild Horse Island Press, 2003.
External links
edward-weston.com
Edward Weston Collection at the Center for Creative Photography
Ben Maddow "Edward Weston Lecture" The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1976. Retrieved June 26, 2012
The Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston and Charis Wilson Documentary concerning Edward Weston, his muse Charis Wilson and photographer Ansel Adams.
Encyclopædia Britannica
Landscape photographers
American portrait photographers
1886 births
1958 deaths
History of platinum printing
Photographers from California
Artists from Chicago
People from Highland Park, Illinois
Deaths from Parkinson's disease
Neurological disease deaths in California
20th-century American photographers
Fine art photographers
Olympic archers of the United States
American male archers
Archers at the 1904 Summer Olympics | true | [
"Theodore Brett Weston (December 16, 1911 – January 22, 1993) was an American photographer.\n\nLife and work\nWeston was the second of the four sons of photographer Edward Weston and Flora Chandler. He began taking photographs in 1925, while living in Mexico with Tina Modotti and his father. He began showing his photographs with Edward Weston in 1927, was featured at the international exhibition at Film und Foto in Germany at age 17, and mounted his first one-man museum retrospective at age 21 at the De Young Museum in San Francisco in January, 1932.\n\nWeston's earliest images from the 1920s reflect his intuitive sophisticated sense of abstraction. He often flattened the plane, engaging in layered space, an artistic style more commonly seen among the abstract expressionists and more modern painters like David Hockney than other photographers. He began photographing the dunes at Oceano, California, in the early 1930s. This eventually became a favorite location of his father Edward and later shared with Brett's third wife Dody Weston Thompson. Brett preferred the high gloss papers and ensuing sharp clarity of the gelatin silver photographic materials of the Group f/64 rather than the platinum matte photographic papers common in the 1920s and encouraged Edward Weston to explore the new silver papers in his own work. Brett Weston was credited by photography historian Beaumont Newhall as the first photographer to make negative space the subject of a photograph.\n\n\"Brett and I are always seeing the same kinds of things to do - we have the same kind of vision. Brett didn't like this; naturally enough, he felt that even when he had done the thing first, the public would not know and he would be blamed for imitating me.\" Edward Weston - Daybooks - May 24, 1930.\n\nBrett Weston used to refer to Edward Weston as \"my biggest fan\" and there was no rivalry between the two photographic giants. Brett and his wife Dody loyally set aside their own photography to help Edward after he was unable to print his own images due to Parkinson's disease, which claimed Edward's life in 1958.\n\nWeston married and divorced four times. He had one daughter, Erica Weston. Brett Weston lived part-time on the Big Island of Hawaii and in Carmel, California for the final 14 years of his life. He maintained a home in Waikoloa that was built by his brother Neil Weston, and later moved to Hawaii Paradise Park. He died in Kona Hospital on January 22, 1993 after suffering a stroke.\n\nWeston was ranked one of the top ten photographers collected by American museums by the final decade of his life. Van Deren Coke described Weston as the \"child genius of American photography.\"\n\nIn November 1996, Oklahoma City collector Christian Keesee acquired from the Brett Weston Estate the remaining body of Weston's work.\n\nCollections\nWeston's work is held in the following permanent collections:\nCarnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania\nCenter for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson\nColorado Springs Fine Arts Center: 1 print (as of March 2021)\nHonolulu Museum of Art\nLos Angeles County Museum of Art: 114 prints (as of March 2021)\nMuseum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles\nMuseum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago\nMuseum of Modern Art, New York: 94 prints (as of March 2021)\nOklahoma City Museum of Art\nSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art: 43 prints (as of March 2021)\nTate, UK: 98 prints (as of March 2021)\n\nPublications\n Brett Weston: Photographs. Merle Armitage, E. Weyhe, NY, 1956. ASIN: B0007DEJP2.\n Voyage of the Eye. Aperture, NY, 1975. .\n Brett Weston: Photographs from Five Decades. Edited by RH Cravens, Aperture, NY, 1980. .\n Brett Weston: A Personal Selection. Photography West Graphics, CA, 1986. .\n Brett Weston: Master Photographer. Photography West Graphics, CA, 1989. .\n Hawaii: Fifty Photographs. Photography West Graphics, CA, 1992. .\n Dune: Edward and Brett Weston. Edited by Kurt Markus. Wild Horse Island Press, MT, 2003. .\n San Francisco. Lodima Press, PA 2004. . With an afterword by Roger Aikin.\n White Sands. Lodima Press, PA 2005. . With an introduction by Nancy Newhall and an afterword by Roger Aikin.\n New York. Lodima Press, PA 2006. ASIN: B000T4CSUM. With an introduction by Beaumont Newhall and an afterword by Roger Aikin.\n Fifteen Photographs. Lodima Press, PA 2007. ASIN: B0012FZNJA. With an afterword by Roger Aikin.\n Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow. Edited by Stephen Bennett Phillips. Oklahoma City Museum of Art, OK, 2008, .\n A Restless Eye: A Biography of Photographer Brett Weston. John Charles Woods, Erica Weston Editions pubs. 2011. .\n Brett Weston At One Hundred - A Centennial Tribute. Edited by Merrilly Alley. Photography West Graphics, CA, 2011. . Edition of 100 copies.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Brett Weston Archive\n Brett Weston on artnet Monographs\n\n1911 births\n1993 deaths\nPhotographers from California\nArtists from Los Angeles\nPeople from Carmel-by-the-Sea, California\n20th-century American photographers",
"Steel: Armco, Middletown, Ohio is a black and white photograph taken by American photographer Edward Weston in 1922. The picture has the dimensions of 23 by 17,4 cm.\n\nWeston wrote on his journals, which he began writing in the Fall of 1922 while in a trip to visit his sister Mary Seaman in Ohio, about how the industrial landscape of Armco impressed and inspired him, in particular the “great plant and giant stacks of the American Rolling Mill Company”. He took five or six photographs at the site in October 1922, being this one of the most famous. Weston went to show Alfred Stieglitz some of the pictures that he took in Armco, which impressed him very positively, sensing in it modernist tendencies. These photographs were instrumental in the evolution of Weston's photography from his recent pictorialism work to what would be a more modern approach to this art, through straight photography. Weston was also influenced by his meeting with Austrian architect Rudolph Schindler and by the readings of several avant-garde European art magazines. The series of photographs that he took in Armco were essential in his changing of style. Like he stated: he was “ripe to change, was changing, yes changed.”\n\nHe brought these set of pictures when he moved to Mexico City, in Mexico, where he lived with Italian photographer and actress Tina Modotti, and they were inspirational for the new work that he would make in that staying. He kept them at his studio, alongside a Japanese print and a Pablo Picasso print. When Weston moved back to the United States, this print remained with Modotti, until her death in 1942.\n\nThere are prints of the photograph at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, George Eastman House, in Rochester, the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, and at the Museo de Arte Moderno, in Mexico City.\n\nReferences\n\nBlack-and-white photographs\n1922 in art\n1920s photographs"
]
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[
"Edward Weston",
"Darkroom",
"What kind of photographs did Weston take?",
"Weston always made contact prints,"
]
| C_7efe68873f1f4b09adc565dfd928bf98_1 | What are contact prints? | 2 | What are contact prints? | Edward Weston | Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight in order to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days. When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives." In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life. Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints. CANNOTANSWER | that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. | Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still-lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a "quintessentially American, and especially Californian, approach to modern photography" because of his focus on the people and places of the American West. In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 × 10 view camera. Some of his most famous
photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
Weston was born in Chicago and moved to California when he was 21. He knew he wanted to be a photographer from an early age, and initially his work was typical of the soft focus pictorialism that was popular at the time. Within a few years, however he abandoned that style and went on to be one of the foremost champions of highly detailed photographic images.
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he soon stopped photographing. He spent the remaining ten years of his life overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.
Life and work
1886–1906: Early life
Weston was born in Highland Park, Illinois, the second child and only son of Edward Burbank Weston, an obstetrician, and Alice Jeanette Brett, a Shakespearean actress. His mother died when he was five years old and he was raised mostly by his sister Mary, whom he called "May" or "Maisie". She was nine years older than he, and they developed a very close bond that was one of the few steady relationships in Weston's life.
His father remarried when he was nine, but neither Weston nor his sister got along with their new stepmother and stepbrother. After May was married and left their home in 1897, Weston's father devoted most of his time to his new wife and her son. Weston was left on his own much of the time; he stopped going to school and withdrew into his own room in their large home.
As a present for his 16th birthday Weston's father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Bull's-Eye No. 2, which was a simple box camera. He took it on vacation in the Midwest, and by the time he returned home his interest in photography was enough to lead him to purchase a used 5 × 7 inch view camera. He began photographing in Chicago parks and a farm owned by his aunt, and developed his own film and prints. Later he would remember that even at that early age his work showed strong artistic merit. He said, "I feel that my earliest work of 1903 ‒ though immature ‒ is related more closely, both with technique and composition, to my latest work than are several of my photographs dating from 1913 to 1920, a period in which I was trying to be artistic."
In 1904 May and her family moved to California, leaving Weston further isolated in Chicago. He earned a living by taking a job at a local department store, but he continued to spend most of his free time taking photos, Within two years he felt confident enough of his photography that he submitted his work to the magazine Camera and Darkroom, and in the April 1906 issue they published a full-page reproduction of his picture Spring, Chicago. This is the first known publication of any of his photographs.
In September 1904, Weston took part in the men's double American round archery event at the 1904 Summer Olympics with his father also taking part in the same event.
1906–23: Becoming a photographer
At his sister's urging Weston left Chicago in the spring of 1906 and moved near May's home in Tropico, California (now a neighborhood in Glendale). He decided to stay there and pursue a career in photography, but he soon realized he needed more professional training. A year later he moved to Effingham, Illinois, to enroll in the Illinois College of Photography. They taught a nine-month course, but Weston finished all of the class work in six months. The school refused to give him a diploma unless he paid for the full nine months; Weston refused and instead moved back to California in the spring of 1908.
He briefly worked at the photography studio of George Steckel in Los Angeles, as a negative retoucher. Within a few months he moved to the more established studio of Louis Mojonier. For the next several years he learned the techniques and business of operating a photography studio under Mojonier's direction.
Within days of his visit to Tropico, Weston was introduced to his sister's best friend, Flora May Chandler. She was a graduate of the Normal School, later to become UCLA. She assumed the position of a grade-school teacher in Tropico.
She was seven years older than Weston and a distant relative of Harry Chandler, who at that time was described as the head of "the single most powerful family in Southern California". This fact did not go unnoticed by Weston and his biographers.
On January 30, 1909, Weston and Chandler married in a simple ceremony. The first of their four sons, Edward Chandler Weston (1910–1993), known as Chandler, was born on April 26, 1910.
Named Edward Chandler, after Weston and his wife, he later became an excellent photographer on his own. He clearly learned much by being an assistant to his father in the bungalow studio. In 1923 he bid farewell to his mother and sibling brothers and sailed off to Mexico with his father and his then-muse, Tina Modotti. He gave up any aspirations in pursuing photography as a career after his adventures in Mexico. The lifestyle of fame and its fortune affected him greatly. His later photographs, as a hobbyist, albeit rare, certainly reflect an innate talent for the form.
In 1910 Weston opened his own business, called "The Little Studio", in Tropico. His sister later asked him why he opened his studio in Tropico rather than in the nearby metropolis of Los Angeles, and he replied "Sis, I'm going to make my name so famous that it won't matter where I live."
For the next three years he worked, alone and sometimes with the assistance of family members in his studio. Even at that early stage of his career he was highly particular about his work; in an interview at that time he said "[photographic] plates are nothing to me unless I get what I want. I have used thirty of them at a sitting if I did not secure the effect to suit me."
His critical eye paid off for him and he quickly gained more recognition for his work. He won prizes in national competitions, published several more photographs and wrote articles for magazines such as Photo-Era and American Photography, championing the pictorial style.
On December 16, 1911, Weston's second son, Theodore Brett Weston (1911–1993), was born. He became a long-time artistic collaborator with his father and an important photographer on his own.
Sometime in the fall of 1913, Los Angeles photographer, Margrethe Mather visited Weston's studio because of his growing reputation, and within a few months they developed an intense relationship. Weston was a quiet Midwestern transplant to California, and Mather was a part of the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was very outgoing and artistic in a flamboyant way, and her permissive sexual morals were far different from the conservative Weston at the time – Mather had been a prostitute and was bisexual with a preference for women. Mather presented a stark contrast to Weston's home life; his wife Flora was described as a "homely, rigid Puritan, and an utterly conventional woman, with whom he had little in common since he abhorred conventions" ‒ and he found Mather's uninhibited lifestyle irresistible and her photographic vision intriguing.
He asked Mather to be his studio assistant, and for the next decade they worked closely together, making individual and jointly signed portraits of writers Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. A joint exhibition of their work in 2001 revealed that during this period Weston emulated Mather's style and, later, her choice of subjects. On her own Mather photographed "fans, hands, eggs, melons, waves, bathroom fixtures, seashells and birds wings, all subjects that Weston would also explore." A decade later he described her as "the first important person in my life, and perhaps even now, though personal contact has gone, the most important."
In early 1915 Weston began keeping detailed journals he later came to call his "Daybooks". For the next two decades he recorded his thoughts about his work, observations about photography, and his interactions with friends, lovers and family. On December 6, 1916, a third son, Lawrence Neil Weston, was born. He also followed in the footsteps of his father and became a well-known photographer. It was during this period that Weston first met photographer Johan Hagemeyer, whom Weston mentored and lent his studio to from time to time. Later, Hagemeyer would return the favor by letting Weston use his studio in Carmel after he returned from Mexico. For the next several years Weston continued to earn a living by taking portraits in his small studio which he called "the shack".
Meanwhile, Flora was spending all of her time caring for their children. Their fourth son, Cole Weston (1919–2003), was born on January 30, 1919, and afterward she rarely had time to leave their home.
Over the summer of 1920 Weston met two people who were part of the growing Los Angeles cultural scene: Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, known as "Robo" and a woman he called his wife, Tina Modotti. Modotti, who was then known only as a stage and film actress, was never married to Robo, but they pretended to be for the sake of his family. Weston and Modotti were immediately attracted to each other, and they soon became lovers. Richey knew of Modotti's affair, but he continued to be friends with Weston and later invited him to come to Mexico and share his studio.
The following year Weston agreed to allow Mather to become an equal partner in his studio. For several months they took portraits that they signed with both of their names. This was the only time in his long career that Weston shared credit with another photographer.
Sometime in 1920 he began photographing nude models for the first time. His first models were his wife Flora and their children, but soon thereafter he took at least three nude studies of Mather. He followed these with several more photographs of nude models, the first of dozens of figure studies he would make of friends and lovers over the next twenty years.
Until now Weston had kept his relationships with other women a secret from his wife, but as he began to photograph more nudes Flora became suspicious about what went on with him and his models. Chandler recalled that his mother regularly sent him on "errands" to his father's studio and asked him to tell her who was there and what they were doing.
One of the first who agreed to model nude for Weston was Modotti. She became his primary model for the next several years.
In 1922 he visited his sister May, who had moved to Middletown, Ohio. While there he made five or six photographs of the tall smoke stacks at the nearby Armco steel mill. These images signaled a change in Weston's photographic style, a transition from the soft-focus pictorialism of the past to a new, cleaner-edge style. He immediately recognized the change and later recorded it in his notes: "The Middletown visit was something to remember...most of all in importance was my photographing of 'Armco'...That day I made great photographs, even Stieglitz thought they were important!"
At that time New York City was the cultural center for photography as an art form in America, and Alfred Stieglitz was the most influential figure in photography. Weston badly wanted to go to New York to meet with him, but he did not have enough money to make the trip. His brother-in-law gave him enough money to continue on from Middletown to New York City, and he spent most of October and early November there. While there he met artist Charles Sheeler and photographers Clarence H. White, Gertrude Kasebier, as well as Stieglitz. Weston wrote that Stieglitz told him, "Your work and attitude reassures me. You have shown me at least several prints which have given me a great deal of joy. And I can seldom say that of photographs."
Soon after Weston returned from New York, Robo moved to Mexico and set up a studio there to create batiks. Within a short while he had arranged for a joint exhibition of his work and of photographs by Weston, Mather and a few others. In early 1923 Modotti left by train to be with Robo in Mexico, but he contracted smallpox and died shortly before she arrived. Modotti was grief-stricken, but within a few weeks she felt well enough that she decided to stay and carry out the exhibition that Robo had planned. The show was a success, and due in no small part to his nude studies of Modotti, it firmly established Weston's artistic reputation in Mexico.
After the show closed Modotti returned to California, and Weston and she made plans to return to Mexico together. He wanted to spend a couple of months there photographing and promoting his work, and, conveniently, he could travel under the pretense of Modotti being his assistant and translator.
The week before he left for Mexico, Weston briefly reunited with Mather and took several nudes of her lying in the sand at Redondo Beach. These images were very different from his previous nude studies – sharply focused and showing her entire body in relation to the natural setting. They have been called the artistic prototypes for his most famous nudes, those of Charis Wilson which he would take more than a decade later.
1923–27: Mexico
On July 30, 1923, Weston, his son Chandler, and Modotti left on a steamer for the extended trip to Mexico. His wife, Flora, and their other three sons waved goodbye to them at the dock. It's unknown what Flora understood or thought about the relationship between Weston and Modotti, but she is reported to have called out at the dock, "Tina, take good care of my boys."
They arrived in Mexico City on August 11 and rented a large hacienda outside of the city. Within a month he had arranged for an exhibition of his work at the Aztec Land Gallery, and on October 17 the show opened to glowing press reviews. He was particularly proud of a review by Marius de Zayas that said "Photography is beginning to be photography, for until now it has only been art."
The different culture and scenery in Mexico forced Weston to look at things in new ways. He became more responsive to what was in front of him, and he turned his camera on everyday objects like toys, doorways and bathroom fixtures. He also made several intimate nudes and portraits of Modotti. He wrote in his Daybooks:
The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself...I feel definite in the belief that the approach to photography is through realism.
Weston continued to photograph the people and things around him, and his reputation in Mexico increased the longer he stayed. He had a second exhibition at the Aztec Land Gallery in 1924, and he had a steady stream of local socialites asking him to take their portraits. At the same time, Weston began to miss his other sons back in the U.S. As with many of his actions, though, it was a woman who motivated him most. He had recently corresponded with a woman he had known for several years named Miriam Lerner, and as her letters became more passionate he longed to see her again.
He and Chandler returned to San Francisco at the end of 1924, and the next month he set up a studio with Johan Hagemeyer. Weston seemed to be struggling with his past and his future during this period. He burned all of his pre-Mexico journals, as though trying to erase the past, and started a new series of nudes with Lerner and with his son Neil. He wrote that these images were "the start of a new period in my approach and attitude towards photography."
His new relationship with Lerner did not last long, and in August 1925 he returned to Mexico, this time with his son Brett. Modotti had arranged a joint show of their photographs, and it opened the week he returned. He received new critical acclaim and six of his prints were purchased for the State Museum. For the next several months he concentrated once again on photographing folk art, toys and local scenes. One of his strongest images of this period is of three black clay pots that art historian Rene d'Harnoncourt described as "the beginning of a new art."
In May 1926 Weston signed a contract with writer Anita Brenner for $1,000 to make photographs for a book she was writing about Mexican folk art. In June he, Modotti and Brett started traveling around the country in search of lesser known native arts and crafts. His contract required him to give Brenner three finished prints from 400 8x10 negatives, and it took him until November of that year to complete the work. During their travels, Brett received a crash course in photography from his father, and he made more than two dozen prints which his father judged to be of exceptional quality.
By the time they returned from their trip, Weston and Modotti's relationship had crumbled, and within less than two weeks he and Brett returned to California. He never traveled to Mexico again.
1927–35: Glendale to Carmel
Weston initially returned to his old studio in Glendale (previously called Tropico). He hastily arranged a dual exhibition at University of California of the photographs that he and Brett had made the year before. The father showed 100 prints and the son showed 20. Brett was only 15 years old at the time.
In February he started a new series of nudes, this time of dancer Bertha Wardell. One of this series, of her kneeling body cut off at the shoulders, is one of Weston's most well-known figure studies. At this same time he met Canadian painter Henrietta Shore, whom he asked to comment on the photos of Wardell. He was surprised by her honest critique: "I wish you would not do so many nudes – you are getting used to them, the subject no longer amazes you ‒ most of these are just nudes."
He asked to look at her work and was intrigued by her large paintings of sea shells. He borrowed several shells from her, thinking he might find some inspiration for a new still life series. Over the next few weeks he explored many different kinds of shell and background combinations – in his log of photographs taken for 1927 he listed fourteen negatives of shells. One of these, simply called Nautilus, 1927" (sometimes called Shell, 1927), became one of his most famous images. Modotti called the image "mystical and erotic," and when she showed it to Rene d'Harnoncourt he said he felt "weak at the knees." Weston is known to have made at least twenty-eight prints of this image, more than he had made of any other shell image.
In September of that year Weston had a major exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. At the opening of the show he met fellow photographer Willard Van Dyke, who later introduced Weston to Ansel Adams.
In May 1928, Weston and Brett made a brief but important trip to the Mojave Desert. It was there that he first explored and photographed landscapes as an art form. He found the stark rock forms and empty spaces to be a visual revelation, and over a long weekend he took twenty-seven photographs. In his journal he declared "these negatives are the most important I have ever done."
Later that year he and Brett moved to San Francisco, where they lived and worked in a small studio owned by Hagemeyer. He made portraits to earn an income, but he longed to get away by himself and get back to his art. In early 1929 he moved to Hagemeyer's cottage in Carmel, and it was there that he finally found the solitude and the inspiration that he was seeking. He placed a sign in studio window that said, "Edward Weston, photographer, Unretouched Portraits, Prints for Collectors."
He started making regular trips to nearby Point Lobos, where he would continue to photograph until the end of his career. It was there that he learned to fine-tune his photographic vision to match the visual space of his view camera, and the images he took there, of kelp, rocks and wind-blown trees, are among his finest. Looking at his work from this period, one biographer wrote:
"Weston arranged his compositions so that things happened on the edges; lines almost cross or meet and circular lines just touch the edges tangentially; his compositions were now created exclusively for a space with the proportions of eight by ten. There is no extraneous space nor is there too little."
In early April 1929, Weston met photographer Sonya Noskowiak at a party, and by the end of the month she was living with him. As with many of his other relationships, she became his model, muse, pupil and assistant. They would continue to live together for five years.
Intrigued by the many kinds and shapes of kelp he found on the beaches near Carmel, in 1930 Weston began taking close-ups of vegetables and fruits. He made a variety of photographs of cabbage, kale, onions, bananas, and finally, his most iconic image, peppers. In August of that year Noskowiak brought him several green peppers, and over a four-day period he shot at least thirty different negatives. Of these, Pepper No. 30, is among the all-time masterpieces of photography.
Weston had a series of important one-man exhibitions in 1930–31. The first was at Alma Reed's Delphic Studio Gallery in New York, followed closely by a mounting of the same show at the Denny Watrous Gallery in Carmel. Both received rave reviews, including a two-page article in the New York Times Magazine. These were followed by shows at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Galerie Jean Naert in Paris.
Although he was succeeding professionally his personal life was very complex. For most of their marriage, Flora was able to take care of their children because of an inheritance from her parents. However, the Wall Street crash of 1929 had wiped out most of her savings, and Weston felt increased pressure to help provide more for her and his sons. He described this time as "the most trying economic period of my life."
In 1932, The Art of Edward Weston, the first book devoted exclusively to Weston's work, was published. It was edited by Merle Armitage and dedicated to Alice Rohrer, an admirer and patron of Weston whose $500 donation helped pay for the book to be published.
During the same time a small group of like-minded photographers in the San Francisco area, led by Van Dyke and Ansel Adams, began informally meeting to discuss their common interest and aesthetics. Inspired by Weston's show at the De Young Museum the previous year, they approached the museum with the idea of mounting a group exhibition of their work. They named themselves Group f/64, and in November 1932, an exhibition of 80 of their prints opened at the museum. The show was a critical success.
In 1933 Weston bought a 4 × 5 Graflex camera, which was much smaller and lighter than the large view camera he had used for many years. He began taking close-up nudes of Noskowiak and other models. The smaller camera allowed him to interact more with his models, while at the same time the nudes he took during this period began to resemble some of the contorted root and vegetables he had taken the year before.
In early 1934, "a new and important chapter opened" in Weston's life when he met Charis Wilson at a concert. Even more than with his previous lovers, Weston was immediately captivated by her beauty and her personality. He wrote: "A new love came into my life, a most beautiful one, one which will, I believe, stand the test of time." On April 22 he photographed her nude for the first time, and they entered into an intense relationship. He was still living with Noskowiak at that time, but within two weeks he asked her to move out, declaring that for him other women were "as inevitable as the tides".
Perhaps because of the intensity of his new relationship, he stopped writing in his Daybooks at this same time. Six months later he wrote one final entry, looking back from April 22:
After eight months we are closer together than ever. Perhaps C. will be remembered as the great love of my life. Already I have achieved certain heights reached with no other love.
1935–45: Guggenheim grant to Wildcat Hill
In January 1935 Weston was facing increasing financial difficulties. He closed his studio in Carmel and moved to Santa Monica Canyon, California, where he opened a new studio with Brett. He implored Wilson to come and live with him, and in August 1935 she finally agreed. While she had an intense interest in his work, Wilson was the first woman Weston had lived with since Flora who had no interest in becoming a photographer. This allowed Weston to concentrate on her as his muse and model, and in turn Wilson devoted her time to promoting Weston's art as his assistant and quasi-agent.
Almost immediately he began taking a new series of nudes with Wilson as the model. One of the first photographs he took of her, on the balcony of their home, became one of his most published images (Nude (Charis, Santa Monica)). Soon after they took the first of several trips to Oceano Dunes. It was there that Weston made some of his most daring and intimate photographs of any of his models, capturing Wilson in completely uninhibited poses in the sand dunes. He exhibited only one or two of this series in his lifetime, thinking several of the others were "too erotic" for the general public.
Although his recent work had received critical acclaim, he was not earning enough income from his artistic images to provide a steady income. Rather than going back to relying solely on portraiture, he started the "Edward Weston Print of the Month Club", offering selections of his photos for a monthly $5 subscription. Each month subscribers would receive a new print from Weston, with a limited edition of 40 copies of each print. Although he created these prints with the same high standards that he did for his exhibition prints, it is thought that he never had more than eleven subscribers.
At the suggestion of Beaumont Newhall, Weston decided to apply for a Guggenheim Foundation grant (now known as a Guggenheim Fellowship). He wrote a two-sentence description about his work, assembled thirty-five of his favorite prints, and sent it in. Afterward Dorothea Lange and her husband suggested that the application was too brief to be seriously considered, and Weston resubmitted it with a four-page letter and work plan. He did not mention that Wilson had written the new application for him.
On March 22, 1937, Weston received notification that he had been awarded a Guggenheim grant, the first ever given to a photographer. The award was $2,000 for one year, a significant amount of money at that time. He was able to further capitalize on the award by arranging to provide the editor of AAA Westway Magazine with 8–10 photos per month for $50 during their travels, with Wilson getting an additional $15 monthly for photo captions and short narratives. They purchased a new car and set out on Weston's dream trip to go and photograph whatever he wanted. Over the next twelve months they made seventeen trips and covered 16,697 miles according to Wilson's detailed log. Weston made 1,260 negatives during the trip.
The freedom of this trip with the "love of his life", combined with all of his sons now reaching the age of adulthood, gave Weston the motivation to finally divorce his wife. They had been living apart for sixteen years.
Due to the success of the past year, Weston applied for and received a second year of Guggenheim support. Although he wanted to do some additional traveling, he intended to use most of the money to allow him to print his past year's work. He commissioned Neil to build a small home in the Carmel Highlands on property owned by Wilson's father. They named the place "Wildcat Hill" because of the many domestic cats that soon occupied the grounds.
Wilson set up a writing studio in what was intended to be a small garage behind the house, and she spent several months writing and editing stories from their travels.
In 1939, Seeing California with Edward Weston was published, with photographs by Weston and writing by Wilson. Finally relieved from the financial stresses of the past and inordinately happy with his work and his relationship, Weston married Wilson in a small ceremony on April 24.
Buoyed by the success of their first book, in 1940 they published California and the West. The first edition, featuring 96 of Weston's photos with text by Wilson, sold for $3.95. Over the summer, Weston taught photography at the first Ansel Adams Workshop at Yosemite National Park.
Just as the Guggenheim money was running out, Weston was invited to illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He would receive $1,000 for photographs and $500 travel expenses. Weston insisted on having artistic control of the images he would take and insisted that he would not be taking literal illustrations of Whitman's text. On May 28 he and Wilson began a trip that would cover 20,000 miles through 24 states; he took between 700 and 800 8x10 negatives as well as dozens of Graflex portraits.
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the United States entered World War II. Weston was near the end of the Whitman trip, and he was deeply affected by the outbreak of the war. He wrote: "When the war broke out we scurried home. Charis did not want to scurry. I did."
He spent the first few months of 1942 organizing and printing the negatives from the Whitman trip. Of the hundreds of images he took, forty-nine were selected for publication.
Due to the war, Point Lobos was closed to the public for several years. Weston continued to work on images centered on Wildcat Hill, including shots of the many cats that lived there. Weston treated them with the same serious intent that he applied to all of his other subjects, and Charis assembled the results into their most unusual publication, The Cats of Wildcat Hill, which was finally published in 1947.
The year 1945 marked the beginning of significant changes for Weston. He began to experience the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease, a debilitating ailment that gradually stole his strength and his ability to photograph. He withdrew from Wilson, who at the same time began to become more involved in local politics and the Carmel cultural scene. A strength that originally brought them together – her lack of interest in becoming a photographer herself – eventually led to their break-up. She wrote, "My flight from Edward was also partly an escape from photography, which had taken up so much room in my life for so many years."
While working on a major retrospective exhibition for the Museum of Modern Art, he and Wilson separated. Weston returned to Glendale since the land for their cabin at Wildcat Hill still belonged to Wilson's father. Within a few months she moved out and arranged to sell the property to him.
1946–58: Final years
In February 1946, Weston's major retrospective opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He and Beaumont Newhall selected 313 prints for the exhibition, and eventually 250 photographs were displayed along with 11 negatives. At that time many of his prints were still for sale, and he sold 97 prints from the exhibit at $25 per print. Later that year, Weston was asked by Dr. George L. Waters of Kodak to produce 8 × 10 Kodachrome transparencies for their advertising campaign. Weston had never worked in color before, primarily because he had no means of developing or printing the more complicated color process. He accepted their offer in no small part because they offered him $250 per image, the highest amount he would be paid for any single work in his lifetime. He eventually sold seven color works to Kodak of landscapes and scenery at Point Lobos and nearby Monterey harbor.
In 1947 as his Parkinson's disease progressed, Weston began looking for an assistant. Serendipitously, an eager young photographic enthusiast, Dody Weston Thompson, contacted him in search of employment.
Weston mentioned he had just that morning written a letter to Ansel Adams, looking for someone seeking to learn photography in exchange for carrying his bulky large-format camera and to provide a much needed automobile. There was a swift meeting of creative minds. For the remainder of 1947 through the beginning of 1948, Dody commuted from San Francisco on weekends to learn from Weston the basics of photography. In early 1948, Dody moved into "Bodie House," the guest cottage at Edward's Wildcat Hill compound, as his full-time assistant.
By late 1948 he was no longer physically able to use his large view camera. That year he took his last photographs, at Point Lobos. His final negative was an image he called, "Rocks and Pebbles, 1948". Although diminished in his capacity, Weston never stopped being a photographer. He worked with his sons and Dody to catalog his images and especially to oversee the publication and printing of his work. In 1950 there was a major retrospective of his work at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris, and in 1952 he published a Fiftieth Anniversary portfolio, with images printed by Brett.
During this time he worked with Cole, Brett, and Dody Thompson (Brett's wife by 1952), to select and have them print a master set of what he considered his best work. They spent many long hours together in the darkroom, and by 1956 they had produced what Weston called "The Project Prints", eight sets of 8" × 10" prints from 830 of his negatives. The only complete set today is housed at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Later that same year the Smithsonian Institution displayed nearly 100 of these prints at a major exhibit, "The World of Edward Weston", paying tribute to his accomplishments in American photography.
Weston died at his home on Wildcat Hill on New Year's Day, 1958. His sons scattered his ashes into the Pacific Ocean at an area then known as Pebbly Beach on Point Lobos. Due to Weston's significant influence in the area, the beach was later renamed Weston Beach. He had $300 in his bank account at the time of his death.
Equipment and techniques
Cameras and lenses
During his lifetime Weston worked with several cameras. He began as a more serious photographer in 1902 when he purchased a 5 × 7 camera. When he moved to Tropico, now part of Glendale, and opened his studio in 1911, he acquired an enormous 11 x 14 Graf Variable studio portrait camera. Roi Partridge, Imogen Cunningham's husband, later made an etching of Weston in his studio, dwarfed by the giant camera in front of him. After he began taking more portraits of children, he bought a 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ Graflex in 1912 to better capture their quickly changing expressions.
When he went to Mexico in 1924 he took an 8 × 10 Seneca folding-bed view camera with several lenses, including a Graf Variable and a Wollensak Verito. While in Mexico he purchased a used Rapid Rectilinear lens which was his primary lens for many years. The lens, now in the George Eastman House, did not have a manufacturer's name. He also took to Mexico a 3¼ × 4¼ Graflex with a ƒ/4.5 Tessar lens, which he used for portraits.
In 1933 he purchased a 4 × 5 R. B. Auto-Graflex] and used it thereafter for all portraits. He continued to use the Seneca view camera for all other work.
In 1939 he listed the following items as his standard equipment:
8 x 10 Century Universal
Triple convertible Turner Reich, 12", 21", 28"
K2, G, A filters
12 film holders
Paul Ries Tripod
He continued to use this equipment throughout his life.
Film
Prior to 1921 Weston used an orthochromatic sheet film, but when panchromatic film became widely available in 1921 he switched to it for all of his work. According to his son Cole, after Agfa Isopan film came out in the 1930s Weston used it for his black-and-white images for the rest of his life. This film was rated at about ISO 25, but the developing technique Weston used reduced the effective rating to about ISO 12.
The 8 × 10 cameras he preferred were large and heavy, and due to the weight and the cost of the film he never carried more than twelve sheet film holders with him. At the end of each day, he had to go into a darkroom, unload the film holders and load them with new film. This was especially challenging when he was traveling since he had to find a darkened room somewhere or else set up a makeshift darkroom made from heavy canvas.
In spite of the bulky size of the view camera, Weston boasted he could "set up the tripod, fasten the camera securely to it, attach the lens to the camera, open the shutter, study the image on the ground glass, focus it, close the shutter, insert the plate holder, cock the shutter, set it to the appropriate aperture and speed, remove the slide from the plate holder, make the exposure, replace the slide, and remove the plate holder in two minutes and twenty seconds."
The smaller Graflex cameras he used had the advantage of using film magazines that held either 12 or 18 sheets of film. Weston preferred these cameras when taking portraits because he could respond more quickly to the sitter. He reported that with his Graflex he once made three dozen negatives of Tina Modotti within 20 minutes.In 1946 a representative from Kodak asked Weston to try out their new Kodachrome film, and over the next two years he made at least 60 8 x 10 color images using this film." They were some of the last photographs he took, since by late 1948 he was no longer able to operate a camera due to the effects of his Parkinson's disease.
Exposures
During the first 20 years of his photography Weston determined all of his exposure settings by estimation based on his previous experiences and the relatively narrow tolerances of the film at that time. He said, "I dislike to figure out time, and find my exposures more accurate when only "felt"." In the late 1930s he acquired a Weston exposure meter and continued to use it as an aid to determine exposures throughout his career. Photo historian Nancy Newhall wrote that "Young photographers are confused and amazed when they behold him measuring with his meter every value in the sphere where he intends to work, from the sky to the ground under his feet. He is "feeling the light" and checking his own observations. After which he puts the meter away and does what he thinks. Often he adds up everything ‒ filters, extension, film, speed, and so on ‒ and doubles the computation." Weston, Newhall noted, believed in "massive exposure", which he then compensated for by hand-processing the film in a weak developer solution and individually inspecting each negative as it continued to develop to get the right balance of highlights and shadows.
The low ISO rating of the sheet film Weston used necessitated very long exposures when using his view camera, ranging from 1 to 3 seconds for outdoor landscape exposures to as long as 4½ hours for still lifes such as peppers or shells. When he used one of the Graflex cameras the exposure times were much shorter (usually less than ¼ second), and he was sometimes able to work without a tripod.
Darkroom
Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days.
When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives."
In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life.
Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints.
Paper
Early in his career Weston printed on several kinds of paper, including Velox, Apex, Convira, Defender Velour Black and Haloid. When he went to Mexico he learned how to use platinum and palladium paper, made by Willis & Clement and imported from England. After his return to California, he abandoned platinum and palladium printing due to the scarcity and increasing price of the paper. Eventually he was able to get most of the same qualities he preferred with Kodak's Azo glossy silver gelatin paper developed in Amidol. He continued to use this paper almost exclusively until he stopped printing.
Writings
Weston was a prolific writer. His Daybooks were published in two volumes totaling more than 500 pages in the first edition. This does not include the years of the journal he kept between 1915 and 1923; for reasons he never made clear he destroyed those before leaving for Mexico. He also wrote dozens of articles and commentaries, beginning in 1906 and ending in 1957. He hand-wrote or typed at least 5,000 letters to colleagues, friends, lovers, his wives and his children.
In addition, Weston kept very thorough notes on the technical and business aspects of his work. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, which now houses most of Weston's archives, reports that it houses 75 linear feet of pages from his Daybooks, correspondence, financial records, memorabilia, and other personal documents in his possession when he died.
Among Weston's most important early writings are those that provide insights into his development of the concept of previsualization. He first spoke and wrote about the concept in 1922, at least a decade before Ansel Adams began utilizing the term, and he continued to expand upon this idea both in writing and in his teachings. Historian Beaumont Newhall noted the significance of Weston's innovation in his book The History of Photography, saying "The most important part of Edward Weston's approach was his insistence that the photographer should previsualize the final print before making the exposure."
In his Daybooks he provided an unusually detailed record of his evolution as an artist. Although he initially denied that his images reflect his own interpretations of the subject matter, by 1932 his writings revealed that he had come to accept the importance of artistic impression in his work. When combined with his photographs, his writings provide an extraordinarily vivid series of insights into his development as an artist and his impact of future generations of photographers.
Quotations
"Form follows function." Who said this I don't know, but the writer spoke well.
I am not a technician and have no interest in technique for its own sake. If my technique is adequate to present my seeing then I need nothing more.
I see no reason for recording the obvious.
If there is symbolism in my work, it can only be the seeing of parts ‒ fragments ‒ as universal symbols. All basic forms are so closely related as to be visually equivalent.
My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.
My work-purpose, my theme, can most nearly be stated as the recognition, recording and presentation of the interdependence, the relativity, of all things ‒ the universality of basic form.
The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.
What then is the end toward which I work? To present the significance of facts, so that they are transformed from things seen to things known.
When money enters in ‒ then, for a price, I become a liar ‒ and a good one I can be whether with pencil or subtle lighting or viewpoint. I hate it all, but so do I support not only my family, but my own work.
Legacy
As of 2013, two of Weston's photographs feature among the most expensive photographs ever sold. The Nude, 1925 taken in 1925 was bought by the gallerist Peter MacGill for $1.6 million in 2008. Nautilus of 1927 was sold for $1.1 million in 2010, also to MacGill.
Major exhibitions
1970, the Rencontres d'Arles festival (France) presented an exhibition "Hommage à Edward Weston" and an evening screening of the film The Photographer (1948) by Willard Van Dyke.
November 25, 1986 – March 29, 1987 Edward Weston in Los Angeles at Huntington Library
1986 Edward Weston: Color Photography at Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
May 13 – August 27, 1989 Edward Weston in New Mexico at Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe
Edward Weston : the Last Years in Carmel at The Art Institute of Chicago, June 2 – September 16, 2001, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mar. 1 – July 9, 2002.
List of photographs
The artistic career of Weston spanned more than forty years, from roughly 1915 to 1956. A prolific photographer, he produced more than 1,000 black-and-white photographs and some 50 color images. This list is an incomplete selection of Weston's better-known photographs.
Notes
References
Sources
Abbott, Brett. Edward Weston: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005.
Alinder, Mary Street. Group f.64: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists Who Revolutionized American Photography. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2014.
Bunnell, Peter C. Edward Weston on Photography. Salt Lake City: P. Smith Books, 1983.
Bunnell, Peter C., David Featherston et al. EW 100: Centennial Essays in Honor of Edward Weston. Carmel, Calif. : Friends of Photography, 1986.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston in Mexico, 1923–1926. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983.
Conger, Amy (1992). Edward Weston – Photographs From the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1992.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston: The Form of The Nude. NY: Phaidon, 2006.
Edward Weston : Color Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1986.
Enyeart, James. Edward Weston's California landscapes. Boston : Little, Brown, 1984.
Foley, Kathy Kelsey. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister. Dayton: Dayton Art Institute, 1978.
Heyman, There Thau. Seeing Straight: The f.64 Revolution in Photography. Oakland: Oakland Art Museum, 1992.
Higgins, Gary. Truth, Myth and Erasure: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston. Tempe, Ariz. : School of Art, Arizona State University, 1991.
Hochberg, Judith and Michael P. Mattis. Edward Weston: Life Work. Photographs from the Collection of Judith G. Hochberg and Michael P. Mattis. Revere, Pa.: Lodima Press, c2003.
Hooks, Margaret. Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary. London: Pandora, 1993.
Lowe, Sarah M. Tina Modotti and Edward Weston the Mexico Years. London: Merrell, 2004.
Maddow, Ben. Edward Weston: Fifty Years; The Definitive Volume of His Photographic Work. Millerton, N.Y., Aperture, 1973. ,
Maggia, Filippo. Edward Weston. New York: Skira, 2013.
Mora, Gilles (ed.). Edward Weston: Forms of Passion. NY: Abrams, 1995.
Morgan, Susan. Portraits / Edward Weston. NY: Aperture, 1995.
Newhall, Beaumont (1984). Edward Weston Omnibus: A Critical Anthology. Salt Lake City : Peregrine Smith Books, 1984.
Newhall, Beaumont . Supreme Instants: The Photography of Edward Weston. Boston : Little, Brown, 1986.
Newhall, Nancy (ed.). Edward Weston; The Flame of Recognition: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY: Aperture, 1971.
Pitts, Terence. Edward Weston 1886–1958. Köln: Taschen, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E., Karen Quinn and Leslie Furth. Edward Weston : Photography and Modernism. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E. Weston's Westons : Portraits and Nudes. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989.
Travis, David. Edward Weston, The Last Years in Carmel. Chicago: Art Institute, 2001.
Warren, Beth Gates. Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011.
Warren, Beth Gates. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister and Other Photographs. NY: Sotheby's, 2008.
Warren, Beth Gates (2001). Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration. NY: Norton, 2001.
Watts, Jennifer A. (ed.). Edward Weston : A Legacy. London: Merrell, 2003.
Weston, Edward (1964). The Daybooks of Edward Weston. Edited by Nancy Nehall. NY: Horizon Press, 1961–1964. 2 vols.
Weston, Edward. My Camera on Point Lobos; 30 Photographs and Excerpts from E. W.’s Daybook. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950.
Weston, Paulette. Laughing Eyes: a Book of Letters Between Edward and Cole Weston 1923–1946. Carmel: Carmel Publishing Co., 1999.
Wilson, Charis. Edward Weston Nudes: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY : Aperture, 1977.
Wilson, Charis. Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Woods, John. Dune: Edward & Brett Weston. Kalispell, MT: Wild Horse Island Press, 2003.
External links
edward-weston.com
Edward Weston Collection at the Center for Creative Photography
Ben Maddow "Edward Weston Lecture" The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1976. Retrieved June 26, 2012
The Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston and Charis Wilson Documentary concerning Edward Weston, his muse Charis Wilson and photographer Ansel Adams.
Encyclopædia Britannica
Landscape photographers
American portrait photographers
1886 births
1958 deaths
History of platinum printing
Photographers from California
Artists from Chicago
People from Highland Park, Illinois
Deaths from Parkinson's disease
Neurological disease deaths in California
20th-century American photographers
Fine art photographers
Olympic archers of the United States
American male archers
Archers at the 1904 Summer Olympics | true | [
"A contact print is a photographic image produced from film; sometimes from a film negative, and sometimes from a film positive or paper negative. In a darkroom an exposed and developed piece of film or photographic paper is placed emulsion side down, in contact with a piece of photographic paper, light is briefly shone through the negative or paper and then the paper is developed to reveal the final print.\n\nThe defining characteristic of a contact print is that the resulting print is the same size as the original, rather than having been projected through an enlarger.\n\nBasic tools \n\nContact printing is a simple and inexpensive process. Its simplicity avails itself to those who may want to try darkroom processing without buying an enlarger. One or more negatives are placed on a sheet of photographic paper which is briefly exposed to a light source. The light may come from a low wattage frosted bulb hanging above an easel which holds them together, or contained in an exposure box with a plate of frosted glass on top. Accurate timing of the light comes with experience, but only a little experimenting leads to positive results. The negative and the photographic paper are placed on the glass plate of the exposure box. A hinged top-cover presses the negatives in close contact with the paper and keeps them in place. The paper is then developed and the result is called a contact print.\nAfter exposure, the paper is processed using chemicals in the darkroom to produce the final print. The paper must be placed in a film developer bath, a stop bath, fixer, and finally the hypo-eliminator bath, in that order. Failure to adhere precisely to this process will result in a poor-quality final image with a variety of issues.\n\nAnsel Adams describes procedures for making contact prints using ordinary lighting in his book, The Print.\n\nProof sheets \n\nSince this process produces neither enlargements nor reductions, the image on the print is exactly the same size as the image on the negative. Contact prints are used to produce proof sheets from entire rolls of 35 mm negative (from 135 film cassettes) and 120 (2 film rolls) in order to aid in the selection of images for further enlargement, and for cataloging and identification purposes. For 120 roll film (once a common negative size for popular cameras) and larger film, contact prints are often used to determine the final print size. In medium and large format photography, contact prints are prized for their extreme fidelity to the negative, with exquisite detail that can be seen with the use of a magnifying glass. A disadvantage to using contact prints in the fine-arts is the laboriousness of modifying exposure selectively, when the use of an enlarger can achieve the same purpose.\n\nBecause light does not pass any significant distance through the air or through lenses in going from the negative to the print, the contact process ideally preserves all the detail that is present in the negative. However, the exposure value (EV) range, the variation from darkest to lightest regions, is inherently greater in negatives than in prints.\n\nFinished prints \nWhen large format film is contact printed to create finished work, it is possible, but not easy, to use local controls to interpret the image on the negative. \"Burning\" and \"dodging\" (either increasing the amount of light that one area of the print receives, or decreasing the amount of light in order to achieve the ideal tonal range in a particular area) require painstaking work with photographic masks, or the use of a production contact printing machine (Arkay, Morse, Burke and James are manufacturers who make contact printing machines).\n\nSome alternative processes or non-silver processes, such as van Dyke and cyanotype printing, must be contact printed. Medium or large format negatives are almost always used for these types of printing. Images from smaller formats may be transferred to a larger format negative for this purpose.\n\nProduction tools \nContact printing machines are more elaborate devices than the more familiar and widely available contact printing frames. They typically combine in a box the light source, intermediate glass stages, and a final glass stage for the negative and paper to be placed upon, as well as an elastic pressure plate to keep the negative and the paper in tight contact. Dodging can be accomplished by placing fine tissue paper on the intermediate glass stages between the light source and the negative/paper sandwich to modify the exposure locally. The benefit to such time intensive techniques is the ability to then make multiple prints with negligible variation, at full production speed.\n\nOther uses for the technique \nContact printing was also once used in photolithography, and in printed circuit manufacturing.\n\nMotion picture prints are often contact printed either from an original, or a duplicate negative.\n\nThe contact exposure process usually refers to a film negative used in conjunction with printing paper, but the process may be used with any transparent or translucent original image printed by contact onto a light sensitive material. Negatives or positives on film or even paper may for various purposes be used to make contact exposures onto different films and papers. Intermediary products such as internegatives, interpositives, enlarged negatives, and contrast controlling masks are often made using contact exposures.\n\nComputer screens and other electronic display devices provide an alternative approach to contact printing. A permanent image (negative, positive film or transparency, or translucent original) is not used, instead the light sensitive material is exposed directly to the display device in a dark room for a controllable duration. The resulting image generated by this mixed digital/analogue technique has been coined \"laptopogram\". While limited by the image display device resolution, which can be much inferior to film negatives, the widespread use of electronic displays provides great potential to this unorthodox contact printing method.\n\nIn contact sheet photography, the traditional contact sheet is used as a way to make pictures consisting of partial photos. The resulting image spans the whole sheet, divided into squares by the black borders of the film.\n\nArtistic and practical considerations \nPhotographers praise the beautiful intermediate gray or color gradation that results from making prints this way. Each print is necessarily the same size as the corresponding image on the negative. This makes contact prints from large-format negatives, especially 5×7 inch and larger, most usable for fine-art work. Smaller contact prints, from films and formats such as 135 film cassettes, 35 mm (24×36 mm images), and 120/220 roll film (6 cm), are useful for evaluation of exposure, composition, and subject.\n\nIt is cheaper and easier to avoid making conventional prints of all the exposures with an enlarger; the photographer prints only the best negatives. Selection is usually made using a loupe — a special magnifying glass with a transparent base — to examine the tiny prints, still aligned as they are on the negative strips. Negatives themselves can be examined with a loupe, but blacks and whites are the reverse of what is seen through the view finder (hence: a negative), which makes it more difficult to interpret the images. Contact sheets can easily be stored in files in the dark, along with the negatives.\n\nNotable photographers \nEdward Weston made most of his pictures using contact print technique.\n\nSee also \nAnalog photography\nProjector for a directory of projector types\nPaper negative\nThumbnail a digital cognate of the contact print\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nPhotographic processes\n\nde:Kontaktkopie#Kontaktabzug",
"A release print is a copy of a film that is provided to a movie theater for exhibition.\n\nDefinitions\nRelease prints are not to be confused with other types of prints used in the photochemical post-production process:\n\n Rush prints are one-light, contact-printed copies made from an unedited roll of original camera negative immediately after processing and screened to the cast and crew in order to ensure that the takes can be used in the final film.\n Workprints, sometimes called cutting copies, are, like rush prints, copies of a camera negative roll, or from selected takes. A workprint may be roughly corrected for brightness and color balance. The prints are used for editing before the negative itself is conformed, or cut to match the edited workprint. \n An answer print is made either from the cut camera negative or an interpositive, depending on the production workflow, in order to verify that the grading (\"timing\" in American English) conforms to specifications, so that final adjustments can be made before the main batch of release prints is made.\n A showprint is a very high quality projection print made for screening at special events such as gala premieres. They were most important in the era from 1968 to 1997, after film laboratories began to switch from earlier processes like dye transfer (e.g., Technicolor) and contact positive to color reversal intermediate (CRI) internegatives to make release prints. The CRI process is faster, but to accommodate such speed, the resulting release prints were usually exposed at a \"one lite \" setting. This, along with other measures to cut costs in duplicating films at high speed, led to a noticeable decline in the quality of release prints during the 1970s and 1980s. In contrast, a showprint is usually printed directly from the composited camera negative, with each shot individually timed as a duplicate intermediate element would normally be, onto a higher quality of print stock than is usual for mass-production release prints (e.g., Eastman 2393 for showprints, and the standard 2383 for mass-production release prints). As a showprint is at least two generations closer to the composited camera negative than a typical release print, the definition and saturation in the projected image is significantly higher. During the era when CRI was prevalent, film critics were often reviewing showprints with greatly different exposure than what the general public would see. Showprints are colloquially referred to as \"EKs\" (for Eastman Kodak), since \"Showprint\" is a tradename of DeLuxe, although it is not a registered trademark.\n\nWorkflow\n\nPhotochemical\nIn the traditional photochemical post-production workflow, release prints are usually copies, made using a high-speed continuous contact printer, of an internegative (sometimes referred to as a 'dupe negative'), which in turn is a copy of an interpositive (these were sometimes referred to as 'lavender prints' in the past, due to the slightly colored base of the otherwise black-and-white print), which in turn is a copy, optically printed to incorporate special effects, fades, etc., from the cut camera negative. In short, a typical release print is three generations removed from the cut camera negative.\n\nDigital intermediate\nThe post-production of many feature films is now carried out using a digital intermediate workflow, in which the uncut camera negative is scanned, editing and other post-production functions are carried out using computers, and an internegative is burnt out to film, from which the release prints are struck in the normal way. This procedure eliminates at least one generation of analogue duplication and usually results in a significantly higher quality of release prints. It has the further advantage that a Digital Cinema Package can be produced as the final output in addition to or instead of film prints, meaning that a single post-production workflow can produce all the required distribution media.\n\nRelease print stocks\nAs of March 2015, Eastman Kodak is the only remaining manufacturer of colour release print stock in the world. Along with Kodak, ORWO of Germany also sells black-and-white print stock. Other manufacturers, principally DuPont of the United States, Fujifilm of Japan (the penultimate company to discontinue colour print stock), Agfa-Gevaert of Germany, Ilford of the United Kingdom and Tasma of the Soviet Union competed with Kodak in the print stock market throughout most of the twentieth century.\n\nThe person operating the printer on which the release print is struck must take several factors into consideration in order to achieve accurate color. These include the stock manufacturer, the color temperature of the bulbs in the printer, and the various color filters which may have been introduced during initial filming or subsequent generation of duplicates.\n\nTheatrical projection\nAt the theater, release prints are projected through an aperture plate, placed between the film and the projector's light source. The aperture plate in combination with a prime lens of the appropriate focal distance determines which areas of the frame are magnified and projected and which are masked out, according to the aspect ratio in which the film is intended to be projected. Sometimes a hard matte is used in printing to ensure that only the area of the frame shot in the camera that is intended to be projected is actually present on the release print. Some theaters have also used aperture plates that mask away part of the frame area that is supposed to be projected, usually where the screen is too small to accommodate a wider ratio and does not have a masking system in front of the screen itself. The audience may be confused when significant action appears on the masked-off edges of the picture. Director Brad Bird expressed frustration at this practice, which some theaters applied to his film The Incredibles.\n\nProduction and disposal\n\nRelease prints are generally expensive. For example, in the United States, as of 2005, it typically cost at least US$1,000 to manufacture a release print, and that number did not include the additional cost of shipping the bulky release print to a movie theater for public exhibition. The cost of a release print is determined primarily by its length, the type of print stock used and the number of prints being struck in a given run. Laser subtitling release prints of foreign language films adds significantly to the cost per print. Due to the fear of piracy, distributors try to ensure that prints are returned and destroyed after the movie's theatrical run is complete. However, small numbers of release prints do end up in the hands of private collectors, usually entering this market via projectionists, who simply retain their prints at the end of the run and do not return them. A significant number of films have been preserved this way, via prints eventually being donated to film archives and preservation masters printed from them. The polyester film base is often recycled. \n\nEKs (showprints) are even more expensive as they are almost completely made by hand and to much higher quality standards. Perhaps only five EKs will be made of a widely distributed feature, compared to thousands of standard prints. They are intended primarily for first-run and Academy-consideration theatrical runs in Los Angeles and New York City. This accounts for two of the typically five produced. Two EKs are usually reserved for the film's producer. The remaining EK is usually archived by the film's distributor.\n\nConventional release prints, which are made from timed internegatives, usually contain black motor and changeover cue marks as the printing internegatives are \"punched\" and \"inked\" for this specific purpose. Showprints, being made from the composited camera negatives, which are never \"punched\" or \"inked\", have white motor and changeover cue marks as these marks are punched (or scribed) directly on the prints by hand, in the lab.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n SFIFF: Brad Bird's State of Cinema Address\n\nFilm and video terminology"
]
|
[
"Edward Weston",
"Darkroom",
"What kind of photographs did Weston take?",
"Weston always made contact prints,",
"What are contact prints?",
"that the print was exactly the same size as the negative."
]
| C_7efe68873f1f4b09adc565dfd928bf98_1 | Has he taken any photos that are famous? | 3 | Has Edward Weston taken any photos that are famous? | Edward Weston | Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight in order to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days. When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives." In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life. Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still-lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a "quintessentially American, and especially Californian, approach to modern photography" because of his focus on the people and places of the American West. In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 × 10 view camera. Some of his most famous
photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
Weston was born in Chicago and moved to California when he was 21. He knew he wanted to be a photographer from an early age, and initially his work was typical of the soft focus pictorialism that was popular at the time. Within a few years, however he abandoned that style and went on to be one of the foremost champions of highly detailed photographic images.
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he soon stopped photographing. He spent the remaining ten years of his life overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.
Life and work
1886–1906: Early life
Weston was born in Highland Park, Illinois, the second child and only son of Edward Burbank Weston, an obstetrician, and Alice Jeanette Brett, a Shakespearean actress. His mother died when he was five years old and he was raised mostly by his sister Mary, whom he called "May" or "Maisie". She was nine years older than he, and they developed a very close bond that was one of the few steady relationships in Weston's life.
His father remarried when he was nine, but neither Weston nor his sister got along with their new stepmother and stepbrother. After May was married and left their home in 1897, Weston's father devoted most of his time to his new wife and her son. Weston was left on his own much of the time; he stopped going to school and withdrew into his own room in their large home.
As a present for his 16th birthday Weston's father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Bull's-Eye No. 2, which was a simple box camera. He took it on vacation in the Midwest, and by the time he returned home his interest in photography was enough to lead him to purchase a used 5 × 7 inch view camera. He began photographing in Chicago parks and a farm owned by his aunt, and developed his own film and prints. Later he would remember that even at that early age his work showed strong artistic merit. He said, "I feel that my earliest work of 1903 ‒ though immature ‒ is related more closely, both with technique and composition, to my latest work than are several of my photographs dating from 1913 to 1920, a period in which I was trying to be artistic."
In 1904 May and her family moved to California, leaving Weston further isolated in Chicago. He earned a living by taking a job at a local department store, but he continued to spend most of his free time taking photos, Within two years he felt confident enough of his photography that he submitted his work to the magazine Camera and Darkroom, and in the April 1906 issue they published a full-page reproduction of his picture Spring, Chicago. This is the first known publication of any of his photographs.
In September 1904, Weston took part in the men's double American round archery event at the 1904 Summer Olympics with his father also taking part in the same event.
1906–23: Becoming a photographer
At his sister's urging Weston left Chicago in the spring of 1906 and moved near May's home in Tropico, California (now a neighborhood in Glendale). He decided to stay there and pursue a career in photography, but he soon realized he needed more professional training. A year later he moved to Effingham, Illinois, to enroll in the Illinois College of Photography. They taught a nine-month course, but Weston finished all of the class work in six months. The school refused to give him a diploma unless he paid for the full nine months; Weston refused and instead moved back to California in the spring of 1908.
He briefly worked at the photography studio of George Steckel in Los Angeles, as a negative retoucher. Within a few months he moved to the more established studio of Louis Mojonier. For the next several years he learned the techniques and business of operating a photography studio under Mojonier's direction.
Within days of his visit to Tropico, Weston was introduced to his sister's best friend, Flora May Chandler. She was a graduate of the Normal School, later to become UCLA. She assumed the position of a grade-school teacher in Tropico.
She was seven years older than Weston and a distant relative of Harry Chandler, who at that time was described as the head of "the single most powerful family in Southern California". This fact did not go unnoticed by Weston and his biographers.
On January 30, 1909, Weston and Chandler married in a simple ceremony. The first of their four sons, Edward Chandler Weston (1910–1993), known as Chandler, was born on April 26, 1910.
Named Edward Chandler, after Weston and his wife, he later became an excellent photographer on his own. He clearly learned much by being an assistant to his father in the bungalow studio. In 1923 he bid farewell to his mother and sibling brothers and sailed off to Mexico with his father and his then-muse, Tina Modotti. He gave up any aspirations in pursuing photography as a career after his adventures in Mexico. The lifestyle of fame and its fortune affected him greatly. His later photographs, as a hobbyist, albeit rare, certainly reflect an innate talent for the form.
In 1910 Weston opened his own business, called "The Little Studio", in Tropico. His sister later asked him why he opened his studio in Tropico rather than in the nearby metropolis of Los Angeles, and he replied "Sis, I'm going to make my name so famous that it won't matter where I live."
For the next three years he worked, alone and sometimes with the assistance of family members in his studio. Even at that early stage of his career he was highly particular about his work; in an interview at that time he said "[photographic] plates are nothing to me unless I get what I want. I have used thirty of them at a sitting if I did not secure the effect to suit me."
His critical eye paid off for him and he quickly gained more recognition for his work. He won prizes in national competitions, published several more photographs and wrote articles for magazines such as Photo-Era and American Photography, championing the pictorial style.
On December 16, 1911, Weston's second son, Theodore Brett Weston (1911–1993), was born. He became a long-time artistic collaborator with his father and an important photographer on his own.
Sometime in the fall of 1913, Los Angeles photographer, Margrethe Mather visited Weston's studio because of his growing reputation, and within a few months they developed an intense relationship. Weston was a quiet Midwestern transplant to California, and Mather was a part of the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was very outgoing and artistic in a flamboyant way, and her permissive sexual morals were far different from the conservative Weston at the time – Mather had been a prostitute and was bisexual with a preference for women. Mather presented a stark contrast to Weston's home life; his wife Flora was described as a "homely, rigid Puritan, and an utterly conventional woman, with whom he had little in common since he abhorred conventions" ‒ and he found Mather's uninhibited lifestyle irresistible and her photographic vision intriguing.
He asked Mather to be his studio assistant, and for the next decade they worked closely together, making individual and jointly signed portraits of writers Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. A joint exhibition of their work in 2001 revealed that during this period Weston emulated Mather's style and, later, her choice of subjects. On her own Mather photographed "fans, hands, eggs, melons, waves, bathroom fixtures, seashells and birds wings, all subjects that Weston would also explore." A decade later he described her as "the first important person in my life, and perhaps even now, though personal contact has gone, the most important."
In early 1915 Weston began keeping detailed journals he later came to call his "Daybooks". For the next two decades he recorded his thoughts about his work, observations about photography, and his interactions with friends, lovers and family. On December 6, 1916, a third son, Lawrence Neil Weston, was born. He also followed in the footsteps of his father and became a well-known photographer. It was during this period that Weston first met photographer Johan Hagemeyer, whom Weston mentored and lent his studio to from time to time. Later, Hagemeyer would return the favor by letting Weston use his studio in Carmel after he returned from Mexico. For the next several years Weston continued to earn a living by taking portraits in his small studio which he called "the shack".
Meanwhile, Flora was spending all of her time caring for their children. Their fourth son, Cole Weston (1919–2003), was born on January 30, 1919, and afterward she rarely had time to leave their home.
Over the summer of 1920 Weston met two people who were part of the growing Los Angeles cultural scene: Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, known as "Robo" and a woman he called his wife, Tina Modotti. Modotti, who was then known only as a stage and film actress, was never married to Robo, but they pretended to be for the sake of his family. Weston and Modotti were immediately attracted to each other, and they soon became lovers. Richey knew of Modotti's affair, but he continued to be friends with Weston and later invited him to come to Mexico and share his studio.
The following year Weston agreed to allow Mather to become an equal partner in his studio. For several months they took portraits that they signed with both of their names. This was the only time in his long career that Weston shared credit with another photographer.
Sometime in 1920 he began photographing nude models for the first time. His first models were his wife Flora and their children, but soon thereafter he took at least three nude studies of Mather. He followed these with several more photographs of nude models, the first of dozens of figure studies he would make of friends and lovers over the next twenty years.
Until now Weston had kept his relationships with other women a secret from his wife, but as he began to photograph more nudes Flora became suspicious about what went on with him and his models. Chandler recalled that his mother regularly sent him on "errands" to his father's studio and asked him to tell her who was there and what they were doing.
One of the first who agreed to model nude for Weston was Modotti. She became his primary model for the next several years.
In 1922 he visited his sister May, who had moved to Middletown, Ohio. While there he made five or six photographs of the tall smoke stacks at the nearby Armco steel mill. These images signaled a change in Weston's photographic style, a transition from the soft-focus pictorialism of the past to a new, cleaner-edge style. He immediately recognized the change and later recorded it in his notes: "The Middletown visit was something to remember...most of all in importance was my photographing of 'Armco'...That day I made great photographs, even Stieglitz thought they were important!"
At that time New York City was the cultural center for photography as an art form in America, and Alfred Stieglitz was the most influential figure in photography. Weston badly wanted to go to New York to meet with him, but he did not have enough money to make the trip. His brother-in-law gave him enough money to continue on from Middletown to New York City, and he spent most of October and early November there. While there he met artist Charles Sheeler and photographers Clarence H. White, Gertrude Kasebier, as well as Stieglitz. Weston wrote that Stieglitz told him, "Your work and attitude reassures me. You have shown me at least several prints which have given me a great deal of joy. And I can seldom say that of photographs."
Soon after Weston returned from New York, Robo moved to Mexico and set up a studio there to create batiks. Within a short while he had arranged for a joint exhibition of his work and of photographs by Weston, Mather and a few others. In early 1923 Modotti left by train to be with Robo in Mexico, but he contracted smallpox and died shortly before she arrived. Modotti was grief-stricken, but within a few weeks she felt well enough that she decided to stay and carry out the exhibition that Robo had planned. The show was a success, and due in no small part to his nude studies of Modotti, it firmly established Weston's artistic reputation in Mexico.
After the show closed Modotti returned to California, and Weston and she made plans to return to Mexico together. He wanted to spend a couple of months there photographing and promoting his work, and, conveniently, he could travel under the pretense of Modotti being his assistant and translator.
The week before he left for Mexico, Weston briefly reunited with Mather and took several nudes of her lying in the sand at Redondo Beach. These images were very different from his previous nude studies – sharply focused and showing her entire body in relation to the natural setting. They have been called the artistic prototypes for his most famous nudes, those of Charis Wilson which he would take more than a decade later.
1923–27: Mexico
On July 30, 1923, Weston, his son Chandler, and Modotti left on a steamer for the extended trip to Mexico. His wife, Flora, and their other three sons waved goodbye to them at the dock. It's unknown what Flora understood or thought about the relationship between Weston and Modotti, but she is reported to have called out at the dock, "Tina, take good care of my boys."
They arrived in Mexico City on August 11 and rented a large hacienda outside of the city. Within a month he had arranged for an exhibition of his work at the Aztec Land Gallery, and on October 17 the show opened to glowing press reviews. He was particularly proud of a review by Marius de Zayas that said "Photography is beginning to be photography, for until now it has only been art."
The different culture and scenery in Mexico forced Weston to look at things in new ways. He became more responsive to what was in front of him, and he turned his camera on everyday objects like toys, doorways and bathroom fixtures. He also made several intimate nudes and portraits of Modotti. He wrote in his Daybooks:
The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself...I feel definite in the belief that the approach to photography is through realism.
Weston continued to photograph the people and things around him, and his reputation in Mexico increased the longer he stayed. He had a second exhibition at the Aztec Land Gallery in 1924, and he had a steady stream of local socialites asking him to take their portraits. At the same time, Weston began to miss his other sons back in the U.S. As with many of his actions, though, it was a woman who motivated him most. He had recently corresponded with a woman he had known for several years named Miriam Lerner, and as her letters became more passionate he longed to see her again.
He and Chandler returned to San Francisco at the end of 1924, and the next month he set up a studio with Johan Hagemeyer. Weston seemed to be struggling with his past and his future during this period. He burned all of his pre-Mexico journals, as though trying to erase the past, and started a new series of nudes with Lerner and with his son Neil. He wrote that these images were "the start of a new period in my approach and attitude towards photography."
His new relationship with Lerner did not last long, and in August 1925 he returned to Mexico, this time with his son Brett. Modotti had arranged a joint show of their photographs, and it opened the week he returned. He received new critical acclaim and six of his prints were purchased for the State Museum. For the next several months he concentrated once again on photographing folk art, toys and local scenes. One of his strongest images of this period is of three black clay pots that art historian Rene d'Harnoncourt described as "the beginning of a new art."
In May 1926 Weston signed a contract with writer Anita Brenner for $1,000 to make photographs for a book she was writing about Mexican folk art. In June he, Modotti and Brett started traveling around the country in search of lesser known native arts and crafts. His contract required him to give Brenner three finished prints from 400 8x10 negatives, and it took him until November of that year to complete the work. During their travels, Brett received a crash course in photography from his father, and he made more than two dozen prints which his father judged to be of exceptional quality.
By the time they returned from their trip, Weston and Modotti's relationship had crumbled, and within less than two weeks he and Brett returned to California. He never traveled to Mexico again.
1927–35: Glendale to Carmel
Weston initially returned to his old studio in Glendale (previously called Tropico). He hastily arranged a dual exhibition at University of California of the photographs that he and Brett had made the year before. The father showed 100 prints and the son showed 20. Brett was only 15 years old at the time.
In February he started a new series of nudes, this time of dancer Bertha Wardell. One of this series, of her kneeling body cut off at the shoulders, is one of Weston's most well-known figure studies. At this same time he met Canadian painter Henrietta Shore, whom he asked to comment on the photos of Wardell. He was surprised by her honest critique: "I wish you would not do so many nudes – you are getting used to them, the subject no longer amazes you ‒ most of these are just nudes."
He asked to look at her work and was intrigued by her large paintings of sea shells. He borrowed several shells from her, thinking he might find some inspiration for a new still life series. Over the next few weeks he explored many different kinds of shell and background combinations – in his log of photographs taken for 1927 he listed fourteen negatives of shells. One of these, simply called Nautilus, 1927" (sometimes called Shell, 1927), became one of his most famous images. Modotti called the image "mystical and erotic," and when she showed it to Rene d'Harnoncourt he said he felt "weak at the knees." Weston is known to have made at least twenty-eight prints of this image, more than he had made of any other shell image.
In September of that year Weston had a major exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. At the opening of the show he met fellow photographer Willard Van Dyke, who later introduced Weston to Ansel Adams.
In May 1928, Weston and Brett made a brief but important trip to the Mojave Desert. It was there that he first explored and photographed landscapes as an art form. He found the stark rock forms and empty spaces to be a visual revelation, and over a long weekend he took twenty-seven photographs. In his journal he declared "these negatives are the most important I have ever done."
Later that year he and Brett moved to San Francisco, where they lived and worked in a small studio owned by Hagemeyer. He made portraits to earn an income, but he longed to get away by himself and get back to his art. In early 1929 he moved to Hagemeyer's cottage in Carmel, and it was there that he finally found the solitude and the inspiration that he was seeking. He placed a sign in studio window that said, "Edward Weston, photographer, Unretouched Portraits, Prints for Collectors."
He started making regular trips to nearby Point Lobos, where he would continue to photograph until the end of his career. It was there that he learned to fine-tune his photographic vision to match the visual space of his view camera, and the images he took there, of kelp, rocks and wind-blown trees, are among his finest. Looking at his work from this period, one biographer wrote:
"Weston arranged his compositions so that things happened on the edges; lines almost cross or meet and circular lines just touch the edges tangentially; his compositions were now created exclusively for a space with the proportions of eight by ten. There is no extraneous space nor is there too little."
In early April 1929, Weston met photographer Sonya Noskowiak at a party, and by the end of the month she was living with him. As with many of his other relationships, she became his model, muse, pupil and assistant. They would continue to live together for five years.
Intrigued by the many kinds and shapes of kelp he found on the beaches near Carmel, in 1930 Weston began taking close-ups of vegetables and fruits. He made a variety of photographs of cabbage, kale, onions, bananas, and finally, his most iconic image, peppers. In August of that year Noskowiak brought him several green peppers, and over a four-day period he shot at least thirty different negatives. Of these, Pepper No. 30, is among the all-time masterpieces of photography.
Weston had a series of important one-man exhibitions in 1930–31. The first was at Alma Reed's Delphic Studio Gallery in New York, followed closely by a mounting of the same show at the Denny Watrous Gallery in Carmel. Both received rave reviews, including a two-page article in the New York Times Magazine. These were followed by shows at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Galerie Jean Naert in Paris.
Although he was succeeding professionally his personal life was very complex. For most of their marriage, Flora was able to take care of their children because of an inheritance from her parents. However, the Wall Street crash of 1929 had wiped out most of her savings, and Weston felt increased pressure to help provide more for her and his sons. He described this time as "the most trying economic period of my life."
In 1932, The Art of Edward Weston, the first book devoted exclusively to Weston's work, was published. It was edited by Merle Armitage and dedicated to Alice Rohrer, an admirer and patron of Weston whose $500 donation helped pay for the book to be published.
During the same time a small group of like-minded photographers in the San Francisco area, led by Van Dyke and Ansel Adams, began informally meeting to discuss their common interest and aesthetics. Inspired by Weston's show at the De Young Museum the previous year, they approached the museum with the idea of mounting a group exhibition of their work. They named themselves Group f/64, and in November 1932, an exhibition of 80 of their prints opened at the museum. The show was a critical success.
In 1933 Weston bought a 4 × 5 Graflex camera, which was much smaller and lighter than the large view camera he had used for many years. He began taking close-up nudes of Noskowiak and other models. The smaller camera allowed him to interact more with his models, while at the same time the nudes he took during this period began to resemble some of the contorted root and vegetables he had taken the year before.
In early 1934, "a new and important chapter opened" in Weston's life when he met Charis Wilson at a concert. Even more than with his previous lovers, Weston was immediately captivated by her beauty and her personality. He wrote: "A new love came into my life, a most beautiful one, one which will, I believe, stand the test of time." On April 22 he photographed her nude for the first time, and they entered into an intense relationship. He was still living with Noskowiak at that time, but within two weeks he asked her to move out, declaring that for him other women were "as inevitable as the tides".
Perhaps because of the intensity of his new relationship, he stopped writing in his Daybooks at this same time. Six months later he wrote one final entry, looking back from April 22:
After eight months we are closer together than ever. Perhaps C. will be remembered as the great love of my life. Already I have achieved certain heights reached with no other love.
1935–45: Guggenheim grant to Wildcat Hill
In January 1935 Weston was facing increasing financial difficulties. He closed his studio in Carmel and moved to Santa Monica Canyon, California, where he opened a new studio with Brett. He implored Wilson to come and live with him, and in August 1935 she finally agreed. While she had an intense interest in his work, Wilson was the first woman Weston had lived with since Flora who had no interest in becoming a photographer. This allowed Weston to concentrate on her as his muse and model, and in turn Wilson devoted her time to promoting Weston's art as his assistant and quasi-agent.
Almost immediately he began taking a new series of nudes with Wilson as the model. One of the first photographs he took of her, on the balcony of their home, became one of his most published images (Nude (Charis, Santa Monica)). Soon after they took the first of several trips to Oceano Dunes. It was there that Weston made some of his most daring and intimate photographs of any of his models, capturing Wilson in completely uninhibited poses in the sand dunes. He exhibited only one or two of this series in his lifetime, thinking several of the others were "too erotic" for the general public.
Although his recent work had received critical acclaim, he was not earning enough income from his artistic images to provide a steady income. Rather than going back to relying solely on portraiture, he started the "Edward Weston Print of the Month Club", offering selections of his photos for a monthly $5 subscription. Each month subscribers would receive a new print from Weston, with a limited edition of 40 copies of each print. Although he created these prints with the same high standards that he did for his exhibition prints, it is thought that he never had more than eleven subscribers.
At the suggestion of Beaumont Newhall, Weston decided to apply for a Guggenheim Foundation grant (now known as a Guggenheim Fellowship). He wrote a two-sentence description about his work, assembled thirty-five of his favorite prints, and sent it in. Afterward Dorothea Lange and her husband suggested that the application was too brief to be seriously considered, and Weston resubmitted it with a four-page letter and work plan. He did not mention that Wilson had written the new application for him.
On March 22, 1937, Weston received notification that he had been awarded a Guggenheim grant, the first ever given to a photographer. The award was $2,000 for one year, a significant amount of money at that time. He was able to further capitalize on the award by arranging to provide the editor of AAA Westway Magazine with 8–10 photos per month for $50 during their travels, with Wilson getting an additional $15 monthly for photo captions and short narratives. They purchased a new car and set out on Weston's dream trip to go and photograph whatever he wanted. Over the next twelve months they made seventeen trips and covered 16,697 miles according to Wilson's detailed log. Weston made 1,260 negatives during the trip.
The freedom of this trip with the "love of his life", combined with all of his sons now reaching the age of adulthood, gave Weston the motivation to finally divorce his wife. They had been living apart for sixteen years.
Due to the success of the past year, Weston applied for and received a second year of Guggenheim support. Although he wanted to do some additional traveling, he intended to use most of the money to allow him to print his past year's work. He commissioned Neil to build a small home in the Carmel Highlands on property owned by Wilson's father. They named the place "Wildcat Hill" because of the many domestic cats that soon occupied the grounds.
Wilson set up a writing studio in what was intended to be a small garage behind the house, and she spent several months writing and editing stories from their travels.
In 1939, Seeing California with Edward Weston was published, with photographs by Weston and writing by Wilson. Finally relieved from the financial stresses of the past and inordinately happy with his work and his relationship, Weston married Wilson in a small ceremony on April 24.
Buoyed by the success of their first book, in 1940 they published California and the West. The first edition, featuring 96 of Weston's photos with text by Wilson, sold for $3.95. Over the summer, Weston taught photography at the first Ansel Adams Workshop at Yosemite National Park.
Just as the Guggenheim money was running out, Weston was invited to illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He would receive $1,000 for photographs and $500 travel expenses. Weston insisted on having artistic control of the images he would take and insisted that he would not be taking literal illustrations of Whitman's text. On May 28 he and Wilson began a trip that would cover 20,000 miles through 24 states; he took between 700 and 800 8x10 negatives as well as dozens of Graflex portraits.
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the United States entered World War II. Weston was near the end of the Whitman trip, and he was deeply affected by the outbreak of the war. He wrote: "When the war broke out we scurried home. Charis did not want to scurry. I did."
He spent the first few months of 1942 organizing and printing the negatives from the Whitman trip. Of the hundreds of images he took, forty-nine were selected for publication.
Due to the war, Point Lobos was closed to the public for several years. Weston continued to work on images centered on Wildcat Hill, including shots of the many cats that lived there. Weston treated them with the same serious intent that he applied to all of his other subjects, and Charis assembled the results into their most unusual publication, The Cats of Wildcat Hill, which was finally published in 1947.
The year 1945 marked the beginning of significant changes for Weston. He began to experience the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease, a debilitating ailment that gradually stole his strength and his ability to photograph. He withdrew from Wilson, who at the same time began to become more involved in local politics and the Carmel cultural scene. A strength that originally brought them together – her lack of interest in becoming a photographer herself – eventually led to their break-up. She wrote, "My flight from Edward was also partly an escape from photography, which had taken up so much room in my life for so many years."
While working on a major retrospective exhibition for the Museum of Modern Art, he and Wilson separated. Weston returned to Glendale since the land for their cabin at Wildcat Hill still belonged to Wilson's father. Within a few months she moved out and arranged to sell the property to him.
1946–58: Final years
In February 1946, Weston's major retrospective opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He and Beaumont Newhall selected 313 prints for the exhibition, and eventually 250 photographs were displayed along with 11 negatives. At that time many of his prints were still for sale, and he sold 97 prints from the exhibit at $25 per print. Later that year, Weston was asked by Dr. George L. Waters of Kodak to produce 8 × 10 Kodachrome transparencies for their advertising campaign. Weston had never worked in color before, primarily because he had no means of developing or printing the more complicated color process. He accepted their offer in no small part because they offered him $250 per image, the highest amount he would be paid for any single work in his lifetime. He eventually sold seven color works to Kodak of landscapes and scenery at Point Lobos and nearby Monterey harbor.
In 1947 as his Parkinson's disease progressed, Weston began looking for an assistant. Serendipitously, an eager young photographic enthusiast, Dody Weston Thompson, contacted him in search of employment.
Weston mentioned he had just that morning written a letter to Ansel Adams, looking for someone seeking to learn photography in exchange for carrying his bulky large-format camera and to provide a much needed automobile. There was a swift meeting of creative minds. For the remainder of 1947 through the beginning of 1948, Dody commuted from San Francisco on weekends to learn from Weston the basics of photography. In early 1948, Dody moved into "Bodie House," the guest cottage at Edward's Wildcat Hill compound, as his full-time assistant.
By late 1948 he was no longer physically able to use his large view camera. That year he took his last photographs, at Point Lobos. His final negative was an image he called, "Rocks and Pebbles, 1948". Although diminished in his capacity, Weston never stopped being a photographer. He worked with his sons and Dody to catalog his images and especially to oversee the publication and printing of his work. In 1950 there was a major retrospective of his work at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris, and in 1952 he published a Fiftieth Anniversary portfolio, with images printed by Brett.
During this time he worked with Cole, Brett, and Dody Thompson (Brett's wife by 1952), to select and have them print a master set of what he considered his best work. They spent many long hours together in the darkroom, and by 1956 they had produced what Weston called "The Project Prints", eight sets of 8" × 10" prints from 830 of his negatives. The only complete set today is housed at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Later that same year the Smithsonian Institution displayed nearly 100 of these prints at a major exhibit, "The World of Edward Weston", paying tribute to his accomplishments in American photography.
Weston died at his home on Wildcat Hill on New Year's Day, 1958. His sons scattered his ashes into the Pacific Ocean at an area then known as Pebbly Beach on Point Lobos. Due to Weston's significant influence in the area, the beach was later renamed Weston Beach. He had $300 in his bank account at the time of his death.
Equipment and techniques
Cameras and lenses
During his lifetime Weston worked with several cameras. He began as a more serious photographer in 1902 when he purchased a 5 × 7 camera. When he moved to Tropico, now part of Glendale, and opened his studio in 1911, he acquired an enormous 11 x 14 Graf Variable studio portrait camera. Roi Partridge, Imogen Cunningham's husband, later made an etching of Weston in his studio, dwarfed by the giant camera in front of him. After he began taking more portraits of children, he bought a 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ Graflex in 1912 to better capture their quickly changing expressions.
When he went to Mexico in 1924 he took an 8 × 10 Seneca folding-bed view camera with several lenses, including a Graf Variable and a Wollensak Verito. While in Mexico he purchased a used Rapid Rectilinear lens which was his primary lens for many years. The lens, now in the George Eastman House, did not have a manufacturer's name. He also took to Mexico a 3¼ × 4¼ Graflex with a ƒ/4.5 Tessar lens, which he used for portraits.
In 1933 he purchased a 4 × 5 R. B. Auto-Graflex] and used it thereafter for all portraits. He continued to use the Seneca view camera for all other work.
In 1939 he listed the following items as his standard equipment:
8 x 10 Century Universal
Triple convertible Turner Reich, 12", 21", 28"
K2, G, A filters
12 film holders
Paul Ries Tripod
He continued to use this equipment throughout his life.
Film
Prior to 1921 Weston used an orthochromatic sheet film, but when panchromatic film became widely available in 1921 he switched to it for all of his work. According to his son Cole, after Agfa Isopan film came out in the 1930s Weston used it for his black-and-white images for the rest of his life. This film was rated at about ISO 25, but the developing technique Weston used reduced the effective rating to about ISO 12.
The 8 × 10 cameras he preferred were large and heavy, and due to the weight and the cost of the film he never carried more than twelve sheet film holders with him. At the end of each day, he had to go into a darkroom, unload the film holders and load them with new film. This was especially challenging when he was traveling since he had to find a darkened room somewhere or else set up a makeshift darkroom made from heavy canvas.
In spite of the bulky size of the view camera, Weston boasted he could "set up the tripod, fasten the camera securely to it, attach the lens to the camera, open the shutter, study the image on the ground glass, focus it, close the shutter, insert the plate holder, cock the shutter, set it to the appropriate aperture and speed, remove the slide from the plate holder, make the exposure, replace the slide, and remove the plate holder in two minutes and twenty seconds."
The smaller Graflex cameras he used had the advantage of using film magazines that held either 12 or 18 sheets of film. Weston preferred these cameras when taking portraits because he could respond more quickly to the sitter. He reported that with his Graflex he once made three dozen negatives of Tina Modotti within 20 minutes.In 1946 a representative from Kodak asked Weston to try out their new Kodachrome film, and over the next two years he made at least 60 8 x 10 color images using this film." They were some of the last photographs he took, since by late 1948 he was no longer able to operate a camera due to the effects of his Parkinson's disease.
Exposures
During the first 20 years of his photography Weston determined all of his exposure settings by estimation based on his previous experiences and the relatively narrow tolerances of the film at that time. He said, "I dislike to figure out time, and find my exposures more accurate when only "felt"." In the late 1930s he acquired a Weston exposure meter and continued to use it as an aid to determine exposures throughout his career. Photo historian Nancy Newhall wrote that "Young photographers are confused and amazed when they behold him measuring with his meter every value in the sphere where he intends to work, from the sky to the ground under his feet. He is "feeling the light" and checking his own observations. After which he puts the meter away and does what he thinks. Often he adds up everything ‒ filters, extension, film, speed, and so on ‒ and doubles the computation." Weston, Newhall noted, believed in "massive exposure", which he then compensated for by hand-processing the film in a weak developer solution and individually inspecting each negative as it continued to develop to get the right balance of highlights and shadows.
The low ISO rating of the sheet film Weston used necessitated very long exposures when using his view camera, ranging from 1 to 3 seconds for outdoor landscape exposures to as long as 4½ hours for still lifes such as peppers or shells. When he used one of the Graflex cameras the exposure times were much shorter (usually less than ¼ second), and he was sometimes able to work without a tripod.
Darkroom
Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days.
When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives."
In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life.
Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints.
Paper
Early in his career Weston printed on several kinds of paper, including Velox, Apex, Convira, Defender Velour Black and Haloid. When he went to Mexico he learned how to use platinum and palladium paper, made by Willis & Clement and imported from England. After his return to California, he abandoned platinum and palladium printing due to the scarcity and increasing price of the paper. Eventually he was able to get most of the same qualities he preferred with Kodak's Azo glossy silver gelatin paper developed in Amidol. He continued to use this paper almost exclusively until he stopped printing.
Writings
Weston was a prolific writer. His Daybooks were published in two volumes totaling more than 500 pages in the first edition. This does not include the years of the journal he kept between 1915 and 1923; for reasons he never made clear he destroyed those before leaving for Mexico. He also wrote dozens of articles and commentaries, beginning in 1906 and ending in 1957. He hand-wrote or typed at least 5,000 letters to colleagues, friends, lovers, his wives and his children.
In addition, Weston kept very thorough notes on the technical and business aspects of his work. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, which now houses most of Weston's archives, reports that it houses 75 linear feet of pages from his Daybooks, correspondence, financial records, memorabilia, and other personal documents in his possession when he died.
Among Weston's most important early writings are those that provide insights into his development of the concept of previsualization. He first spoke and wrote about the concept in 1922, at least a decade before Ansel Adams began utilizing the term, and he continued to expand upon this idea both in writing and in his teachings. Historian Beaumont Newhall noted the significance of Weston's innovation in his book The History of Photography, saying "The most important part of Edward Weston's approach was his insistence that the photographer should previsualize the final print before making the exposure."
In his Daybooks he provided an unusually detailed record of his evolution as an artist. Although he initially denied that his images reflect his own interpretations of the subject matter, by 1932 his writings revealed that he had come to accept the importance of artistic impression in his work. When combined with his photographs, his writings provide an extraordinarily vivid series of insights into his development as an artist and his impact of future generations of photographers.
Quotations
"Form follows function." Who said this I don't know, but the writer spoke well.
I am not a technician and have no interest in technique for its own sake. If my technique is adequate to present my seeing then I need nothing more.
I see no reason for recording the obvious.
If there is symbolism in my work, it can only be the seeing of parts ‒ fragments ‒ as universal symbols. All basic forms are so closely related as to be visually equivalent.
My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.
My work-purpose, my theme, can most nearly be stated as the recognition, recording and presentation of the interdependence, the relativity, of all things ‒ the universality of basic form.
The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.
What then is the end toward which I work? To present the significance of facts, so that they are transformed from things seen to things known.
When money enters in ‒ then, for a price, I become a liar ‒ and a good one I can be whether with pencil or subtle lighting or viewpoint. I hate it all, but so do I support not only my family, but my own work.
Legacy
As of 2013, two of Weston's photographs feature among the most expensive photographs ever sold. The Nude, 1925 taken in 1925 was bought by the gallerist Peter MacGill for $1.6 million in 2008. Nautilus of 1927 was sold for $1.1 million in 2010, also to MacGill.
Major exhibitions
1970, the Rencontres d'Arles festival (France) presented an exhibition "Hommage à Edward Weston" and an evening screening of the film The Photographer (1948) by Willard Van Dyke.
November 25, 1986 – March 29, 1987 Edward Weston in Los Angeles at Huntington Library
1986 Edward Weston: Color Photography at Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
May 13 – August 27, 1989 Edward Weston in New Mexico at Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe
Edward Weston : the Last Years in Carmel at The Art Institute of Chicago, June 2 – September 16, 2001, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mar. 1 – July 9, 2002.
List of photographs
The artistic career of Weston spanned more than forty years, from roughly 1915 to 1956. A prolific photographer, he produced more than 1,000 black-and-white photographs and some 50 color images. This list is an incomplete selection of Weston's better-known photographs.
Notes
References
Sources
Abbott, Brett. Edward Weston: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005.
Alinder, Mary Street. Group f.64: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists Who Revolutionized American Photography. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2014.
Bunnell, Peter C. Edward Weston on Photography. Salt Lake City: P. Smith Books, 1983.
Bunnell, Peter C., David Featherston et al. EW 100: Centennial Essays in Honor of Edward Weston. Carmel, Calif. : Friends of Photography, 1986.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston in Mexico, 1923–1926. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983.
Conger, Amy (1992). Edward Weston – Photographs From the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1992.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston: The Form of The Nude. NY: Phaidon, 2006.
Edward Weston : Color Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1986.
Enyeart, James. Edward Weston's California landscapes. Boston : Little, Brown, 1984.
Foley, Kathy Kelsey. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister. Dayton: Dayton Art Institute, 1978.
Heyman, There Thau. Seeing Straight: The f.64 Revolution in Photography. Oakland: Oakland Art Museum, 1992.
Higgins, Gary. Truth, Myth and Erasure: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston. Tempe, Ariz. : School of Art, Arizona State University, 1991.
Hochberg, Judith and Michael P. Mattis. Edward Weston: Life Work. Photographs from the Collection of Judith G. Hochberg and Michael P. Mattis. Revere, Pa.: Lodima Press, c2003.
Hooks, Margaret. Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary. London: Pandora, 1993.
Lowe, Sarah M. Tina Modotti and Edward Weston the Mexico Years. London: Merrell, 2004.
Maddow, Ben. Edward Weston: Fifty Years; The Definitive Volume of His Photographic Work. Millerton, N.Y., Aperture, 1973. ,
Maggia, Filippo. Edward Weston. New York: Skira, 2013.
Mora, Gilles (ed.). Edward Weston: Forms of Passion. NY: Abrams, 1995.
Morgan, Susan. Portraits / Edward Weston. NY: Aperture, 1995.
Newhall, Beaumont (1984). Edward Weston Omnibus: A Critical Anthology. Salt Lake City : Peregrine Smith Books, 1984.
Newhall, Beaumont . Supreme Instants: The Photography of Edward Weston. Boston : Little, Brown, 1986.
Newhall, Nancy (ed.). Edward Weston; The Flame of Recognition: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY: Aperture, 1971.
Pitts, Terence. Edward Weston 1886–1958. Köln: Taschen, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E., Karen Quinn and Leslie Furth. Edward Weston : Photography and Modernism. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E. Weston's Westons : Portraits and Nudes. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989.
Travis, David. Edward Weston, The Last Years in Carmel. Chicago: Art Institute, 2001.
Warren, Beth Gates. Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011.
Warren, Beth Gates. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister and Other Photographs. NY: Sotheby's, 2008.
Warren, Beth Gates (2001). Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration. NY: Norton, 2001.
Watts, Jennifer A. (ed.). Edward Weston : A Legacy. London: Merrell, 2003.
Weston, Edward (1964). The Daybooks of Edward Weston. Edited by Nancy Nehall. NY: Horizon Press, 1961–1964. 2 vols.
Weston, Edward. My Camera on Point Lobos; 30 Photographs and Excerpts from E. W.’s Daybook. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950.
Weston, Paulette. Laughing Eyes: a Book of Letters Between Edward and Cole Weston 1923–1946. Carmel: Carmel Publishing Co., 1999.
Wilson, Charis. Edward Weston Nudes: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY : Aperture, 1977.
Wilson, Charis. Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Woods, John. Dune: Edward & Brett Weston. Kalispell, MT: Wild Horse Island Press, 2003.
External links
edward-weston.com
Edward Weston Collection at the Center for Creative Photography
Ben Maddow "Edward Weston Lecture" The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1976. Retrieved June 26, 2012
The Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston and Charis Wilson Documentary concerning Edward Weston, his muse Charis Wilson and photographer Ansel Adams.
Encyclopædia Britannica
Landscape photographers
American portrait photographers
1886 births
1958 deaths
History of platinum printing
Photographers from California
Artists from Chicago
People from Highland Park, Illinois
Deaths from Parkinson's disease
Neurological disease deaths in California
20th-century American photographers
Fine art photographers
Olympic archers of the United States
American male archers
Archers at the 1904 Summer Olympics | false | [
"Mehmet Masum Suer is a documentary photographer and freelance journalist.\n\nPersonal life \nSuer was born on 15 October 1957 in Mardin, and lives in Diyarbakir, Turkey.\n\nCareer\n\nJournalism \nHe started his career as a journalist in 1974, and worked until 1993 as a reporter, photojournalist, writer, redactor and representative.\n\nPhotography \nIn 1994, Suer stopped working in journalism history, culture and language research. After the year 2000, he still continued working in photography, but not related to journalism.\n\nSuer has taken photographs of historical places and buildings, especially in the cities of Diyarbakir, Mardin, Van and Hasankeyf. He joined a project taking photos of famous Kurdish politicians and artists. His works are related to culture and history and also include works of art. Suer also takes photos of festivals and presentations.\n\nSuer has had twelve exhibitions in Turkey, the region of Federal Kurdistan in Iraq, Belgium and the United States. His photos are used in tourist publications such as guidebooks, brochures and postcards, as well as in international tourist fairs, newspapers and magazines.\n\nRecognition \nInternational photography magazine Light and Composition, has chosen 19 of Suer's photos as \"Photo of the Day\" and four as \"Photo of the Month\", for January 2014. Suer placed in Light and Composition's list of the \"100 Best Photographers\".\n\nAt the Arts and Culture Festival in the region of Federal Kurdistan in Iraq, he was awarded special honors.\n\nFour of his photos have been printed as postage stamps.\n\nReferences \n\nLiving people\nKurdish journalists\nDocumentary photographers\n1957 births",
"Monsoon is a series of colour photographs taken by New Zealand photographer Brian Brake, a member of the Magnum Photos cooperative. Brake illustrated the effect of the monsoon by concentrating on the people affected by it.\n\nTaken in India in 1960 during the monsoon season, the photos made Brake's reputation. Life published twenty of the 110 images he took, including the most famous, Monsoon girl of the actress Aparna Sen, which appeared on the cover of Life. Several other magazines also published them; Paris Match and Queen.\n\nExternal links \nMonsoon series (online, Te Papa)\nMonsoon girl (image online, Te Papa)\n\nColor photographs\n1960 works\n1960 in art\nWorks about India\n1960 in India\nWorks originally published in Life (magazine)\n1960s photographs"
]
|
[
"Edward Weston",
"Darkroom",
"What kind of photographs did Weston take?",
"Weston always made contact prints,",
"What are contact prints?",
"that the print was exactly the same size as the negative.",
"Has he taken any photos that are famous?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_7efe68873f1f4b09adc565dfd928bf98_1 | When did he start photography | 4 | When did Edward Weston start photography | Edward Weston | Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight in order to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days. When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives." In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life. Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still-lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a "quintessentially American, and especially Californian, approach to modern photography" because of his focus on the people and places of the American West. In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 × 10 view camera. Some of his most famous
photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
Weston was born in Chicago and moved to California when he was 21. He knew he wanted to be a photographer from an early age, and initially his work was typical of the soft focus pictorialism that was popular at the time. Within a few years, however he abandoned that style and went on to be one of the foremost champions of highly detailed photographic images.
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he soon stopped photographing. He spent the remaining ten years of his life overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.
Life and work
1886–1906: Early life
Weston was born in Highland Park, Illinois, the second child and only son of Edward Burbank Weston, an obstetrician, and Alice Jeanette Brett, a Shakespearean actress. His mother died when he was five years old and he was raised mostly by his sister Mary, whom he called "May" or "Maisie". She was nine years older than he, and they developed a very close bond that was one of the few steady relationships in Weston's life.
His father remarried when he was nine, but neither Weston nor his sister got along with their new stepmother and stepbrother. After May was married and left their home in 1897, Weston's father devoted most of his time to his new wife and her son. Weston was left on his own much of the time; he stopped going to school and withdrew into his own room in their large home.
As a present for his 16th birthday Weston's father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Bull's-Eye No. 2, which was a simple box camera. He took it on vacation in the Midwest, and by the time he returned home his interest in photography was enough to lead him to purchase a used 5 × 7 inch view camera. He began photographing in Chicago parks and a farm owned by his aunt, and developed his own film and prints. Later he would remember that even at that early age his work showed strong artistic merit. He said, "I feel that my earliest work of 1903 ‒ though immature ‒ is related more closely, both with technique and composition, to my latest work than are several of my photographs dating from 1913 to 1920, a period in which I was trying to be artistic."
In 1904 May and her family moved to California, leaving Weston further isolated in Chicago. He earned a living by taking a job at a local department store, but he continued to spend most of his free time taking photos, Within two years he felt confident enough of his photography that he submitted his work to the magazine Camera and Darkroom, and in the April 1906 issue they published a full-page reproduction of his picture Spring, Chicago. This is the first known publication of any of his photographs.
In September 1904, Weston took part in the men's double American round archery event at the 1904 Summer Olympics with his father also taking part in the same event.
1906–23: Becoming a photographer
At his sister's urging Weston left Chicago in the spring of 1906 and moved near May's home in Tropico, California (now a neighborhood in Glendale). He decided to stay there and pursue a career in photography, but he soon realized he needed more professional training. A year later he moved to Effingham, Illinois, to enroll in the Illinois College of Photography. They taught a nine-month course, but Weston finished all of the class work in six months. The school refused to give him a diploma unless he paid for the full nine months; Weston refused and instead moved back to California in the spring of 1908.
He briefly worked at the photography studio of George Steckel in Los Angeles, as a negative retoucher. Within a few months he moved to the more established studio of Louis Mojonier. For the next several years he learned the techniques and business of operating a photography studio under Mojonier's direction.
Within days of his visit to Tropico, Weston was introduced to his sister's best friend, Flora May Chandler. She was a graduate of the Normal School, later to become UCLA. She assumed the position of a grade-school teacher in Tropico.
She was seven years older than Weston and a distant relative of Harry Chandler, who at that time was described as the head of "the single most powerful family in Southern California". This fact did not go unnoticed by Weston and his biographers.
On January 30, 1909, Weston and Chandler married in a simple ceremony. The first of their four sons, Edward Chandler Weston (1910–1993), known as Chandler, was born on April 26, 1910.
Named Edward Chandler, after Weston and his wife, he later became an excellent photographer on his own. He clearly learned much by being an assistant to his father in the bungalow studio. In 1923 he bid farewell to his mother and sibling brothers and sailed off to Mexico with his father and his then-muse, Tina Modotti. He gave up any aspirations in pursuing photography as a career after his adventures in Mexico. The lifestyle of fame and its fortune affected him greatly. His later photographs, as a hobbyist, albeit rare, certainly reflect an innate talent for the form.
In 1910 Weston opened his own business, called "The Little Studio", in Tropico. His sister later asked him why he opened his studio in Tropico rather than in the nearby metropolis of Los Angeles, and he replied "Sis, I'm going to make my name so famous that it won't matter where I live."
For the next three years he worked, alone and sometimes with the assistance of family members in his studio. Even at that early stage of his career he was highly particular about his work; in an interview at that time he said "[photographic] plates are nothing to me unless I get what I want. I have used thirty of them at a sitting if I did not secure the effect to suit me."
His critical eye paid off for him and he quickly gained more recognition for his work. He won prizes in national competitions, published several more photographs and wrote articles for magazines such as Photo-Era and American Photography, championing the pictorial style.
On December 16, 1911, Weston's second son, Theodore Brett Weston (1911–1993), was born. He became a long-time artistic collaborator with his father and an important photographer on his own.
Sometime in the fall of 1913, Los Angeles photographer, Margrethe Mather visited Weston's studio because of his growing reputation, and within a few months they developed an intense relationship. Weston was a quiet Midwestern transplant to California, and Mather was a part of the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was very outgoing and artistic in a flamboyant way, and her permissive sexual morals were far different from the conservative Weston at the time – Mather had been a prostitute and was bisexual with a preference for women. Mather presented a stark contrast to Weston's home life; his wife Flora was described as a "homely, rigid Puritan, and an utterly conventional woman, with whom he had little in common since he abhorred conventions" ‒ and he found Mather's uninhibited lifestyle irresistible and her photographic vision intriguing.
He asked Mather to be his studio assistant, and for the next decade they worked closely together, making individual and jointly signed portraits of writers Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. A joint exhibition of their work in 2001 revealed that during this period Weston emulated Mather's style and, later, her choice of subjects. On her own Mather photographed "fans, hands, eggs, melons, waves, bathroom fixtures, seashells and birds wings, all subjects that Weston would also explore." A decade later he described her as "the first important person in my life, and perhaps even now, though personal contact has gone, the most important."
In early 1915 Weston began keeping detailed journals he later came to call his "Daybooks". For the next two decades he recorded his thoughts about his work, observations about photography, and his interactions with friends, lovers and family. On December 6, 1916, a third son, Lawrence Neil Weston, was born. He also followed in the footsteps of his father and became a well-known photographer. It was during this period that Weston first met photographer Johan Hagemeyer, whom Weston mentored and lent his studio to from time to time. Later, Hagemeyer would return the favor by letting Weston use his studio in Carmel after he returned from Mexico. For the next several years Weston continued to earn a living by taking portraits in his small studio which he called "the shack".
Meanwhile, Flora was spending all of her time caring for their children. Their fourth son, Cole Weston (1919–2003), was born on January 30, 1919, and afterward she rarely had time to leave their home.
Over the summer of 1920 Weston met two people who were part of the growing Los Angeles cultural scene: Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, known as "Robo" and a woman he called his wife, Tina Modotti. Modotti, who was then known only as a stage and film actress, was never married to Robo, but they pretended to be for the sake of his family. Weston and Modotti were immediately attracted to each other, and they soon became lovers. Richey knew of Modotti's affair, but he continued to be friends with Weston and later invited him to come to Mexico and share his studio.
The following year Weston agreed to allow Mather to become an equal partner in his studio. For several months they took portraits that they signed with both of their names. This was the only time in his long career that Weston shared credit with another photographer.
Sometime in 1920 he began photographing nude models for the first time. His first models were his wife Flora and their children, but soon thereafter he took at least three nude studies of Mather. He followed these with several more photographs of nude models, the first of dozens of figure studies he would make of friends and lovers over the next twenty years.
Until now Weston had kept his relationships with other women a secret from his wife, but as he began to photograph more nudes Flora became suspicious about what went on with him and his models. Chandler recalled that his mother regularly sent him on "errands" to his father's studio and asked him to tell her who was there and what they were doing.
One of the first who agreed to model nude for Weston was Modotti. She became his primary model for the next several years.
In 1922 he visited his sister May, who had moved to Middletown, Ohio. While there he made five or six photographs of the tall smoke stacks at the nearby Armco steel mill. These images signaled a change in Weston's photographic style, a transition from the soft-focus pictorialism of the past to a new, cleaner-edge style. He immediately recognized the change and later recorded it in his notes: "The Middletown visit was something to remember...most of all in importance was my photographing of 'Armco'...That day I made great photographs, even Stieglitz thought they were important!"
At that time New York City was the cultural center for photography as an art form in America, and Alfred Stieglitz was the most influential figure in photography. Weston badly wanted to go to New York to meet with him, but he did not have enough money to make the trip. His brother-in-law gave him enough money to continue on from Middletown to New York City, and he spent most of October and early November there. While there he met artist Charles Sheeler and photographers Clarence H. White, Gertrude Kasebier, as well as Stieglitz. Weston wrote that Stieglitz told him, "Your work and attitude reassures me. You have shown me at least several prints which have given me a great deal of joy. And I can seldom say that of photographs."
Soon after Weston returned from New York, Robo moved to Mexico and set up a studio there to create batiks. Within a short while he had arranged for a joint exhibition of his work and of photographs by Weston, Mather and a few others. In early 1923 Modotti left by train to be with Robo in Mexico, but he contracted smallpox and died shortly before she arrived. Modotti was grief-stricken, but within a few weeks she felt well enough that she decided to stay and carry out the exhibition that Robo had planned. The show was a success, and due in no small part to his nude studies of Modotti, it firmly established Weston's artistic reputation in Mexico.
After the show closed Modotti returned to California, and Weston and she made plans to return to Mexico together. He wanted to spend a couple of months there photographing and promoting his work, and, conveniently, he could travel under the pretense of Modotti being his assistant and translator.
The week before he left for Mexico, Weston briefly reunited with Mather and took several nudes of her lying in the sand at Redondo Beach. These images were very different from his previous nude studies – sharply focused and showing her entire body in relation to the natural setting. They have been called the artistic prototypes for his most famous nudes, those of Charis Wilson which he would take more than a decade later.
1923–27: Mexico
On July 30, 1923, Weston, his son Chandler, and Modotti left on a steamer for the extended trip to Mexico. His wife, Flora, and their other three sons waved goodbye to them at the dock. It's unknown what Flora understood or thought about the relationship between Weston and Modotti, but she is reported to have called out at the dock, "Tina, take good care of my boys."
They arrived in Mexico City on August 11 and rented a large hacienda outside of the city. Within a month he had arranged for an exhibition of his work at the Aztec Land Gallery, and on October 17 the show opened to glowing press reviews. He was particularly proud of a review by Marius de Zayas that said "Photography is beginning to be photography, for until now it has only been art."
The different culture and scenery in Mexico forced Weston to look at things in new ways. He became more responsive to what was in front of him, and he turned his camera on everyday objects like toys, doorways and bathroom fixtures. He also made several intimate nudes and portraits of Modotti. He wrote in his Daybooks:
The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself...I feel definite in the belief that the approach to photography is through realism.
Weston continued to photograph the people and things around him, and his reputation in Mexico increased the longer he stayed. He had a second exhibition at the Aztec Land Gallery in 1924, and he had a steady stream of local socialites asking him to take their portraits. At the same time, Weston began to miss his other sons back in the U.S. As with many of his actions, though, it was a woman who motivated him most. He had recently corresponded with a woman he had known for several years named Miriam Lerner, and as her letters became more passionate he longed to see her again.
He and Chandler returned to San Francisco at the end of 1924, and the next month he set up a studio with Johan Hagemeyer. Weston seemed to be struggling with his past and his future during this period. He burned all of his pre-Mexico journals, as though trying to erase the past, and started a new series of nudes with Lerner and with his son Neil. He wrote that these images were "the start of a new period in my approach and attitude towards photography."
His new relationship with Lerner did not last long, and in August 1925 he returned to Mexico, this time with his son Brett. Modotti had arranged a joint show of their photographs, and it opened the week he returned. He received new critical acclaim and six of his prints were purchased for the State Museum. For the next several months he concentrated once again on photographing folk art, toys and local scenes. One of his strongest images of this period is of three black clay pots that art historian Rene d'Harnoncourt described as "the beginning of a new art."
In May 1926 Weston signed a contract with writer Anita Brenner for $1,000 to make photographs for a book she was writing about Mexican folk art. In June he, Modotti and Brett started traveling around the country in search of lesser known native arts and crafts. His contract required him to give Brenner three finished prints from 400 8x10 negatives, and it took him until November of that year to complete the work. During their travels, Brett received a crash course in photography from his father, and he made more than two dozen prints which his father judged to be of exceptional quality.
By the time they returned from their trip, Weston and Modotti's relationship had crumbled, and within less than two weeks he and Brett returned to California. He never traveled to Mexico again.
1927–35: Glendale to Carmel
Weston initially returned to his old studio in Glendale (previously called Tropico). He hastily arranged a dual exhibition at University of California of the photographs that he and Brett had made the year before. The father showed 100 prints and the son showed 20. Brett was only 15 years old at the time.
In February he started a new series of nudes, this time of dancer Bertha Wardell. One of this series, of her kneeling body cut off at the shoulders, is one of Weston's most well-known figure studies. At this same time he met Canadian painter Henrietta Shore, whom he asked to comment on the photos of Wardell. He was surprised by her honest critique: "I wish you would not do so many nudes – you are getting used to them, the subject no longer amazes you ‒ most of these are just nudes."
He asked to look at her work and was intrigued by her large paintings of sea shells. He borrowed several shells from her, thinking he might find some inspiration for a new still life series. Over the next few weeks he explored many different kinds of shell and background combinations – in his log of photographs taken for 1927 he listed fourteen negatives of shells. One of these, simply called Nautilus, 1927" (sometimes called Shell, 1927), became one of his most famous images. Modotti called the image "mystical and erotic," and when she showed it to Rene d'Harnoncourt he said he felt "weak at the knees." Weston is known to have made at least twenty-eight prints of this image, more than he had made of any other shell image.
In September of that year Weston had a major exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. At the opening of the show he met fellow photographer Willard Van Dyke, who later introduced Weston to Ansel Adams.
In May 1928, Weston and Brett made a brief but important trip to the Mojave Desert. It was there that he first explored and photographed landscapes as an art form. He found the stark rock forms and empty spaces to be a visual revelation, and over a long weekend he took twenty-seven photographs. In his journal he declared "these negatives are the most important I have ever done."
Later that year he and Brett moved to San Francisco, where they lived and worked in a small studio owned by Hagemeyer. He made portraits to earn an income, but he longed to get away by himself and get back to his art. In early 1929 he moved to Hagemeyer's cottage in Carmel, and it was there that he finally found the solitude and the inspiration that he was seeking. He placed a sign in studio window that said, "Edward Weston, photographer, Unretouched Portraits, Prints for Collectors."
He started making regular trips to nearby Point Lobos, where he would continue to photograph until the end of his career. It was there that he learned to fine-tune his photographic vision to match the visual space of his view camera, and the images he took there, of kelp, rocks and wind-blown trees, are among his finest. Looking at his work from this period, one biographer wrote:
"Weston arranged his compositions so that things happened on the edges; lines almost cross or meet and circular lines just touch the edges tangentially; his compositions were now created exclusively for a space with the proportions of eight by ten. There is no extraneous space nor is there too little."
In early April 1929, Weston met photographer Sonya Noskowiak at a party, and by the end of the month she was living with him. As with many of his other relationships, she became his model, muse, pupil and assistant. They would continue to live together for five years.
Intrigued by the many kinds and shapes of kelp he found on the beaches near Carmel, in 1930 Weston began taking close-ups of vegetables and fruits. He made a variety of photographs of cabbage, kale, onions, bananas, and finally, his most iconic image, peppers. In August of that year Noskowiak brought him several green peppers, and over a four-day period he shot at least thirty different negatives. Of these, Pepper No. 30, is among the all-time masterpieces of photography.
Weston had a series of important one-man exhibitions in 1930–31. The first was at Alma Reed's Delphic Studio Gallery in New York, followed closely by a mounting of the same show at the Denny Watrous Gallery in Carmel. Both received rave reviews, including a two-page article in the New York Times Magazine. These were followed by shows at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Galerie Jean Naert in Paris.
Although he was succeeding professionally his personal life was very complex. For most of their marriage, Flora was able to take care of their children because of an inheritance from her parents. However, the Wall Street crash of 1929 had wiped out most of her savings, and Weston felt increased pressure to help provide more for her and his sons. He described this time as "the most trying economic period of my life."
In 1932, The Art of Edward Weston, the first book devoted exclusively to Weston's work, was published. It was edited by Merle Armitage and dedicated to Alice Rohrer, an admirer and patron of Weston whose $500 donation helped pay for the book to be published.
During the same time a small group of like-minded photographers in the San Francisco area, led by Van Dyke and Ansel Adams, began informally meeting to discuss their common interest and aesthetics. Inspired by Weston's show at the De Young Museum the previous year, they approached the museum with the idea of mounting a group exhibition of their work. They named themselves Group f/64, and in November 1932, an exhibition of 80 of their prints opened at the museum. The show was a critical success.
In 1933 Weston bought a 4 × 5 Graflex camera, which was much smaller and lighter than the large view camera he had used for many years. He began taking close-up nudes of Noskowiak and other models. The smaller camera allowed him to interact more with his models, while at the same time the nudes he took during this period began to resemble some of the contorted root and vegetables he had taken the year before.
In early 1934, "a new and important chapter opened" in Weston's life when he met Charis Wilson at a concert. Even more than with his previous lovers, Weston was immediately captivated by her beauty and her personality. He wrote: "A new love came into my life, a most beautiful one, one which will, I believe, stand the test of time." On April 22 he photographed her nude for the first time, and they entered into an intense relationship. He was still living with Noskowiak at that time, but within two weeks he asked her to move out, declaring that for him other women were "as inevitable as the tides".
Perhaps because of the intensity of his new relationship, he stopped writing in his Daybooks at this same time. Six months later he wrote one final entry, looking back from April 22:
After eight months we are closer together than ever. Perhaps C. will be remembered as the great love of my life. Already I have achieved certain heights reached with no other love.
1935–45: Guggenheim grant to Wildcat Hill
In January 1935 Weston was facing increasing financial difficulties. He closed his studio in Carmel and moved to Santa Monica Canyon, California, where he opened a new studio with Brett. He implored Wilson to come and live with him, and in August 1935 she finally agreed. While she had an intense interest in his work, Wilson was the first woman Weston had lived with since Flora who had no interest in becoming a photographer. This allowed Weston to concentrate on her as his muse and model, and in turn Wilson devoted her time to promoting Weston's art as his assistant and quasi-agent.
Almost immediately he began taking a new series of nudes with Wilson as the model. One of the first photographs he took of her, on the balcony of their home, became one of his most published images (Nude (Charis, Santa Monica)). Soon after they took the first of several trips to Oceano Dunes. It was there that Weston made some of his most daring and intimate photographs of any of his models, capturing Wilson in completely uninhibited poses in the sand dunes. He exhibited only one or two of this series in his lifetime, thinking several of the others were "too erotic" for the general public.
Although his recent work had received critical acclaim, he was not earning enough income from his artistic images to provide a steady income. Rather than going back to relying solely on portraiture, he started the "Edward Weston Print of the Month Club", offering selections of his photos for a monthly $5 subscription. Each month subscribers would receive a new print from Weston, with a limited edition of 40 copies of each print. Although he created these prints with the same high standards that he did for his exhibition prints, it is thought that he never had more than eleven subscribers.
At the suggestion of Beaumont Newhall, Weston decided to apply for a Guggenheim Foundation grant (now known as a Guggenheim Fellowship). He wrote a two-sentence description about his work, assembled thirty-five of his favorite prints, and sent it in. Afterward Dorothea Lange and her husband suggested that the application was too brief to be seriously considered, and Weston resubmitted it with a four-page letter and work plan. He did not mention that Wilson had written the new application for him.
On March 22, 1937, Weston received notification that he had been awarded a Guggenheim grant, the first ever given to a photographer. The award was $2,000 for one year, a significant amount of money at that time. He was able to further capitalize on the award by arranging to provide the editor of AAA Westway Magazine with 8–10 photos per month for $50 during their travels, with Wilson getting an additional $15 monthly for photo captions and short narratives. They purchased a new car and set out on Weston's dream trip to go and photograph whatever he wanted. Over the next twelve months they made seventeen trips and covered 16,697 miles according to Wilson's detailed log. Weston made 1,260 negatives during the trip.
The freedom of this trip with the "love of his life", combined with all of his sons now reaching the age of adulthood, gave Weston the motivation to finally divorce his wife. They had been living apart for sixteen years.
Due to the success of the past year, Weston applied for and received a second year of Guggenheim support. Although he wanted to do some additional traveling, he intended to use most of the money to allow him to print his past year's work. He commissioned Neil to build a small home in the Carmel Highlands on property owned by Wilson's father. They named the place "Wildcat Hill" because of the many domestic cats that soon occupied the grounds.
Wilson set up a writing studio in what was intended to be a small garage behind the house, and she spent several months writing and editing stories from their travels.
In 1939, Seeing California with Edward Weston was published, with photographs by Weston and writing by Wilson. Finally relieved from the financial stresses of the past and inordinately happy with his work and his relationship, Weston married Wilson in a small ceremony on April 24.
Buoyed by the success of their first book, in 1940 they published California and the West. The first edition, featuring 96 of Weston's photos with text by Wilson, sold for $3.95. Over the summer, Weston taught photography at the first Ansel Adams Workshop at Yosemite National Park.
Just as the Guggenheim money was running out, Weston was invited to illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He would receive $1,000 for photographs and $500 travel expenses. Weston insisted on having artistic control of the images he would take and insisted that he would not be taking literal illustrations of Whitman's text. On May 28 he and Wilson began a trip that would cover 20,000 miles through 24 states; he took between 700 and 800 8x10 negatives as well as dozens of Graflex portraits.
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the United States entered World War II. Weston was near the end of the Whitman trip, and he was deeply affected by the outbreak of the war. He wrote: "When the war broke out we scurried home. Charis did not want to scurry. I did."
He spent the first few months of 1942 organizing and printing the negatives from the Whitman trip. Of the hundreds of images he took, forty-nine were selected for publication.
Due to the war, Point Lobos was closed to the public for several years. Weston continued to work on images centered on Wildcat Hill, including shots of the many cats that lived there. Weston treated them with the same serious intent that he applied to all of his other subjects, and Charis assembled the results into their most unusual publication, The Cats of Wildcat Hill, which was finally published in 1947.
The year 1945 marked the beginning of significant changes for Weston. He began to experience the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease, a debilitating ailment that gradually stole his strength and his ability to photograph. He withdrew from Wilson, who at the same time began to become more involved in local politics and the Carmel cultural scene. A strength that originally brought them together – her lack of interest in becoming a photographer herself – eventually led to their break-up. She wrote, "My flight from Edward was also partly an escape from photography, which had taken up so much room in my life for so many years."
While working on a major retrospective exhibition for the Museum of Modern Art, he and Wilson separated. Weston returned to Glendale since the land for their cabin at Wildcat Hill still belonged to Wilson's father. Within a few months she moved out and arranged to sell the property to him.
1946–58: Final years
In February 1946, Weston's major retrospective opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He and Beaumont Newhall selected 313 prints for the exhibition, and eventually 250 photographs were displayed along with 11 negatives. At that time many of his prints were still for sale, and he sold 97 prints from the exhibit at $25 per print. Later that year, Weston was asked by Dr. George L. Waters of Kodak to produce 8 × 10 Kodachrome transparencies for their advertising campaign. Weston had never worked in color before, primarily because he had no means of developing or printing the more complicated color process. He accepted their offer in no small part because they offered him $250 per image, the highest amount he would be paid for any single work in his lifetime. He eventually sold seven color works to Kodak of landscapes and scenery at Point Lobos and nearby Monterey harbor.
In 1947 as his Parkinson's disease progressed, Weston began looking for an assistant. Serendipitously, an eager young photographic enthusiast, Dody Weston Thompson, contacted him in search of employment.
Weston mentioned he had just that morning written a letter to Ansel Adams, looking for someone seeking to learn photography in exchange for carrying his bulky large-format camera and to provide a much needed automobile. There was a swift meeting of creative minds. For the remainder of 1947 through the beginning of 1948, Dody commuted from San Francisco on weekends to learn from Weston the basics of photography. In early 1948, Dody moved into "Bodie House," the guest cottage at Edward's Wildcat Hill compound, as his full-time assistant.
By late 1948 he was no longer physically able to use his large view camera. That year he took his last photographs, at Point Lobos. His final negative was an image he called, "Rocks and Pebbles, 1948". Although diminished in his capacity, Weston never stopped being a photographer. He worked with his sons and Dody to catalog his images and especially to oversee the publication and printing of his work. In 1950 there was a major retrospective of his work at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris, and in 1952 he published a Fiftieth Anniversary portfolio, with images printed by Brett.
During this time he worked with Cole, Brett, and Dody Thompson (Brett's wife by 1952), to select and have them print a master set of what he considered his best work. They spent many long hours together in the darkroom, and by 1956 they had produced what Weston called "The Project Prints", eight sets of 8" × 10" prints from 830 of his negatives. The only complete set today is housed at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Later that same year the Smithsonian Institution displayed nearly 100 of these prints at a major exhibit, "The World of Edward Weston", paying tribute to his accomplishments in American photography.
Weston died at his home on Wildcat Hill on New Year's Day, 1958. His sons scattered his ashes into the Pacific Ocean at an area then known as Pebbly Beach on Point Lobos. Due to Weston's significant influence in the area, the beach was later renamed Weston Beach. He had $300 in his bank account at the time of his death.
Equipment and techniques
Cameras and lenses
During his lifetime Weston worked with several cameras. He began as a more serious photographer in 1902 when he purchased a 5 × 7 camera. When he moved to Tropico, now part of Glendale, and opened his studio in 1911, he acquired an enormous 11 x 14 Graf Variable studio portrait camera. Roi Partridge, Imogen Cunningham's husband, later made an etching of Weston in his studio, dwarfed by the giant camera in front of him. After he began taking more portraits of children, he bought a 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ Graflex in 1912 to better capture their quickly changing expressions.
When he went to Mexico in 1924 he took an 8 × 10 Seneca folding-bed view camera with several lenses, including a Graf Variable and a Wollensak Verito. While in Mexico he purchased a used Rapid Rectilinear lens which was his primary lens for many years. The lens, now in the George Eastman House, did not have a manufacturer's name. He also took to Mexico a 3¼ × 4¼ Graflex with a ƒ/4.5 Tessar lens, which he used for portraits.
In 1933 he purchased a 4 × 5 R. B. Auto-Graflex] and used it thereafter for all portraits. He continued to use the Seneca view camera for all other work.
In 1939 he listed the following items as his standard equipment:
8 x 10 Century Universal
Triple convertible Turner Reich, 12", 21", 28"
K2, G, A filters
12 film holders
Paul Ries Tripod
He continued to use this equipment throughout his life.
Film
Prior to 1921 Weston used an orthochromatic sheet film, but when panchromatic film became widely available in 1921 he switched to it for all of his work. According to his son Cole, after Agfa Isopan film came out in the 1930s Weston used it for his black-and-white images for the rest of his life. This film was rated at about ISO 25, but the developing technique Weston used reduced the effective rating to about ISO 12.
The 8 × 10 cameras he preferred were large and heavy, and due to the weight and the cost of the film he never carried more than twelve sheet film holders with him. At the end of each day, he had to go into a darkroom, unload the film holders and load them with new film. This was especially challenging when he was traveling since he had to find a darkened room somewhere or else set up a makeshift darkroom made from heavy canvas.
In spite of the bulky size of the view camera, Weston boasted he could "set up the tripod, fasten the camera securely to it, attach the lens to the camera, open the shutter, study the image on the ground glass, focus it, close the shutter, insert the plate holder, cock the shutter, set it to the appropriate aperture and speed, remove the slide from the plate holder, make the exposure, replace the slide, and remove the plate holder in two minutes and twenty seconds."
The smaller Graflex cameras he used had the advantage of using film magazines that held either 12 or 18 sheets of film. Weston preferred these cameras when taking portraits because he could respond more quickly to the sitter. He reported that with his Graflex he once made three dozen negatives of Tina Modotti within 20 minutes.In 1946 a representative from Kodak asked Weston to try out their new Kodachrome film, and over the next two years he made at least 60 8 x 10 color images using this film." They were some of the last photographs he took, since by late 1948 he was no longer able to operate a camera due to the effects of his Parkinson's disease.
Exposures
During the first 20 years of his photography Weston determined all of his exposure settings by estimation based on his previous experiences and the relatively narrow tolerances of the film at that time. He said, "I dislike to figure out time, and find my exposures more accurate when only "felt"." In the late 1930s he acquired a Weston exposure meter and continued to use it as an aid to determine exposures throughout his career. Photo historian Nancy Newhall wrote that "Young photographers are confused and amazed when they behold him measuring with his meter every value in the sphere where he intends to work, from the sky to the ground under his feet. He is "feeling the light" and checking his own observations. After which he puts the meter away and does what he thinks. Often he adds up everything ‒ filters, extension, film, speed, and so on ‒ and doubles the computation." Weston, Newhall noted, believed in "massive exposure", which he then compensated for by hand-processing the film in a weak developer solution and individually inspecting each negative as it continued to develop to get the right balance of highlights and shadows.
The low ISO rating of the sheet film Weston used necessitated very long exposures when using his view camera, ranging from 1 to 3 seconds for outdoor landscape exposures to as long as 4½ hours for still lifes such as peppers or shells. When he used one of the Graflex cameras the exposure times were much shorter (usually less than ¼ second), and he was sometimes able to work without a tripod.
Darkroom
Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days.
When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives."
In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life.
Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints.
Paper
Early in his career Weston printed on several kinds of paper, including Velox, Apex, Convira, Defender Velour Black and Haloid. When he went to Mexico he learned how to use platinum and palladium paper, made by Willis & Clement and imported from England. After his return to California, he abandoned platinum and palladium printing due to the scarcity and increasing price of the paper. Eventually he was able to get most of the same qualities he preferred with Kodak's Azo glossy silver gelatin paper developed in Amidol. He continued to use this paper almost exclusively until he stopped printing.
Writings
Weston was a prolific writer. His Daybooks were published in two volumes totaling more than 500 pages in the first edition. This does not include the years of the journal he kept between 1915 and 1923; for reasons he never made clear he destroyed those before leaving for Mexico. He also wrote dozens of articles and commentaries, beginning in 1906 and ending in 1957. He hand-wrote or typed at least 5,000 letters to colleagues, friends, lovers, his wives and his children.
In addition, Weston kept very thorough notes on the technical and business aspects of his work. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, which now houses most of Weston's archives, reports that it houses 75 linear feet of pages from his Daybooks, correspondence, financial records, memorabilia, and other personal documents in his possession when he died.
Among Weston's most important early writings are those that provide insights into his development of the concept of previsualization. He first spoke and wrote about the concept in 1922, at least a decade before Ansel Adams began utilizing the term, and he continued to expand upon this idea both in writing and in his teachings. Historian Beaumont Newhall noted the significance of Weston's innovation in his book The History of Photography, saying "The most important part of Edward Weston's approach was his insistence that the photographer should previsualize the final print before making the exposure."
In his Daybooks he provided an unusually detailed record of his evolution as an artist. Although he initially denied that his images reflect his own interpretations of the subject matter, by 1932 his writings revealed that he had come to accept the importance of artistic impression in his work. When combined with his photographs, his writings provide an extraordinarily vivid series of insights into his development as an artist and his impact of future generations of photographers.
Quotations
"Form follows function." Who said this I don't know, but the writer spoke well.
I am not a technician and have no interest in technique for its own sake. If my technique is adequate to present my seeing then I need nothing more.
I see no reason for recording the obvious.
If there is symbolism in my work, it can only be the seeing of parts ‒ fragments ‒ as universal symbols. All basic forms are so closely related as to be visually equivalent.
My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.
My work-purpose, my theme, can most nearly be stated as the recognition, recording and presentation of the interdependence, the relativity, of all things ‒ the universality of basic form.
The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.
What then is the end toward which I work? To present the significance of facts, so that they are transformed from things seen to things known.
When money enters in ‒ then, for a price, I become a liar ‒ and a good one I can be whether with pencil or subtle lighting or viewpoint. I hate it all, but so do I support not only my family, but my own work.
Legacy
As of 2013, two of Weston's photographs feature among the most expensive photographs ever sold. The Nude, 1925 taken in 1925 was bought by the gallerist Peter MacGill for $1.6 million in 2008. Nautilus of 1927 was sold for $1.1 million in 2010, also to MacGill.
Major exhibitions
1970, the Rencontres d'Arles festival (France) presented an exhibition "Hommage à Edward Weston" and an evening screening of the film The Photographer (1948) by Willard Van Dyke.
November 25, 1986 – March 29, 1987 Edward Weston in Los Angeles at Huntington Library
1986 Edward Weston: Color Photography at Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
May 13 – August 27, 1989 Edward Weston in New Mexico at Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe
Edward Weston : the Last Years in Carmel at The Art Institute of Chicago, June 2 – September 16, 2001, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mar. 1 – July 9, 2002.
List of photographs
The artistic career of Weston spanned more than forty years, from roughly 1915 to 1956. A prolific photographer, he produced more than 1,000 black-and-white photographs and some 50 color images. This list is an incomplete selection of Weston's better-known photographs.
Notes
References
Sources
Abbott, Brett. Edward Weston: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005.
Alinder, Mary Street. Group f.64: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists Who Revolutionized American Photography. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2014.
Bunnell, Peter C. Edward Weston on Photography. Salt Lake City: P. Smith Books, 1983.
Bunnell, Peter C., David Featherston et al. EW 100: Centennial Essays in Honor of Edward Weston. Carmel, Calif. : Friends of Photography, 1986.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston in Mexico, 1923–1926. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983.
Conger, Amy (1992). Edward Weston – Photographs From the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1992.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston: The Form of The Nude. NY: Phaidon, 2006.
Edward Weston : Color Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1986.
Enyeart, James. Edward Weston's California landscapes. Boston : Little, Brown, 1984.
Foley, Kathy Kelsey. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister. Dayton: Dayton Art Institute, 1978.
Heyman, There Thau. Seeing Straight: The f.64 Revolution in Photography. Oakland: Oakland Art Museum, 1992.
Higgins, Gary. Truth, Myth and Erasure: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston. Tempe, Ariz. : School of Art, Arizona State University, 1991.
Hochberg, Judith and Michael P. Mattis. Edward Weston: Life Work. Photographs from the Collection of Judith G. Hochberg and Michael P. Mattis. Revere, Pa.: Lodima Press, c2003.
Hooks, Margaret. Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary. London: Pandora, 1993.
Lowe, Sarah M. Tina Modotti and Edward Weston the Mexico Years. London: Merrell, 2004.
Maddow, Ben. Edward Weston: Fifty Years; The Definitive Volume of His Photographic Work. Millerton, N.Y., Aperture, 1973. ,
Maggia, Filippo. Edward Weston. New York: Skira, 2013.
Mora, Gilles (ed.). Edward Weston: Forms of Passion. NY: Abrams, 1995.
Morgan, Susan. Portraits / Edward Weston. NY: Aperture, 1995.
Newhall, Beaumont (1984). Edward Weston Omnibus: A Critical Anthology. Salt Lake City : Peregrine Smith Books, 1984.
Newhall, Beaumont . Supreme Instants: The Photography of Edward Weston. Boston : Little, Brown, 1986.
Newhall, Nancy (ed.). Edward Weston; The Flame of Recognition: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY: Aperture, 1971.
Pitts, Terence. Edward Weston 1886–1958. Köln: Taschen, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E., Karen Quinn and Leslie Furth. Edward Weston : Photography and Modernism. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E. Weston's Westons : Portraits and Nudes. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989.
Travis, David. Edward Weston, The Last Years in Carmel. Chicago: Art Institute, 2001.
Warren, Beth Gates. Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011.
Warren, Beth Gates. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister and Other Photographs. NY: Sotheby's, 2008.
Warren, Beth Gates (2001). Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration. NY: Norton, 2001.
Watts, Jennifer A. (ed.). Edward Weston : A Legacy. London: Merrell, 2003.
Weston, Edward (1964). The Daybooks of Edward Weston. Edited by Nancy Nehall. NY: Horizon Press, 1961–1964. 2 vols.
Weston, Edward. My Camera on Point Lobos; 30 Photographs and Excerpts from E. W.’s Daybook. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950.
Weston, Paulette. Laughing Eyes: a Book of Letters Between Edward and Cole Weston 1923–1946. Carmel: Carmel Publishing Co., 1999.
Wilson, Charis. Edward Weston Nudes: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY : Aperture, 1977.
Wilson, Charis. Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Woods, John. Dune: Edward & Brett Weston. Kalispell, MT: Wild Horse Island Press, 2003.
External links
edward-weston.com
Edward Weston Collection at the Center for Creative Photography
Ben Maddow "Edward Weston Lecture" The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1976. Retrieved June 26, 2012
The Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston and Charis Wilson Documentary concerning Edward Weston, his muse Charis Wilson and photographer Ansel Adams.
Encyclopædia Britannica
Landscape photographers
American portrait photographers
1886 births
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History of platinum printing
Photographers from California
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People from Highland Park, Illinois
Deaths from Parkinson's disease
Neurological disease deaths in California
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American male archers
Archers at the 1904 Summer Olympics | false | [
"Räshid Nasretdin (July 14, 1920 – August 28, 2010) was a Finnish Tatar photographer.\n\nLife \nRäshid Nasretdin was born in a village called Aktuk, which is located in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia. He was two years old when he arrived to Finland. When he was a child, he had rickets. People didn't think he would survive but, in his own words, he did, \"thanks to cod liver oil and saltbaths.\"\n\nIn Finland, he first lived in Lappeenranta, but then moved to Helsinki in 1939. Nasretdin was studying to become a housebuilder at first but got interested in photography instead, through his classmate, whose family owned a photography company.\n\nNasretdin married a woman called Häbiba in 1945. As a man who had become immersed in the profession of photography, he decided to take their own wedding picture.\n\nHe had his own photography shop, which he ran with his wife for over forty years. He was also very active in many different photography clubs and unions.\n\nNasretdin was rewarded with many accolades. He was also granted an artist's pension in 1987.\n\nIn later years, after retiring from his job as a photographer, Nasretdin liked to spend his freetime fishing and boating. After his wife got sick, he cared for her for a few years. Nasretdin died in Myllypuro, Helsinki, aged 90.\n\nRäshid and Häbiba had three children, a daughter and two sons. One of the sons, Samil, owns the photography shop today. It is located in Fredrikinkatu, Helsinki.\n\nReferences \n\n20th-century Finnish photographers\nFinnish Tatars\n1920 births\n2010 deaths",
"Alfred Saint-Ange Briquet (30 December 1833, Paris – 1926, Mexico) was a French pioneer of photography, particularly in Mexico.\n\nBiography \n\nBriquet became a photographer in Paris in 1854. He taught photography at École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, the prominent French military academy.\n\nHe closed his studio in Paris in 1865, but it not certain when he started work in Mexico, however in 1876, he did receive a commission to record the construction of the Mexican National Railway (Ferrocarril Nacional Mexicano - FNM) line being built between Veracruz and Mexico City. He gained the attention of President Porfirio Díaz and secured a number of commissions. He also published a series of photography books: Vistas Mexicanas, Tipos Mexicanos and Antiquedades Mexicanos. Following the Mexican Revolution of 1910 he no longer received any government contracts.\n\nHis photos appeared in several books, and albums among them we can mention \"Mexico artístico y pintoresco\" edited by Julio Michaud and \"Mexico, Its Social Evolution\" coordinated by the historian Justo Sierra.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n \n\n1833 births\n1929 deaths\nPhotographers from Paris\nPorfiriato\nFrench emigrants to Mexico\nPhotography in Mexico"
]
|
[
"Edward Weston",
"Darkroom",
"What kind of photographs did Weston take?",
"Weston always made contact prints,",
"What are contact prints?",
"that the print was exactly the same size as the negative.",
"Has he taken any photos that are famous?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he start photography",
"I don't know."
]
| C_7efe68873f1f4b09adc565dfd928bf98_1 | Did he develop his own pictures | 5 | Did Edward Weston develop his own pictures | Edward Weston | Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight in order to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days. When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives." In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life. Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints. CANNOTANSWER | develop one at a time in a tray | Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still-lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a "quintessentially American, and especially Californian, approach to modern photography" because of his focus on the people and places of the American West. In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 × 10 view camera. Some of his most famous
photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
Weston was born in Chicago and moved to California when he was 21. He knew he wanted to be a photographer from an early age, and initially his work was typical of the soft focus pictorialism that was popular at the time. Within a few years, however he abandoned that style and went on to be one of the foremost champions of highly detailed photographic images.
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he soon stopped photographing. He spent the remaining ten years of his life overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.
Life and work
1886–1906: Early life
Weston was born in Highland Park, Illinois, the second child and only son of Edward Burbank Weston, an obstetrician, and Alice Jeanette Brett, a Shakespearean actress. His mother died when he was five years old and he was raised mostly by his sister Mary, whom he called "May" or "Maisie". She was nine years older than he, and they developed a very close bond that was one of the few steady relationships in Weston's life.
His father remarried when he was nine, but neither Weston nor his sister got along with their new stepmother and stepbrother. After May was married and left their home in 1897, Weston's father devoted most of his time to his new wife and her son. Weston was left on his own much of the time; he stopped going to school and withdrew into his own room in their large home.
As a present for his 16th birthday Weston's father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Bull's-Eye No. 2, which was a simple box camera. He took it on vacation in the Midwest, and by the time he returned home his interest in photography was enough to lead him to purchase a used 5 × 7 inch view camera. He began photographing in Chicago parks and a farm owned by his aunt, and developed his own film and prints. Later he would remember that even at that early age his work showed strong artistic merit. He said, "I feel that my earliest work of 1903 ‒ though immature ‒ is related more closely, both with technique and composition, to my latest work than are several of my photographs dating from 1913 to 1920, a period in which I was trying to be artistic."
In 1904 May and her family moved to California, leaving Weston further isolated in Chicago. He earned a living by taking a job at a local department store, but he continued to spend most of his free time taking photos, Within two years he felt confident enough of his photography that he submitted his work to the magazine Camera and Darkroom, and in the April 1906 issue they published a full-page reproduction of his picture Spring, Chicago. This is the first known publication of any of his photographs.
In September 1904, Weston took part in the men's double American round archery event at the 1904 Summer Olympics with his father also taking part in the same event.
1906–23: Becoming a photographer
At his sister's urging Weston left Chicago in the spring of 1906 and moved near May's home in Tropico, California (now a neighborhood in Glendale). He decided to stay there and pursue a career in photography, but he soon realized he needed more professional training. A year later he moved to Effingham, Illinois, to enroll in the Illinois College of Photography. They taught a nine-month course, but Weston finished all of the class work in six months. The school refused to give him a diploma unless he paid for the full nine months; Weston refused and instead moved back to California in the spring of 1908.
He briefly worked at the photography studio of George Steckel in Los Angeles, as a negative retoucher. Within a few months he moved to the more established studio of Louis Mojonier. For the next several years he learned the techniques and business of operating a photography studio under Mojonier's direction.
Within days of his visit to Tropico, Weston was introduced to his sister's best friend, Flora May Chandler. She was a graduate of the Normal School, later to become UCLA. She assumed the position of a grade-school teacher in Tropico.
She was seven years older than Weston and a distant relative of Harry Chandler, who at that time was described as the head of "the single most powerful family in Southern California". This fact did not go unnoticed by Weston and his biographers.
On January 30, 1909, Weston and Chandler married in a simple ceremony. The first of their four sons, Edward Chandler Weston (1910–1993), known as Chandler, was born on April 26, 1910.
Named Edward Chandler, after Weston and his wife, he later became an excellent photographer on his own. He clearly learned much by being an assistant to his father in the bungalow studio. In 1923 he bid farewell to his mother and sibling brothers and sailed off to Mexico with his father and his then-muse, Tina Modotti. He gave up any aspirations in pursuing photography as a career after his adventures in Mexico. The lifestyle of fame and its fortune affected him greatly. His later photographs, as a hobbyist, albeit rare, certainly reflect an innate talent for the form.
In 1910 Weston opened his own business, called "The Little Studio", in Tropico. His sister later asked him why he opened his studio in Tropico rather than in the nearby metropolis of Los Angeles, and he replied "Sis, I'm going to make my name so famous that it won't matter where I live."
For the next three years he worked, alone and sometimes with the assistance of family members in his studio. Even at that early stage of his career he was highly particular about his work; in an interview at that time he said "[photographic] plates are nothing to me unless I get what I want. I have used thirty of them at a sitting if I did not secure the effect to suit me."
His critical eye paid off for him and he quickly gained more recognition for his work. He won prizes in national competitions, published several more photographs and wrote articles for magazines such as Photo-Era and American Photography, championing the pictorial style.
On December 16, 1911, Weston's second son, Theodore Brett Weston (1911–1993), was born. He became a long-time artistic collaborator with his father and an important photographer on his own.
Sometime in the fall of 1913, Los Angeles photographer, Margrethe Mather visited Weston's studio because of his growing reputation, and within a few months they developed an intense relationship. Weston was a quiet Midwestern transplant to California, and Mather was a part of the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was very outgoing and artistic in a flamboyant way, and her permissive sexual morals were far different from the conservative Weston at the time – Mather had been a prostitute and was bisexual with a preference for women. Mather presented a stark contrast to Weston's home life; his wife Flora was described as a "homely, rigid Puritan, and an utterly conventional woman, with whom he had little in common since he abhorred conventions" ‒ and he found Mather's uninhibited lifestyle irresistible and her photographic vision intriguing.
He asked Mather to be his studio assistant, and for the next decade they worked closely together, making individual and jointly signed portraits of writers Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. A joint exhibition of their work in 2001 revealed that during this period Weston emulated Mather's style and, later, her choice of subjects. On her own Mather photographed "fans, hands, eggs, melons, waves, bathroom fixtures, seashells and birds wings, all subjects that Weston would also explore." A decade later he described her as "the first important person in my life, and perhaps even now, though personal contact has gone, the most important."
In early 1915 Weston began keeping detailed journals he later came to call his "Daybooks". For the next two decades he recorded his thoughts about his work, observations about photography, and his interactions with friends, lovers and family. On December 6, 1916, a third son, Lawrence Neil Weston, was born. He also followed in the footsteps of his father and became a well-known photographer. It was during this period that Weston first met photographer Johan Hagemeyer, whom Weston mentored and lent his studio to from time to time. Later, Hagemeyer would return the favor by letting Weston use his studio in Carmel after he returned from Mexico. For the next several years Weston continued to earn a living by taking portraits in his small studio which he called "the shack".
Meanwhile, Flora was spending all of her time caring for their children. Their fourth son, Cole Weston (1919–2003), was born on January 30, 1919, and afterward she rarely had time to leave their home.
Over the summer of 1920 Weston met two people who were part of the growing Los Angeles cultural scene: Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, known as "Robo" and a woman he called his wife, Tina Modotti. Modotti, who was then known only as a stage and film actress, was never married to Robo, but they pretended to be for the sake of his family. Weston and Modotti were immediately attracted to each other, and they soon became lovers. Richey knew of Modotti's affair, but he continued to be friends with Weston and later invited him to come to Mexico and share his studio.
The following year Weston agreed to allow Mather to become an equal partner in his studio. For several months they took portraits that they signed with both of their names. This was the only time in his long career that Weston shared credit with another photographer.
Sometime in 1920 he began photographing nude models for the first time. His first models were his wife Flora and their children, but soon thereafter he took at least three nude studies of Mather. He followed these with several more photographs of nude models, the first of dozens of figure studies he would make of friends and lovers over the next twenty years.
Until now Weston had kept his relationships with other women a secret from his wife, but as he began to photograph more nudes Flora became suspicious about what went on with him and his models. Chandler recalled that his mother regularly sent him on "errands" to his father's studio and asked him to tell her who was there and what they were doing.
One of the first who agreed to model nude for Weston was Modotti. She became his primary model for the next several years.
In 1922 he visited his sister May, who had moved to Middletown, Ohio. While there he made five or six photographs of the tall smoke stacks at the nearby Armco steel mill. These images signaled a change in Weston's photographic style, a transition from the soft-focus pictorialism of the past to a new, cleaner-edge style. He immediately recognized the change and later recorded it in his notes: "The Middletown visit was something to remember...most of all in importance was my photographing of 'Armco'...That day I made great photographs, even Stieglitz thought they were important!"
At that time New York City was the cultural center for photography as an art form in America, and Alfred Stieglitz was the most influential figure in photography. Weston badly wanted to go to New York to meet with him, but he did not have enough money to make the trip. His brother-in-law gave him enough money to continue on from Middletown to New York City, and he spent most of October and early November there. While there he met artist Charles Sheeler and photographers Clarence H. White, Gertrude Kasebier, as well as Stieglitz. Weston wrote that Stieglitz told him, "Your work and attitude reassures me. You have shown me at least several prints which have given me a great deal of joy. And I can seldom say that of photographs."
Soon after Weston returned from New York, Robo moved to Mexico and set up a studio there to create batiks. Within a short while he had arranged for a joint exhibition of his work and of photographs by Weston, Mather and a few others. In early 1923 Modotti left by train to be with Robo in Mexico, but he contracted smallpox and died shortly before she arrived. Modotti was grief-stricken, but within a few weeks she felt well enough that she decided to stay and carry out the exhibition that Robo had planned. The show was a success, and due in no small part to his nude studies of Modotti, it firmly established Weston's artistic reputation in Mexico.
After the show closed Modotti returned to California, and Weston and she made plans to return to Mexico together. He wanted to spend a couple of months there photographing and promoting his work, and, conveniently, he could travel under the pretense of Modotti being his assistant and translator.
The week before he left for Mexico, Weston briefly reunited with Mather and took several nudes of her lying in the sand at Redondo Beach. These images were very different from his previous nude studies – sharply focused and showing her entire body in relation to the natural setting. They have been called the artistic prototypes for his most famous nudes, those of Charis Wilson which he would take more than a decade later.
1923–27: Mexico
On July 30, 1923, Weston, his son Chandler, and Modotti left on a steamer for the extended trip to Mexico. His wife, Flora, and their other three sons waved goodbye to them at the dock. It's unknown what Flora understood or thought about the relationship between Weston and Modotti, but she is reported to have called out at the dock, "Tina, take good care of my boys."
They arrived in Mexico City on August 11 and rented a large hacienda outside of the city. Within a month he had arranged for an exhibition of his work at the Aztec Land Gallery, and on October 17 the show opened to glowing press reviews. He was particularly proud of a review by Marius de Zayas that said "Photography is beginning to be photography, for until now it has only been art."
The different culture and scenery in Mexico forced Weston to look at things in new ways. He became more responsive to what was in front of him, and he turned his camera on everyday objects like toys, doorways and bathroom fixtures. He also made several intimate nudes and portraits of Modotti. He wrote in his Daybooks:
The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself...I feel definite in the belief that the approach to photography is through realism.
Weston continued to photograph the people and things around him, and his reputation in Mexico increased the longer he stayed. He had a second exhibition at the Aztec Land Gallery in 1924, and he had a steady stream of local socialites asking him to take their portraits. At the same time, Weston began to miss his other sons back in the U.S. As with many of his actions, though, it was a woman who motivated him most. He had recently corresponded with a woman he had known for several years named Miriam Lerner, and as her letters became more passionate he longed to see her again.
He and Chandler returned to San Francisco at the end of 1924, and the next month he set up a studio with Johan Hagemeyer. Weston seemed to be struggling with his past and his future during this period. He burned all of his pre-Mexico journals, as though trying to erase the past, and started a new series of nudes with Lerner and with his son Neil. He wrote that these images were "the start of a new period in my approach and attitude towards photography."
His new relationship with Lerner did not last long, and in August 1925 he returned to Mexico, this time with his son Brett. Modotti had arranged a joint show of their photographs, and it opened the week he returned. He received new critical acclaim and six of his prints were purchased for the State Museum. For the next several months he concentrated once again on photographing folk art, toys and local scenes. One of his strongest images of this period is of three black clay pots that art historian Rene d'Harnoncourt described as "the beginning of a new art."
In May 1926 Weston signed a contract with writer Anita Brenner for $1,000 to make photographs for a book she was writing about Mexican folk art. In June he, Modotti and Brett started traveling around the country in search of lesser known native arts and crafts. His contract required him to give Brenner three finished prints from 400 8x10 negatives, and it took him until November of that year to complete the work. During their travels, Brett received a crash course in photography from his father, and he made more than two dozen prints which his father judged to be of exceptional quality.
By the time they returned from their trip, Weston and Modotti's relationship had crumbled, and within less than two weeks he and Brett returned to California. He never traveled to Mexico again.
1927–35: Glendale to Carmel
Weston initially returned to his old studio in Glendale (previously called Tropico). He hastily arranged a dual exhibition at University of California of the photographs that he and Brett had made the year before. The father showed 100 prints and the son showed 20. Brett was only 15 years old at the time.
In February he started a new series of nudes, this time of dancer Bertha Wardell. One of this series, of her kneeling body cut off at the shoulders, is one of Weston's most well-known figure studies. At this same time he met Canadian painter Henrietta Shore, whom he asked to comment on the photos of Wardell. He was surprised by her honest critique: "I wish you would not do so many nudes – you are getting used to them, the subject no longer amazes you ‒ most of these are just nudes."
He asked to look at her work and was intrigued by her large paintings of sea shells. He borrowed several shells from her, thinking he might find some inspiration for a new still life series. Over the next few weeks he explored many different kinds of shell and background combinations – in his log of photographs taken for 1927 he listed fourteen negatives of shells. One of these, simply called Nautilus, 1927" (sometimes called Shell, 1927), became one of his most famous images. Modotti called the image "mystical and erotic," and when she showed it to Rene d'Harnoncourt he said he felt "weak at the knees." Weston is known to have made at least twenty-eight prints of this image, more than he had made of any other shell image.
In September of that year Weston had a major exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. At the opening of the show he met fellow photographer Willard Van Dyke, who later introduced Weston to Ansel Adams.
In May 1928, Weston and Brett made a brief but important trip to the Mojave Desert. It was there that he first explored and photographed landscapes as an art form. He found the stark rock forms and empty spaces to be a visual revelation, and over a long weekend he took twenty-seven photographs. In his journal he declared "these negatives are the most important I have ever done."
Later that year he and Brett moved to San Francisco, where they lived and worked in a small studio owned by Hagemeyer. He made portraits to earn an income, but he longed to get away by himself and get back to his art. In early 1929 he moved to Hagemeyer's cottage in Carmel, and it was there that he finally found the solitude and the inspiration that he was seeking. He placed a sign in studio window that said, "Edward Weston, photographer, Unretouched Portraits, Prints for Collectors."
He started making regular trips to nearby Point Lobos, where he would continue to photograph until the end of his career. It was there that he learned to fine-tune his photographic vision to match the visual space of his view camera, and the images he took there, of kelp, rocks and wind-blown trees, are among his finest. Looking at his work from this period, one biographer wrote:
"Weston arranged his compositions so that things happened on the edges; lines almost cross or meet and circular lines just touch the edges tangentially; his compositions were now created exclusively for a space with the proportions of eight by ten. There is no extraneous space nor is there too little."
In early April 1929, Weston met photographer Sonya Noskowiak at a party, and by the end of the month she was living with him. As with many of his other relationships, she became his model, muse, pupil and assistant. They would continue to live together for five years.
Intrigued by the many kinds and shapes of kelp he found on the beaches near Carmel, in 1930 Weston began taking close-ups of vegetables and fruits. He made a variety of photographs of cabbage, kale, onions, bananas, and finally, his most iconic image, peppers. In August of that year Noskowiak brought him several green peppers, and over a four-day period he shot at least thirty different negatives. Of these, Pepper No. 30, is among the all-time masterpieces of photography.
Weston had a series of important one-man exhibitions in 1930–31. The first was at Alma Reed's Delphic Studio Gallery in New York, followed closely by a mounting of the same show at the Denny Watrous Gallery in Carmel. Both received rave reviews, including a two-page article in the New York Times Magazine. These were followed by shows at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Galerie Jean Naert in Paris.
Although he was succeeding professionally his personal life was very complex. For most of their marriage, Flora was able to take care of their children because of an inheritance from her parents. However, the Wall Street crash of 1929 had wiped out most of her savings, and Weston felt increased pressure to help provide more for her and his sons. He described this time as "the most trying economic period of my life."
In 1932, The Art of Edward Weston, the first book devoted exclusively to Weston's work, was published. It was edited by Merle Armitage and dedicated to Alice Rohrer, an admirer and patron of Weston whose $500 donation helped pay for the book to be published.
During the same time a small group of like-minded photographers in the San Francisco area, led by Van Dyke and Ansel Adams, began informally meeting to discuss their common interest and aesthetics. Inspired by Weston's show at the De Young Museum the previous year, they approached the museum with the idea of mounting a group exhibition of their work. They named themselves Group f/64, and in November 1932, an exhibition of 80 of their prints opened at the museum. The show was a critical success.
In 1933 Weston bought a 4 × 5 Graflex camera, which was much smaller and lighter than the large view camera he had used for many years. He began taking close-up nudes of Noskowiak and other models. The smaller camera allowed him to interact more with his models, while at the same time the nudes he took during this period began to resemble some of the contorted root and vegetables he had taken the year before.
In early 1934, "a new and important chapter opened" in Weston's life when he met Charis Wilson at a concert. Even more than with his previous lovers, Weston was immediately captivated by her beauty and her personality. He wrote: "A new love came into my life, a most beautiful one, one which will, I believe, stand the test of time." On April 22 he photographed her nude for the first time, and they entered into an intense relationship. He was still living with Noskowiak at that time, but within two weeks he asked her to move out, declaring that for him other women were "as inevitable as the tides".
Perhaps because of the intensity of his new relationship, he stopped writing in his Daybooks at this same time. Six months later he wrote one final entry, looking back from April 22:
After eight months we are closer together than ever. Perhaps C. will be remembered as the great love of my life. Already I have achieved certain heights reached with no other love.
1935–45: Guggenheim grant to Wildcat Hill
In January 1935 Weston was facing increasing financial difficulties. He closed his studio in Carmel and moved to Santa Monica Canyon, California, where he opened a new studio with Brett. He implored Wilson to come and live with him, and in August 1935 she finally agreed. While she had an intense interest in his work, Wilson was the first woman Weston had lived with since Flora who had no interest in becoming a photographer. This allowed Weston to concentrate on her as his muse and model, and in turn Wilson devoted her time to promoting Weston's art as his assistant and quasi-agent.
Almost immediately he began taking a new series of nudes with Wilson as the model. One of the first photographs he took of her, on the balcony of their home, became one of his most published images (Nude (Charis, Santa Monica)). Soon after they took the first of several trips to Oceano Dunes. It was there that Weston made some of his most daring and intimate photographs of any of his models, capturing Wilson in completely uninhibited poses in the sand dunes. He exhibited only one or two of this series in his lifetime, thinking several of the others were "too erotic" for the general public.
Although his recent work had received critical acclaim, he was not earning enough income from his artistic images to provide a steady income. Rather than going back to relying solely on portraiture, he started the "Edward Weston Print of the Month Club", offering selections of his photos for a monthly $5 subscription. Each month subscribers would receive a new print from Weston, with a limited edition of 40 copies of each print. Although he created these prints with the same high standards that he did for his exhibition prints, it is thought that he never had more than eleven subscribers.
At the suggestion of Beaumont Newhall, Weston decided to apply for a Guggenheim Foundation grant (now known as a Guggenheim Fellowship). He wrote a two-sentence description about his work, assembled thirty-five of his favorite prints, and sent it in. Afterward Dorothea Lange and her husband suggested that the application was too brief to be seriously considered, and Weston resubmitted it with a four-page letter and work plan. He did not mention that Wilson had written the new application for him.
On March 22, 1937, Weston received notification that he had been awarded a Guggenheim grant, the first ever given to a photographer. The award was $2,000 for one year, a significant amount of money at that time. He was able to further capitalize on the award by arranging to provide the editor of AAA Westway Magazine with 8–10 photos per month for $50 during their travels, with Wilson getting an additional $15 monthly for photo captions and short narratives. They purchased a new car and set out on Weston's dream trip to go and photograph whatever he wanted. Over the next twelve months they made seventeen trips and covered 16,697 miles according to Wilson's detailed log. Weston made 1,260 negatives during the trip.
The freedom of this trip with the "love of his life", combined with all of his sons now reaching the age of adulthood, gave Weston the motivation to finally divorce his wife. They had been living apart for sixteen years.
Due to the success of the past year, Weston applied for and received a second year of Guggenheim support. Although he wanted to do some additional traveling, he intended to use most of the money to allow him to print his past year's work. He commissioned Neil to build a small home in the Carmel Highlands on property owned by Wilson's father. They named the place "Wildcat Hill" because of the many domestic cats that soon occupied the grounds.
Wilson set up a writing studio in what was intended to be a small garage behind the house, and she spent several months writing and editing stories from their travels.
In 1939, Seeing California with Edward Weston was published, with photographs by Weston and writing by Wilson. Finally relieved from the financial stresses of the past and inordinately happy with his work and his relationship, Weston married Wilson in a small ceremony on April 24.
Buoyed by the success of their first book, in 1940 they published California and the West. The first edition, featuring 96 of Weston's photos with text by Wilson, sold for $3.95. Over the summer, Weston taught photography at the first Ansel Adams Workshop at Yosemite National Park.
Just as the Guggenheim money was running out, Weston was invited to illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He would receive $1,000 for photographs and $500 travel expenses. Weston insisted on having artistic control of the images he would take and insisted that he would not be taking literal illustrations of Whitman's text. On May 28 he and Wilson began a trip that would cover 20,000 miles through 24 states; he took between 700 and 800 8x10 negatives as well as dozens of Graflex portraits.
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the United States entered World War II. Weston was near the end of the Whitman trip, and he was deeply affected by the outbreak of the war. He wrote: "When the war broke out we scurried home. Charis did not want to scurry. I did."
He spent the first few months of 1942 organizing and printing the negatives from the Whitman trip. Of the hundreds of images he took, forty-nine were selected for publication.
Due to the war, Point Lobos was closed to the public for several years. Weston continued to work on images centered on Wildcat Hill, including shots of the many cats that lived there. Weston treated them with the same serious intent that he applied to all of his other subjects, and Charis assembled the results into their most unusual publication, The Cats of Wildcat Hill, which was finally published in 1947.
The year 1945 marked the beginning of significant changes for Weston. He began to experience the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease, a debilitating ailment that gradually stole his strength and his ability to photograph. He withdrew from Wilson, who at the same time began to become more involved in local politics and the Carmel cultural scene. A strength that originally brought them together – her lack of interest in becoming a photographer herself – eventually led to their break-up. She wrote, "My flight from Edward was also partly an escape from photography, which had taken up so much room in my life for so many years."
While working on a major retrospective exhibition for the Museum of Modern Art, he and Wilson separated. Weston returned to Glendale since the land for their cabin at Wildcat Hill still belonged to Wilson's father. Within a few months she moved out and arranged to sell the property to him.
1946–58: Final years
In February 1946, Weston's major retrospective opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He and Beaumont Newhall selected 313 prints for the exhibition, and eventually 250 photographs were displayed along with 11 negatives. At that time many of his prints were still for sale, and he sold 97 prints from the exhibit at $25 per print. Later that year, Weston was asked by Dr. George L. Waters of Kodak to produce 8 × 10 Kodachrome transparencies for their advertising campaign. Weston had never worked in color before, primarily because he had no means of developing or printing the more complicated color process. He accepted their offer in no small part because they offered him $250 per image, the highest amount he would be paid for any single work in his lifetime. He eventually sold seven color works to Kodak of landscapes and scenery at Point Lobos and nearby Monterey harbor.
In 1947 as his Parkinson's disease progressed, Weston began looking for an assistant. Serendipitously, an eager young photographic enthusiast, Dody Weston Thompson, contacted him in search of employment.
Weston mentioned he had just that morning written a letter to Ansel Adams, looking for someone seeking to learn photography in exchange for carrying his bulky large-format camera and to provide a much needed automobile. There was a swift meeting of creative minds. For the remainder of 1947 through the beginning of 1948, Dody commuted from San Francisco on weekends to learn from Weston the basics of photography. In early 1948, Dody moved into "Bodie House," the guest cottage at Edward's Wildcat Hill compound, as his full-time assistant.
By late 1948 he was no longer physically able to use his large view camera. That year he took his last photographs, at Point Lobos. His final negative was an image he called, "Rocks and Pebbles, 1948". Although diminished in his capacity, Weston never stopped being a photographer. He worked with his sons and Dody to catalog his images and especially to oversee the publication and printing of his work. In 1950 there was a major retrospective of his work at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris, and in 1952 he published a Fiftieth Anniversary portfolio, with images printed by Brett.
During this time he worked with Cole, Brett, and Dody Thompson (Brett's wife by 1952), to select and have them print a master set of what he considered his best work. They spent many long hours together in the darkroom, and by 1956 they had produced what Weston called "The Project Prints", eight sets of 8" × 10" prints from 830 of his negatives. The only complete set today is housed at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Later that same year the Smithsonian Institution displayed nearly 100 of these prints at a major exhibit, "The World of Edward Weston", paying tribute to his accomplishments in American photography.
Weston died at his home on Wildcat Hill on New Year's Day, 1958. His sons scattered his ashes into the Pacific Ocean at an area then known as Pebbly Beach on Point Lobos. Due to Weston's significant influence in the area, the beach was later renamed Weston Beach. He had $300 in his bank account at the time of his death.
Equipment and techniques
Cameras and lenses
During his lifetime Weston worked with several cameras. He began as a more serious photographer in 1902 when he purchased a 5 × 7 camera. When he moved to Tropico, now part of Glendale, and opened his studio in 1911, he acquired an enormous 11 x 14 Graf Variable studio portrait camera. Roi Partridge, Imogen Cunningham's husband, later made an etching of Weston in his studio, dwarfed by the giant camera in front of him. After he began taking more portraits of children, he bought a 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ Graflex in 1912 to better capture their quickly changing expressions.
When he went to Mexico in 1924 he took an 8 × 10 Seneca folding-bed view camera with several lenses, including a Graf Variable and a Wollensak Verito. While in Mexico he purchased a used Rapid Rectilinear lens which was his primary lens for many years. The lens, now in the George Eastman House, did not have a manufacturer's name. He also took to Mexico a 3¼ × 4¼ Graflex with a ƒ/4.5 Tessar lens, which he used for portraits.
In 1933 he purchased a 4 × 5 R. B. Auto-Graflex] and used it thereafter for all portraits. He continued to use the Seneca view camera for all other work.
In 1939 he listed the following items as his standard equipment:
8 x 10 Century Universal
Triple convertible Turner Reich, 12", 21", 28"
K2, G, A filters
12 film holders
Paul Ries Tripod
He continued to use this equipment throughout his life.
Film
Prior to 1921 Weston used an orthochromatic sheet film, but when panchromatic film became widely available in 1921 he switched to it for all of his work. According to his son Cole, after Agfa Isopan film came out in the 1930s Weston used it for his black-and-white images for the rest of his life. This film was rated at about ISO 25, but the developing technique Weston used reduced the effective rating to about ISO 12.
The 8 × 10 cameras he preferred were large and heavy, and due to the weight and the cost of the film he never carried more than twelve sheet film holders with him. At the end of each day, he had to go into a darkroom, unload the film holders and load them with new film. This was especially challenging when he was traveling since he had to find a darkened room somewhere or else set up a makeshift darkroom made from heavy canvas.
In spite of the bulky size of the view camera, Weston boasted he could "set up the tripod, fasten the camera securely to it, attach the lens to the camera, open the shutter, study the image on the ground glass, focus it, close the shutter, insert the plate holder, cock the shutter, set it to the appropriate aperture and speed, remove the slide from the plate holder, make the exposure, replace the slide, and remove the plate holder in two minutes and twenty seconds."
The smaller Graflex cameras he used had the advantage of using film magazines that held either 12 or 18 sheets of film. Weston preferred these cameras when taking portraits because he could respond more quickly to the sitter. He reported that with his Graflex he once made three dozen negatives of Tina Modotti within 20 minutes.In 1946 a representative from Kodak asked Weston to try out their new Kodachrome film, and over the next two years he made at least 60 8 x 10 color images using this film." They were some of the last photographs he took, since by late 1948 he was no longer able to operate a camera due to the effects of his Parkinson's disease.
Exposures
During the first 20 years of his photography Weston determined all of his exposure settings by estimation based on his previous experiences and the relatively narrow tolerances of the film at that time. He said, "I dislike to figure out time, and find my exposures more accurate when only "felt"." In the late 1930s he acquired a Weston exposure meter and continued to use it as an aid to determine exposures throughout his career. Photo historian Nancy Newhall wrote that "Young photographers are confused and amazed when they behold him measuring with his meter every value in the sphere where he intends to work, from the sky to the ground under his feet. He is "feeling the light" and checking his own observations. After which he puts the meter away and does what he thinks. Often he adds up everything ‒ filters, extension, film, speed, and so on ‒ and doubles the computation." Weston, Newhall noted, believed in "massive exposure", which he then compensated for by hand-processing the film in a weak developer solution and individually inspecting each negative as it continued to develop to get the right balance of highlights and shadows.
The low ISO rating of the sheet film Weston used necessitated very long exposures when using his view camera, ranging from 1 to 3 seconds for outdoor landscape exposures to as long as 4½ hours for still lifes such as peppers or shells. When he used one of the Graflex cameras the exposure times were much shorter (usually less than ¼ second), and he was sometimes able to work without a tripod.
Darkroom
Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days.
When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives."
In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life.
Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints.
Paper
Early in his career Weston printed on several kinds of paper, including Velox, Apex, Convira, Defender Velour Black and Haloid. When he went to Mexico he learned how to use platinum and palladium paper, made by Willis & Clement and imported from England. After his return to California, he abandoned platinum and palladium printing due to the scarcity and increasing price of the paper. Eventually he was able to get most of the same qualities he preferred with Kodak's Azo glossy silver gelatin paper developed in Amidol. He continued to use this paper almost exclusively until he stopped printing.
Writings
Weston was a prolific writer. His Daybooks were published in two volumes totaling more than 500 pages in the first edition. This does not include the years of the journal he kept between 1915 and 1923; for reasons he never made clear he destroyed those before leaving for Mexico. He also wrote dozens of articles and commentaries, beginning in 1906 and ending in 1957. He hand-wrote or typed at least 5,000 letters to colleagues, friends, lovers, his wives and his children.
In addition, Weston kept very thorough notes on the technical and business aspects of his work. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, which now houses most of Weston's archives, reports that it houses 75 linear feet of pages from his Daybooks, correspondence, financial records, memorabilia, and other personal documents in his possession when he died.
Among Weston's most important early writings are those that provide insights into his development of the concept of previsualization. He first spoke and wrote about the concept in 1922, at least a decade before Ansel Adams began utilizing the term, and he continued to expand upon this idea both in writing and in his teachings. Historian Beaumont Newhall noted the significance of Weston's innovation in his book The History of Photography, saying "The most important part of Edward Weston's approach was his insistence that the photographer should previsualize the final print before making the exposure."
In his Daybooks he provided an unusually detailed record of his evolution as an artist. Although he initially denied that his images reflect his own interpretations of the subject matter, by 1932 his writings revealed that he had come to accept the importance of artistic impression in his work. When combined with his photographs, his writings provide an extraordinarily vivid series of insights into his development as an artist and his impact of future generations of photographers.
Quotations
"Form follows function." Who said this I don't know, but the writer spoke well.
I am not a technician and have no interest in technique for its own sake. If my technique is adequate to present my seeing then I need nothing more.
I see no reason for recording the obvious.
If there is symbolism in my work, it can only be the seeing of parts ‒ fragments ‒ as universal symbols. All basic forms are so closely related as to be visually equivalent.
My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.
My work-purpose, my theme, can most nearly be stated as the recognition, recording and presentation of the interdependence, the relativity, of all things ‒ the universality of basic form.
The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.
What then is the end toward which I work? To present the significance of facts, so that they are transformed from things seen to things known.
When money enters in ‒ then, for a price, I become a liar ‒ and a good one I can be whether with pencil or subtle lighting or viewpoint. I hate it all, but so do I support not only my family, but my own work.
Legacy
As of 2013, two of Weston's photographs feature among the most expensive photographs ever sold. The Nude, 1925 taken in 1925 was bought by the gallerist Peter MacGill for $1.6 million in 2008. Nautilus of 1927 was sold for $1.1 million in 2010, also to MacGill.
Major exhibitions
1970, the Rencontres d'Arles festival (France) presented an exhibition "Hommage à Edward Weston" and an evening screening of the film The Photographer (1948) by Willard Van Dyke.
November 25, 1986 – March 29, 1987 Edward Weston in Los Angeles at Huntington Library
1986 Edward Weston: Color Photography at Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
May 13 – August 27, 1989 Edward Weston in New Mexico at Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe
Edward Weston : the Last Years in Carmel at The Art Institute of Chicago, June 2 – September 16, 2001, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mar. 1 – July 9, 2002.
List of photographs
The artistic career of Weston spanned more than forty years, from roughly 1915 to 1956. A prolific photographer, he produced more than 1,000 black-and-white photographs and some 50 color images. This list is an incomplete selection of Weston's better-known photographs.
Notes
References
Sources
Abbott, Brett. Edward Weston: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005.
Alinder, Mary Street. Group f.64: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists Who Revolutionized American Photography. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2014.
Bunnell, Peter C. Edward Weston on Photography. Salt Lake City: P. Smith Books, 1983.
Bunnell, Peter C., David Featherston et al. EW 100: Centennial Essays in Honor of Edward Weston. Carmel, Calif. : Friends of Photography, 1986.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston in Mexico, 1923–1926. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983.
Conger, Amy (1992). Edward Weston – Photographs From the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1992.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston: The Form of The Nude. NY: Phaidon, 2006.
Edward Weston : Color Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1986.
Enyeart, James. Edward Weston's California landscapes. Boston : Little, Brown, 1984.
Foley, Kathy Kelsey. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister. Dayton: Dayton Art Institute, 1978.
Heyman, There Thau. Seeing Straight: The f.64 Revolution in Photography. Oakland: Oakland Art Museum, 1992.
Higgins, Gary. Truth, Myth and Erasure: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston. Tempe, Ariz. : School of Art, Arizona State University, 1991.
Hochberg, Judith and Michael P. Mattis. Edward Weston: Life Work. Photographs from the Collection of Judith G. Hochberg and Michael P. Mattis. Revere, Pa.: Lodima Press, c2003.
Hooks, Margaret. Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary. London: Pandora, 1993.
Lowe, Sarah M. Tina Modotti and Edward Weston the Mexico Years. London: Merrell, 2004.
Maddow, Ben. Edward Weston: Fifty Years; The Definitive Volume of His Photographic Work. Millerton, N.Y., Aperture, 1973. ,
Maggia, Filippo. Edward Weston. New York: Skira, 2013.
Mora, Gilles (ed.). Edward Weston: Forms of Passion. NY: Abrams, 1995.
Morgan, Susan. Portraits / Edward Weston. NY: Aperture, 1995.
Newhall, Beaumont (1984). Edward Weston Omnibus: A Critical Anthology. Salt Lake City : Peregrine Smith Books, 1984.
Newhall, Beaumont . Supreme Instants: The Photography of Edward Weston. Boston : Little, Brown, 1986.
Newhall, Nancy (ed.). Edward Weston; The Flame of Recognition: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY: Aperture, 1971.
Pitts, Terence. Edward Weston 1886–1958. Köln: Taschen, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E., Karen Quinn and Leslie Furth. Edward Weston : Photography and Modernism. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E. Weston's Westons : Portraits and Nudes. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989.
Travis, David. Edward Weston, The Last Years in Carmel. Chicago: Art Institute, 2001.
Warren, Beth Gates. Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011.
Warren, Beth Gates. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister and Other Photographs. NY: Sotheby's, 2008.
Warren, Beth Gates (2001). Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration. NY: Norton, 2001.
Watts, Jennifer A. (ed.). Edward Weston : A Legacy. London: Merrell, 2003.
Weston, Edward (1964). The Daybooks of Edward Weston. Edited by Nancy Nehall. NY: Horizon Press, 1961–1964. 2 vols.
Weston, Edward. My Camera on Point Lobos; 30 Photographs and Excerpts from E. W.’s Daybook. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950.
Weston, Paulette. Laughing Eyes: a Book of Letters Between Edward and Cole Weston 1923–1946. Carmel: Carmel Publishing Co., 1999.
Wilson, Charis. Edward Weston Nudes: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY : Aperture, 1977.
Wilson, Charis. Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Woods, John. Dune: Edward & Brett Weston. Kalispell, MT: Wild Horse Island Press, 2003.
External links
edward-weston.com
Edward Weston Collection at the Center for Creative Photography
Ben Maddow "Edward Weston Lecture" The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1976. Retrieved June 26, 2012
The Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston and Charis Wilson Documentary concerning Edward Weston, his muse Charis Wilson and photographer Ansel Adams.
Encyclopædia Britannica
Landscape photographers
American portrait photographers
1886 births
1958 deaths
History of platinum printing
Photographers from California
Artists from Chicago
People from Highland Park, Illinois
Deaths from Parkinson's disease
Neurological disease deaths in California
20th-century American photographers
Fine art photographers
Olympic archers of the United States
American male archers
Archers at the 1904 Summer Olympics | true | [
"Keith Samples is an American filmmaker and former syndication executive.\n\nHe was graduated in 1977 by the Texas Tech University, in order to pursue a sports career.\n\nHe was founder of the film and television production company Rysher Entertainment. He was originally senior vice president of Lorimar-Telepictures, before landing a job at Warner Bros. Television to help them develop projects for syndication.\n\nDuring his time at Rysher Entertainment, he grew into the biggest movie-making producers in history, developing their own movie projects. On May 27, 1997, he was resigned from Rysher Entertainment and pursue their own projects. He went on to be a movie maker/television director/producer after leaving Rysher, to start his own production company to develop motion pictures and television shows.\n\nFor a short period of time, in 2008, he worked at Media Rights Capital's television division. He infamously developed The CW's own Sunday night programming block under a time-lease agreement, but it flopped after a few viewings and poor ratings. He was fired after only a few months working at MRC.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\nAbove Suspicion (1995)\nBig Night (1996)\nThe Death and Life of Bobby Z (2007)\nElection (1999)\nLove Lies Bleeding (2008)\nSingle White Female 2: The Psycho (2005)\nA Smile Like Yours (1997)\nSwitchback (1997)\nWalking Tall (2004)\n\nTelevision\nEverwood\nFelicity\nFreddy's Nightmares\nHaven\nThe O.C.\nOne Tree Hill\nOz\nThe Practice\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAmerican film directors\nAmerican film producers\nAmerican media executives\nAmerican television directors\nAmerican television producers\nLiving people\nPlace of birth missing (living people)\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Adriaen van Diest (1655–1704) was a Dutch painter, who worked in England.\n\nLife\nHe was born at the Hague in 1655, the son of Jeronymus van Diest, a painter of sea-pieces, by whom he was instructed in the art. When he was seventeen years old he moved to London, where he was employed by Granville, Earl of Bath, for whom he painted several views and ruins in the west of England. He also painted portraits, but did not meet with much encouragement, although his pictures, particularly his landscapes, possess considerable merit; as a proof of which Horace Walpole states that there were seven pictures by Van Diest in Sir Peter Lely's collection. He etched several landscapes from his own designs, in a slight, masterly style. Van Diest died in London in 1704.\n\nUnfortunately for his reputation, he is generally known by his worst pictures, which are frequently found in old houses, on wainscots, or over doors, and are executed in a hasty manner, with much mountainous background. His better pictures have changed their name.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\n \n\n1655 births\n1704 deaths\n17th-century Dutch painters\nArtists from The Hague\nDutch expatriates in England\nDutch landscape painters"
]
|
[
"Edward Weston",
"Darkroom",
"What kind of photographs did Weston take?",
"Weston always made contact prints,",
"What are contact prints?",
"that the print was exactly the same size as the negative.",
"Has he taken any photos that are famous?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he start photography",
"I don't know.",
"Did he develop his own pictures",
"develop one at a time in a tray"
]
| C_7efe68873f1f4b09adc565dfd928bf98_1 | How long does that usually take? | 6 | How long does that take to develop pictures? | Edward Weston | Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight in order to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days. When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives." In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life. Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints. CANNOTANSWER | process was very labor-intensive; | Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still-lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a "quintessentially American, and especially Californian, approach to modern photography" because of his focus on the people and places of the American West. In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 × 10 view camera. Some of his most famous
photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
Weston was born in Chicago and moved to California when he was 21. He knew he wanted to be a photographer from an early age, and initially his work was typical of the soft focus pictorialism that was popular at the time. Within a few years, however he abandoned that style and went on to be one of the foremost champions of highly detailed photographic images.
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he soon stopped photographing. He spent the remaining ten years of his life overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.
Life and work
1886–1906: Early life
Weston was born in Highland Park, Illinois, the second child and only son of Edward Burbank Weston, an obstetrician, and Alice Jeanette Brett, a Shakespearean actress. His mother died when he was five years old and he was raised mostly by his sister Mary, whom he called "May" or "Maisie". She was nine years older than he, and they developed a very close bond that was one of the few steady relationships in Weston's life.
His father remarried when he was nine, but neither Weston nor his sister got along with their new stepmother and stepbrother. After May was married and left their home in 1897, Weston's father devoted most of his time to his new wife and her son. Weston was left on his own much of the time; he stopped going to school and withdrew into his own room in their large home.
As a present for his 16th birthday Weston's father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Bull's-Eye No. 2, which was a simple box camera. He took it on vacation in the Midwest, and by the time he returned home his interest in photography was enough to lead him to purchase a used 5 × 7 inch view camera. He began photographing in Chicago parks and a farm owned by his aunt, and developed his own film and prints. Later he would remember that even at that early age his work showed strong artistic merit. He said, "I feel that my earliest work of 1903 ‒ though immature ‒ is related more closely, both with technique and composition, to my latest work than are several of my photographs dating from 1913 to 1920, a period in which I was trying to be artistic."
In 1904 May and her family moved to California, leaving Weston further isolated in Chicago. He earned a living by taking a job at a local department store, but he continued to spend most of his free time taking photos, Within two years he felt confident enough of his photography that he submitted his work to the magazine Camera and Darkroom, and in the April 1906 issue they published a full-page reproduction of his picture Spring, Chicago. This is the first known publication of any of his photographs.
In September 1904, Weston took part in the men's double American round archery event at the 1904 Summer Olympics with his father also taking part in the same event.
1906–23: Becoming a photographer
At his sister's urging Weston left Chicago in the spring of 1906 and moved near May's home in Tropico, California (now a neighborhood in Glendale). He decided to stay there and pursue a career in photography, but he soon realized he needed more professional training. A year later he moved to Effingham, Illinois, to enroll in the Illinois College of Photography. They taught a nine-month course, but Weston finished all of the class work in six months. The school refused to give him a diploma unless he paid for the full nine months; Weston refused and instead moved back to California in the spring of 1908.
He briefly worked at the photography studio of George Steckel in Los Angeles, as a negative retoucher. Within a few months he moved to the more established studio of Louis Mojonier. For the next several years he learned the techniques and business of operating a photography studio under Mojonier's direction.
Within days of his visit to Tropico, Weston was introduced to his sister's best friend, Flora May Chandler. She was a graduate of the Normal School, later to become UCLA. She assumed the position of a grade-school teacher in Tropico.
She was seven years older than Weston and a distant relative of Harry Chandler, who at that time was described as the head of "the single most powerful family in Southern California". This fact did not go unnoticed by Weston and his biographers.
On January 30, 1909, Weston and Chandler married in a simple ceremony. The first of their four sons, Edward Chandler Weston (1910–1993), known as Chandler, was born on April 26, 1910.
Named Edward Chandler, after Weston and his wife, he later became an excellent photographer on his own. He clearly learned much by being an assistant to his father in the bungalow studio. In 1923 he bid farewell to his mother and sibling brothers and sailed off to Mexico with his father and his then-muse, Tina Modotti. He gave up any aspirations in pursuing photography as a career after his adventures in Mexico. The lifestyle of fame and its fortune affected him greatly. His later photographs, as a hobbyist, albeit rare, certainly reflect an innate talent for the form.
In 1910 Weston opened his own business, called "The Little Studio", in Tropico. His sister later asked him why he opened his studio in Tropico rather than in the nearby metropolis of Los Angeles, and he replied "Sis, I'm going to make my name so famous that it won't matter where I live."
For the next three years he worked, alone and sometimes with the assistance of family members in his studio. Even at that early stage of his career he was highly particular about his work; in an interview at that time he said "[photographic] plates are nothing to me unless I get what I want. I have used thirty of them at a sitting if I did not secure the effect to suit me."
His critical eye paid off for him and he quickly gained more recognition for his work. He won prizes in national competitions, published several more photographs and wrote articles for magazines such as Photo-Era and American Photography, championing the pictorial style.
On December 16, 1911, Weston's second son, Theodore Brett Weston (1911–1993), was born. He became a long-time artistic collaborator with his father and an important photographer on his own.
Sometime in the fall of 1913, Los Angeles photographer, Margrethe Mather visited Weston's studio because of his growing reputation, and within a few months they developed an intense relationship. Weston was a quiet Midwestern transplant to California, and Mather was a part of the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was very outgoing and artistic in a flamboyant way, and her permissive sexual morals were far different from the conservative Weston at the time – Mather had been a prostitute and was bisexual with a preference for women. Mather presented a stark contrast to Weston's home life; his wife Flora was described as a "homely, rigid Puritan, and an utterly conventional woman, with whom he had little in common since he abhorred conventions" ‒ and he found Mather's uninhibited lifestyle irresistible and her photographic vision intriguing.
He asked Mather to be his studio assistant, and for the next decade they worked closely together, making individual and jointly signed portraits of writers Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. A joint exhibition of their work in 2001 revealed that during this period Weston emulated Mather's style and, later, her choice of subjects. On her own Mather photographed "fans, hands, eggs, melons, waves, bathroom fixtures, seashells and birds wings, all subjects that Weston would also explore." A decade later he described her as "the first important person in my life, and perhaps even now, though personal contact has gone, the most important."
In early 1915 Weston began keeping detailed journals he later came to call his "Daybooks". For the next two decades he recorded his thoughts about his work, observations about photography, and his interactions with friends, lovers and family. On December 6, 1916, a third son, Lawrence Neil Weston, was born. He also followed in the footsteps of his father and became a well-known photographer. It was during this period that Weston first met photographer Johan Hagemeyer, whom Weston mentored and lent his studio to from time to time. Later, Hagemeyer would return the favor by letting Weston use his studio in Carmel after he returned from Mexico. For the next several years Weston continued to earn a living by taking portraits in his small studio which he called "the shack".
Meanwhile, Flora was spending all of her time caring for their children. Their fourth son, Cole Weston (1919–2003), was born on January 30, 1919, and afterward she rarely had time to leave their home.
Over the summer of 1920 Weston met two people who were part of the growing Los Angeles cultural scene: Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, known as "Robo" and a woman he called his wife, Tina Modotti. Modotti, who was then known only as a stage and film actress, was never married to Robo, but they pretended to be for the sake of his family. Weston and Modotti were immediately attracted to each other, and they soon became lovers. Richey knew of Modotti's affair, but he continued to be friends with Weston and later invited him to come to Mexico and share his studio.
The following year Weston agreed to allow Mather to become an equal partner in his studio. For several months they took portraits that they signed with both of their names. This was the only time in his long career that Weston shared credit with another photographer.
Sometime in 1920 he began photographing nude models for the first time. His first models were his wife Flora and their children, but soon thereafter he took at least three nude studies of Mather. He followed these with several more photographs of nude models, the first of dozens of figure studies he would make of friends and lovers over the next twenty years.
Until now Weston had kept his relationships with other women a secret from his wife, but as he began to photograph more nudes Flora became suspicious about what went on with him and his models. Chandler recalled that his mother regularly sent him on "errands" to his father's studio and asked him to tell her who was there and what they were doing.
One of the first who agreed to model nude for Weston was Modotti. She became his primary model for the next several years.
In 1922 he visited his sister May, who had moved to Middletown, Ohio. While there he made five or six photographs of the tall smoke stacks at the nearby Armco steel mill. These images signaled a change in Weston's photographic style, a transition from the soft-focus pictorialism of the past to a new, cleaner-edge style. He immediately recognized the change and later recorded it in his notes: "The Middletown visit was something to remember...most of all in importance was my photographing of 'Armco'...That day I made great photographs, even Stieglitz thought they were important!"
At that time New York City was the cultural center for photography as an art form in America, and Alfred Stieglitz was the most influential figure in photography. Weston badly wanted to go to New York to meet with him, but he did not have enough money to make the trip. His brother-in-law gave him enough money to continue on from Middletown to New York City, and he spent most of October and early November there. While there he met artist Charles Sheeler and photographers Clarence H. White, Gertrude Kasebier, as well as Stieglitz. Weston wrote that Stieglitz told him, "Your work and attitude reassures me. You have shown me at least several prints which have given me a great deal of joy. And I can seldom say that of photographs."
Soon after Weston returned from New York, Robo moved to Mexico and set up a studio there to create batiks. Within a short while he had arranged for a joint exhibition of his work and of photographs by Weston, Mather and a few others. In early 1923 Modotti left by train to be with Robo in Mexico, but he contracted smallpox and died shortly before she arrived. Modotti was grief-stricken, but within a few weeks she felt well enough that she decided to stay and carry out the exhibition that Robo had planned. The show was a success, and due in no small part to his nude studies of Modotti, it firmly established Weston's artistic reputation in Mexico.
After the show closed Modotti returned to California, and Weston and she made plans to return to Mexico together. He wanted to spend a couple of months there photographing and promoting his work, and, conveniently, he could travel under the pretense of Modotti being his assistant and translator.
The week before he left for Mexico, Weston briefly reunited with Mather and took several nudes of her lying in the sand at Redondo Beach. These images were very different from his previous nude studies – sharply focused and showing her entire body in relation to the natural setting. They have been called the artistic prototypes for his most famous nudes, those of Charis Wilson which he would take more than a decade later.
1923–27: Mexico
On July 30, 1923, Weston, his son Chandler, and Modotti left on a steamer for the extended trip to Mexico. His wife, Flora, and their other three sons waved goodbye to them at the dock. It's unknown what Flora understood or thought about the relationship between Weston and Modotti, but she is reported to have called out at the dock, "Tina, take good care of my boys."
They arrived in Mexico City on August 11 and rented a large hacienda outside of the city. Within a month he had arranged for an exhibition of his work at the Aztec Land Gallery, and on October 17 the show opened to glowing press reviews. He was particularly proud of a review by Marius de Zayas that said "Photography is beginning to be photography, for until now it has only been art."
The different culture and scenery in Mexico forced Weston to look at things in new ways. He became more responsive to what was in front of him, and he turned his camera on everyday objects like toys, doorways and bathroom fixtures. He also made several intimate nudes and portraits of Modotti. He wrote in his Daybooks:
The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself...I feel definite in the belief that the approach to photography is through realism.
Weston continued to photograph the people and things around him, and his reputation in Mexico increased the longer he stayed. He had a second exhibition at the Aztec Land Gallery in 1924, and he had a steady stream of local socialites asking him to take their portraits. At the same time, Weston began to miss his other sons back in the U.S. As with many of his actions, though, it was a woman who motivated him most. He had recently corresponded with a woman he had known for several years named Miriam Lerner, and as her letters became more passionate he longed to see her again.
He and Chandler returned to San Francisco at the end of 1924, and the next month he set up a studio with Johan Hagemeyer. Weston seemed to be struggling with his past and his future during this period. He burned all of his pre-Mexico journals, as though trying to erase the past, and started a new series of nudes with Lerner and with his son Neil. He wrote that these images were "the start of a new period in my approach and attitude towards photography."
His new relationship with Lerner did not last long, and in August 1925 he returned to Mexico, this time with his son Brett. Modotti had arranged a joint show of their photographs, and it opened the week he returned. He received new critical acclaim and six of his prints were purchased for the State Museum. For the next several months he concentrated once again on photographing folk art, toys and local scenes. One of his strongest images of this period is of three black clay pots that art historian Rene d'Harnoncourt described as "the beginning of a new art."
In May 1926 Weston signed a contract with writer Anita Brenner for $1,000 to make photographs for a book she was writing about Mexican folk art. In June he, Modotti and Brett started traveling around the country in search of lesser known native arts and crafts. His contract required him to give Brenner three finished prints from 400 8x10 negatives, and it took him until November of that year to complete the work. During their travels, Brett received a crash course in photography from his father, and he made more than two dozen prints which his father judged to be of exceptional quality.
By the time they returned from their trip, Weston and Modotti's relationship had crumbled, and within less than two weeks he and Brett returned to California. He never traveled to Mexico again.
1927–35: Glendale to Carmel
Weston initially returned to his old studio in Glendale (previously called Tropico). He hastily arranged a dual exhibition at University of California of the photographs that he and Brett had made the year before. The father showed 100 prints and the son showed 20. Brett was only 15 years old at the time.
In February he started a new series of nudes, this time of dancer Bertha Wardell. One of this series, of her kneeling body cut off at the shoulders, is one of Weston's most well-known figure studies. At this same time he met Canadian painter Henrietta Shore, whom he asked to comment on the photos of Wardell. He was surprised by her honest critique: "I wish you would not do so many nudes – you are getting used to them, the subject no longer amazes you ‒ most of these are just nudes."
He asked to look at her work and was intrigued by her large paintings of sea shells. He borrowed several shells from her, thinking he might find some inspiration for a new still life series. Over the next few weeks he explored many different kinds of shell and background combinations – in his log of photographs taken for 1927 he listed fourteen negatives of shells. One of these, simply called Nautilus, 1927" (sometimes called Shell, 1927), became one of his most famous images. Modotti called the image "mystical and erotic," and when she showed it to Rene d'Harnoncourt he said he felt "weak at the knees." Weston is known to have made at least twenty-eight prints of this image, more than he had made of any other shell image.
In September of that year Weston had a major exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. At the opening of the show he met fellow photographer Willard Van Dyke, who later introduced Weston to Ansel Adams.
In May 1928, Weston and Brett made a brief but important trip to the Mojave Desert. It was there that he first explored and photographed landscapes as an art form. He found the stark rock forms and empty spaces to be a visual revelation, and over a long weekend he took twenty-seven photographs. In his journal he declared "these negatives are the most important I have ever done."
Later that year he and Brett moved to San Francisco, where they lived and worked in a small studio owned by Hagemeyer. He made portraits to earn an income, but he longed to get away by himself and get back to his art. In early 1929 he moved to Hagemeyer's cottage in Carmel, and it was there that he finally found the solitude and the inspiration that he was seeking. He placed a sign in studio window that said, "Edward Weston, photographer, Unretouched Portraits, Prints for Collectors."
He started making regular trips to nearby Point Lobos, where he would continue to photograph until the end of his career. It was there that he learned to fine-tune his photographic vision to match the visual space of his view camera, and the images he took there, of kelp, rocks and wind-blown trees, are among his finest. Looking at his work from this period, one biographer wrote:
"Weston arranged his compositions so that things happened on the edges; lines almost cross or meet and circular lines just touch the edges tangentially; his compositions were now created exclusively for a space with the proportions of eight by ten. There is no extraneous space nor is there too little."
In early April 1929, Weston met photographer Sonya Noskowiak at a party, and by the end of the month she was living with him. As with many of his other relationships, she became his model, muse, pupil and assistant. They would continue to live together for five years.
Intrigued by the many kinds and shapes of kelp he found on the beaches near Carmel, in 1930 Weston began taking close-ups of vegetables and fruits. He made a variety of photographs of cabbage, kale, onions, bananas, and finally, his most iconic image, peppers. In August of that year Noskowiak brought him several green peppers, and over a four-day period he shot at least thirty different negatives. Of these, Pepper No. 30, is among the all-time masterpieces of photography.
Weston had a series of important one-man exhibitions in 1930–31. The first was at Alma Reed's Delphic Studio Gallery in New York, followed closely by a mounting of the same show at the Denny Watrous Gallery in Carmel. Both received rave reviews, including a two-page article in the New York Times Magazine. These were followed by shows at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Galerie Jean Naert in Paris.
Although he was succeeding professionally his personal life was very complex. For most of their marriage, Flora was able to take care of their children because of an inheritance from her parents. However, the Wall Street crash of 1929 had wiped out most of her savings, and Weston felt increased pressure to help provide more for her and his sons. He described this time as "the most trying economic period of my life."
In 1932, The Art of Edward Weston, the first book devoted exclusively to Weston's work, was published. It was edited by Merle Armitage and dedicated to Alice Rohrer, an admirer and patron of Weston whose $500 donation helped pay for the book to be published.
During the same time a small group of like-minded photographers in the San Francisco area, led by Van Dyke and Ansel Adams, began informally meeting to discuss their common interest and aesthetics. Inspired by Weston's show at the De Young Museum the previous year, they approached the museum with the idea of mounting a group exhibition of their work. They named themselves Group f/64, and in November 1932, an exhibition of 80 of their prints opened at the museum. The show was a critical success.
In 1933 Weston bought a 4 × 5 Graflex camera, which was much smaller and lighter than the large view camera he had used for many years. He began taking close-up nudes of Noskowiak and other models. The smaller camera allowed him to interact more with his models, while at the same time the nudes he took during this period began to resemble some of the contorted root and vegetables he had taken the year before.
In early 1934, "a new and important chapter opened" in Weston's life when he met Charis Wilson at a concert. Even more than with his previous lovers, Weston was immediately captivated by her beauty and her personality. He wrote: "A new love came into my life, a most beautiful one, one which will, I believe, stand the test of time." On April 22 he photographed her nude for the first time, and they entered into an intense relationship. He was still living with Noskowiak at that time, but within two weeks he asked her to move out, declaring that for him other women were "as inevitable as the tides".
Perhaps because of the intensity of his new relationship, he stopped writing in his Daybooks at this same time. Six months later he wrote one final entry, looking back from April 22:
After eight months we are closer together than ever. Perhaps C. will be remembered as the great love of my life. Already I have achieved certain heights reached with no other love.
1935–45: Guggenheim grant to Wildcat Hill
In January 1935 Weston was facing increasing financial difficulties. He closed his studio in Carmel and moved to Santa Monica Canyon, California, where he opened a new studio with Brett. He implored Wilson to come and live with him, and in August 1935 she finally agreed. While she had an intense interest in his work, Wilson was the first woman Weston had lived with since Flora who had no interest in becoming a photographer. This allowed Weston to concentrate on her as his muse and model, and in turn Wilson devoted her time to promoting Weston's art as his assistant and quasi-agent.
Almost immediately he began taking a new series of nudes with Wilson as the model. One of the first photographs he took of her, on the balcony of their home, became one of his most published images (Nude (Charis, Santa Monica)). Soon after they took the first of several trips to Oceano Dunes. It was there that Weston made some of his most daring and intimate photographs of any of his models, capturing Wilson in completely uninhibited poses in the sand dunes. He exhibited only one or two of this series in his lifetime, thinking several of the others were "too erotic" for the general public.
Although his recent work had received critical acclaim, he was not earning enough income from his artistic images to provide a steady income. Rather than going back to relying solely on portraiture, he started the "Edward Weston Print of the Month Club", offering selections of his photos for a monthly $5 subscription. Each month subscribers would receive a new print from Weston, with a limited edition of 40 copies of each print. Although he created these prints with the same high standards that he did for his exhibition prints, it is thought that he never had more than eleven subscribers.
At the suggestion of Beaumont Newhall, Weston decided to apply for a Guggenheim Foundation grant (now known as a Guggenheim Fellowship). He wrote a two-sentence description about his work, assembled thirty-five of his favorite prints, and sent it in. Afterward Dorothea Lange and her husband suggested that the application was too brief to be seriously considered, and Weston resubmitted it with a four-page letter and work plan. He did not mention that Wilson had written the new application for him.
On March 22, 1937, Weston received notification that he had been awarded a Guggenheim grant, the first ever given to a photographer. The award was $2,000 for one year, a significant amount of money at that time. He was able to further capitalize on the award by arranging to provide the editor of AAA Westway Magazine with 8–10 photos per month for $50 during their travels, with Wilson getting an additional $15 monthly for photo captions and short narratives. They purchased a new car and set out on Weston's dream trip to go and photograph whatever he wanted. Over the next twelve months they made seventeen trips and covered 16,697 miles according to Wilson's detailed log. Weston made 1,260 negatives during the trip.
The freedom of this trip with the "love of his life", combined with all of his sons now reaching the age of adulthood, gave Weston the motivation to finally divorce his wife. They had been living apart for sixteen years.
Due to the success of the past year, Weston applied for and received a second year of Guggenheim support. Although he wanted to do some additional traveling, he intended to use most of the money to allow him to print his past year's work. He commissioned Neil to build a small home in the Carmel Highlands on property owned by Wilson's father. They named the place "Wildcat Hill" because of the many domestic cats that soon occupied the grounds.
Wilson set up a writing studio in what was intended to be a small garage behind the house, and she spent several months writing and editing stories from their travels.
In 1939, Seeing California with Edward Weston was published, with photographs by Weston and writing by Wilson. Finally relieved from the financial stresses of the past and inordinately happy with his work and his relationship, Weston married Wilson in a small ceremony on April 24.
Buoyed by the success of their first book, in 1940 they published California and the West. The first edition, featuring 96 of Weston's photos with text by Wilson, sold for $3.95. Over the summer, Weston taught photography at the first Ansel Adams Workshop at Yosemite National Park.
Just as the Guggenheim money was running out, Weston was invited to illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He would receive $1,000 for photographs and $500 travel expenses. Weston insisted on having artistic control of the images he would take and insisted that he would not be taking literal illustrations of Whitman's text. On May 28 he and Wilson began a trip that would cover 20,000 miles through 24 states; he took between 700 and 800 8x10 negatives as well as dozens of Graflex portraits.
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the United States entered World War II. Weston was near the end of the Whitman trip, and he was deeply affected by the outbreak of the war. He wrote: "When the war broke out we scurried home. Charis did not want to scurry. I did."
He spent the first few months of 1942 organizing and printing the negatives from the Whitman trip. Of the hundreds of images he took, forty-nine were selected for publication.
Due to the war, Point Lobos was closed to the public for several years. Weston continued to work on images centered on Wildcat Hill, including shots of the many cats that lived there. Weston treated them with the same serious intent that he applied to all of his other subjects, and Charis assembled the results into their most unusual publication, The Cats of Wildcat Hill, which was finally published in 1947.
The year 1945 marked the beginning of significant changes for Weston. He began to experience the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease, a debilitating ailment that gradually stole his strength and his ability to photograph. He withdrew from Wilson, who at the same time began to become more involved in local politics and the Carmel cultural scene. A strength that originally brought them together – her lack of interest in becoming a photographer herself – eventually led to their break-up. She wrote, "My flight from Edward was also partly an escape from photography, which had taken up so much room in my life for so many years."
While working on a major retrospective exhibition for the Museum of Modern Art, he and Wilson separated. Weston returned to Glendale since the land for their cabin at Wildcat Hill still belonged to Wilson's father. Within a few months she moved out and arranged to sell the property to him.
1946–58: Final years
In February 1946, Weston's major retrospective opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He and Beaumont Newhall selected 313 prints for the exhibition, and eventually 250 photographs were displayed along with 11 negatives. At that time many of his prints were still for sale, and he sold 97 prints from the exhibit at $25 per print. Later that year, Weston was asked by Dr. George L. Waters of Kodak to produce 8 × 10 Kodachrome transparencies for their advertising campaign. Weston had never worked in color before, primarily because he had no means of developing or printing the more complicated color process. He accepted their offer in no small part because they offered him $250 per image, the highest amount he would be paid for any single work in his lifetime. He eventually sold seven color works to Kodak of landscapes and scenery at Point Lobos and nearby Monterey harbor.
In 1947 as his Parkinson's disease progressed, Weston began looking for an assistant. Serendipitously, an eager young photographic enthusiast, Dody Weston Thompson, contacted him in search of employment.
Weston mentioned he had just that morning written a letter to Ansel Adams, looking for someone seeking to learn photography in exchange for carrying his bulky large-format camera and to provide a much needed automobile. There was a swift meeting of creative minds. For the remainder of 1947 through the beginning of 1948, Dody commuted from San Francisco on weekends to learn from Weston the basics of photography. In early 1948, Dody moved into "Bodie House," the guest cottage at Edward's Wildcat Hill compound, as his full-time assistant.
By late 1948 he was no longer physically able to use his large view camera. That year he took his last photographs, at Point Lobos. His final negative was an image he called, "Rocks and Pebbles, 1948". Although diminished in his capacity, Weston never stopped being a photographer. He worked with his sons and Dody to catalog his images and especially to oversee the publication and printing of his work. In 1950 there was a major retrospective of his work at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris, and in 1952 he published a Fiftieth Anniversary portfolio, with images printed by Brett.
During this time he worked with Cole, Brett, and Dody Thompson (Brett's wife by 1952), to select and have them print a master set of what he considered his best work. They spent many long hours together in the darkroom, and by 1956 they had produced what Weston called "The Project Prints", eight sets of 8" × 10" prints from 830 of his negatives. The only complete set today is housed at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Later that same year the Smithsonian Institution displayed nearly 100 of these prints at a major exhibit, "The World of Edward Weston", paying tribute to his accomplishments in American photography.
Weston died at his home on Wildcat Hill on New Year's Day, 1958. His sons scattered his ashes into the Pacific Ocean at an area then known as Pebbly Beach on Point Lobos. Due to Weston's significant influence in the area, the beach was later renamed Weston Beach. He had $300 in his bank account at the time of his death.
Equipment and techniques
Cameras and lenses
During his lifetime Weston worked with several cameras. He began as a more serious photographer in 1902 when he purchased a 5 × 7 camera. When he moved to Tropico, now part of Glendale, and opened his studio in 1911, he acquired an enormous 11 x 14 Graf Variable studio portrait camera. Roi Partridge, Imogen Cunningham's husband, later made an etching of Weston in his studio, dwarfed by the giant camera in front of him. After he began taking more portraits of children, he bought a 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ Graflex in 1912 to better capture their quickly changing expressions.
When he went to Mexico in 1924 he took an 8 × 10 Seneca folding-bed view camera with several lenses, including a Graf Variable and a Wollensak Verito. While in Mexico he purchased a used Rapid Rectilinear lens which was his primary lens for many years. The lens, now in the George Eastman House, did not have a manufacturer's name. He also took to Mexico a 3¼ × 4¼ Graflex with a ƒ/4.5 Tessar lens, which he used for portraits.
In 1933 he purchased a 4 × 5 R. B. Auto-Graflex] and used it thereafter for all portraits. He continued to use the Seneca view camera for all other work.
In 1939 he listed the following items as his standard equipment:
8 x 10 Century Universal
Triple convertible Turner Reich, 12", 21", 28"
K2, G, A filters
12 film holders
Paul Ries Tripod
He continued to use this equipment throughout his life.
Film
Prior to 1921 Weston used an orthochromatic sheet film, but when panchromatic film became widely available in 1921 he switched to it for all of his work. According to his son Cole, after Agfa Isopan film came out in the 1930s Weston used it for his black-and-white images for the rest of his life. This film was rated at about ISO 25, but the developing technique Weston used reduced the effective rating to about ISO 12.
The 8 × 10 cameras he preferred were large and heavy, and due to the weight and the cost of the film he never carried more than twelve sheet film holders with him. At the end of each day, he had to go into a darkroom, unload the film holders and load them with new film. This was especially challenging when he was traveling since he had to find a darkened room somewhere or else set up a makeshift darkroom made from heavy canvas.
In spite of the bulky size of the view camera, Weston boasted he could "set up the tripod, fasten the camera securely to it, attach the lens to the camera, open the shutter, study the image on the ground glass, focus it, close the shutter, insert the plate holder, cock the shutter, set it to the appropriate aperture and speed, remove the slide from the plate holder, make the exposure, replace the slide, and remove the plate holder in two minutes and twenty seconds."
The smaller Graflex cameras he used had the advantage of using film magazines that held either 12 or 18 sheets of film. Weston preferred these cameras when taking portraits because he could respond more quickly to the sitter. He reported that with his Graflex he once made three dozen negatives of Tina Modotti within 20 minutes.In 1946 a representative from Kodak asked Weston to try out their new Kodachrome film, and over the next two years he made at least 60 8 x 10 color images using this film." They were some of the last photographs he took, since by late 1948 he was no longer able to operate a camera due to the effects of his Parkinson's disease.
Exposures
During the first 20 years of his photography Weston determined all of his exposure settings by estimation based on his previous experiences and the relatively narrow tolerances of the film at that time. He said, "I dislike to figure out time, and find my exposures more accurate when only "felt"." In the late 1930s he acquired a Weston exposure meter and continued to use it as an aid to determine exposures throughout his career. Photo historian Nancy Newhall wrote that "Young photographers are confused and amazed when they behold him measuring with his meter every value in the sphere where he intends to work, from the sky to the ground under his feet. He is "feeling the light" and checking his own observations. After which he puts the meter away and does what he thinks. Often he adds up everything ‒ filters, extension, film, speed, and so on ‒ and doubles the computation." Weston, Newhall noted, believed in "massive exposure", which he then compensated for by hand-processing the film in a weak developer solution and individually inspecting each negative as it continued to develop to get the right balance of highlights and shadows.
The low ISO rating of the sheet film Weston used necessitated very long exposures when using his view camera, ranging from 1 to 3 seconds for outdoor landscape exposures to as long as 4½ hours for still lifes such as peppers or shells. When he used one of the Graflex cameras the exposure times were much shorter (usually less than ¼ second), and he was sometimes able to work without a tripod.
Darkroom
Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days.
When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives."
In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life.
Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints.
Paper
Early in his career Weston printed on several kinds of paper, including Velox, Apex, Convira, Defender Velour Black and Haloid. When he went to Mexico he learned how to use platinum and palladium paper, made by Willis & Clement and imported from England. After his return to California, he abandoned platinum and palladium printing due to the scarcity and increasing price of the paper. Eventually he was able to get most of the same qualities he preferred with Kodak's Azo glossy silver gelatin paper developed in Amidol. He continued to use this paper almost exclusively until he stopped printing.
Writings
Weston was a prolific writer. His Daybooks were published in two volumes totaling more than 500 pages in the first edition. This does not include the years of the journal he kept between 1915 and 1923; for reasons he never made clear he destroyed those before leaving for Mexico. He also wrote dozens of articles and commentaries, beginning in 1906 and ending in 1957. He hand-wrote or typed at least 5,000 letters to colleagues, friends, lovers, his wives and his children.
In addition, Weston kept very thorough notes on the technical and business aspects of his work. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, which now houses most of Weston's archives, reports that it houses 75 linear feet of pages from his Daybooks, correspondence, financial records, memorabilia, and other personal documents in his possession when he died.
Among Weston's most important early writings are those that provide insights into his development of the concept of previsualization. He first spoke and wrote about the concept in 1922, at least a decade before Ansel Adams began utilizing the term, and he continued to expand upon this idea both in writing and in his teachings. Historian Beaumont Newhall noted the significance of Weston's innovation in his book The History of Photography, saying "The most important part of Edward Weston's approach was his insistence that the photographer should previsualize the final print before making the exposure."
In his Daybooks he provided an unusually detailed record of his evolution as an artist. Although he initially denied that his images reflect his own interpretations of the subject matter, by 1932 his writings revealed that he had come to accept the importance of artistic impression in his work. When combined with his photographs, his writings provide an extraordinarily vivid series of insights into his development as an artist and his impact of future generations of photographers.
Quotations
"Form follows function." Who said this I don't know, but the writer spoke well.
I am not a technician and have no interest in technique for its own sake. If my technique is adequate to present my seeing then I need nothing more.
I see no reason for recording the obvious.
If there is symbolism in my work, it can only be the seeing of parts ‒ fragments ‒ as universal symbols. All basic forms are so closely related as to be visually equivalent.
My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.
My work-purpose, my theme, can most nearly be stated as the recognition, recording and presentation of the interdependence, the relativity, of all things ‒ the universality of basic form.
The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.
What then is the end toward which I work? To present the significance of facts, so that they are transformed from things seen to things known.
When money enters in ‒ then, for a price, I become a liar ‒ and a good one I can be whether with pencil or subtle lighting or viewpoint. I hate it all, but so do I support not only my family, but my own work.
Legacy
As of 2013, two of Weston's photographs feature among the most expensive photographs ever sold. The Nude, 1925 taken in 1925 was bought by the gallerist Peter MacGill for $1.6 million in 2008. Nautilus of 1927 was sold for $1.1 million in 2010, also to MacGill.
Major exhibitions
1970, the Rencontres d'Arles festival (France) presented an exhibition "Hommage à Edward Weston" and an evening screening of the film The Photographer (1948) by Willard Van Dyke.
November 25, 1986 – March 29, 1987 Edward Weston in Los Angeles at Huntington Library
1986 Edward Weston: Color Photography at Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
May 13 – August 27, 1989 Edward Weston in New Mexico at Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe
Edward Weston : the Last Years in Carmel at The Art Institute of Chicago, June 2 – September 16, 2001, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mar. 1 – July 9, 2002.
List of photographs
The artistic career of Weston spanned more than forty years, from roughly 1915 to 1956. A prolific photographer, he produced more than 1,000 black-and-white photographs and some 50 color images. This list is an incomplete selection of Weston's better-known photographs.
Notes
References
Sources
Abbott, Brett. Edward Weston: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005.
Alinder, Mary Street. Group f.64: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists Who Revolutionized American Photography. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2014.
Bunnell, Peter C. Edward Weston on Photography. Salt Lake City: P. Smith Books, 1983.
Bunnell, Peter C., David Featherston et al. EW 100: Centennial Essays in Honor of Edward Weston. Carmel, Calif. : Friends of Photography, 1986.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston in Mexico, 1923–1926. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983.
Conger, Amy (1992). Edward Weston – Photographs From the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1992.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston: The Form of The Nude. NY: Phaidon, 2006.
Edward Weston : Color Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1986.
Enyeart, James. Edward Weston's California landscapes. Boston : Little, Brown, 1984.
Foley, Kathy Kelsey. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister. Dayton: Dayton Art Institute, 1978.
Heyman, There Thau. Seeing Straight: The f.64 Revolution in Photography. Oakland: Oakland Art Museum, 1992.
Higgins, Gary. Truth, Myth and Erasure: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston. Tempe, Ariz. : School of Art, Arizona State University, 1991.
Hochberg, Judith and Michael P. Mattis. Edward Weston: Life Work. Photographs from the Collection of Judith G. Hochberg and Michael P. Mattis. Revere, Pa.: Lodima Press, c2003.
Hooks, Margaret. Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary. London: Pandora, 1993.
Lowe, Sarah M. Tina Modotti and Edward Weston the Mexico Years. London: Merrell, 2004.
Maddow, Ben. Edward Weston: Fifty Years; The Definitive Volume of His Photographic Work. Millerton, N.Y., Aperture, 1973. ,
Maggia, Filippo. Edward Weston. New York: Skira, 2013.
Mora, Gilles (ed.). Edward Weston: Forms of Passion. NY: Abrams, 1995.
Morgan, Susan. Portraits / Edward Weston. NY: Aperture, 1995.
Newhall, Beaumont (1984). Edward Weston Omnibus: A Critical Anthology. Salt Lake City : Peregrine Smith Books, 1984.
Newhall, Beaumont . Supreme Instants: The Photography of Edward Weston. Boston : Little, Brown, 1986.
Newhall, Nancy (ed.). Edward Weston; The Flame of Recognition: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY: Aperture, 1971.
Pitts, Terence. Edward Weston 1886–1958. Köln: Taschen, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E., Karen Quinn and Leslie Furth. Edward Weston : Photography and Modernism. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E. Weston's Westons : Portraits and Nudes. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989.
Travis, David. Edward Weston, The Last Years in Carmel. Chicago: Art Institute, 2001.
Warren, Beth Gates. Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011.
Warren, Beth Gates. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister and Other Photographs. NY: Sotheby's, 2008.
Warren, Beth Gates (2001). Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration. NY: Norton, 2001.
Watts, Jennifer A. (ed.). Edward Weston : A Legacy. London: Merrell, 2003.
Weston, Edward (1964). The Daybooks of Edward Weston. Edited by Nancy Nehall. NY: Horizon Press, 1961–1964. 2 vols.
Weston, Edward. My Camera on Point Lobos; 30 Photographs and Excerpts from E. W.’s Daybook. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950.
Weston, Paulette. Laughing Eyes: a Book of Letters Between Edward and Cole Weston 1923–1946. Carmel: Carmel Publishing Co., 1999.
Wilson, Charis. Edward Weston Nudes: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY : Aperture, 1977.
Wilson, Charis. Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Woods, John. Dune: Edward & Brett Weston. Kalispell, MT: Wild Horse Island Press, 2003.
External links
edward-weston.com
Edward Weston Collection at the Center for Creative Photography
Ben Maddow "Edward Weston Lecture" The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1976. Retrieved June 26, 2012
The Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston and Charis Wilson Documentary concerning Edward Weston, his muse Charis Wilson and photographer Ansel Adams.
Encyclopædia Britannica
Landscape photographers
American portrait photographers
1886 births
1958 deaths
History of platinum printing
Photographers from California
Artists from Chicago
People from Highland Park, Illinois
Deaths from Parkinson's disease
Neurological disease deaths in California
20th-century American photographers
Fine art photographers
Olympic archers of the United States
American male archers
Archers at the 1904 Summer Olympics | true | [
"\"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" is a single by British pop rock group the Beautiful South from their sixth album, Quench (1998). It was written by Paul Heaton and Dave Rotheray. The lyrics, which take the form of a conversation between two reconciling lovers, are noted for a reference to the TARDIS from Doctor Who. According to the book Last Orders at the Liars Bar: the Official Story of the Beautiful South, \"How Long's a Tear Take To Dry?\" was originally to be called \"She Bangs the Buns\" due to its chord structure reminiscent of Manchester's the Stone Roses. The song reached number 12 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the band's twelfth and final top-twenty hit.\n\nSingle release\n\"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" reached number 12 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1999. Although not released on vinyl, it was given a dual-CD release in the UK. B-sides included a remix of \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" as well as acoustic versions of three other songs: \"Perfect 10\", \"Big Coin\", and \"Rotterdam\". On 18 March 1999, the band performed \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" live on the BBC music programme Top of the Pops.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video, available on The Beautiful South's compilation DVD Munch, is a humorous account of The Beautiful South on a world tour in order to pay for drinks at the local bar. The band is portrayed by cartoon versions of themselves, in a style reminiscent of 1960s-era Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and Scooby-Doo in particular. In the commentary track on the Munch DVD, Paul Heaton explains that the video was actually produced by Hanna-Barbera.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUK CD1\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\"\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" (remix)\n \"Perfect 10\" (acoustic)\n\nUK CD2\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\"\n \"Big Coin\" (acoustic)\n \"Rotterdam\" (acoustic)\n\nUK cassette single\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\"\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" (remix)\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" (radio edit)\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\" (remix)\n \"Perfect 10\" (acoustic)\n \"Rotterdam\" (acoustic)\n\nGerman CD single\n \"How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?\"\n \"Dumb\"\n \"I Sold My Heart to the Junkman\"\n \"Suck Harder\"\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n Pattenden, Mike - Last Orders at the Liars Bar: the Official Story of the Beautiful South ()\n\n1999 singles\n1998 songs\nThe Beautiful South songs\nGo! Discs singles\nHanna-Barbera\nMercury Records singles\nSongs written by David Rotheray\nSongs written by Paul Heaton",
"How to Play the Piano was a British television series which was aired in 1950 on BBC. In the programme, Sidney Harrison showed how to play the piano to a pupil, Edward Goodwin. Episode titles included \"how to practise\", \"how to play with expression\", and \"how do you play?\". It aired in a 30-minute time-slot.\n\nSee also\nPiano Lesson TV series\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nHow to Play the Piano on IMDb\nhow long does it take to learn piano\nHow to Learn How to Play Piano\n\n1950s British music television series\n1950 British television series debuts\n1950 British television series endings\nLost BBC episodes\nBBC Television shows\nBlack-and-white British television shows\nBritish live television series"
]
|
[
"Edward Weston",
"Darkroom",
"What kind of photographs did Weston take?",
"Weston always made contact prints,",
"What are contact prints?",
"that the print was exactly the same size as the negative.",
"Has he taken any photos that are famous?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he start photography",
"I don't know.",
"Did he develop his own pictures",
"develop one at a time in a tray",
"How long does that usually take?",
"process was very labor-intensive;"
]
| C_7efe68873f1f4b09adc565dfd928bf98_1 | Did he ever teach anyone his skills? | 7 | Did Edward Weston ever teach anyone his skills? | Edward Weston | Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight in order to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days. When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives." In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life. Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still-lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a "quintessentially American, and especially Californian, approach to modern photography" because of his focus on the people and places of the American West. In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 × 10 view camera. Some of his most famous
photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
Weston was born in Chicago and moved to California when he was 21. He knew he wanted to be a photographer from an early age, and initially his work was typical of the soft focus pictorialism that was popular at the time. Within a few years, however he abandoned that style and went on to be one of the foremost champions of highly detailed photographic images.
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he soon stopped photographing. He spent the remaining ten years of his life overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.
Life and work
1886–1906: Early life
Weston was born in Highland Park, Illinois, the second child and only son of Edward Burbank Weston, an obstetrician, and Alice Jeanette Brett, a Shakespearean actress. His mother died when he was five years old and he was raised mostly by his sister Mary, whom he called "May" or "Maisie". She was nine years older than he, and they developed a very close bond that was one of the few steady relationships in Weston's life.
His father remarried when he was nine, but neither Weston nor his sister got along with their new stepmother and stepbrother. After May was married and left their home in 1897, Weston's father devoted most of his time to his new wife and her son. Weston was left on his own much of the time; he stopped going to school and withdrew into his own room in their large home.
As a present for his 16th birthday Weston's father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Bull's-Eye No. 2, which was a simple box camera. He took it on vacation in the Midwest, and by the time he returned home his interest in photography was enough to lead him to purchase a used 5 × 7 inch view camera. He began photographing in Chicago parks and a farm owned by his aunt, and developed his own film and prints. Later he would remember that even at that early age his work showed strong artistic merit. He said, "I feel that my earliest work of 1903 ‒ though immature ‒ is related more closely, both with technique and composition, to my latest work than are several of my photographs dating from 1913 to 1920, a period in which I was trying to be artistic."
In 1904 May and her family moved to California, leaving Weston further isolated in Chicago. He earned a living by taking a job at a local department store, but he continued to spend most of his free time taking photos, Within two years he felt confident enough of his photography that he submitted his work to the magazine Camera and Darkroom, and in the April 1906 issue they published a full-page reproduction of his picture Spring, Chicago. This is the first known publication of any of his photographs.
In September 1904, Weston took part in the men's double American round archery event at the 1904 Summer Olympics with his father also taking part in the same event.
1906–23: Becoming a photographer
At his sister's urging Weston left Chicago in the spring of 1906 and moved near May's home in Tropico, California (now a neighborhood in Glendale). He decided to stay there and pursue a career in photography, but he soon realized he needed more professional training. A year later he moved to Effingham, Illinois, to enroll in the Illinois College of Photography. They taught a nine-month course, but Weston finished all of the class work in six months. The school refused to give him a diploma unless he paid for the full nine months; Weston refused and instead moved back to California in the spring of 1908.
He briefly worked at the photography studio of George Steckel in Los Angeles, as a negative retoucher. Within a few months he moved to the more established studio of Louis Mojonier. For the next several years he learned the techniques and business of operating a photography studio under Mojonier's direction.
Within days of his visit to Tropico, Weston was introduced to his sister's best friend, Flora May Chandler. She was a graduate of the Normal School, later to become UCLA. She assumed the position of a grade-school teacher in Tropico.
She was seven years older than Weston and a distant relative of Harry Chandler, who at that time was described as the head of "the single most powerful family in Southern California". This fact did not go unnoticed by Weston and his biographers.
On January 30, 1909, Weston and Chandler married in a simple ceremony. The first of their four sons, Edward Chandler Weston (1910–1993), known as Chandler, was born on April 26, 1910.
Named Edward Chandler, after Weston and his wife, he later became an excellent photographer on his own. He clearly learned much by being an assistant to his father in the bungalow studio. In 1923 he bid farewell to his mother and sibling brothers and sailed off to Mexico with his father and his then-muse, Tina Modotti. He gave up any aspirations in pursuing photography as a career after his adventures in Mexico. The lifestyle of fame and its fortune affected him greatly. His later photographs, as a hobbyist, albeit rare, certainly reflect an innate talent for the form.
In 1910 Weston opened his own business, called "The Little Studio", in Tropico. His sister later asked him why he opened his studio in Tropico rather than in the nearby metropolis of Los Angeles, and he replied "Sis, I'm going to make my name so famous that it won't matter where I live."
For the next three years he worked, alone and sometimes with the assistance of family members in his studio. Even at that early stage of his career he was highly particular about his work; in an interview at that time he said "[photographic] plates are nothing to me unless I get what I want. I have used thirty of them at a sitting if I did not secure the effect to suit me."
His critical eye paid off for him and he quickly gained more recognition for his work. He won prizes in national competitions, published several more photographs and wrote articles for magazines such as Photo-Era and American Photography, championing the pictorial style.
On December 16, 1911, Weston's second son, Theodore Brett Weston (1911–1993), was born. He became a long-time artistic collaborator with his father and an important photographer on his own.
Sometime in the fall of 1913, Los Angeles photographer, Margrethe Mather visited Weston's studio because of his growing reputation, and within a few months they developed an intense relationship. Weston was a quiet Midwestern transplant to California, and Mather was a part of the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was very outgoing and artistic in a flamboyant way, and her permissive sexual morals were far different from the conservative Weston at the time – Mather had been a prostitute and was bisexual with a preference for women. Mather presented a stark contrast to Weston's home life; his wife Flora was described as a "homely, rigid Puritan, and an utterly conventional woman, with whom he had little in common since he abhorred conventions" ‒ and he found Mather's uninhibited lifestyle irresistible and her photographic vision intriguing.
He asked Mather to be his studio assistant, and for the next decade they worked closely together, making individual and jointly signed portraits of writers Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. A joint exhibition of their work in 2001 revealed that during this period Weston emulated Mather's style and, later, her choice of subjects. On her own Mather photographed "fans, hands, eggs, melons, waves, bathroom fixtures, seashells and birds wings, all subjects that Weston would also explore." A decade later he described her as "the first important person in my life, and perhaps even now, though personal contact has gone, the most important."
In early 1915 Weston began keeping detailed journals he later came to call his "Daybooks". For the next two decades he recorded his thoughts about his work, observations about photography, and his interactions with friends, lovers and family. On December 6, 1916, a third son, Lawrence Neil Weston, was born. He also followed in the footsteps of his father and became a well-known photographer. It was during this period that Weston first met photographer Johan Hagemeyer, whom Weston mentored and lent his studio to from time to time. Later, Hagemeyer would return the favor by letting Weston use his studio in Carmel after he returned from Mexico. For the next several years Weston continued to earn a living by taking portraits in his small studio which he called "the shack".
Meanwhile, Flora was spending all of her time caring for their children. Their fourth son, Cole Weston (1919–2003), was born on January 30, 1919, and afterward she rarely had time to leave their home.
Over the summer of 1920 Weston met two people who were part of the growing Los Angeles cultural scene: Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, known as "Robo" and a woman he called his wife, Tina Modotti. Modotti, who was then known only as a stage and film actress, was never married to Robo, but they pretended to be for the sake of his family. Weston and Modotti were immediately attracted to each other, and they soon became lovers. Richey knew of Modotti's affair, but he continued to be friends with Weston and later invited him to come to Mexico and share his studio.
The following year Weston agreed to allow Mather to become an equal partner in his studio. For several months they took portraits that they signed with both of their names. This was the only time in his long career that Weston shared credit with another photographer.
Sometime in 1920 he began photographing nude models for the first time. His first models were his wife Flora and their children, but soon thereafter he took at least three nude studies of Mather. He followed these with several more photographs of nude models, the first of dozens of figure studies he would make of friends and lovers over the next twenty years.
Until now Weston had kept his relationships with other women a secret from his wife, but as he began to photograph more nudes Flora became suspicious about what went on with him and his models. Chandler recalled that his mother regularly sent him on "errands" to his father's studio and asked him to tell her who was there and what they were doing.
One of the first who agreed to model nude for Weston was Modotti. She became his primary model for the next several years.
In 1922 he visited his sister May, who had moved to Middletown, Ohio. While there he made five or six photographs of the tall smoke stacks at the nearby Armco steel mill. These images signaled a change in Weston's photographic style, a transition from the soft-focus pictorialism of the past to a new, cleaner-edge style. He immediately recognized the change and later recorded it in his notes: "The Middletown visit was something to remember...most of all in importance was my photographing of 'Armco'...That day I made great photographs, even Stieglitz thought they were important!"
At that time New York City was the cultural center for photography as an art form in America, and Alfred Stieglitz was the most influential figure in photography. Weston badly wanted to go to New York to meet with him, but he did not have enough money to make the trip. His brother-in-law gave him enough money to continue on from Middletown to New York City, and he spent most of October and early November there. While there he met artist Charles Sheeler and photographers Clarence H. White, Gertrude Kasebier, as well as Stieglitz. Weston wrote that Stieglitz told him, "Your work and attitude reassures me. You have shown me at least several prints which have given me a great deal of joy. And I can seldom say that of photographs."
Soon after Weston returned from New York, Robo moved to Mexico and set up a studio there to create batiks. Within a short while he had arranged for a joint exhibition of his work and of photographs by Weston, Mather and a few others. In early 1923 Modotti left by train to be with Robo in Mexico, but he contracted smallpox and died shortly before she arrived. Modotti was grief-stricken, but within a few weeks she felt well enough that she decided to stay and carry out the exhibition that Robo had planned. The show was a success, and due in no small part to his nude studies of Modotti, it firmly established Weston's artistic reputation in Mexico.
After the show closed Modotti returned to California, and Weston and she made plans to return to Mexico together. He wanted to spend a couple of months there photographing and promoting his work, and, conveniently, he could travel under the pretense of Modotti being his assistant and translator.
The week before he left for Mexico, Weston briefly reunited with Mather and took several nudes of her lying in the sand at Redondo Beach. These images were very different from his previous nude studies – sharply focused and showing her entire body in relation to the natural setting. They have been called the artistic prototypes for his most famous nudes, those of Charis Wilson which he would take more than a decade later.
1923–27: Mexico
On July 30, 1923, Weston, his son Chandler, and Modotti left on a steamer for the extended trip to Mexico. His wife, Flora, and their other three sons waved goodbye to them at the dock. It's unknown what Flora understood or thought about the relationship between Weston and Modotti, but she is reported to have called out at the dock, "Tina, take good care of my boys."
They arrived in Mexico City on August 11 and rented a large hacienda outside of the city. Within a month he had arranged for an exhibition of his work at the Aztec Land Gallery, and on October 17 the show opened to glowing press reviews. He was particularly proud of a review by Marius de Zayas that said "Photography is beginning to be photography, for until now it has only been art."
The different culture and scenery in Mexico forced Weston to look at things in new ways. He became more responsive to what was in front of him, and he turned his camera on everyday objects like toys, doorways and bathroom fixtures. He also made several intimate nudes and portraits of Modotti. He wrote in his Daybooks:
The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself...I feel definite in the belief that the approach to photography is through realism.
Weston continued to photograph the people and things around him, and his reputation in Mexico increased the longer he stayed. He had a second exhibition at the Aztec Land Gallery in 1924, and he had a steady stream of local socialites asking him to take their portraits. At the same time, Weston began to miss his other sons back in the U.S. As with many of his actions, though, it was a woman who motivated him most. He had recently corresponded with a woman he had known for several years named Miriam Lerner, and as her letters became more passionate he longed to see her again.
He and Chandler returned to San Francisco at the end of 1924, and the next month he set up a studio with Johan Hagemeyer. Weston seemed to be struggling with his past and his future during this period. He burned all of his pre-Mexico journals, as though trying to erase the past, and started a new series of nudes with Lerner and with his son Neil. He wrote that these images were "the start of a new period in my approach and attitude towards photography."
His new relationship with Lerner did not last long, and in August 1925 he returned to Mexico, this time with his son Brett. Modotti had arranged a joint show of their photographs, and it opened the week he returned. He received new critical acclaim and six of his prints were purchased for the State Museum. For the next several months he concentrated once again on photographing folk art, toys and local scenes. One of his strongest images of this period is of three black clay pots that art historian Rene d'Harnoncourt described as "the beginning of a new art."
In May 1926 Weston signed a contract with writer Anita Brenner for $1,000 to make photographs for a book she was writing about Mexican folk art. In June he, Modotti and Brett started traveling around the country in search of lesser known native arts and crafts. His contract required him to give Brenner three finished prints from 400 8x10 negatives, and it took him until November of that year to complete the work. During their travels, Brett received a crash course in photography from his father, and he made more than two dozen prints which his father judged to be of exceptional quality.
By the time they returned from their trip, Weston and Modotti's relationship had crumbled, and within less than two weeks he and Brett returned to California. He never traveled to Mexico again.
1927–35: Glendale to Carmel
Weston initially returned to his old studio in Glendale (previously called Tropico). He hastily arranged a dual exhibition at University of California of the photographs that he and Brett had made the year before. The father showed 100 prints and the son showed 20. Brett was only 15 years old at the time.
In February he started a new series of nudes, this time of dancer Bertha Wardell. One of this series, of her kneeling body cut off at the shoulders, is one of Weston's most well-known figure studies. At this same time he met Canadian painter Henrietta Shore, whom he asked to comment on the photos of Wardell. He was surprised by her honest critique: "I wish you would not do so many nudes – you are getting used to them, the subject no longer amazes you ‒ most of these are just nudes."
He asked to look at her work and was intrigued by her large paintings of sea shells. He borrowed several shells from her, thinking he might find some inspiration for a new still life series. Over the next few weeks he explored many different kinds of shell and background combinations – in his log of photographs taken for 1927 he listed fourteen negatives of shells. One of these, simply called Nautilus, 1927" (sometimes called Shell, 1927), became one of his most famous images. Modotti called the image "mystical and erotic," and when she showed it to Rene d'Harnoncourt he said he felt "weak at the knees." Weston is known to have made at least twenty-eight prints of this image, more than he had made of any other shell image.
In September of that year Weston had a major exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. At the opening of the show he met fellow photographer Willard Van Dyke, who later introduced Weston to Ansel Adams.
In May 1928, Weston and Brett made a brief but important trip to the Mojave Desert. It was there that he first explored and photographed landscapes as an art form. He found the stark rock forms and empty spaces to be a visual revelation, and over a long weekend he took twenty-seven photographs. In his journal he declared "these negatives are the most important I have ever done."
Later that year he and Brett moved to San Francisco, where they lived and worked in a small studio owned by Hagemeyer. He made portraits to earn an income, but he longed to get away by himself and get back to his art. In early 1929 he moved to Hagemeyer's cottage in Carmel, and it was there that he finally found the solitude and the inspiration that he was seeking. He placed a sign in studio window that said, "Edward Weston, photographer, Unretouched Portraits, Prints for Collectors."
He started making regular trips to nearby Point Lobos, where he would continue to photograph until the end of his career. It was there that he learned to fine-tune his photographic vision to match the visual space of his view camera, and the images he took there, of kelp, rocks and wind-blown trees, are among his finest. Looking at his work from this period, one biographer wrote:
"Weston arranged his compositions so that things happened on the edges; lines almost cross or meet and circular lines just touch the edges tangentially; his compositions were now created exclusively for a space with the proportions of eight by ten. There is no extraneous space nor is there too little."
In early April 1929, Weston met photographer Sonya Noskowiak at a party, and by the end of the month she was living with him. As with many of his other relationships, she became his model, muse, pupil and assistant. They would continue to live together for five years.
Intrigued by the many kinds and shapes of kelp he found on the beaches near Carmel, in 1930 Weston began taking close-ups of vegetables and fruits. He made a variety of photographs of cabbage, kale, onions, bananas, and finally, his most iconic image, peppers. In August of that year Noskowiak brought him several green peppers, and over a four-day period he shot at least thirty different negatives. Of these, Pepper No. 30, is among the all-time masterpieces of photography.
Weston had a series of important one-man exhibitions in 1930–31. The first was at Alma Reed's Delphic Studio Gallery in New York, followed closely by a mounting of the same show at the Denny Watrous Gallery in Carmel. Both received rave reviews, including a two-page article in the New York Times Magazine. These were followed by shows at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Galerie Jean Naert in Paris.
Although he was succeeding professionally his personal life was very complex. For most of their marriage, Flora was able to take care of their children because of an inheritance from her parents. However, the Wall Street crash of 1929 had wiped out most of her savings, and Weston felt increased pressure to help provide more for her and his sons. He described this time as "the most trying economic period of my life."
In 1932, The Art of Edward Weston, the first book devoted exclusively to Weston's work, was published. It was edited by Merle Armitage and dedicated to Alice Rohrer, an admirer and patron of Weston whose $500 donation helped pay for the book to be published.
During the same time a small group of like-minded photographers in the San Francisco area, led by Van Dyke and Ansel Adams, began informally meeting to discuss their common interest and aesthetics. Inspired by Weston's show at the De Young Museum the previous year, they approached the museum with the idea of mounting a group exhibition of their work. They named themselves Group f/64, and in November 1932, an exhibition of 80 of their prints opened at the museum. The show was a critical success.
In 1933 Weston bought a 4 × 5 Graflex camera, which was much smaller and lighter than the large view camera he had used for many years. He began taking close-up nudes of Noskowiak and other models. The smaller camera allowed him to interact more with his models, while at the same time the nudes he took during this period began to resemble some of the contorted root and vegetables he had taken the year before.
In early 1934, "a new and important chapter opened" in Weston's life when he met Charis Wilson at a concert. Even more than with his previous lovers, Weston was immediately captivated by her beauty and her personality. He wrote: "A new love came into my life, a most beautiful one, one which will, I believe, stand the test of time." On April 22 he photographed her nude for the first time, and they entered into an intense relationship. He was still living with Noskowiak at that time, but within two weeks he asked her to move out, declaring that for him other women were "as inevitable as the tides".
Perhaps because of the intensity of his new relationship, he stopped writing in his Daybooks at this same time. Six months later he wrote one final entry, looking back from April 22:
After eight months we are closer together than ever. Perhaps C. will be remembered as the great love of my life. Already I have achieved certain heights reached with no other love.
1935–45: Guggenheim grant to Wildcat Hill
In January 1935 Weston was facing increasing financial difficulties. He closed his studio in Carmel and moved to Santa Monica Canyon, California, where he opened a new studio with Brett. He implored Wilson to come and live with him, and in August 1935 she finally agreed. While she had an intense interest in his work, Wilson was the first woman Weston had lived with since Flora who had no interest in becoming a photographer. This allowed Weston to concentrate on her as his muse and model, and in turn Wilson devoted her time to promoting Weston's art as his assistant and quasi-agent.
Almost immediately he began taking a new series of nudes with Wilson as the model. One of the first photographs he took of her, on the balcony of their home, became one of his most published images (Nude (Charis, Santa Monica)). Soon after they took the first of several trips to Oceano Dunes. It was there that Weston made some of his most daring and intimate photographs of any of his models, capturing Wilson in completely uninhibited poses in the sand dunes. He exhibited only one or two of this series in his lifetime, thinking several of the others were "too erotic" for the general public.
Although his recent work had received critical acclaim, he was not earning enough income from his artistic images to provide a steady income. Rather than going back to relying solely on portraiture, he started the "Edward Weston Print of the Month Club", offering selections of his photos for a monthly $5 subscription. Each month subscribers would receive a new print from Weston, with a limited edition of 40 copies of each print. Although he created these prints with the same high standards that he did for his exhibition prints, it is thought that he never had more than eleven subscribers.
At the suggestion of Beaumont Newhall, Weston decided to apply for a Guggenheim Foundation grant (now known as a Guggenheim Fellowship). He wrote a two-sentence description about his work, assembled thirty-five of his favorite prints, and sent it in. Afterward Dorothea Lange and her husband suggested that the application was too brief to be seriously considered, and Weston resubmitted it with a four-page letter and work plan. He did not mention that Wilson had written the new application for him.
On March 22, 1937, Weston received notification that he had been awarded a Guggenheim grant, the first ever given to a photographer. The award was $2,000 for one year, a significant amount of money at that time. He was able to further capitalize on the award by arranging to provide the editor of AAA Westway Magazine with 8–10 photos per month for $50 during their travels, with Wilson getting an additional $15 monthly for photo captions and short narratives. They purchased a new car and set out on Weston's dream trip to go and photograph whatever he wanted. Over the next twelve months they made seventeen trips and covered 16,697 miles according to Wilson's detailed log. Weston made 1,260 negatives during the trip.
The freedom of this trip with the "love of his life", combined with all of his sons now reaching the age of adulthood, gave Weston the motivation to finally divorce his wife. They had been living apart for sixteen years.
Due to the success of the past year, Weston applied for and received a second year of Guggenheim support. Although he wanted to do some additional traveling, he intended to use most of the money to allow him to print his past year's work. He commissioned Neil to build a small home in the Carmel Highlands on property owned by Wilson's father. They named the place "Wildcat Hill" because of the many domestic cats that soon occupied the grounds.
Wilson set up a writing studio in what was intended to be a small garage behind the house, and she spent several months writing and editing stories from their travels.
In 1939, Seeing California with Edward Weston was published, with photographs by Weston and writing by Wilson. Finally relieved from the financial stresses of the past and inordinately happy with his work and his relationship, Weston married Wilson in a small ceremony on April 24.
Buoyed by the success of their first book, in 1940 they published California and the West. The first edition, featuring 96 of Weston's photos with text by Wilson, sold for $3.95. Over the summer, Weston taught photography at the first Ansel Adams Workshop at Yosemite National Park.
Just as the Guggenheim money was running out, Weston was invited to illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He would receive $1,000 for photographs and $500 travel expenses. Weston insisted on having artistic control of the images he would take and insisted that he would not be taking literal illustrations of Whitman's text. On May 28 he and Wilson began a trip that would cover 20,000 miles through 24 states; he took between 700 and 800 8x10 negatives as well as dozens of Graflex portraits.
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the United States entered World War II. Weston was near the end of the Whitman trip, and he was deeply affected by the outbreak of the war. He wrote: "When the war broke out we scurried home. Charis did not want to scurry. I did."
He spent the first few months of 1942 organizing and printing the negatives from the Whitman trip. Of the hundreds of images he took, forty-nine were selected for publication.
Due to the war, Point Lobos was closed to the public for several years. Weston continued to work on images centered on Wildcat Hill, including shots of the many cats that lived there. Weston treated them with the same serious intent that he applied to all of his other subjects, and Charis assembled the results into their most unusual publication, The Cats of Wildcat Hill, which was finally published in 1947.
The year 1945 marked the beginning of significant changes for Weston. He began to experience the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease, a debilitating ailment that gradually stole his strength and his ability to photograph. He withdrew from Wilson, who at the same time began to become more involved in local politics and the Carmel cultural scene. A strength that originally brought them together – her lack of interest in becoming a photographer herself – eventually led to their break-up. She wrote, "My flight from Edward was also partly an escape from photography, which had taken up so much room in my life for so many years."
While working on a major retrospective exhibition for the Museum of Modern Art, he and Wilson separated. Weston returned to Glendale since the land for their cabin at Wildcat Hill still belonged to Wilson's father. Within a few months she moved out and arranged to sell the property to him.
1946–58: Final years
In February 1946, Weston's major retrospective opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He and Beaumont Newhall selected 313 prints for the exhibition, and eventually 250 photographs were displayed along with 11 negatives. At that time many of his prints were still for sale, and he sold 97 prints from the exhibit at $25 per print. Later that year, Weston was asked by Dr. George L. Waters of Kodak to produce 8 × 10 Kodachrome transparencies for their advertising campaign. Weston had never worked in color before, primarily because he had no means of developing or printing the more complicated color process. He accepted their offer in no small part because they offered him $250 per image, the highest amount he would be paid for any single work in his lifetime. He eventually sold seven color works to Kodak of landscapes and scenery at Point Lobos and nearby Monterey harbor.
In 1947 as his Parkinson's disease progressed, Weston began looking for an assistant. Serendipitously, an eager young photographic enthusiast, Dody Weston Thompson, contacted him in search of employment.
Weston mentioned he had just that morning written a letter to Ansel Adams, looking for someone seeking to learn photography in exchange for carrying his bulky large-format camera and to provide a much needed automobile. There was a swift meeting of creative minds. For the remainder of 1947 through the beginning of 1948, Dody commuted from San Francisco on weekends to learn from Weston the basics of photography. In early 1948, Dody moved into "Bodie House," the guest cottage at Edward's Wildcat Hill compound, as his full-time assistant.
By late 1948 he was no longer physically able to use his large view camera. That year he took his last photographs, at Point Lobos. His final negative was an image he called, "Rocks and Pebbles, 1948". Although diminished in his capacity, Weston never stopped being a photographer. He worked with his sons and Dody to catalog his images and especially to oversee the publication and printing of his work. In 1950 there was a major retrospective of his work at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris, and in 1952 he published a Fiftieth Anniversary portfolio, with images printed by Brett.
During this time he worked with Cole, Brett, and Dody Thompson (Brett's wife by 1952), to select and have them print a master set of what he considered his best work. They spent many long hours together in the darkroom, and by 1956 they had produced what Weston called "The Project Prints", eight sets of 8" × 10" prints from 830 of his negatives. The only complete set today is housed at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Later that same year the Smithsonian Institution displayed nearly 100 of these prints at a major exhibit, "The World of Edward Weston", paying tribute to his accomplishments in American photography.
Weston died at his home on Wildcat Hill on New Year's Day, 1958. His sons scattered his ashes into the Pacific Ocean at an area then known as Pebbly Beach on Point Lobos. Due to Weston's significant influence in the area, the beach was later renamed Weston Beach. He had $300 in his bank account at the time of his death.
Equipment and techniques
Cameras and lenses
During his lifetime Weston worked with several cameras. He began as a more serious photographer in 1902 when he purchased a 5 × 7 camera. When he moved to Tropico, now part of Glendale, and opened his studio in 1911, he acquired an enormous 11 x 14 Graf Variable studio portrait camera. Roi Partridge, Imogen Cunningham's husband, later made an etching of Weston in his studio, dwarfed by the giant camera in front of him. After he began taking more portraits of children, he bought a 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ Graflex in 1912 to better capture their quickly changing expressions.
When he went to Mexico in 1924 he took an 8 × 10 Seneca folding-bed view camera with several lenses, including a Graf Variable and a Wollensak Verito. While in Mexico he purchased a used Rapid Rectilinear lens which was his primary lens for many years. The lens, now in the George Eastman House, did not have a manufacturer's name. He also took to Mexico a 3¼ × 4¼ Graflex with a ƒ/4.5 Tessar lens, which he used for portraits.
In 1933 he purchased a 4 × 5 R. B. Auto-Graflex] and used it thereafter for all portraits. He continued to use the Seneca view camera for all other work.
In 1939 he listed the following items as his standard equipment:
8 x 10 Century Universal
Triple convertible Turner Reich, 12", 21", 28"
K2, G, A filters
12 film holders
Paul Ries Tripod
He continued to use this equipment throughout his life.
Film
Prior to 1921 Weston used an orthochromatic sheet film, but when panchromatic film became widely available in 1921 he switched to it for all of his work. According to his son Cole, after Agfa Isopan film came out in the 1930s Weston used it for his black-and-white images for the rest of his life. This film was rated at about ISO 25, but the developing technique Weston used reduced the effective rating to about ISO 12.
The 8 × 10 cameras he preferred were large and heavy, and due to the weight and the cost of the film he never carried more than twelve sheet film holders with him. At the end of each day, he had to go into a darkroom, unload the film holders and load them with new film. This was especially challenging when he was traveling since he had to find a darkened room somewhere or else set up a makeshift darkroom made from heavy canvas.
In spite of the bulky size of the view camera, Weston boasted he could "set up the tripod, fasten the camera securely to it, attach the lens to the camera, open the shutter, study the image on the ground glass, focus it, close the shutter, insert the plate holder, cock the shutter, set it to the appropriate aperture and speed, remove the slide from the plate holder, make the exposure, replace the slide, and remove the plate holder in two minutes and twenty seconds."
The smaller Graflex cameras he used had the advantage of using film magazines that held either 12 or 18 sheets of film. Weston preferred these cameras when taking portraits because he could respond more quickly to the sitter. He reported that with his Graflex he once made three dozen negatives of Tina Modotti within 20 minutes.In 1946 a representative from Kodak asked Weston to try out their new Kodachrome film, and over the next two years he made at least 60 8 x 10 color images using this film." They were some of the last photographs he took, since by late 1948 he was no longer able to operate a camera due to the effects of his Parkinson's disease.
Exposures
During the first 20 years of his photography Weston determined all of his exposure settings by estimation based on his previous experiences and the relatively narrow tolerances of the film at that time. He said, "I dislike to figure out time, and find my exposures more accurate when only "felt"." In the late 1930s he acquired a Weston exposure meter and continued to use it as an aid to determine exposures throughout his career. Photo historian Nancy Newhall wrote that "Young photographers are confused and amazed when they behold him measuring with his meter every value in the sphere where he intends to work, from the sky to the ground under his feet. He is "feeling the light" and checking his own observations. After which he puts the meter away and does what he thinks. Often he adds up everything ‒ filters, extension, film, speed, and so on ‒ and doubles the computation." Weston, Newhall noted, believed in "massive exposure", which he then compensated for by hand-processing the film in a weak developer solution and individually inspecting each negative as it continued to develop to get the right balance of highlights and shadows.
The low ISO rating of the sheet film Weston used necessitated very long exposures when using his view camera, ranging from 1 to 3 seconds for outdoor landscape exposures to as long as 4½ hours for still lifes such as peppers or shells. When he used one of the Graflex cameras the exposure times were much shorter (usually less than ¼ second), and he was sometimes able to work without a tripod.
Darkroom
Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days.
When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives."
In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life.
Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints.
Paper
Early in his career Weston printed on several kinds of paper, including Velox, Apex, Convira, Defender Velour Black and Haloid. When he went to Mexico he learned how to use platinum and palladium paper, made by Willis & Clement and imported from England. After his return to California, he abandoned platinum and palladium printing due to the scarcity and increasing price of the paper. Eventually he was able to get most of the same qualities he preferred with Kodak's Azo glossy silver gelatin paper developed in Amidol. He continued to use this paper almost exclusively until he stopped printing.
Writings
Weston was a prolific writer. His Daybooks were published in two volumes totaling more than 500 pages in the first edition. This does not include the years of the journal he kept between 1915 and 1923; for reasons he never made clear he destroyed those before leaving for Mexico. He also wrote dozens of articles and commentaries, beginning in 1906 and ending in 1957. He hand-wrote or typed at least 5,000 letters to colleagues, friends, lovers, his wives and his children.
In addition, Weston kept very thorough notes on the technical and business aspects of his work. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, which now houses most of Weston's archives, reports that it houses 75 linear feet of pages from his Daybooks, correspondence, financial records, memorabilia, and other personal documents in his possession when he died.
Among Weston's most important early writings are those that provide insights into his development of the concept of previsualization. He first spoke and wrote about the concept in 1922, at least a decade before Ansel Adams began utilizing the term, and he continued to expand upon this idea both in writing and in his teachings. Historian Beaumont Newhall noted the significance of Weston's innovation in his book The History of Photography, saying "The most important part of Edward Weston's approach was his insistence that the photographer should previsualize the final print before making the exposure."
In his Daybooks he provided an unusually detailed record of his evolution as an artist. Although he initially denied that his images reflect his own interpretations of the subject matter, by 1932 his writings revealed that he had come to accept the importance of artistic impression in his work. When combined with his photographs, his writings provide an extraordinarily vivid series of insights into his development as an artist and his impact of future generations of photographers.
Quotations
"Form follows function." Who said this I don't know, but the writer spoke well.
I am not a technician and have no interest in technique for its own sake. If my technique is adequate to present my seeing then I need nothing more.
I see no reason for recording the obvious.
If there is symbolism in my work, it can only be the seeing of parts ‒ fragments ‒ as universal symbols. All basic forms are so closely related as to be visually equivalent.
My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.
My work-purpose, my theme, can most nearly be stated as the recognition, recording and presentation of the interdependence, the relativity, of all things ‒ the universality of basic form.
The camera sees more than the eye, so why not make use of it?
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.
What then is the end toward which I work? To present the significance of facts, so that they are transformed from things seen to things known.
When money enters in ‒ then, for a price, I become a liar ‒ and a good one I can be whether with pencil or subtle lighting or viewpoint. I hate it all, but so do I support not only my family, but my own work.
Legacy
As of 2013, two of Weston's photographs feature among the most expensive photographs ever sold. The Nude, 1925 taken in 1925 was bought by the gallerist Peter MacGill for $1.6 million in 2008. Nautilus of 1927 was sold for $1.1 million in 2010, also to MacGill.
Major exhibitions
1970, the Rencontres d'Arles festival (France) presented an exhibition "Hommage à Edward Weston" and an evening screening of the film The Photographer (1948) by Willard Van Dyke.
November 25, 1986 – March 29, 1987 Edward Weston in Los Angeles at Huntington Library
1986 Edward Weston: Color Photography at Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
May 13 – August 27, 1989 Edward Weston in New Mexico at Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe
Edward Weston : the Last Years in Carmel at The Art Institute of Chicago, June 2 – September 16, 2001, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mar. 1 – July 9, 2002.
List of photographs
The artistic career of Weston spanned more than forty years, from roughly 1915 to 1956. A prolific photographer, he produced more than 1,000 black-and-white photographs and some 50 color images. This list is an incomplete selection of Weston's better-known photographs.
Notes
References
Sources
Abbott, Brett. Edward Weston: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005.
Alinder, Mary Street. Group f.64: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and the Community of Artists Who Revolutionized American Photography. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2014.
Bunnell, Peter C. Edward Weston on Photography. Salt Lake City: P. Smith Books, 1983.
Bunnell, Peter C., David Featherston et al. EW 100: Centennial Essays in Honor of Edward Weston. Carmel, Calif. : Friends of Photography, 1986.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston in Mexico, 1923–1926. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983.
Conger, Amy (1992). Edward Weston – Photographs From the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1992.
Conger, Amy. Edward Weston: The Form of The Nude. NY: Phaidon, 2006.
Edward Weston : Color Photography. Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1986.
Enyeart, James. Edward Weston's California landscapes. Boston : Little, Brown, 1984.
Foley, Kathy Kelsey. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister. Dayton: Dayton Art Institute, 1978.
Heyman, There Thau. Seeing Straight: The f.64 Revolution in Photography. Oakland: Oakland Art Museum, 1992.
Higgins, Gary. Truth, Myth and Erasure: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston. Tempe, Ariz. : School of Art, Arizona State University, 1991.
Hochberg, Judith and Michael P. Mattis. Edward Weston: Life Work. Photographs from the Collection of Judith G. Hochberg and Michael P. Mattis. Revere, Pa.: Lodima Press, c2003.
Hooks, Margaret. Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary. London: Pandora, 1993.
Lowe, Sarah M. Tina Modotti and Edward Weston the Mexico Years. London: Merrell, 2004.
Maddow, Ben. Edward Weston: Fifty Years; The Definitive Volume of His Photographic Work. Millerton, N.Y., Aperture, 1973. ,
Maggia, Filippo. Edward Weston. New York: Skira, 2013.
Mora, Gilles (ed.). Edward Weston: Forms of Passion. NY: Abrams, 1995.
Morgan, Susan. Portraits / Edward Weston. NY: Aperture, 1995.
Newhall, Beaumont (1984). Edward Weston Omnibus: A Critical Anthology. Salt Lake City : Peregrine Smith Books, 1984.
Newhall, Beaumont . Supreme Instants: The Photography of Edward Weston. Boston : Little, Brown, 1986.
Newhall, Nancy (ed.). Edward Weston; The Flame of Recognition: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY: Aperture, 1971.
Pitts, Terence. Edward Weston 1886–1958. Köln: Taschen, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E., Karen Quinn and Leslie Furth. Edward Weston : Photography and Modernism. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1999.
Stebins, Theodore E. Weston's Westons : Portraits and Nudes. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989.
Travis, David. Edward Weston, The Last Years in Carmel. Chicago: Art Institute, 2001.
Warren, Beth Gates. Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011.
Warren, Beth Gates. Edward Weston's Gifts to His Sister and Other Photographs. NY: Sotheby's, 2008.
Warren, Beth Gates (2001). Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration. NY: Norton, 2001.
Watts, Jennifer A. (ed.). Edward Weston : A Legacy. London: Merrell, 2003.
Weston, Edward (1964). The Daybooks of Edward Weston. Edited by Nancy Nehall. NY: Horizon Press, 1961–1964. 2 vols.
Weston, Edward. My Camera on Point Lobos; 30 Photographs and Excerpts from E. W.’s Daybook. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950.
Weston, Paulette. Laughing Eyes: a Book of Letters Between Edward and Cole Weston 1923–1946. Carmel: Carmel Publishing Co., 1999.
Wilson, Charis. Edward Weston Nudes: His Photographs Accompanied by Excerpts from the Daybooks & Letters. NY : Aperture, 1977.
Wilson, Charis. Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Woods, John. Dune: Edward & Brett Weston. Kalispell, MT: Wild Horse Island Press, 2003.
External links
edward-weston.com
Edward Weston Collection at the Center for Creative Photography
Ben Maddow "Edward Weston Lecture" The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1976. Retrieved June 26, 2012
The Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston and Charis Wilson Documentary concerning Edward Weston, his muse Charis Wilson and photographer Ansel Adams.
Encyclopædia Britannica
Landscape photographers
American portrait photographers
1886 births
1958 deaths
History of platinum printing
Photographers from California
Artists from Chicago
People from Highland Park, Illinois
Deaths from Parkinson's disease
Neurological disease deaths in California
20th-century American photographers
Fine art photographers
Olympic archers of the United States
American male archers
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"Isiah Thomas (born January 30, 1989) is an American professional boxer. As an amateur, he won a gold medal at the first-ever Junior World Boxing Championship for the United States at the 2005 Cadet World Championships.\n\nAmateur career\nA natural southpaw, Thomas had his first bout in 2002 and continued his winning ways en route to becoming a two-time Junior Olympic National Champion as well as easily winning the World Championships, garnering praise from Emanuel Steward: \"I have a kid who will be the next big thing—Isiah Thomas. I don't have to teach him much, he's a gifted athlete. I haven't seen anyone as good since Mays.\"\n\nHis amateur career, however, stalled somewhat as his two losses against compatriots in 2006 and his loss to Deontay Wilder at the 2007 National Golden Gloves attested.\n\nProfessional career\nHe turned professional at light heavyweight in 2008.\n\nIn December 2015, Thomas fought Murat Gassiev in a fight that was ruled a no contest after Thomas was hit after the bell in the third round.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAmateur record\n\nLiving people\nBoxers from Detroit\nHeavyweight boxers\nSouthpaw boxers\n1989 births\nAfrican-American boxers\nAmerican male boxers\n21st-century African-American sportspeople",
"\"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" is a song by American indie rock band Black Kids from their debut album, Partie Traumatic (2008). It was released as the band's debut single by Almost Gold Recordings on April 7, 2008, in the United Kingdom, and on May 27, 2008, in North America. The song peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart but did not chart in the United States. The demo version from the band's 2007 EP Wizard of Ahhhs placed at number 68 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Tracks of 2007.\n\nBackground\nAccording to lead singer Reggie Youngblood, the track was inspired by Jacksonville's dance party scene: he realized that usually, he would end up with girls who couldn't dance. The line \"You are the girl, that I've been dreaming of, ever since I was a little girl\" is based on an inside joke between Reggie and his sister Ali Youngblood where they would refer to wanting something as \"Ever since I was a little girl\".\n\nReception\nIn a review of Partie Traumatic on AllMusic, Tim Sendra called \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" one of the best songs on the album, writing that it \"kick[s] you in the gut with [its] energy and verve.\" Commercially, the single performed well in the United Kingdom, debuting at number 84 on April 6, 2008, and rising to its peak of number 11 the following week. It became a minor hit in the Flanders region of Belgium, reaching number 10 on the Ultratip listing.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs were written by Black Kids except where noted.\n\n7-inch single (pink vinyl)\nA. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\nB. \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n\nUK 12-inch single (white vinyl)\nA1. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\nB1. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:46\nB2. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix – Dub Version) – 3:46\n\nCD single and EP\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\n \"You Turn Me On\" – 2:50\n \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n\nUS and Canadian digital download\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:40\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:44\n\nUK digital download EP\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\n \"You Turn Me On\" – 2:50\n \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:46\n\nPersonnel\n Owen Holmes – bass guitar\n Kevin Snow – drums\n Dawn Watley – keyboards and vocals\n Ali Youngblood – keyboards and vocals\n Reggie Youngblood – guitar and vocals\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official Black Kids website\n\n2008 debut singles\n2008 songs\nBlack Kids songs\nSongs about dancing"
]
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"The Doors",
"L.A. Woman"
]
| C_4f629e20ef864be0bd2f0d9e56f1ff3e_0 | What is L.A. Woman? | 1 | What is L.A. Woman? | The Doors | Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, The Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at #9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors. The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the last of these being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Jim Morrison scrambles the letters of his own name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison. On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson. He had visited the city the previous summer and was interested in moving there to become a writer in exile. CANNOTANSWER | album | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | true | [
"\"Riddles Wisely Expounded\" is a traditional English song, dating at least to 1450. It is Child Ballad 1 and Roud 161, and exists in several variants. The first known tune was attached to it in 1719. The title \"Riddles Wisely Expounded\" was given by Francis James Child and seems derived from the seventeenth century broadside version \"A Noble Riddle Wisely Expounded\".\n\nOrigins and Context \nThe motif of riddling in folklore is very ancient, the stories of Oedipus and Samson giving two early examples. The particular form used here matches the folktale Aarne-Thompson type 875 The Clever Girl where a woman wins a husband by her clever answers to riddles. Other tales of this type include What Is the Fastest Thing in the World? and The Wise Little Girl. There are strong parallels with ballads in other languages, with many German, and Scottish and Irish Gaelic versions known to exist. There is also significant crossover with other popular English language ballads, such as The Two Sisters (Child 10) and The False Knight on the Road (Child 3) and The Elfin Knight (Child 2).\n\nInter diabolus et virgo, \"between the devil and the maiden\" (c1450) \nIn the earliest surviving version of the song, the \"foul fiend\" proposes to abduct a maiden unless she can answer a series of riddles. The woman prays to Jesus for wisdom, and answers the riddles correctly.\n\nFirst two verses \nWol ye here a wonder thynge (\"Will you hear a wondrous story,)\n\nBetwyxt a mayd and the fovle fende? (Between a maid and the foul fiend (Devil)?\")\n\nThys spake the fend to the mayd: (Thus spoke the fiend (Devil) to the maid:)\n\n'Beleue on me, mayd, to day. (\"Believe on me, maid, today.\")\n\nSome riddles \n'What ys hyer than ys [the] tre? (\"What is higher than is the tree?)\n\nWhat ys dypper than ys the see? (What is deeper than is the sea?\")\n\n'What ys scharpper than ys the thorne? (\"What is sharper than is the thorn?)\n\nWhat ys loder than ys the horne? (What is louder than is the horn?\")\n\n'What [ys] longger than ys the way? (\"What is longer(broader) than is the way?)\n\nWhat is rader than ys the day? (What is redder than is the day?)\n\nSome answers \n'Hewene ys heyer than ys the tre, (\"Heaven is higher than is the tree)\n\nHelle ys dypper than ys the see. (Hell is deeper than is the sea.)\n\n'Hongyr ys scharpper than [ys] the thorne, (\"Hunger is sharper than is the thorn,)\n\nThonder ys lodder than ys the horne. (Thunder is louder than is the horn.)\n\n'Loukynge ys longer than ys the way, (Looking is longer(broader) than is the way,)\n\nSyn ys rader than ys the day. (Sin is redder than is the day.)\n\n\"A Noble Riddle Wisely Expounded\" \nIn a seventeenth century version entitled \"A Noble Riddle Wisely Expounded\", the words of each verse are interspersed with a chorus phrase \"lay the bent to the bonny broom\". A. L. Lloyd euphemistically describes this as a phrase of \"physiological significance\", explaining that the word \"bent\" means a horn. \"Broom\" most likely refers to the flowering shrub. This version is very similar to The Two Sisters (Child 10).'If thou canst answer me questions three,\n\nLay the bent to the bonny broom\n\nThis very day will I marry thee.'\n\nFa la la la, fa la la la ra reIn later versions, including this one, a knight puts a woman to test before he marries her (sometimes after seducing her); the woman knows the answers, and wins the marriage. In other versions, a devil disguised as a knight tries to carry the woman off.\n\nThe riddles vary, but typical ones include:\nWhat is longer than the way? -- love\nWhat is deeper than the sea? -- hell\nWhat is louder than the horn? -- thunder\nWhat is sharper than a thorn? -- hunger\nWhat is whiter than milk? -- snow\nWhat is softer than silk? -- down\nWhat is worse than woman was? -- the devil\n\nRecent versions and traditional recordings \n\nThe most commonly found traditional version in recent times, usually entitled \"Ninety-nine and ninety\", begins roughly as follows:Now you must answer my questions nine\n\nSing ninety-nine and ninety,\n\nOr you aren't God's you are one of mine\n\nAnd who is the weaver's bonny.\n\nWhat is whiter than milk?\n\nSing ninety-nine and ninety;\n\nAnd what is softer than silk?\n\nAnd who is the weaver's bonny.Traditional recordings of this version have been made several times in the twentieth century. American recordings include those performed by the Appalachian traditional singer Texas Gladden (recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax in 1941) Nancy Philley of Fayetteville, Arkansas (1963) and Alfreda Peel of Salem, Virginia (1932). Jeff Wesley of Whittlebury, Northamptonshire, England (1988) sang a very similar version, suggesting that this popular version came from England relatively recently.\n\nPopular versions\n\nRecordings\n\nModern literary retellings include Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary by Pamela Dean and \"A Diorama of the Infernal Regions, or the Devil's Ninth Question,\" by Andy Duncan.\n\nSee also\nList of the Child Ballads\nThe Fause Knight Upon the Road\nThe Elfin Knight\nProud Lady Margaret\nThe Riddle Song\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Niles, John Jacob, Ron Pen, and WILLIAM BARSS. \"Riddles Wisely Expounded (Child No. 1).\" In The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, 1-10. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2000. doi:10.2307/j.ctt130jnj1.6.\n\nExternal links\nRiddles Wisely Expounded with 18th- and 19th-century melodies, and text to \"Inter diabolus et virgo\"\n\nChild Ballads\nTraditional music",
"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"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"L.A. Woman",
"What is L.A. Woman?",
"album"
]
| C_4f629e20ef864be0bd2f0d9e56f1ff3e_0 | What songs are part of this album? | 2 | What songs are part of The Doors, L.A. Woman album? | The Doors | Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, The Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at #9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors. The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the last of these being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Jim Morrison scrambles the letters of his own name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison. On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson. He had visited the city the previous summer and was interested in moving there to become a writer in exile. CANNOTANSWER | "Love Her Madly" | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | true | [
"\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" is the debut mainstream single from Raven-Symoné featuring rapper Missy Elliott (credited as her full name \"Melissa Elliott\"), taken from her debut studio album, Here's to New Dreams. This is Symoné's highest chart appearance to date.\n\nThe song was written and produced by Missy Elliott, who performs a verse of scat singing and Jamaican-style toasting, but the music video featured a thinner light-skinned actress lip-syncing her part. On Behind the Music Elliott reveals that she was not informed of the video shoot and later told she \"didn't quite fit the image that we were looking for\" — later taking her revenge with an oversized garbage-bag costume in her groundbreaking 1997 video \"The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly).\" Despite the setback Elliott received by the music industry over not being in the video; Elliott and Symone have expressed on Twitter respect for each other which the latter expressed interest in another collaboration.\n\nTrack listing \n12\"\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" — 3:15\n\nCassette\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\"— 3:15\n\nVinyl, 12\"\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" (Extended Dub Remix) — 5:25\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" (Bogle Mix) — 3:52\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" (Raggamuffin Dub Semi-Instrumental) — 3:56\n\nCD Single, Vinyl, 12\", Promo\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" (Album Version) — 5:25\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" (Album Dub Version) — 3:52\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" (Dub Remix Radio Edit) — 5:28\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" (Boogie Mix) — 3:52\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" (Extended Dub Instrumental) — 5:27\n\"That's What Little Girls Are Made Of\" (Raggamuffin Dub Semi-instrumental) — 3:56\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences \n\n1993 debut singles\nRaven-Symoné songs\nMissy Elliott songs\nSongs written by Missy Elliott\nSongs based on children's songs\n1992 songs\nMCA Records singles",
"\"What You're Proposing\" is a single released by the British rock band Status Quo in 1980. It was included on their album Just Supposin'.\n\nThe B-side is \"A B Blues\", a non-album instrumental studio jam. Some later pressings of this single mis-credited Andy Bown as Andy Brown on the B-side composer's credit. The initial pressing run of 75,000 copies of this single were issued with a colour picture sleeve.\n\nThe song was reprised, in 2014, for the band's thirty-first studio album Aquostic (Stripped Bare). It was featured in the ninety-minute launch performance of the album at London's Roundhouse on 22 October, the concert being recorded and broadcast live by BBC Radio 2 as part of their In Concert series.\n\nTrack listing \n \"What You're Proposing\" (Rossi/Frost) (4.13)\n \"A B Blues\" (Rossi/Parfitt/Lancaster/Coghlan/Bown) (4.33)\n\nCharts\n\nReferences \n\nStatus Quo (band) songs\n1980 singles\nSongs written by Francis Rossi\n1980 songs\nVertigo Records singles"
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"L.A. Woman",
"What is L.A. Woman?",
"album",
"What songs are part of this album?",
"\"Love Her Madly\""
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| C_4f629e20ef864be0bd2f0d9e56f1ff3e_0 | Did the album had any hit songs? | 3 | Did The Doors, L.A. Woman album had any hit songs? | The Doors | Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, The Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at #9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors. The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the last of these being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Jim Morrison scrambles the letters of his own name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison. On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson. He had visited the city the previous summer and was interested in moving there to become a writer in exile. CANNOTANSWER | L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | true | [
"\"Living in a Dream\" is the first single from Canadian alternative rock band Finger Eleven's sixth album, Life Turns Electric. It was released in August 2010. This song, along with \"Paralyzer\" from their last album, has a \"dance-rock\" feel to the track.\n\nThe song failed to be as big a hit internationally as the last album's lead single, \"Paralyzer\" was, failing to hit the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States and reaching the top five on any rock format.\n\nThe song was used as the official theme song for the 2011 WWE Royal Rumble event that is produced by WWE.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video released on October 21, 2010. It shows the band performing in a dark room.\n\nChart performance\n\"Living In a Dream\" did moderately well on the rock tracks, although underperforming the lead single \"Paralyzer\" from their previous album Them vs. You vs. Me. In the U.S., the single had strong debuts on both the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks and Alternative Songs. \"Living in a Dream\" eventually become a top 10 hit on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks and a top 15 hit on the Alternative Songs chart. The single failed to chart on the Hot 100, though. The song has also gone top 50 in Canada.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2010 singles\nFinger Eleven songs\n2010 songs\nSongs written by Gregg Wattenberg\nWind-up Records singles",
"Return of the 1 Hit Wonder is the fourth album by rapper, Young MC. The album was released in 1997 for Overall Records and was Young MC's first release on an independent record label. While the album did not chart on any album charts, it did have two charting singles; \"Madame Buttafly\" reached No. 25 on the Hot Rap Songs and \"On & Poppin\" reached No. 23. The title refers to Young MC's only Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit, \"Bust A Move\".\n\nTrack listing\n\"One Hit\" \n\"Freakie\" \n\"On & Poppin'\" \n\"You Ain't Gotta Lie Ta Kick It\" \n\"Madame Buttafly\" \n\"Lingerie\" \n\"Coast 2 Coast\" \n\"Fuel to the Fire\" \n\"Bring It Home\" \n\"Intensify\" \n\"Mr. Right Now\" \n\"On & Poppin'\" (Remix)\n\nReferences\n\nYoung MC albums\n1997 albums"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"L.A. Woman",
"What is L.A. Woman?",
"album",
"What songs are part of this album?",
"\"Love Her Madly\"",
"Did the album had any hit songs?",
"L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits"
]
| C_4f629e20ef864be0bd2f0d9e56f1ff3e_0 | What are the names of these songs? | 4 | What are the names of The Doors, L.A. Woman album two Top 20 hits? | The Doors | Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, The Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at #9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors. The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the last of these being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Jim Morrison scrambles the letters of his own name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison. On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson. He had visited the city the previous summer and was interested in moving there to become a writer in exile. CANNOTANSWER | ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | true | [
"is a song recorded by Japanese singer-songwriter Miliyah Kato for her debut album Rose. It was released as the album's third single on March 24, 2005. \"Dear Lonely Girl\" is considered an answer song to ECD's \"ECD no Lonely Girl\", from which it samples its structure. Both songs sample the melody of Marvin Gaye's \"Sexual Healing\" and the hook of idol singer Yuri Satō's \"Lonely Girl\" (1983), which became the chorus of Kato's song.\n\nThe hook of Kato's \"Dear Lonely Girl\" involves her shouting out various feminine given names. These names are lifted from both Kato's real life, including the names of members of her entourage, and from fiction, namely character names from the premier cell phone novel series Deep Love.\n\nKato's song \"Lipstick\" (2015) was written from the perspective of the same protagonist, but ten years later. In 2017, Kato released the song \"Shinyaku Dear Lonely Girl\" featuring ECD, in which she samples \"Dear Lonely Girl\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nCD single\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\n2005 songs\nMiliyah Kato songs\nMastersix Foundation singles\nSongs written by Marvin Gaye\nSongs written by Odell Brown",
"ISIRTA episodes and songs: a list of episodes and sketches from the comedy radio series I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, and the songs which were featured in the episodes.\n\nThe songs are listed after the episodes on which they were featured (the listing of songs is unfortunately incomplete). Also included, where known, are the names of the script writers of the episodes, as well as the names of the singers and songwriters.\n\nThe original episode titles are unknown for the following songs:\n \"Baby Samba\" and \"Rock With A Policeman\".\n \"Blimpht\" is listed under two episodes in a special recording of \"Robin Hood\" / \"The Curse of the Flying Wombat\".\n \"Identikit Gal\" is listed under two episodes in a special recording of \"Robin Hood\" / \"The Curse of the Flying Wombat\".\n\nFor information about the cast and characters of the episodes and sketches, please click on the episode titles.\n\nEpisodes\n\nI'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again"
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[
"The Doors",
"L.A. Woman",
"What is L.A. Woman?",
"album",
"What songs are part of this album?",
"\"Love Her Madly\"",
"Did the album had any hit songs?",
"L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits",
"What are the names of these songs?",
"(\"Love Her Madly\" and \"Riders on the Storm\")"
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| C_4f629e20ef864be0bd2f0d9e56f1ff3e_0 | Who else contributed to the making of this album? | 5 | Who else contributed to the making of L.A. Woman album aside from The Doors? | The Doors | Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, The Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at #9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors. The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the last of these being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Jim Morrison scrambles the letters of his own name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison. On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson. He had visited the city the previous summer and was interested in moving there to become a writer in exile. CANNOTANSWER | rhythm guitarist Marc Benno | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | true | [
"The discography of Razorlight, an English indie rock band, consists of four studio albums and thirteen singles. Razorlight's debut album, Up All Night, was released in the United Kingdom in June 2004 and reached number three on the UK Album Chart. The album included the single, \"Somewhere Else\", which peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart. The band contributed the song \"Kirby's House\" to the War Child charity album Help!: A Day in the Life.\n\nThe band released their second album, Razorlight, in July 2006 and it debuted at number one in the UK. The lead single from the album, \"In the Morning\", peaked at number three in the UK. The band's third album, Slipway Fires, was issued in November 2008, preceded by the lead single \"Wire to Wire\". The second single was \"Hostage of Love\"; however, it failed to enter the charts in any other country than Germany. As a result planned further releases from the album were cancelled. After a ten-year break, the band released their fourth album, Olympus Sleeping, in October 2018.\n\nStudio albums\n\nSingles\n\nNotes\n\nA^ \"Rip It Up\" was originally released in the UK in 2003 and peaked at number 42, but was re-released in 2004 and reached new peak of 20.\n\nMusic videos\n \"Rock 'n' Roll Lies\"\n \"Vice\"\n \"Stumble and Fall\"\n \"Golden Touch\"\n \"Somewhere Else\"\n \"In the Morning\"\n \"I Can't Stop This Feeling I've Got\"\n \"America\"\n \"Wire to Wire\"\n \"Hostage of Love\"\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\nDiscographies of British artists\nDiscographies of Swedish artists\nRock music group discographies",
"\"Sisters of Avalon\" is a single from the 1997 album of the same name, by American singer Cyndi Lauper. This single was only released in Japan. A sampler was released as a promo only CD in the United States.\n\nSong information\n\nThe song is about sisterhood and it shows the power of women Lauper wanted to show through the song and the album as a whole. As a result of the song, Lauper wanted to work with female writers and producers during a lot of the making of the album.\n\nA video was shot for the song when it was released. Of the video, Lauper said:\n\n\"This one has a little bit of a story in it too because it's kind of the rites of passage of women. It has women symbols. I wanted to show the force of nature and the energy of the song. It's really wonderful... It's like you're making paintings and when you're the artist, as opposed to when I direct someone else, it's like performance art. I can't think of any other job I could have where I can enjoy the process of making these little films.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nJapan CD Single\n \"Sisters of Avalon\" (single edit) - 3:46\n \"Sisters of Avalon\" (album version) - 4:21\n \"Unhook the Stars\" (album version) - 3:58\n\nOfficial versions\nAlbum version\nSingle edit – 3:46\nExtended version\n\nReferences\n\nCyndi Lauper songs\nSongs written by Cyndi Lauper\n1997 songs\nSongs written by Jan Pulsford"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"L.A. Woman",
"What is L.A. Woman?",
"album",
"What songs are part of this album?",
"\"Love Her Madly\"",
"Did the album had any hit songs?",
"L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits",
"What are the names of these songs?",
"(\"Love Her Madly\" and \"Riders on the Storm\")",
"Who else contributed to the making of this album?",
"rhythm guitarist Marc Benno"
]
| C_4f629e20ef864be0bd2f0d9e56f1ff3e_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 6 | Are there any other interesting aspects about guitarist Marc Benno in addition to the making of L.A. Woman album? | The Doors | Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, The Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at #9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors. The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the last of these being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Jim Morrison scrambles the letters of his own name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison. On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson. He had visited the city the previous summer and was interested in moving there to become a writer in exile. CANNOTANSWER | Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | 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"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"L.A. Woman",
"What is L.A. Woman?",
"album",
"What songs are part of this album?",
"\"Love Her Madly\"",
"Did the album had any hit songs?",
"L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits",
"What are the names of these songs?",
"(\"Love Her Madly\" and \"Riders on the Storm\")",
"Who else contributed to the making of this album?",
"rhythm guitarist Marc Benno",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors"
]
| C_4f629e20ef864be0bd2f0d9e56f1ff3e_0 | Why did Morrison took a leave of absence from the group? | 7 | Why did Morrison took a leave of absence from The Doors? | The Doors | Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, The Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at #9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors. The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the last of these being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Jim Morrison scrambles the letters of his own name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison. On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson. He had visited the city the previous summer and was interested in moving there to become a writer in exile. CANNOTANSWER | moved to Paris | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | true | [
"\"Llangollen Market\" is a song from early 19th century Wales. It is known to have been performed at an eisteddfod at Llangollen in 1858.\n\nThe text of the song survives in a manuscript held by the National Museum of Wales, which came into the possession of singer Mary Davies, a co-founder of the Welsh Folk-Song Society.\n\nThe song tells the tale of a young man from the Llangollen area going off to war and leaving behind his broken-hearted girlfriend. Originally written in English, the song has been translated into Welsh and recorded by several artists such as Siân James, Siobhan Owen, Calennig and Siwsann George.\n\nLyrics\nIt’s far beyond the mountains that look so distant here,\nTo fight his country’s battles, last Mayday went my dear;\nAh, well shall I remember with bitter sighs the day,\nWhy, Owen, did you leave me? At home why did I stay?\n\nAh, cruel was my father that did my flight restrain,\nAnd I was cruel-hearted that did at home remain,\nWith you, my love, contented, I’d journey far away;\nWhy, Owen, did you leave me? At home why did I stay?\n\nWhile thinking of my Owen, my eyes with tears do fill,\nAnd then my mother chides me because my wheel stands still,\nBut how can I think of spinning when my Owen’s far away;\nWhy, Owen, did you leave me? At home why did I stay?\n\nTo market at Llangollen each morning do I go,\nBut how to strike a bargain no longer do I know;\nMy father chides at evening, my mother all the day;\nWhy, Owen, did you leave me, at home why did I stay?\n\nOh, would it please kind heaven to shield my love from harm,\nTo clasp him to my bosom would every care disarm,\nBut alas, I fear, 'tis distant - that happy, happy day;\nWhy, Owen, did you leave me, at home why did stay?\n\nReferences\n\nWelsh folk songs",
"Labour Leave is a Eurosceptic campaign group in the United Kingdom. The group is unofficially affiliated with the Labour Party, and campaigned for the United Kingdom to vote to withdraw from the European Union, in the June 2016 EU Referendum. The group was led by eurosceptic Labour MPs: Graham Stringer, Kelvin Hopkins, and Roger Godsiff. \n\nKate Hoey was another co chair in the group, until she reportedly resigned in February 2016. Labour MP Gisela Stuart did not participate in the group, instead chairing the official leave campaign, Vote Leave.\n\nJohn Mills officially resigned as chairman of Labour Leave, in July 2018. The supporters page of the website, in January 2019, listed only Brendan Chilton (chair) and MPs, Kate Hoey and Frank Field (on 30 August 2018, Field had resigned the Labour whip). Chilton is also the general secretary, and the only director of Labour Leave Limited. The group is still active, as of .\n\nPosition within Vote Leave\nThe organisation's position within the Vote Leave campaign has been seen as precarious, a source close to the campaign told the Morning Star, due to a perceived domination of the Vote Leave campaign by Conservative and UKIP officials. Of Vote Leave's seventeen strong governing board, only two members (Mills and Stringer) are members of Labour Leave.\n\nIn response to this, the idea of a campaign wholly independent of both Vote Leave and Leave.EU had been suggested by Hoey and Hopkins, among others.\n\nFunding For The Group\n\nAdam Barnett, on the left wing political blog, Left Foot Forward, wrote that Labour Leave's two biggest funders were Conservative Party donors, and its third biggest funder was the official campaign group for Brexit, Vote Leave, an organisation which is (mostly) Conservative.\n\nThe Electoral Commission shows Labour Leave received £15,000 from Vote Leave in February. It also received £50,000, from donor of the Conservatives, Jeremy Hosking, who had given the Conservatives almost £570,000, by June 2016.\n\nHosking donated £100,000 to the Conservative Party in April 2015, and donated £50,000 in March 2016 (the same month he gave £50,000 to Labour Leave). Labour Leave took a further £150,000 in May from Richard Smith, believed to be the owner of 55 Tufton Street in Westminster (home of several right wing groups). \n\nBarnett attributed this collaboration, between opposing political organisations, to a desire by the Conservatives to split the vote, on the Labour EU Referendum, as it was alleged that Labour members were unsure, of their party's position on Brexit. \n\nLabour Leave continue to raise money, from crowd sourcing campaigns, and from direct donations from their supporters and members. Labour Leave was fined £9,000 in March 2019, by the Electoral Commission, for an inaccurate campaign spending return, and inaccurate donation reports, at the 2016 EU Referendum.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nLexit The Movie\nThe inside story of Labour Leave: the left-wing Eurosceptics who toppled a Tory prime minister\nLabour Leave has no confidence in David Cameron's EU renegotiation\nJohn Mills: Why top Labour donor is backing calls for a Brexit from the EU\nVote Leave launches\nNigel Griffiths in EU exit stunt ahead of Gordon Brown speech\nOfficial Twitter account\n\n2015 establishments in the United Kingdom\nEuroscepticism in the United Kingdom\nOrganisations associated with the Labour Party (UK)\nOrganizations established in 2015\n2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum\nBrexit–related advocacy groups in the United Kingdom"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"L.A. Woman",
"What is L.A. Woman?",
"album",
"What songs are part of this album?",
"\"Love Her Madly\"",
"Did the album had any hit songs?",
"L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits",
"What are the names of these songs?",
"(\"Love Her Madly\" and \"Riders on the Storm\")",
"Who else contributed to the making of this album?",
"rhythm guitarist Marc Benno",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors",
"Why did Morrison took a leave of absence from the group?",
"moved to Paris"
]
| C_4f629e20ef864be0bd2f0d9e56f1ff3e_0 | Did Morrison later return to the group? | 8 | Did Morrison later return from paris to The Doors? | The Doors | Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, The Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at #9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors. The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the last of these being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Jim Morrison scrambles the letters of his own name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison. On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson. He had visited the city the previous summer and was interested in moving there to become a writer in exile. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | false | [
"Mark Morrison (born 3 May 1972) is a British R&B singer. His single, \"Return of the Mack\", became a No. 1 or top 10 hit in several European countries in 1996. The song peaked at No. 2 in the United States the following year.\n\nEarly life and education\n\nBorn in Hanover, West Germany, to Bajan parents, Morrison grew up in Highfields, Leicester, United Kingdom. He attended Soar Valley Academy, before moving to Miami, Florida. At the age of nineteen, he moved back to the UK.\n\nCareer \n\nMark Morrison's first official recording was the 1993 vinyl release \"Where Is Our Love\", pressed on his own private Joe'Mel label.\n\nIn mid-1995, Morrison released his debut single, \"Crazy\", which became a Top-20 hit in the UK, and was a club favourite. The follow-up single, \"Let's Get Down\", also entered the Top 40. They were followed in the spring of 1996 by \"Return of the Mack\", which became a smash international hit, spending two weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart.\n\nHis debut album, also titled Return of the Mack, followed and became a multi-platinum success. It reached number four in the UK chart and sold 3 million albums worldwide. It spun off several more hit singles over the next year: \"Crazy (Remix)\", \"Trippin'\", \"Horny\", and \"Moan & Groan\" would all reach the UK Top 10, making him the first artist in British pop history to have five Top 10 hits from a debut album.\n\nAlthough his career was going well, Morrison was constantly in trouble with the police. In 1997, he was imprisoned. The same year he received numerous nominations: four Brit Awards nominations, a Mercury Prize nomination, an MTV Europe Music Awards nomination, and five Music of Black Origin Awards (MOBO) nominations. \"Return of the Mack\" began to climb its way to No. 2 on the American Billboard charts, receiving platinum status. It stayed on the Billboard charts for a lengthy 40 weeks. Morrison had one minor US hit, 1997's \"Moan & Groan,\" which went to number 76.\n\nMorrison performed at the 1997 Brit Awards. The performance influenced WEA and Morrison to release Only God Can Judge Me, a nine-track EP which contains live performances, interviews, prayers, and three full-length songs including \"Who's the Mack!\" which reached No. 13 in the UK.\n\nReturn of the Mack \n\nMorrison appeared on the 1999 Brit Awards where he presented an award, introduced Whitney Houston and announced his return to music. In September 1999, a single titled \"Best Friend\" featuring Connor Reeves & Gabrielle became Morrison's ninth Top 40 hit single, reaching No. 23 on the UK Singles Chart. The following year, it was announced by Billboard that Morrison had signed a five-year worldwide deal with Death Row Records founder Suge Knight, making him the first, and only, European (British) artist to be signed with Death Row Records, in a deal which saw Death Row Records UK operating as an independent record label in conjunction with the Ritz Music Group (a company known for its success with Irish country music artists such as Daniel O'Donnell).\n\nHe later signed to soccer player Kevin Campbell's 2 Wikid label in 2003. His only release for the label, a single entitled \"Just a Man\"/\"Backstabbers\", was a minor UK hit, reaching No. 48 in the UK Singles Chart in August 2004.\n\nIn May 2006, Morrison released the limited edition CD/DVD album entitled Innocent Man in the United Kingdom on his private label, Mack Life Records/Mona Records. The title track, \"Innocent Man\", featuring DMX was released in March 2006. It was well received and reached No. 46 on the UK Singles Chart. In 2007, he was featured on hip-hop artist Cassidy's single titled \"Innocent (Misunderstood)\" from the B.A.R.S. The Barry Adrian Reese Story album. The track sampled Morrison's vocals from \"Innocent Man\", and charted on Billboard's Bubbling Under Singles chart.\n\nOn 29 January 2007, he released the single titled \"Dance 4 Me\" featuring Tanya Stephens. It was the fourth single to be released from his album Innocent Man. The official music video was directed by Ray Kay. Released on iTunes in 2020.\n\nIn 2012, Mark Morrison appeared as a guest feature on Houston rapper Trae tha Truth's \"I'm on 2.0\" which featured notable rappers Big K.R.I.T., Jadakiss, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, B.o.B, Tyga, Gudda Gudda and Bun B. A music video for \"I'm on 2.0\" starring Morrison and all artists featured was released on 3 June. Also in June 2012, he announced the release of a new single titled \"Ain't No Good\". The single was set to be released 29 July 2013 and paid homage to the charity Refuge. The single was unsuccessful, and shelved before release. It would ultimately remain unreleased.\n\nIn June 2013, Morrison released the music video to \"I Am What I Am\" shot by DIS Guise of Visionnaire Pictures, with the release date set for the single on iTunes of 1 September 2013. Despite being a fan-favourite, the single was shelved, and removed from purchase before its release.\n\nOn 20 October 2013, he released a single titled \"N.A.N.G. 2.0\" featuring Crooked I & Shonie.\n\nOn 7 July 2014, Morrison released an EP titled I Am What I Am. The EP included the singles \"I Am What I Am\" and \"N.A.N.G. 2.0\", with five additional new songs.\n\nIn May 2017, a series of Burger King commercials for Mac and Cheetos featured a remix of Morrison's classic, entitled \"Return of the Mac and Cheetos\".\n\nIn July 2020, McDonald's featured \"Return of the Mack\" in a UK television commercial, as part of a post-COVID-19 lockdown promotional campaign to mark the resumption of services and the gradual reopening of restaurants.\n\nIn 2021, Morrison was featured alongside Chris Brown on G-Eazy's single \"Provide\", singing its intro, as it sampled his classic single \"Return of the Mack\".\n\nLegal issues \nMorrison has faced various criminal charges during his career, including a 1997 conviction for attempting to bring a firearm aboard an airliner, for which he served three months in jail just as his hit song \"Return of the Mack\" began rising up the US Billboard charts. In 1998, he failed to appear in court on charges of possessing an offensive weapon, choosing to instead fly to Barbados. He was arrested and remanded into custody upon his return to the United Kingdom. He was later cleared of the offensive weapon charge.\n\nHe was convicted of affray for his part in a brawl resulting in one fatality and sentenced to community service. Morrison later was incarcerated in Wormwood Scrubs for a year for paying a lookalike (Gabriel Maferika) to perform his court-appointed community service in his stead, while Morrison himself went on tour. While in prison, Morrison reportedly converted to Islam and attempted to change his name to Abdul Rahman. Also in 1998, Morrison was banned from driving for six months and fined £1,380 after twice being caught driving without a licence.\n\nIn 2002, Morrison was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and car theft. He was released on bail, but a policeman was later arrested on suspicion of taking a bribe from Morrison in return for his release. Morrison failed to appear in court to face the charges and a warrant was issued for his arrest.\n\nIn 2004, he was arrested and spent a night in custody, after a fracas in which a platinum and diamond medallion was snatched from around his neck during a confrontation at a Leicester nightclub.\n\nIn 2009, Morrison was arrested for an assault in London.\n\nPersonal life \n\nIn October 2020, Mark Morrison publicly stated that he will consider challenging Peter Soulsby to become the next Mayor of Leicester.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums \n Return of the Mack (1996)\n Innocent Man (2006)\n\nExtended plays \nOnly God Can Judge Me (1997)\nI Am What I Am (2014)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nMark Morrison official website\nMacklife Records official website\n\n1972 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Leicester\n20th-century Black British male singers\n21st-century Black British male singers\nBritish contemporary R&B singers\nDeath Row Records artists\nEnglish people of Barbadian descent\nMusicians from Leicestershire\nGerman expatriates in the United Kingdom",
"Dr. Hone Ropata is a fictional character on the New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street who was portrayed by Temuera Morrison as part of the original cast. Morrison maintained the role for three years before briefly reprising it in 2008 to commemorate the show's 4000th episode.\n\nCreation and casting\nCaterina De Nave developed the idea of what was to become Shortland Street, after watching successful Australian soap opera's, Home and Away and Neighbours and noted the lack of diversity concerning race in the cast. De Nave alongside a team of writers and story liners, decided to include several ethnic minorities, with Ken Catran pitching the idea of Hone - a determined Maori doctor. Alongside Hone, was Jaki Manu - a Maori nurse, and Sam Aleni - a Polynesian Paramedic (a rarity at the time). He was written as part of the Ngāti Porou iwi. Temuera Morrison had several minor roles in television but successfully landed the role and Hone made his debut on the shows first ever episode. Following acting in the film, Once Were Warriors in 1994, Morrison struggled to leave the character of Jake Heke (an abusive and out of control drunk), and subsequently found that upon returning to Shortland Street he was, \"Dr Jake and I'd tell the patients, 'You'll be fucking sick by the time I've finished with you.'\" In 1995 Morrison decided to leave the role after what he saw as \"hands in pockets\" acting.\n\nAt the shows 2007 Christmas celebrations, Morrison was approached by cast members Michael Galvin (Chris Warner), Craig Parker (Guy Warner) and producer Jason Daniel. The trio offered Morrison a return to the show citing the high ratings, which he accepted and later jokingly blamed on Daniel force feeding him beer. Morrison agreed on the condition that the character could ride a Harley-Davidson motorbike and could date a \"hot\" woman. It was announced in March 2008 that Morrison would be reprising his role of Hone after 13 years to mark the shows 4000th episode. Morrison was signed to an initial 6 week contract, but Morrison was open to a potential extension or even a full-time role. Daniel was pleased with Morrison's return, \"We've constructed a story that makes it interesting for Tem to come back and play so that it's not just more of the same. It's his character under pressure and with a series of challenges that make it an interesting journey for him as a character and an interesting challenge for Tem.\" Hone's return aired on 5 June 2008 on episode 3999. Morrison proved to be problematic on set; not remembering his lines, being uncomfortable filming emotional scenes, and not arriving on set when he had to film something he did not like. He departed following the conclusion of his six-week contract. Morrison was not asked to reprise the role for the shows 20th anniversary in 2012. In 2014 Rene Naufahu (Paramedic Sam Aleni) suggested bringing back Morrison so that the former co stars could \"forget their lines\" together.\n\nStorylines\nHone arrived to the clinic in May 1992 following a stint in Guatemala and instantly clashed with several of the staff due to his unorthodox methods. Hone's fiancé Claire Lloyd (Annie Stanford) soon arrived but the couple broke up when it turned out she had been sleeping with both Chris Warner (Michael Galvin) and Michael McKenna (Paul Gittins). Hone grew close to co-worker Meredith Fleming's (Stephanie Wilkin) son Andrew (Ezra Woods) and became a father figure to him, eventually drawing him into a relationship with Meredith. In 1993 Meredith dumped Hone after several months and he flatted with Jenny (Maggie Harper) and Nick Harrison (Karl Burnett) and later, Chris Warner. Following an appearance on a current affairs show, Hone began to be harassed by an unseen assailant. Hone soon discovered it was a fellow doctor, Te Aniwa Ryan (Moana Maniapoto-Jackson) who disagreed with his medical views. Nonetheless, the two overcame their issues and became a couple. In 1994 Hone cheated on Te Aniwa with Hillary (Susan Brady), ending his relationship for an affair that was short lived.\n\nSeveral months into the year, Hone disappeared without a trace and upon his return, it was revealed he had illegally snuck a refugee into the country. Michael fired Hone but later welcomed him back to the clinic. Hone's nephew Manny (Albert Belz) arrived to stay with Hone but got into trouble with gangs. Whilst defending his nephew, Hone punched a gang member and was shocked when Chris declared the man dead. Hone was arrested on a murder charge but was cleared and began to date his lawyer Caitlin Devereux (Sarah Smuts-Kennedy), who left her husband for him. After the trial in 1995, Hone and Caitlin decided to set up a clinic on the East Coast and the couple departed Ferndale with the assistance of Chris and Carmen (Theresa Healey). 13 years later, Hone returned to the hospital to audit the hospital under the supervision of Martha Riley (Jacque Drew). Chris and TK Samuels (Benjamin Mitchell) soon came to realize that Hone was seriously mentally unstable following a series of murders and rapes in his clinic in Africa. Hone replaced Chris as the hospital's Chief Executive Officer but quickly tired of the job and began an affair with Tania Jeffries (Faye Smythe). However Hone soon came to realize his fragile mentality and broke it off with Tania and fled to Australia. In 2012 Chris told Henare Ngatai (George Henare) that the two had previously been introduced by Hone.\n\nReception\nUpon the show's first airing, OnFilm Magazine critic Wendyl Nissen praised Morrison in his role as Hone, stating he was a natural. The character was immortalized in New Zealand television history after Carrie Burton's line to him in the first episode gained pop culture significance. On Morrison's first day back of shooting in March 2008, the crew members wore T-shirts donning the phrase. The character was considered a \"heart throb\". Hone's return in 2008 received mixed reviews, Charlotte Cowan of Entertainment Fix criticized Hone's 2008 return and named it in a series of disappointing return storylines on the soap. Michelle Hewitson on the other hand was a lot more positive, calling it a \"brilliant idea\" and praising the reunion between Hone and Chris Warner (Michael Galvin). The Shortland Street website also listed Hone's return as the 3rd best ever character return in the soap's history in a 2013 collated list. In 2012, the character was named as one of the standout characters of the show's first 20 years. In 2017 Ricardo Simich expressed his desire for Hone to return for the soap opera's 25th anniversary saying it was a \"must\" as he was the recipient of the shows most famous line. The same year, stuff.co.nz journalist Fleur Mealing named Hone as the top character she most wanted to return for the show's 25th anniversary. The New Zealand Woman's Day magazine listed Hone as the 5th best character of the soap's first 25 years.\n\nReferences\n\nShortland Street characters\nTelevision characters introduced in 1992\nFictional physicians\nFictional Māori people\nFictional business executives\nMale characters in television"
]
|
[
"Neil Diamond",
"The 1990s"
]
| C_6f0606366650496dab9bd961c9715fe5_0 | What was his first album of the 1990s? | 1 | What was Neil Diamond's first album of the 1990s? | Neil Diamond | During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classics from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus. The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. Most notably, it became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox. The song also came to be played during the 8th inning of every New York Mets home game. The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own, and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the 3rd period of their games. The Pitt Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it at every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game, in the second half. CANNOTANSWER | During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. | Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and occasional actor. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: "Cracklin' Rosie", "Song Sung Blue", "Longfellow Serenade", "I've Been This Way Before", "If You Know What I Mean", "Desirée", "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", "America", "Yesterday's Songs", and "Heartlight". Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have been featured in the Top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts. He also played in movies such as The Jazz Singer, a musical drama film.
Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Early life and education
Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. All four of his grandparents were immigrants, from Poland on his father's side and Russia on his mother's. His parents were Rose (née Rapoport) and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond, a dry-goods merchant. He grew up in several homes in Brooklyn, having also spent four years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was stationed in the army. In Brooklyn he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a member of the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club, along with classmate Barbra Streisand; Diamond recalled they were not close friends at the time: "We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes." After his family moved to Brighton Beach, he attended Abraham Lincoln High School and was a member of the fencing team. Also on the team was his best friend, future Olympic fencer Herb Cohen.
For his 16th birthday, he received his first guitar. When he was 16 and still in high school, Diamond spent a number of weeks at Surprise Lake Camp, a camp for Jewish children in upstate New York, when folk singer Pete Seeger performed a small concert. Seeing the widely recognized singer perform, and watching other children singing songs for Seeger that they wrote themselves, had an immediate effect on Diamond, who then became aware of the possibility of writing his own songs. "And the next thing, I got a guitar when we got back to Brooklyn, started to take lessons and almost immediately began to write songs," he said. He added that his attraction to songwriting was the "first real interest" he had growing up, while also helping him release his youthful "frustrations".
Diamond also used his newly developing skill to write poetry. By writing poems for girls he was attracted to in school, he soon learned it often won their hearts. His male classmates took note and began asking him to write poems for them, which they would sing and use with equal success. He spent the summer following his graduation as a waiter in the Catskills resort area. There he first met Jaye Posner, who would years later become his wife.
Diamond next attended New York University as a pre-med major on a fencing scholarship, again on the fencing team with Herb Cohen. He was a member of the 1960 NCAA men's championship fencing team. Often bored in class, he found writing song lyrics more to his liking. He began cutting classes and taking the train up to Tin Pan Alley, where he tried to get some of his songs heard by local music publishers. In his senior year, when he was just 10 units short of graduation, Sunbeam Music Publishing offered him a 16-week job writing songs for $50 a week (equivalent to about US$ per week, in dollars), and he dropped out of college to accept it.
Career
1960s
Diamond was not rehired after his 16 weeks with Sunbeam, and he began writing and singing his own songs for demos. "I never really chose songwriting," he says. "It just absorbed me and became more and more important in my life." His first recording contract was billed as "Neil and Jack", an Everly Brothers-type duet with high school friend Jack Packer. They recorded the unsuccessful singles "You Are My Love at Last" with "What Will I Do", and "I'm Afraid" with "Till You've Tried Love", both records released in 1962. Cashbox and Billboard magazines gave all four sides excellent reviews, and Diamond signed with Columbia Records as a solo performer later in 1962. In July 1963, Columbia released the single "At Night" with "Clown Town"; Billboard gave an excellent review to Clown Town, and Cashbox gave both sides excellent reviews, but it still failed to make the charts. Columbia dropped him from their label and he went back to writing songs in and out of publishing houses for the next seven years.
He wrote wherever he could, including on buses, and used an upright piano above the Birdland Club in New York City. One of the causes of this early nomadic life as a songwriter was his songs' wordiness: "I'd spent a lot of time on lyrics, and they were looking for hooks, and I didn't really understand the nature of that," he says. He was able to sell only about one song a week during those years, barely enough to survive on. He found himself only earning enough to spend 35 cents a day on food (US$ in dollars). But the privacy that he had above the Birdland Club allowed him to focus on writing without distractions. "Something new began to happen. I wasn't under the gun, and suddenly interesting songs began to happen, songs that had things none of the others did." Among them were "Cherry, Cherry" and "Solitary Man". "Solitary Man" was the first record that Diamond recorded under his own name which made the charts. It remains one of his personal all-time favorites, as it was about his early years as a songwriter, even though he failed to realize it at the time. He describes the song as "an outgrowth of my despair".
Diamond spent his early career in the Brill Building. His first success as a songwriter came in November 1965 with "Sunday and Me", a Top 20 hit for Jay and the Americans. Greater success followed with "I'm a Believer", "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You", "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)", and "Love to Love", all performed by the Monkees. He wrote and recorded the songs for himself, but the cover versions were released before his own. The unintended consequence was that Diamond began to gain fame as a songwriter. "I'm a Believer" became a gold record within two days of its release and stayed at the top of the charts for seven weeks, making it the Popular Music Song of the Year in 1966.
"And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind" brought covers from Elvis Presley (who also interpreted "Sweet Caroline") and Mark Lindsay, former lead singer for Paul Revere & the Raiders. Other notable artists who recorded his early songs were the English hard-rock band Deep Purple, Lulu, and Cliff Richard.
In 1966, Diamond signed a deal with Bert Berns's Bang Records, then a subsidiary of Atlantic. His first release on that label was "Solitary Man", which was his first true hit as a solo artist. Diamond followed with "Cherry, Cherry" and "Kentucky Woman". His early concerts featured him opening for bands such as Herman's Hermits and the Who. As a guest performer with The Who, he was shocked to see Pete Townshend swinging his guitar like a club and then throwing it against walls and off the stage until the instrument's neck broke.
Diamond began to feel restricted by Bang Records because he wanted to record more ambitious, introspective music, such as "Brooklyn Roads" from 1968. Berns wanted to release "Kentucky Woman" as a single, but Diamond was no longer satisfied writing simple pop songs, so he proposed "Shilo", which was not about the Civil War but rather an imaginary childhood friend. Bang believed that the song was not commercial enough, so it was relegated to being an LP track on "Just for You". Diamond was also dissatisfied with his royalties and tried to sign with another record label after discovering a loophole in his contract that did not bind him exclusively to either WEB IV or Tallyrand, but the result was a series of lawsuits that coincided with a slump in his record sales and professional success. A magistrate refused WEB IV's request for a temporary injunction to prevent Diamond from joining another record company while his contract dispute continued in court, but the lawsuits persisted until February 18, 1977, when he triumphed in court and purchased the rights to his Bang-era master tapes.
On March 18, 1968, Diamond signed a deal with Uni Records; the label was named after Universal Pictures, the owner of which, MCA Inc., later consolidated its labels into MCA Records (now called Universal Music after merging with PolyGram in 1999). His debut album for Uni/MCA was Velvet Gloves and Spit, produced by Tom Catalano, which did not chart, and he recorded the follow-up Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show at American Sound Studios in Memphis with Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman producing.
1970s
In late 1969, he moved to Los Angeles. His sound mellowed with such songs as "Sweet Caroline" (1969), "Holly Holy" (1969), "Cracklin' Rosie" (1970) and "Song Sung Blue" (1972), the last two reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100. "Sweet Caroline" was Diamond's first major hit after his slump. In 2007 Diamond said he had written "Sweet Caroline" for Caroline Kennedy after seeing her on the cover of Life in an equestrian riding outfit, but in 2014 he said in an interview on the Today Show that it was written for his then wife, Marcia. He could not find a good rhyme with the name "Marcia" and so used the name Caroline. It took him just one hour, in a Memphis hotel, to write and compose it. The 1971 release "I Am...I Said" was a Top 5 hit in both the US and UK and was his most intensely personal effort to date, taking over four months to complete.
In 1971, Diamond played 7 sold-out concerts at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The outdoor theater, which was noted for showcasing the best of current entertainers, added a stereo sound system for the first time. Diamond was also backed by a 35-piece string orchestra and six backing singers. After the first night, one leading newspaper called it "the finest concert in Greek Theater history."
In August 1972, he played again at the Greek, this time doing 10 shows. When the show was first announced, tickets at the 5000-seat theater sold out rapidly. He added a quadraphonic sound system for his performance to create full surround-sound. The performance of August 24, 1972, was recorded and released as the live double album Hot August Night. Hot August Night demonstrates Diamond's skills as a performer and showman, as he reinvigorated his back catalogue of hits with new energy. Diamond recalled: "Hot August Night captures a very special show for me. We went all out to really knock 'em dead in L.A." Many consider it his best work; critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Hot August Night "the ultimate Neil Diamond record... [which] shows Diamond the icon in full glory." The album became a classic, and was remastered in 2000 with additional selections. In Australia, which at the time had the most Neil Diamond fans per capita of any country, the album ranked No. 1 for 29 weeks and stayed in their top 20 bestsellers for two years.
In the fall of 1972, Diamond performed for 20 consecutive nights at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City. That theater had not staged a one-man show since Al Jolson in the 1930s. The approximately 1,600-seat Broadway venue provided an intimate concert setting not common at the time, with every performance reportedly sold out. It also made Diamond the first rock-era star to headline on Broadway. The review in the New York Times stated:
After the Winter Garden shows, Diamond announced that he needed a break, and he engaged in no more live performances till 1976. He used those four years to work on the score for Hall Bartlett's film version of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and to record two albums, Serenade and Beautiful Noise. He said years later, "I knew I'd come back, but I wasn't sure when. I spent one year on each of those albums...I'd been on the road six years. I had a son 2½ and I felt he needed me more than the audience did. So for four years I devoted myself to my son Jesse." He also said he needed to get back to having a private life, one where he could be anonymous.
In 1973, Diamond switched labels again, returning to Columbia Records for a million-dollar-advance-per-album contract (about US$ million per album in dollars). His first project, released as a solo album, was the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The film received hostile reviews and did poorly at the box office, and the album grossed more than the film did. Richard D. Bach, author of the best-selling source story, disowned the film, and he and Diamond sued Bartlett, though for differing reasons; in Bach's case, it was because he felt the film omitted too much from the original novella, whereas in Diamond's case, it was because he felt the film had butchered his score. "After 'Jonathan,'" Diamond declared, "I vowed never to get involved in a movie again unless I had complete control." Bartlett angrily responded to Diamond's lawsuit by criticizing his music as having become "too slick...and it's not as much from his heart as it used to be." Bartlett also added, "Neil is extraordinarily talented. Often his arrogance is just a cover for the lonely and insecure person underneath."
Despite the controversy surrounding the film, the soundtrack was a success, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart. Diamond also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture. Thereafter, Diamond often included a Jonathan Livingston Seagull suite in his live performances, as he did in his 1976 "Love at the Greek" concert and for his show in Las Vegas that same year.
Diamond returned to live shows in 1976 with an Australian tour, "The 'Thank You Australia' Concert", which was broadcast to 36 television outlets nationwide. He also again appeared at the Greek Theater in a 1976 concert, Love at the Greek. An album and accompanying video/DVD of the show includes a version of "Song Sung Blue" with duets with Helen Reddy and Henry Winkler, a.k.a. Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli of Happy Days.
He began wearing colorful beaded shirts in concert, originally so that everyone in the audience could see him without binoculars. Bill Whitten designed and made the shirts for Diamond from the 1970s till approximately 2007.
In 1974, Diamond released the album Serenade, from which "Longfellow Serenade" and "I've Been This Way Before" were issued as singles. The latter had been intended for the Jonathan Livingston Seagull score, but Diamond had completed it too late for inclusion. That same year he appeared on a TV special for Shirley Bassey and sang a duet with her.
In 1976, he released Beautiful Noise, produced by Robbie Robertson of The Band. On Thanksgiving 1976, Diamond made an appearance at The Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz, performing "Dry Your Eyes", which he wrote jointly with Robertson, and which had appeared on Beautiful Noise. He also joined the rest of the performers onstage at the end in a rendition of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released".
Diamond was paid $650,000 (about US$ million in dollars) from the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, to open its new $10 million Theater For the Performing Arts on July 2, 1976. The show played through July 5 and drew sold-out crowds at the 7,500-seat theater. A "who's who" of Hollywood attended opening night, ranging from Elizabeth Taylor to Chevy Chase, and Diamond walked out on stage to a standing ovation. He opened the show with a story about an ex-girlfriend who dumped him before he became successful. His lead-in line to the first song of the evening was, "You may have dumped me a bit too soon, baby, because look who's standing here tonight."
He performed at Woburn Abbey on July 2, 1977, to an audience of 55,000 British fans. The concert and interviews were taped by film director William Friedkin, who used six cameras to capture the performance.
In 1977, Diamond released I'm Glad You're Here With Me Tonight, including "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", for which he composed the music and on the writing of whose lyrics he collaborated with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman. Barbra Streisand covered the song on her album Songbird, and later, a Diamond-Streisand duet was recorded, spurred by the success of radio mash-ups. That version hit No. 1 in 1978, his third song to top the Hot 100. They appeared unannounced at the 1980 Grammy awards ceremony, where they performed the song to a surprised and rapturous audience.
His last 1970s album was September Morn, which included a new version of "I'm a Believer". It and "Red Red Wine" are his best-known original songs made more famous by other artists. In February 1979, the uptempo "Forever in Blue Jeans", co-written and jointly composed with his guitarist, Richard Bennett, was released as a single from You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Diamond's album from the previous year.
In 1979, Diamond collapsed on stage in San Francisco and was taken to the hospital, where he endured a 12-hour operation to remove what turned out to be a tumor on his spine. He said he had been losing feeling in his right leg "for a number of years but ignored it." When he collapsed, he had no strength in either leg. He underwent a long rehabilitation process just before starting principal photography on his film The Jazz Singer (1980). He was so convinced he was going to die that he wrote farewell letters to his friends.
1980s
A planned film version of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" to star Diamond and Streisand fell through when Diamond instead starred in a 1980 remake of the Al Jolson classic The Jazz Singer alongside Laurence Olivier and Lucie Arnaz. Though the movie received poor reviews, the soundtrack spawned three Top 10 singles, "Love on the Rocks", "Hello Again", and "America", the last of which had emotional significance for Diamond. "'America' was the story of my grandparents," he told an interviewer. "It's my gift to them, and it's very real for me ... In a way, it speaks to the immigrant in all of us." The song was performed in full by Diamond during the film's finale. An abbreviated version played over the film's opening titles.
The song was also the one he was most proud of, partly because of when it was later used: national news shows played it when the hostages were shown returning home after the Iran hostage crisis ended; it was played on the air during the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty; and at a tribute to slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the Vietnam Vets Welcome Home concert, he was asked to perform it live. At the time, a national poll found the song to be the number-one most recognized song about America, more than "God Bless America". It also became the anthem of his world tour two weeks after the attacks on America on September 11, 2001, when he changed the lyric at the end from; "They're coming to America", to "Stand up for America!" Earlier that year he performed it after a request from former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali.
The film's failure was due in part to Diamond never having acted professionally before. "I didn't think I could handle it," he said later, seeing himself as "a fish out of water." For his performance, Diamond became the first-ever winner of a Worst Actor Razzie Award, even though he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the same role. Critic David Wild noted that the film showed that Diamond was open about his religion: "Who else but this Jewish Elvis could go multi-platinum with an album that featured a version of 'the Kol Nidre?'" Diamond later told the Los Angeles Times, "For me, this was the ultimate bar mitzvah."
Another Top 10 selection, "Heartlight", was inspired by the blockbuster 1982 movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Though the film's title character is never mentioned in the lyrics, Universal Pictures, which had released E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and was the parent company of the Uni Records label, by then called MCA Records, for which Diamond had recorded for years, briefly threatened legal action against both Diamond and Columbia Records.
Diamond's record sales slumped somewhat in the 1980s and 1990s, his last single to make the Billboard's Pop Singles chart coming in 1986, but his concert tours continued to be big draws. Billboard magazine ranked Diamond as the most profitable solo performer of 1986. He released his 17th studio album in 1986, Headed for the Future, which reached number 20 on the Billboard 200. Three weeks later he starred in Hello Again, his first television special in nine years, performing comedy sketches and a duo medley with Carol Burnett.
In January 1987, Diamond sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. His "America" became the theme song for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign. That same year, UB40's reggae interpretation of Diamond's ballad "Red Red Wine" topped the Billboard Pop Singles chart and, like the Monkees' version of "I'm a Believer", became better known than Diamond's original version.
1990s
During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classic songs from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus.
The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. It is played at every home game of the Sydney Swans of the Australian Football League. It became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox.
The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the third period of their games. The Pitt Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it in the second half of every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game.
2000s
A more severely stripped-down-to-basics album, 12 Songs, produced by Rick Rubin, was released on November 8, 2005, in two editions: a standard 12-song release, and a special edition with two bonus tracks, including one featuring backing vocals by Brian Wilson. The album debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard chart, and received generally positive reviews; Earliwine describes the album as "inarguably Neil Diamond's best set of songs in a long, long time." 12 Songs also became noteworthy as one of the last albums to be pressed and released by Sony BMG with the Extended Copy Protection software embedded in the disc. (See the 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal.)
In 2007, Diamond was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
On March 19, 2008, it was announced on the television show American Idol that Diamond would be a guest mentor to the remaining Idol contestants, who would sing Diamond songs for the broadcasts of April 29 and 30, 2008. On the April 30 broadcast, Diamond premiered a new song, "Pretty Amazing Grace", from his then recently released album Home Before Dark. On May 2, 2008, Sirius Satellite Radio started Neil Diamond Radio. On April 8, 2008, Diamond made a surprise announcement in a big-screen broadcast at Fenway Park that he would be appearing there "live in concert" on August 23, 2008, as part of his world tour. The announcement, which marked the first official confirmation of any 2008 concert dates in the US, came during the traditional eighth-inning singalong of "Sweet Caroline", which had by that time become an anthem for Boston fans.
On April 28, 2008, Diamond appeared on the roof of the Jimmy Kimmel building to sing "Sweet Caroline" after Kimmel was jokingly arrested for singing the song dressed as a Diamond impersonator.
Home Before Dark was released May 6, 2008, and topped the album charts in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
On June 29, 2008, Diamond played to an estimated 108,000 fans at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England on the Concert of a Lifetime Tour; technical problems marred the concert.
In August, Diamond allowed cameras to record his entire four-night run at New York's Madison Square Garden; he released the resulting DVD in the U.S. in 2009, one year to the day of the first concert. Hot August Night/NYC debuted at No. 2 on the charts. On the same day the DVD was released, CBS aired an edited version, which won the ratings hour with 13 million viewers. The next day, the sales of the DVD surged, prompting Sony to order more copies to meet the high demand.
On August 25, 2008, Diamond performed at The Ohio State University while suffering from laryngitis. The result disappointed him as well as his fans, and on August 26, he offered refunds to anyone who applied by September 5.
Diamond was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year on February 6, 2009, two nights before the 51st Annual Grammy Awards.
Long loved in Boston, Diamond was invited to sing at the July 4, 2009, Independence Day celebration.
On October 13, 2009, he released A Cherry Cherry Christmas, his third album of holiday music.
2010s
On November 2, 2010, Diamond released the album Dreams, a collection of 14 interpretations of his favorite songs by artists from the rock era. The album also included a new slow-tempo arrangement of his "I'm a Believer". In December, he performed a track from the album, "Ain't No Sunshine", on NBC's The Sing-Off with Committed and Street Corner Symphony, two a cappella groups featured on the show. The Very Best of Neil Diamond, a compilation CD of Diamond's 23 studio recordings from the Bang, UNI/MCA, & Columbia catalogs, was released on December 6, 2011, on the Sony Legacy label.
The years 2011 and 2012 were marked by several milestones in Diamond's career. On March 14, 2011, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. In December, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. On August 10, 2012, Diamond received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In November 2012, he topped the bill at the centenary edition of the Royal Variety Performance in the UK, which was transmitted on December 3. He also appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
On April 20, 2013, Diamond made an unannounced appearance at Fenway Park to sing "Sweet Caroline" during the 8th inning. It was the first game at Fenway since the Boston Marathon bombing. On July 2, he released the single "Freedom Song (They'll Never Take Us Down)", with 100% of the purchase price benefiting One Fund Boston and the Wounded Warrior Project.
Sporting a beard, Diamond performed live on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol as part of A Capitol Fourth, which was broadcast nationally by PBS on July 4, 2013.
In January 2014, it was confirmed that Diamond had signed with the Capitol Music Group unit of Universal Music Group, which also owned Diamond's Uni/MCA catalog. UMG also took over Diamond's Columbia and Bang catalogues, which meant that all of his recorded output would be consolidated for the first time.
On July 8, 2014, Capitol Records announced, via a flyer included with Diamond's latest greatest hits compilations, All-Time Greatest Hits, which charted at 15 in the Billboard 200, that his next album, Melody Road, which was to be produced by Don Was and Jacknife Lee, would be released on September 30, 2014. In August, the release date was moved to October 21.
In September 2014, Diamond performed a surprise concert at his alma mater, Erasmus High School in Brooklyn. The show was announced via Twitter that afternoon. On the same day, he announced a 2015 "Melody Road" World Tour. The North American leg of the World Tour 2015 launched with a concert in Allentown, PA at the PPL Center on February 27 and ended at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado on May 31, 2015. Diamond used new media platforms and social media extensively throughout the tour, streaming several shows live on Periscope and showing tweets from fans who used the hashtag #tweetcaroline on two large screens. The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote: "This, my friends, wasn’t your grandfather's Neil Diamond concert. It was a multimedia extravaganza. Twitter. Periscope...It was a social media blitzkrieg that, by all accounts, proved to be an innovative way to widen his fan base."
In October 2016, Diamond released Acoustic Christmas, a folk-inspired Christmas album of original songs as well as acoustic versions of holiday classics. Produced by Was and Lee, who had produced Melody Road, the idea for the album began to take shape as the Melody Road sessions ended. To "channel the intimate atmosphere of '60s folk, Diamond recorded Acoustic Christmas with a handful of musicians, sitting around a circle of microphones, wires and, of course, Christmas lights."
In March 2017, the career-spanning anthology Neil Diamond 50 – 50th Anniversary Collection was released. He began his final concert tour, the 50 Year Anniversary World Tour in Fresno, California, in April.
In 2019, his 1969 signature song "Sweet Caroline" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
2020s
On March 7, 2020, despite his retirement due to Parkinson's disease, Diamond gave a rare performance at the Keep Memory Alive Power of Love Gala at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, where he was being honored.
On March 22, 2020, Diamond posted a video to YouTube playing "Sweet Caroline" with slightly modified lyrics ("...washing hands, don't touch me, I won't touch you...") in response to the widespread social distancing measures implemented due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
In April 2021, The New York Times reported that A Beautiful Noise, a musical based on Diamond's life and featuring his songs, would open at the Emerson Colonial Theater in Boston in the summer of 2022. The musical was scheduled to open on Broadway following the monthlong run in Boston.
Universal Music Group acquired Diamond's songwriting catalog and the rights to his recordings in February 2022. The acquisition also included 110 unreleased tracks, an unreleased album and archival videos.
Retirement
In January 2018, Diamond announced that he would immediately retire from touring due to having been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Tour dates on the final leg of Diamond's "50 Year Anniversary World Tour" in Australia and New Zealand were cancelled. An announcement on his official website said he was not retiring from music and that the cancellation of the live performances would allow him to "continue his writing, recording and development of new projects."
On July 28, 2018, Diamond and his wife Katie McNeil made a surprise visit to the Incident Command post in Basalt, Colorado—near where Diamond lives—to thank the firefighters and families with a solo acoustic guitar concert for efforts in containing the Lake Christine Fire, which began on July 3 and had scorched of land.
In pop culture
In 1967, Diamond was featured on the fourth episode of the detective drama Mannix as the 'featured' artist in a small underground club called 'The BAD SCENE' and was interrupted during his singing by one of many fights that took place weekly on the show.
In 2000, Neil Diamond appeared onstage with Diamond tribute band, Super Diamond, surprising them before their show at House of Blues in Los Angeles.
In the 2001 comedy film Saving Silverman, the main characters play in a Diamond cover band, and Diamond made an extended cameo appearance as himself. Diamond even wrote and composed a new song, "I Believe in Happy Endings", for the film. He sat in with the tribute band Super Diamond at the film's premiere party.
In 2008, Diamond gave film-maker Greg Kohs permission to use his songs in a documentary. Kohs, a director from Philadelphia, had met a popular Milwaukee, Wisconsin, duo, Lightning & Thunder, composed of Mike Sardina, who did a Diamond impersonation, and his wife Claire. Kohs followed them for eight years and produced the film Song Sung Blue. Though Sardina had died in 2006, Diamond invited his widow and her family to be his front-row guests at his show in Milwaukee, where he told them he was moved by the film.
In the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory, main characters Howard Wolowitz and Amy Farrah-Fowler are fans of Diamond's work.
Personal life
Diamond has been married three times. In 1963, he married his high-school sweetheart, Jaye Posner, who had become a schoolteacher. They had two daughters, Marjorie and Elyn. They separated in 1967 and divorced in 1969.
On December 5, 1969, Diamond married production assistant Marcia Murphey. They had two sons, Jesse and Micah. The marriage lasted 25 years, ending in 1994 or 1995.
In 1996, Diamond began a lengthy, live-in relationship with Australian Rae Farley after the two met in Brisbane, Australia. The songs on Home Before Dark were written and composed during her struggle with chronic back pain.
On September 7, 2011, in a message on Twitter, the 70-year-old Diamond announced his engagement to the 41-year-old Katie McNeil. Diamond said that his 2014 album Melody Road was fueled by their relationship, explaining:
There's no better inspiration or motivation for work than being in love. It's what you dream of as a creative person. I was able to complete this album—start it, write it and complete it—under the spell of love, and I think it shows somehow.
The couple married in front of family and close friends in Los Angeles in 2012. In addition to serving as Diamond's manager, McNeil produced the documentary Neil Diamond: Hot August Nights NYC.
Discography
Filmography
Diamond had a television appearance and roles in some movies, notably:
Mannix, "The Many Deaths of Saint Christopher" (1967) as himself
The Jazz Singer, starring role as Jess Robin
Saving Silverman appearing as himself
Notes
References
External links
Neil Diamond's Band's Official Site
1941 births
Living people
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American singers
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
Abraham Lincoln High School (Brooklyn) alumni
American acoustic guitarists
American baritones
American folk guitarists
American male guitarists
American male pianists
American male singer-songwriters
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American soft rock musicians
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Jewish American musicians
Jewish American songwriters
Jewish singers
Jewish folk singers
Jewish rock musicians
Erasmus Hall High School alumni
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
MCA Records artists
NYU Violets fencers
Uni Records artists
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Kennedy Center honorees
Rhythm guitarists
Musicians from Brooklyn
Guitarists from New York City
Singers from New York City
People with Parkinson's disease
Singer-songwriters from New York (state) | true | [
"Feel What U Feel is a children's album by American musician Lisa Loeb. The album was released on October 7, 2016, and the album's first single was \"Feel What U Feel.\" The album won Best Children's Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.\n\nRelease \nThe album was announced on September 8, 2016 with the release of the lead single \"Feel What U Feel,\" featuring Craig Robinson. The album was then released by Furious Rose Productions on October 7, 2016 as an Amazon Music exclusive.\n\nPromotion \nLisa Loeb Embarked a small tour to promote the Children's album in the Fall of 2016 & Winter of 2017. Despite going on a children's tour, Lisa performed many of her \"Adult\" and \"Older\" songs. Lisa also constantly played her songs on \"Kids Place Live Radio\" for nearly 1 year after release.\n\nSingles \n\"Feel What U Feel\" was released as the album's lead single of September 8, 2016. The second single, \"Moon Star Pie (It's Gunna Be Alright)\" was released on October 7, 2016. The third single, \"Wanna Do Day\" ft. Ed Helms was released on January 12, 2017. The fourth and final single of the album, \"The Sky Is Always Blue\" was released on March 13, 2017.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\n2016 albums\nChildren's music albums\nLisa Loeb albums",
"What For? is the fourth studio album by American recording artist Toro y Moi (also known as Chaz Bear), released on April 7, 2015, by Carpark Records. The album includes 10 tracks at a run time of 36:38. Prior to the album release, Toro y Moi revealed three teaser tracks. These tracks include: \"Empty Nesters\", \"Buffalo\", and \"Run Baby Run\". This release follows his 2013 studio album Anything in Return.\n\nThe album debuted on The Billboard 200 on April 4, 2015. The record peaked at 123rd position and stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for one week. On the Top Rock Albums Billboard charts, the record peaked at the 26th position. The album was on the Rock Albums chart for 1 week. Prior to this release, Chaz's Anything in Return album was also on The Billboard 200 chart. The album ranked in the 60th position on February 9, 2013. Ever since 2011, all of Toro y Moi's studio albums have peaked on The Billboard 200 chart.\n\nBackground \nPrior to his release of What For?, Chaz was known as an early pioneer for the late 2000's genre of chillwave. In Chaz's fourth album, he pursued a stylistic change to a pop-guitar/indie-rock sound rather than continuing his trend of exploring synth-pop, electronic, and house music. When approaching his fourth studio album, Chaz states in an article that: “I’ve done electronic R&B and more traditional recorded type R&B stuff – I just wanted to see what else was out there”. Many reputable news sources when evaluating the What For? album likened it to 70's \"indie rock\". An NPR article discussed how Chaz's new sound can also be likened to those during the 70's heyday.\n\nMusic Videos \nDuring the What For? album cycle, Toro y Moi had released a series of three music videos. The songs with videos include: \"Half Dome\", \"Lilly\", and \"Empty Nesters\". The first video for this album was \"Empty Nesters\". The video was released on February 19, 2015. The video is shot, written, and directed by Chaz Bear. The video was released a month after the premiere of the song on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio show. The video for \"Lilly\" was released on April 30, 2015, and was directed by HARRYS. The final video for the What If? album cycle was \"Half Dome\". The video was released on September 18, 2015, and was directed by R. Adam Prieto. The video includes visuals of Chaz exploring the Yosemite National Park.\n\nAlbum Tour \nDuring 2015, Chaz had two tours in relation to his What For? album release. The first set of tour dates took place between February and May 2015. The first tour consisted of only North American tour dates. While on tour, Chaz was accompanied by a variety of different artists who opened for him. These artists include: Vinyl Williams, Mattson 2, and Keath Mead. Chaz began the tour in the Oakland, California; where his current residence is. The concert took place on February 26 at the New Parish concert venue. While on the tour, Chaz performed at the Hangout Music Festival and Coachella. During his time at Coachella, he recorded a short EP based on his live performance. The EP was titled: Spotify Sessions. It included live versions of tracks from the What For? album. These tracks include: \"What You Want\", \"Buffalo\", \"Empty Nesters\", \"The Flight\", and \"Yeah Right\". The first tour of the year concluded in Austin, Texas. The final concert took place on May 20 at Emo's Austin concert venue. Chaz was accompanied by Keath Mead during this final performance.\n\nThe second set of tour dates took place between June and November 2015. While on his second tour of the year, Chaz played at a variety of venues and festivals worldwide. These festivals include: Outside Lands, Capitol Hill, Super Bock Super Rock Festival, Lollapalooza, and many more. The second tour also began in the Bay Area. Chaz performed at the Rickshaw Stop venue in San Francisco, on June 30. The second tour concluded at the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, Texas. The festival took place betwen November 6 and 8 of 2015. Chaz performed in 74 live performances throughout the year of 2015 for his What For? album cycle.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n Chaz Bundick – vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass guitar, drums, percussion, design, engineering, layout, mixing, production\n Anthony Ferraro – piano (3)\n Aaron Gold – drums (3)\n Patrick Jeffords – bass (10)\n Julian Lynch – clarinet, saxophone and synthesizer (10)\n Keath Mead – guitars (7)\n Ruban Nielson – guitars and background vocals (8)\n Andy Woodward – drums (4, 7, 8, 9, 10)\n Christos – artwork\n Steve Fallone – mastering\n Patrick Jones – mixing\n Josh Terris – photography\n\nReferences\n\n2015 albums\nToro y Moi albums\nCarpark Records albums"
]
|
[
"Neil Diamond",
"The 1990s",
"What was his first album of the 1990s?",
"During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums."
]
| C_6f0606366650496dab9bd961c9715fe5_0 | Can you name one of them? | 2 | Can you name one of the albums Neil Diamond released in the 1990s? | Neil Diamond | During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classics from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus. The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. Most notably, it became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox. The song also came to be played during the 8th inning of every New York Mets home game. The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own, and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the 3rd period of their games. The Pitt Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it at every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game, in the second half. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and occasional actor. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: "Cracklin' Rosie", "Song Sung Blue", "Longfellow Serenade", "I've Been This Way Before", "If You Know What I Mean", "Desirée", "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", "America", "Yesterday's Songs", and "Heartlight". Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have been featured in the Top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts. He also played in movies such as The Jazz Singer, a musical drama film.
Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Early life and education
Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. All four of his grandparents were immigrants, from Poland on his father's side and Russia on his mother's. His parents were Rose (née Rapoport) and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond, a dry-goods merchant. He grew up in several homes in Brooklyn, having also spent four years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was stationed in the army. In Brooklyn he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a member of the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club, along with classmate Barbra Streisand; Diamond recalled they were not close friends at the time: "We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes." After his family moved to Brighton Beach, he attended Abraham Lincoln High School and was a member of the fencing team. Also on the team was his best friend, future Olympic fencer Herb Cohen.
For his 16th birthday, he received his first guitar. When he was 16 and still in high school, Diamond spent a number of weeks at Surprise Lake Camp, a camp for Jewish children in upstate New York, when folk singer Pete Seeger performed a small concert. Seeing the widely recognized singer perform, and watching other children singing songs for Seeger that they wrote themselves, had an immediate effect on Diamond, who then became aware of the possibility of writing his own songs. "And the next thing, I got a guitar when we got back to Brooklyn, started to take lessons and almost immediately began to write songs," he said. He added that his attraction to songwriting was the "first real interest" he had growing up, while also helping him release his youthful "frustrations".
Diamond also used his newly developing skill to write poetry. By writing poems for girls he was attracted to in school, he soon learned it often won their hearts. His male classmates took note and began asking him to write poems for them, which they would sing and use with equal success. He spent the summer following his graduation as a waiter in the Catskills resort area. There he first met Jaye Posner, who would years later become his wife.
Diamond next attended New York University as a pre-med major on a fencing scholarship, again on the fencing team with Herb Cohen. He was a member of the 1960 NCAA men's championship fencing team. Often bored in class, he found writing song lyrics more to his liking. He began cutting classes and taking the train up to Tin Pan Alley, where he tried to get some of his songs heard by local music publishers. In his senior year, when he was just 10 units short of graduation, Sunbeam Music Publishing offered him a 16-week job writing songs for $50 a week (equivalent to about US$ per week, in dollars), and he dropped out of college to accept it.
Career
1960s
Diamond was not rehired after his 16 weeks with Sunbeam, and he began writing and singing his own songs for demos. "I never really chose songwriting," he says. "It just absorbed me and became more and more important in my life." His first recording contract was billed as "Neil and Jack", an Everly Brothers-type duet with high school friend Jack Packer. They recorded the unsuccessful singles "You Are My Love at Last" with "What Will I Do", and "I'm Afraid" with "Till You've Tried Love", both records released in 1962. Cashbox and Billboard magazines gave all four sides excellent reviews, and Diamond signed with Columbia Records as a solo performer later in 1962. In July 1963, Columbia released the single "At Night" with "Clown Town"; Billboard gave an excellent review to Clown Town, and Cashbox gave both sides excellent reviews, but it still failed to make the charts. Columbia dropped him from their label and he went back to writing songs in and out of publishing houses for the next seven years.
He wrote wherever he could, including on buses, and used an upright piano above the Birdland Club in New York City. One of the causes of this early nomadic life as a songwriter was his songs' wordiness: "I'd spent a lot of time on lyrics, and they were looking for hooks, and I didn't really understand the nature of that," he says. He was able to sell only about one song a week during those years, barely enough to survive on. He found himself only earning enough to spend 35 cents a day on food (US$ in dollars). But the privacy that he had above the Birdland Club allowed him to focus on writing without distractions. "Something new began to happen. I wasn't under the gun, and suddenly interesting songs began to happen, songs that had things none of the others did." Among them were "Cherry, Cherry" and "Solitary Man". "Solitary Man" was the first record that Diamond recorded under his own name which made the charts. It remains one of his personal all-time favorites, as it was about his early years as a songwriter, even though he failed to realize it at the time. He describes the song as "an outgrowth of my despair".
Diamond spent his early career in the Brill Building. His first success as a songwriter came in November 1965 with "Sunday and Me", a Top 20 hit for Jay and the Americans. Greater success followed with "I'm a Believer", "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You", "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)", and "Love to Love", all performed by the Monkees. He wrote and recorded the songs for himself, but the cover versions were released before his own. The unintended consequence was that Diamond began to gain fame as a songwriter. "I'm a Believer" became a gold record within two days of its release and stayed at the top of the charts for seven weeks, making it the Popular Music Song of the Year in 1966.
"And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind" brought covers from Elvis Presley (who also interpreted "Sweet Caroline") and Mark Lindsay, former lead singer for Paul Revere & the Raiders. Other notable artists who recorded his early songs were the English hard-rock band Deep Purple, Lulu, and Cliff Richard.
In 1966, Diamond signed a deal with Bert Berns's Bang Records, then a subsidiary of Atlantic. His first release on that label was "Solitary Man", which was his first true hit as a solo artist. Diamond followed with "Cherry, Cherry" and "Kentucky Woman". His early concerts featured him opening for bands such as Herman's Hermits and the Who. As a guest performer with The Who, he was shocked to see Pete Townshend swinging his guitar like a club and then throwing it against walls and off the stage until the instrument's neck broke.
Diamond began to feel restricted by Bang Records because he wanted to record more ambitious, introspective music, such as "Brooklyn Roads" from 1968. Berns wanted to release "Kentucky Woman" as a single, but Diamond was no longer satisfied writing simple pop songs, so he proposed "Shilo", which was not about the Civil War but rather an imaginary childhood friend. Bang believed that the song was not commercial enough, so it was relegated to being an LP track on "Just for You". Diamond was also dissatisfied with his royalties and tried to sign with another record label after discovering a loophole in his contract that did not bind him exclusively to either WEB IV or Tallyrand, but the result was a series of lawsuits that coincided with a slump in his record sales and professional success. A magistrate refused WEB IV's request for a temporary injunction to prevent Diamond from joining another record company while his contract dispute continued in court, but the lawsuits persisted until February 18, 1977, when he triumphed in court and purchased the rights to his Bang-era master tapes.
On March 18, 1968, Diamond signed a deal with Uni Records; the label was named after Universal Pictures, the owner of which, MCA Inc., later consolidated its labels into MCA Records (now called Universal Music after merging with PolyGram in 1999). His debut album for Uni/MCA was Velvet Gloves and Spit, produced by Tom Catalano, which did not chart, and he recorded the follow-up Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show at American Sound Studios in Memphis with Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman producing.
1970s
In late 1969, he moved to Los Angeles. His sound mellowed with such songs as "Sweet Caroline" (1969), "Holly Holy" (1969), "Cracklin' Rosie" (1970) and "Song Sung Blue" (1972), the last two reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100. "Sweet Caroline" was Diamond's first major hit after his slump. In 2007 Diamond said he had written "Sweet Caroline" for Caroline Kennedy after seeing her on the cover of Life in an equestrian riding outfit, but in 2014 he said in an interview on the Today Show that it was written for his then wife, Marcia. He could not find a good rhyme with the name "Marcia" and so used the name Caroline. It took him just one hour, in a Memphis hotel, to write and compose it. The 1971 release "I Am...I Said" was a Top 5 hit in both the US and UK and was his most intensely personal effort to date, taking over four months to complete.
In 1971, Diamond played 7 sold-out concerts at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The outdoor theater, which was noted for showcasing the best of current entertainers, added a stereo sound system for the first time. Diamond was also backed by a 35-piece string orchestra and six backing singers. After the first night, one leading newspaper called it "the finest concert in Greek Theater history."
In August 1972, he played again at the Greek, this time doing 10 shows. When the show was first announced, tickets at the 5000-seat theater sold out rapidly. He added a quadraphonic sound system for his performance to create full surround-sound. The performance of August 24, 1972, was recorded and released as the live double album Hot August Night. Hot August Night demonstrates Diamond's skills as a performer and showman, as he reinvigorated his back catalogue of hits with new energy. Diamond recalled: "Hot August Night captures a very special show for me. We went all out to really knock 'em dead in L.A." Many consider it his best work; critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Hot August Night "the ultimate Neil Diamond record... [which] shows Diamond the icon in full glory." The album became a classic, and was remastered in 2000 with additional selections. In Australia, which at the time had the most Neil Diamond fans per capita of any country, the album ranked No. 1 for 29 weeks and stayed in their top 20 bestsellers for two years.
In the fall of 1972, Diamond performed for 20 consecutive nights at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City. That theater had not staged a one-man show since Al Jolson in the 1930s. The approximately 1,600-seat Broadway venue provided an intimate concert setting not common at the time, with every performance reportedly sold out. It also made Diamond the first rock-era star to headline on Broadway. The review in the New York Times stated:
After the Winter Garden shows, Diamond announced that he needed a break, and he engaged in no more live performances till 1976. He used those four years to work on the score for Hall Bartlett's film version of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and to record two albums, Serenade and Beautiful Noise. He said years later, "I knew I'd come back, but I wasn't sure when. I spent one year on each of those albums...I'd been on the road six years. I had a son 2½ and I felt he needed me more than the audience did. So for four years I devoted myself to my son Jesse." He also said he needed to get back to having a private life, one where he could be anonymous.
In 1973, Diamond switched labels again, returning to Columbia Records for a million-dollar-advance-per-album contract (about US$ million per album in dollars). His first project, released as a solo album, was the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The film received hostile reviews and did poorly at the box office, and the album grossed more than the film did. Richard D. Bach, author of the best-selling source story, disowned the film, and he and Diamond sued Bartlett, though for differing reasons; in Bach's case, it was because he felt the film omitted too much from the original novella, whereas in Diamond's case, it was because he felt the film had butchered his score. "After 'Jonathan,'" Diamond declared, "I vowed never to get involved in a movie again unless I had complete control." Bartlett angrily responded to Diamond's lawsuit by criticizing his music as having become "too slick...and it's not as much from his heart as it used to be." Bartlett also added, "Neil is extraordinarily talented. Often his arrogance is just a cover for the lonely and insecure person underneath."
Despite the controversy surrounding the film, the soundtrack was a success, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart. Diamond also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture. Thereafter, Diamond often included a Jonathan Livingston Seagull suite in his live performances, as he did in his 1976 "Love at the Greek" concert and for his show in Las Vegas that same year.
Diamond returned to live shows in 1976 with an Australian tour, "The 'Thank You Australia' Concert", which was broadcast to 36 television outlets nationwide. He also again appeared at the Greek Theater in a 1976 concert, Love at the Greek. An album and accompanying video/DVD of the show includes a version of "Song Sung Blue" with duets with Helen Reddy and Henry Winkler, a.k.a. Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli of Happy Days.
He began wearing colorful beaded shirts in concert, originally so that everyone in the audience could see him without binoculars. Bill Whitten designed and made the shirts for Diamond from the 1970s till approximately 2007.
In 1974, Diamond released the album Serenade, from which "Longfellow Serenade" and "I've Been This Way Before" were issued as singles. The latter had been intended for the Jonathan Livingston Seagull score, but Diamond had completed it too late for inclusion. That same year he appeared on a TV special for Shirley Bassey and sang a duet with her.
In 1976, he released Beautiful Noise, produced by Robbie Robertson of The Band. On Thanksgiving 1976, Diamond made an appearance at The Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz, performing "Dry Your Eyes", which he wrote jointly with Robertson, and which had appeared on Beautiful Noise. He also joined the rest of the performers onstage at the end in a rendition of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released".
Diamond was paid $650,000 (about US$ million in dollars) from the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, to open its new $10 million Theater For the Performing Arts on July 2, 1976. The show played through July 5 and drew sold-out crowds at the 7,500-seat theater. A "who's who" of Hollywood attended opening night, ranging from Elizabeth Taylor to Chevy Chase, and Diamond walked out on stage to a standing ovation. He opened the show with a story about an ex-girlfriend who dumped him before he became successful. His lead-in line to the first song of the evening was, "You may have dumped me a bit too soon, baby, because look who's standing here tonight."
He performed at Woburn Abbey on July 2, 1977, to an audience of 55,000 British fans. The concert and interviews were taped by film director William Friedkin, who used six cameras to capture the performance.
In 1977, Diamond released I'm Glad You're Here With Me Tonight, including "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", for which he composed the music and on the writing of whose lyrics he collaborated with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman. Barbra Streisand covered the song on her album Songbird, and later, a Diamond-Streisand duet was recorded, spurred by the success of radio mash-ups. That version hit No. 1 in 1978, his third song to top the Hot 100. They appeared unannounced at the 1980 Grammy awards ceremony, where they performed the song to a surprised and rapturous audience.
His last 1970s album was September Morn, which included a new version of "I'm a Believer". It and "Red Red Wine" are his best-known original songs made more famous by other artists. In February 1979, the uptempo "Forever in Blue Jeans", co-written and jointly composed with his guitarist, Richard Bennett, was released as a single from You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Diamond's album from the previous year.
In 1979, Diamond collapsed on stage in San Francisco and was taken to the hospital, where he endured a 12-hour operation to remove what turned out to be a tumor on his spine. He said he had been losing feeling in his right leg "for a number of years but ignored it." When he collapsed, he had no strength in either leg. He underwent a long rehabilitation process just before starting principal photography on his film The Jazz Singer (1980). He was so convinced he was going to die that he wrote farewell letters to his friends.
1980s
A planned film version of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" to star Diamond and Streisand fell through when Diamond instead starred in a 1980 remake of the Al Jolson classic The Jazz Singer alongside Laurence Olivier and Lucie Arnaz. Though the movie received poor reviews, the soundtrack spawned three Top 10 singles, "Love on the Rocks", "Hello Again", and "America", the last of which had emotional significance for Diamond. "'America' was the story of my grandparents," he told an interviewer. "It's my gift to them, and it's very real for me ... In a way, it speaks to the immigrant in all of us." The song was performed in full by Diamond during the film's finale. An abbreviated version played over the film's opening titles.
The song was also the one he was most proud of, partly because of when it was later used: national news shows played it when the hostages were shown returning home after the Iran hostage crisis ended; it was played on the air during the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty; and at a tribute to slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the Vietnam Vets Welcome Home concert, he was asked to perform it live. At the time, a national poll found the song to be the number-one most recognized song about America, more than "God Bless America". It also became the anthem of his world tour two weeks after the attacks on America on September 11, 2001, when he changed the lyric at the end from; "They're coming to America", to "Stand up for America!" Earlier that year he performed it after a request from former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali.
The film's failure was due in part to Diamond never having acted professionally before. "I didn't think I could handle it," he said later, seeing himself as "a fish out of water." For his performance, Diamond became the first-ever winner of a Worst Actor Razzie Award, even though he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the same role. Critic David Wild noted that the film showed that Diamond was open about his religion: "Who else but this Jewish Elvis could go multi-platinum with an album that featured a version of 'the Kol Nidre?'" Diamond later told the Los Angeles Times, "For me, this was the ultimate bar mitzvah."
Another Top 10 selection, "Heartlight", was inspired by the blockbuster 1982 movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Though the film's title character is never mentioned in the lyrics, Universal Pictures, which had released E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and was the parent company of the Uni Records label, by then called MCA Records, for which Diamond had recorded for years, briefly threatened legal action against both Diamond and Columbia Records.
Diamond's record sales slumped somewhat in the 1980s and 1990s, his last single to make the Billboard's Pop Singles chart coming in 1986, but his concert tours continued to be big draws. Billboard magazine ranked Diamond as the most profitable solo performer of 1986. He released his 17th studio album in 1986, Headed for the Future, which reached number 20 on the Billboard 200. Three weeks later he starred in Hello Again, his first television special in nine years, performing comedy sketches and a duo medley with Carol Burnett.
In January 1987, Diamond sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. His "America" became the theme song for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign. That same year, UB40's reggae interpretation of Diamond's ballad "Red Red Wine" topped the Billboard Pop Singles chart and, like the Monkees' version of "I'm a Believer", became better known than Diamond's original version.
1990s
During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classic songs from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus.
The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. It is played at every home game of the Sydney Swans of the Australian Football League. It became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox.
The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the third period of their games. The Pitt Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it in the second half of every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game.
2000s
A more severely stripped-down-to-basics album, 12 Songs, produced by Rick Rubin, was released on November 8, 2005, in two editions: a standard 12-song release, and a special edition with two bonus tracks, including one featuring backing vocals by Brian Wilson. The album debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard chart, and received generally positive reviews; Earliwine describes the album as "inarguably Neil Diamond's best set of songs in a long, long time." 12 Songs also became noteworthy as one of the last albums to be pressed and released by Sony BMG with the Extended Copy Protection software embedded in the disc. (See the 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal.)
In 2007, Diamond was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
On March 19, 2008, it was announced on the television show American Idol that Diamond would be a guest mentor to the remaining Idol contestants, who would sing Diamond songs for the broadcasts of April 29 and 30, 2008. On the April 30 broadcast, Diamond premiered a new song, "Pretty Amazing Grace", from his then recently released album Home Before Dark. On May 2, 2008, Sirius Satellite Radio started Neil Diamond Radio. On April 8, 2008, Diamond made a surprise announcement in a big-screen broadcast at Fenway Park that he would be appearing there "live in concert" on August 23, 2008, as part of his world tour. The announcement, which marked the first official confirmation of any 2008 concert dates in the US, came during the traditional eighth-inning singalong of "Sweet Caroline", which had by that time become an anthem for Boston fans.
On April 28, 2008, Diamond appeared on the roof of the Jimmy Kimmel building to sing "Sweet Caroline" after Kimmel was jokingly arrested for singing the song dressed as a Diamond impersonator.
Home Before Dark was released May 6, 2008, and topped the album charts in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
On June 29, 2008, Diamond played to an estimated 108,000 fans at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England on the Concert of a Lifetime Tour; technical problems marred the concert.
In August, Diamond allowed cameras to record his entire four-night run at New York's Madison Square Garden; he released the resulting DVD in the U.S. in 2009, one year to the day of the first concert. Hot August Night/NYC debuted at No. 2 on the charts. On the same day the DVD was released, CBS aired an edited version, which won the ratings hour with 13 million viewers. The next day, the sales of the DVD surged, prompting Sony to order more copies to meet the high demand.
On August 25, 2008, Diamond performed at The Ohio State University while suffering from laryngitis. The result disappointed him as well as his fans, and on August 26, he offered refunds to anyone who applied by September 5.
Diamond was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year on February 6, 2009, two nights before the 51st Annual Grammy Awards.
Long loved in Boston, Diamond was invited to sing at the July 4, 2009, Independence Day celebration.
On October 13, 2009, he released A Cherry Cherry Christmas, his third album of holiday music.
2010s
On November 2, 2010, Diamond released the album Dreams, a collection of 14 interpretations of his favorite songs by artists from the rock era. The album also included a new slow-tempo arrangement of his "I'm a Believer". In December, he performed a track from the album, "Ain't No Sunshine", on NBC's The Sing-Off with Committed and Street Corner Symphony, two a cappella groups featured on the show. The Very Best of Neil Diamond, a compilation CD of Diamond's 23 studio recordings from the Bang, UNI/MCA, & Columbia catalogs, was released on December 6, 2011, on the Sony Legacy label.
The years 2011 and 2012 were marked by several milestones in Diamond's career. On March 14, 2011, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. In December, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. On August 10, 2012, Diamond received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In November 2012, he topped the bill at the centenary edition of the Royal Variety Performance in the UK, which was transmitted on December 3. He also appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
On April 20, 2013, Diamond made an unannounced appearance at Fenway Park to sing "Sweet Caroline" during the 8th inning. It was the first game at Fenway since the Boston Marathon bombing. On July 2, he released the single "Freedom Song (They'll Never Take Us Down)", with 100% of the purchase price benefiting One Fund Boston and the Wounded Warrior Project.
Sporting a beard, Diamond performed live on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol as part of A Capitol Fourth, which was broadcast nationally by PBS on July 4, 2013.
In January 2014, it was confirmed that Diamond had signed with the Capitol Music Group unit of Universal Music Group, which also owned Diamond's Uni/MCA catalog. UMG also took over Diamond's Columbia and Bang catalogues, which meant that all of his recorded output would be consolidated for the first time.
On July 8, 2014, Capitol Records announced, via a flyer included with Diamond's latest greatest hits compilations, All-Time Greatest Hits, which charted at 15 in the Billboard 200, that his next album, Melody Road, which was to be produced by Don Was and Jacknife Lee, would be released on September 30, 2014. In August, the release date was moved to October 21.
In September 2014, Diamond performed a surprise concert at his alma mater, Erasmus High School in Brooklyn. The show was announced via Twitter that afternoon. On the same day, he announced a 2015 "Melody Road" World Tour. The North American leg of the World Tour 2015 launched with a concert in Allentown, PA at the PPL Center on February 27 and ended at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado on May 31, 2015. Diamond used new media platforms and social media extensively throughout the tour, streaming several shows live on Periscope and showing tweets from fans who used the hashtag #tweetcaroline on two large screens. The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote: "This, my friends, wasn’t your grandfather's Neil Diamond concert. It was a multimedia extravaganza. Twitter. Periscope...It was a social media blitzkrieg that, by all accounts, proved to be an innovative way to widen his fan base."
In October 2016, Diamond released Acoustic Christmas, a folk-inspired Christmas album of original songs as well as acoustic versions of holiday classics. Produced by Was and Lee, who had produced Melody Road, the idea for the album began to take shape as the Melody Road sessions ended. To "channel the intimate atmosphere of '60s folk, Diamond recorded Acoustic Christmas with a handful of musicians, sitting around a circle of microphones, wires and, of course, Christmas lights."
In March 2017, the career-spanning anthology Neil Diamond 50 – 50th Anniversary Collection was released. He began his final concert tour, the 50 Year Anniversary World Tour in Fresno, California, in April.
In 2019, his 1969 signature song "Sweet Caroline" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
2020s
On March 7, 2020, despite his retirement due to Parkinson's disease, Diamond gave a rare performance at the Keep Memory Alive Power of Love Gala at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, where he was being honored.
On March 22, 2020, Diamond posted a video to YouTube playing "Sweet Caroline" with slightly modified lyrics ("...washing hands, don't touch me, I won't touch you...") in response to the widespread social distancing measures implemented due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
In April 2021, The New York Times reported that A Beautiful Noise, a musical based on Diamond's life and featuring his songs, would open at the Emerson Colonial Theater in Boston in the summer of 2022. The musical was scheduled to open on Broadway following the monthlong run in Boston.
Universal Music Group acquired Diamond's songwriting catalog and the rights to his recordings in February 2022. The acquisition also included 110 unreleased tracks, an unreleased album and archival videos.
Retirement
In January 2018, Diamond announced that he would immediately retire from touring due to having been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Tour dates on the final leg of Diamond's "50 Year Anniversary World Tour" in Australia and New Zealand were cancelled. An announcement on his official website said he was not retiring from music and that the cancellation of the live performances would allow him to "continue his writing, recording and development of new projects."
On July 28, 2018, Diamond and his wife Katie McNeil made a surprise visit to the Incident Command post in Basalt, Colorado—near where Diamond lives—to thank the firefighters and families with a solo acoustic guitar concert for efforts in containing the Lake Christine Fire, which began on July 3 and had scorched of land.
In pop culture
In 1967, Diamond was featured on the fourth episode of the detective drama Mannix as the 'featured' artist in a small underground club called 'The BAD SCENE' and was interrupted during his singing by one of many fights that took place weekly on the show.
In 2000, Neil Diamond appeared onstage with Diamond tribute band, Super Diamond, surprising them before their show at House of Blues in Los Angeles.
In the 2001 comedy film Saving Silverman, the main characters play in a Diamond cover band, and Diamond made an extended cameo appearance as himself. Diamond even wrote and composed a new song, "I Believe in Happy Endings", for the film. He sat in with the tribute band Super Diamond at the film's premiere party.
In 2008, Diamond gave film-maker Greg Kohs permission to use his songs in a documentary. Kohs, a director from Philadelphia, had met a popular Milwaukee, Wisconsin, duo, Lightning & Thunder, composed of Mike Sardina, who did a Diamond impersonation, and his wife Claire. Kohs followed them for eight years and produced the film Song Sung Blue. Though Sardina had died in 2006, Diamond invited his widow and her family to be his front-row guests at his show in Milwaukee, where he told them he was moved by the film.
In the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory, main characters Howard Wolowitz and Amy Farrah-Fowler are fans of Diamond's work.
Personal life
Diamond has been married three times. In 1963, he married his high-school sweetheart, Jaye Posner, who had become a schoolteacher. They had two daughters, Marjorie and Elyn. They separated in 1967 and divorced in 1969.
On December 5, 1969, Diamond married production assistant Marcia Murphey. They had two sons, Jesse and Micah. The marriage lasted 25 years, ending in 1994 or 1995.
In 1996, Diamond began a lengthy, live-in relationship with Australian Rae Farley after the two met in Brisbane, Australia. The songs on Home Before Dark were written and composed during her struggle with chronic back pain.
On September 7, 2011, in a message on Twitter, the 70-year-old Diamond announced his engagement to the 41-year-old Katie McNeil. Diamond said that his 2014 album Melody Road was fueled by their relationship, explaining:
There's no better inspiration or motivation for work than being in love. It's what you dream of as a creative person. I was able to complete this album—start it, write it and complete it—under the spell of love, and I think it shows somehow.
The couple married in front of family and close friends in Los Angeles in 2012. In addition to serving as Diamond's manager, McNeil produced the documentary Neil Diamond: Hot August Nights NYC.
Discography
Filmography
Diamond had a television appearance and roles in some movies, notably:
Mannix, "The Many Deaths of Saint Christopher" (1967) as himself
The Jazz Singer, starring role as Jess Robin
Saving Silverman appearing as himself
Notes
References
External links
Neil Diamond's Band's Official Site
1941 births
Living people
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American singers
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
Abraham Lincoln High School (Brooklyn) alumni
American acoustic guitarists
American baritones
American folk guitarists
American male guitarists
American male pianists
American male singer-songwriters
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American soft rock musicians
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Jewish American musicians
Jewish American songwriters
Jewish singers
Jewish folk singers
Jewish rock musicians
Erasmus Hall High School alumni
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
MCA Records artists
NYU Violets fencers
Uni Records artists
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Kennedy Center honorees
Rhythm guitarists
Musicians from Brooklyn
Guitarists from New York City
Singers from New York City
People with Parkinson's disease
Singer-songwriters from New York (state) | false | [
"Styggmann or Styggemann is the highest mountain of Skrimfjella in southern Norway.\n\nA legend about the mountain claims it used to be the home of a troll. The troll hated people walking on his mountain, disturbing his rest, so he used to lie on top of the mountain to scare them away. If someone came too close, he threw rocks and boulders at them. If you walk the path to Sørmyrseter, you can still see some of them. The troll was careful only to be outside when it was cloudy, but once he was surprised by the sun and turned to stone. You can still clearly see its nose, mouth and chin if you look from the right angle, which is where the mountain has its name from; the ugly man.\n\nMountains of Viken",
"\"Do Your Ears Hang Low?\" (Roud 15472) is a children's song that is often sung in schools, at camps and at birthday parties. The melody is usually an abridged version of \"Turkey in the Straw\", but it can also be sung to the tune of the \"Sailor's Hornpipe\" or \"The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers\". A common belief is that the lyrics refer to the long ears of a hound, but it appears considerably more likely that the song originated as the vulgar \"Do Your Balls Hang Low?\", and was later sanitized.\n\nHistory\nThe origin of the song is most likely George Washington Dixon's \"Zip Coon\", penned in 1838. Variant versions with vulgar lyrics include \"Do Your Balls Hang Low?\" and \"Do Your Boobs Hang Low?\" Some authors regard these as parody versions of the campfire song, but, according to folklorists such as Ed Cray, the evidence strongly suggests that \"Do Your Balls Hang Low?\" came first, and that \"Do Your Ears Hang Low?\" is a sanitized version.\n\nThe earliest apparent report of \"Do Your Balls Hang Low?\" is said to date from about 1900. The song is known to have been sung by British soldiers on the Western Front during the First World War. Lyn MacDonald reports that, on one occasion in 1916, General Douglas Haig heard it being sung by a column of soldiers as they marched past on their way to the Somme. He immediately called for his horse and rode to the head of the column to remonstrate with the battalion commander, only to find the colonel singing as heartily as his men. Haig congratulated him on his fine voice, but added: \"I like the tune, but you must know that in any circumstances those words are inexcusable!\"\n\nLyrics\nThe following lyrics are from one particular variant of the song:\n\nDo your ears hang low?\nDo they wobble to and fro?\nCan you tie 'em in a knot?\nCan you tie 'em in a bow?\nCan you throw 'em o'er your shoulder\nLike a continental soldier?\nDo your ears hang low?\n\nDo your ears stand high?\nDo they reach up to the sky?\nDo they droop when they are wet?\nDo they stiffen when they're dry?\nCan you wave them at your neighbor\nWith an element of flavor?\nDo your ears stand high?\n\nDo your ears flip-flop?\nCan you use them as a mop?\nAre they stringy at the bottom?\nAre they curly at the top?\nCan you use them for a swatter?\nCan you use them for a blotter?\nDo your ears flip-flop?\n\nDo your ears stick out?\nCan you waggle them about?\nCan you flap them up and down\nAs you fly around the town?\nCan you shut them up for sure\nWhen you hear an awful bore?\nDo your ears stick out?\n\nDo your ears give snacks?\nAre they all filled up with wax?\nDo you eat it in the morning\nDo you eat it in the bath?\nDo you eat it with a scone\nOr do you eat it on its own?\nDo your ears give snacks?\n\nIn the United Kingdom, a shorter version with differences in the lyrics is heard, commonly sung in Cubs and Brownies events:\n\nDo your ears hang low?\nDo they wobble to and fro?\nCan you tie them in a knot?\nCan you tie them in a bow?\nCan you swing them over your shoulder like a regimental soldier\nDo your ears hang low?\n(With a humorous glissando at a perfect fourth down, and back up again on the final \"low\".)\n\nSoldiers' version\nThe lyrics of the World War I version of \"Do Your Balls Hang Low?\" are recorded as:\n\nDo your balls hang low?\nDo they dangle to and fro?\nCan you tie them in a knot?\nCan you tie them in a bow?\n\nDo they itch when it's hot?\nDo you rest them in a pot?\n\nDo you get them in a tangle?\nDo you catch them in a mangle?\nDo they swing in stormy weather?\nDo they tickle with a feather?\n\nDo they rattle when you walk?\nDo they jingle when you talk?\n\nCan you sling them on your shoulder\nLike a lousy fucking soldier?\nDo your balls hang low?\n\nRecorded versions \n\n Sharon, Lois & Bram on Stay Tuned 1987\n Kinky Friedman on Live From Uranus 2003\n Øystein Sunde in a Norwegian variant called Hvis dine ører henger ned (\"If your ears hang down\") on Det året det var så bratt 1971\n A hip-hop version of the melody is used in the Jibbs song \"Chain Hang Low\".\n The vocal melody of this song is used in verses of \"Minna ga Minna ga Eiyū\" (みんながみんな英雄) by Japanese-American singer Ai.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences: \"Do your ears hang low?\" Lyrics and MIDI\n\nSongs about body parts\nSongs of World War I\nSongs of World War II\nEnglish children's songs\nYear of song unknown\nSongwriter unknown"
]
|
[
"Neil Diamond",
"The 1990s",
"What was his first album of the 1990s?",
"During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums.",
"Can you name one of them?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_6f0606366650496dab9bd961c9715fe5_0 | What was significant about the 90s for DIamond? | 3 | What was significant about the 1990s for Neil Diamond? | Neil Diamond | During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classics from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus. The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. Most notably, it became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox. The song also came to be played during the 8th inning of every New York Mets home game. The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own, and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the 3rd period of their games. The Pitt Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it at every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game, in the second half. CANNOTANSWER | He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. | Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and occasional actor. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: "Cracklin' Rosie", "Song Sung Blue", "Longfellow Serenade", "I've Been This Way Before", "If You Know What I Mean", "Desirée", "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", "America", "Yesterday's Songs", and "Heartlight". Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have been featured in the Top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts. He also played in movies such as The Jazz Singer, a musical drama film.
Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Early life and education
Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. All four of his grandparents were immigrants, from Poland on his father's side and Russia on his mother's. His parents were Rose (née Rapoport) and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond, a dry-goods merchant. He grew up in several homes in Brooklyn, having also spent four years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was stationed in the army. In Brooklyn he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a member of the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club, along with classmate Barbra Streisand; Diamond recalled they were not close friends at the time: "We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes." After his family moved to Brighton Beach, he attended Abraham Lincoln High School and was a member of the fencing team. Also on the team was his best friend, future Olympic fencer Herb Cohen.
For his 16th birthday, he received his first guitar. When he was 16 and still in high school, Diamond spent a number of weeks at Surprise Lake Camp, a camp for Jewish children in upstate New York, when folk singer Pete Seeger performed a small concert. Seeing the widely recognized singer perform, and watching other children singing songs for Seeger that they wrote themselves, had an immediate effect on Diamond, who then became aware of the possibility of writing his own songs. "And the next thing, I got a guitar when we got back to Brooklyn, started to take lessons and almost immediately began to write songs," he said. He added that his attraction to songwriting was the "first real interest" he had growing up, while also helping him release his youthful "frustrations".
Diamond also used his newly developing skill to write poetry. By writing poems for girls he was attracted to in school, he soon learned it often won their hearts. His male classmates took note and began asking him to write poems for them, which they would sing and use with equal success. He spent the summer following his graduation as a waiter in the Catskills resort area. There he first met Jaye Posner, who would years later become his wife.
Diamond next attended New York University as a pre-med major on a fencing scholarship, again on the fencing team with Herb Cohen. He was a member of the 1960 NCAA men's championship fencing team. Often bored in class, he found writing song lyrics more to his liking. He began cutting classes and taking the train up to Tin Pan Alley, where he tried to get some of his songs heard by local music publishers. In his senior year, when he was just 10 units short of graduation, Sunbeam Music Publishing offered him a 16-week job writing songs for $50 a week (equivalent to about US$ per week, in dollars), and he dropped out of college to accept it.
Career
1960s
Diamond was not rehired after his 16 weeks with Sunbeam, and he began writing and singing his own songs for demos. "I never really chose songwriting," he says. "It just absorbed me and became more and more important in my life." His first recording contract was billed as "Neil and Jack", an Everly Brothers-type duet with high school friend Jack Packer. They recorded the unsuccessful singles "You Are My Love at Last" with "What Will I Do", and "I'm Afraid" with "Till You've Tried Love", both records released in 1962. Cashbox and Billboard magazines gave all four sides excellent reviews, and Diamond signed with Columbia Records as a solo performer later in 1962. In July 1963, Columbia released the single "At Night" with "Clown Town"; Billboard gave an excellent review to Clown Town, and Cashbox gave both sides excellent reviews, but it still failed to make the charts. Columbia dropped him from their label and he went back to writing songs in and out of publishing houses for the next seven years.
He wrote wherever he could, including on buses, and used an upright piano above the Birdland Club in New York City. One of the causes of this early nomadic life as a songwriter was his songs' wordiness: "I'd spent a lot of time on lyrics, and they were looking for hooks, and I didn't really understand the nature of that," he says. He was able to sell only about one song a week during those years, barely enough to survive on. He found himself only earning enough to spend 35 cents a day on food (US$ in dollars). But the privacy that he had above the Birdland Club allowed him to focus on writing without distractions. "Something new began to happen. I wasn't under the gun, and suddenly interesting songs began to happen, songs that had things none of the others did." Among them were "Cherry, Cherry" and "Solitary Man". "Solitary Man" was the first record that Diamond recorded under his own name which made the charts. It remains one of his personal all-time favorites, as it was about his early years as a songwriter, even though he failed to realize it at the time. He describes the song as "an outgrowth of my despair".
Diamond spent his early career in the Brill Building. His first success as a songwriter came in November 1965 with "Sunday and Me", a Top 20 hit for Jay and the Americans. Greater success followed with "I'm a Believer", "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You", "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)", and "Love to Love", all performed by the Monkees. He wrote and recorded the songs for himself, but the cover versions were released before his own. The unintended consequence was that Diamond began to gain fame as a songwriter. "I'm a Believer" became a gold record within two days of its release and stayed at the top of the charts for seven weeks, making it the Popular Music Song of the Year in 1966.
"And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind" brought covers from Elvis Presley (who also interpreted "Sweet Caroline") and Mark Lindsay, former lead singer for Paul Revere & the Raiders. Other notable artists who recorded his early songs were the English hard-rock band Deep Purple, Lulu, and Cliff Richard.
In 1966, Diamond signed a deal with Bert Berns's Bang Records, then a subsidiary of Atlantic. His first release on that label was "Solitary Man", which was his first true hit as a solo artist. Diamond followed with "Cherry, Cherry" and "Kentucky Woman". His early concerts featured him opening for bands such as Herman's Hermits and the Who. As a guest performer with The Who, he was shocked to see Pete Townshend swinging his guitar like a club and then throwing it against walls and off the stage until the instrument's neck broke.
Diamond began to feel restricted by Bang Records because he wanted to record more ambitious, introspective music, such as "Brooklyn Roads" from 1968. Berns wanted to release "Kentucky Woman" as a single, but Diamond was no longer satisfied writing simple pop songs, so he proposed "Shilo", which was not about the Civil War but rather an imaginary childhood friend. Bang believed that the song was not commercial enough, so it was relegated to being an LP track on "Just for You". Diamond was also dissatisfied with his royalties and tried to sign with another record label after discovering a loophole in his contract that did not bind him exclusively to either WEB IV or Tallyrand, but the result was a series of lawsuits that coincided with a slump in his record sales and professional success. A magistrate refused WEB IV's request for a temporary injunction to prevent Diamond from joining another record company while his contract dispute continued in court, but the lawsuits persisted until February 18, 1977, when he triumphed in court and purchased the rights to his Bang-era master tapes.
On March 18, 1968, Diamond signed a deal with Uni Records; the label was named after Universal Pictures, the owner of which, MCA Inc., later consolidated its labels into MCA Records (now called Universal Music after merging with PolyGram in 1999). His debut album for Uni/MCA was Velvet Gloves and Spit, produced by Tom Catalano, which did not chart, and he recorded the follow-up Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show at American Sound Studios in Memphis with Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman producing.
1970s
In late 1969, he moved to Los Angeles. His sound mellowed with such songs as "Sweet Caroline" (1969), "Holly Holy" (1969), "Cracklin' Rosie" (1970) and "Song Sung Blue" (1972), the last two reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100. "Sweet Caroline" was Diamond's first major hit after his slump. In 2007 Diamond said he had written "Sweet Caroline" for Caroline Kennedy after seeing her on the cover of Life in an equestrian riding outfit, but in 2014 he said in an interview on the Today Show that it was written for his then wife, Marcia. He could not find a good rhyme with the name "Marcia" and so used the name Caroline. It took him just one hour, in a Memphis hotel, to write and compose it. The 1971 release "I Am...I Said" was a Top 5 hit in both the US and UK and was his most intensely personal effort to date, taking over four months to complete.
In 1971, Diamond played 7 sold-out concerts at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The outdoor theater, which was noted for showcasing the best of current entertainers, added a stereo sound system for the first time. Diamond was also backed by a 35-piece string orchestra and six backing singers. After the first night, one leading newspaper called it "the finest concert in Greek Theater history."
In August 1972, he played again at the Greek, this time doing 10 shows. When the show was first announced, tickets at the 5000-seat theater sold out rapidly. He added a quadraphonic sound system for his performance to create full surround-sound. The performance of August 24, 1972, was recorded and released as the live double album Hot August Night. Hot August Night demonstrates Diamond's skills as a performer and showman, as he reinvigorated his back catalogue of hits with new energy. Diamond recalled: "Hot August Night captures a very special show for me. We went all out to really knock 'em dead in L.A." Many consider it his best work; critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Hot August Night "the ultimate Neil Diamond record... [which] shows Diamond the icon in full glory." The album became a classic, and was remastered in 2000 with additional selections. In Australia, which at the time had the most Neil Diamond fans per capita of any country, the album ranked No. 1 for 29 weeks and stayed in their top 20 bestsellers for two years.
In the fall of 1972, Diamond performed for 20 consecutive nights at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City. That theater had not staged a one-man show since Al Jolson in the 1930s. The approximately 1,600-seat Broadway venue provided an intimate concert setting not common at the time, with every performance reportedly sold out. It also made Diamond the first rock-era star to headline on Broadway. The review in the New York Times stated:
After the Winter Garden shows, Diamond announced that he needed a break, and he engaged in no more live performances till 1976. He used those four years to work on the score for Hall Bartlett's film version of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and to record two albums, Serenade and Beautiful Noise. He said years later, "I knew I'd come back, but I wasn't sure when. I spent one year on each of those albums...I'd been on the road six years. I had a son 2½ and I felt he needed me more than the audience did. So for four years I devoted myself to my son Jesse." He also said he needed to get back to having a private life, one where he could be anonymous.
In 1973, Diamond switched labels again, returning to Columbia Records for a million-dollar-advance-per-album contract (about US$ million per album in dollars). His first project, released as a solo album, was the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The film received hostile reviews and did poorly at the box office, and the album grossed more than the film did. Richard D. Bach, author of the best-selling source story, disowned the film, and he and Diamond sued Bartlett, though for differing reasons; in Bach's case, it was because he felt the film omitted too much from the original novella, whereas in Diamond's case, it was because he felt the film had butchered his score. "After 'Jonathan,'" Diamond declared, "I vowed never to get involved in a movie again unless I had complete control." Bartlett angrily responded to Diamond's lawsuit by criticizing his music as having become "too slick...and it's not as much from his heart as it used to be." Bartlett also added, "Neil is extraordinarily talented. Often his arrogance is just a cover for the lonely and insecure person underneath."
Despite the controversy surrounding the film, the soundtrack was a success, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart. Diamond also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture. Thereafter, Diamond often included a Jonathan Livingston Seagull suite in his live performances, as he did in his 1976 "Love at the Greek" concert and for his show in Las Vegas that same year.
Diamond returned to live shows in 1976 with an Australian tour, "The 'Thank You Australia' Concert", which was broadcast to 36 television outlets nationwide. He also again appeared at the Greek Theater in a 1976 concert, Love at the Greek. An album and accompanying video/DVD of the show includes a version of "Song Sung Blue" with duets with Helen Reddy and Henry Winkler, a.k.a. Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli of Happy Days.
He began wearing colorful beaded shirts in concert, originally so that everyone in the audience could see him without binoculars. Bill Whitten designed and made the shirts for Diamond from the 1970s till approximately 2007.
In 1974, Diamond released the album Serenade, from which "Longfellow Serenade" and "I've Been This Way Before" were issued as singles. The latter had been intended for the Jonathan Livingston Seagull score, but Diamond had completed it too late for inclusion. That same year he appeared on a TV special for Shirley Bassey and sang a duet with her.
In 1976, he released Beautiful Noise, produced by Robbie Robertson of The Band. On Thanksgiving 1976, Diamond made an appearance at The Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz, performing "Dry Your Eyes", which he wrote jointly with Robertson, and which had appeared on Beautiful Noise. He also joined the rest of the performers onstage at the end in a rendition of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released".
Diamond was paid $650,000 (about US$ million in dollars) from the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, to open its new $10 million Theater For the Performing Arts on July 2, 1976. The show played through July 5 and drew sold-out crowds at the 7,500-seat theater. A "who's who" of Hollywood attended opening night, ranging from Elizabeth Taylor to Chevy Chase, and Diamond walked out on stage to a standing ovation. He opened the show with a story about an ex-girlfriend who dumped him before he became successful. His lead-in line to the first song of the evening was, "You may have dumped me a bit too soon, baby, because look who's standing here tonight."
He performed at Woburn Abbey on July 2, 1977, to an audience of 55,000 British fans. The concert and interviews were taped by film director William Friedkin, who used six cameras to capture the performance.
In 1977, Diamond released I'm Glad You're Here With Me Tonight, including "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", for which he composed the music and on the writing of whose lyrics he collaborated with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman. Barbra Streisand covered the song on her album Songbird, and later, a Diamond-Streisand duet was recorded, spurred by the success of radio mash-ups. That version hit No. 1 in 1978, his third song to top the Hot 100. They appeared unannounced at the 1980 Grammy awards ceremony, where they performed the song to a surprised and rapturous audience.
His last 1970s album was September Morn, which included a new version of "I'm a Believer". It and "Red Red Wine" are his best-known original songs made more famous by other artists. In February 1979, the uptempo "Forever in Blue Jeans", co-written and jointly composed with his guitarist, Richard Bennett, was released as a single from You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Diamond's album from the previous year.
In 1979, Diamond collapsed on stage in San Francisco and was taken to the hospital, where he endured a 12-hour operation to remove what turned out to be a tumor on his spine. He said he had been losing feeling in his right leg "for a number of years but ignored it." When he collapsed, he had no strength in either leg. He underwent a long rehabilitation process just before starting principal photography on his film The Jazz Singer (1980). He was so convinced he was going to die that he wrote farewell letters to his friends.
1980s
A planned film version of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" to star Diamond and Streisand fell through when Diamond instead starred in a 1980 remake of the Al Jolson classic The Jazz Singer alongside Laurence Olivier and Lucie Arnaz. Though the movie received poor reviews, the soundtrack spawned three Top 10 singles, "Love on the Rocks", "Hello Again", and "America", the last of which had emotional significance for Diamond. "'America' was the story of my grandparents," he told an interviewer. "It's my gift to them, and it's very real for me ... In a way, it speaks to the immigrant in all of us." The song was performed in full by Diamond during the film's finale. An abbreviated version played over the film's opening titles.
The song was also the one he was most proud of, partly because of when it was later used: national news shows played it when the hostages were shown returning home after the Iran hostage crisis ended; it was played on the air during the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty; and at a tribute to slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the Vietnam Vets Welcome Home concert, he was asked to perform it live. At the time, a national poll found the song to be the number-one most recognized song about America, more than "God Bless America". It also became the anthem of his world tour two weeks after the attacks on America on September 11, 2001, when he changed the lyric at the end from; "They're coming to America", to "Stand up for America!" Earlier that year he performed it after a request from former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali.
The film's failure was due in part to Diamond never having acted professionally before. "I didn't think I could handle it," he said later, seeing himself as "a fish out of water." For his performance, Diamond became the first-ever winner of a Worst Actor Razzie Award, even though he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the same role. Critic David Wild noted that the film showed that Diamond was open about his religion: "Who else but this Jewish Elvis could go multi-platinum with an album that featured a version of 'the Kol Nidre?'" Diamond later told the Los Angeles Times, "For me, this was the ultimate bar mitzvah."
Another Top 10 selection, "Heartlight", was inspired by the blockbuster 1982 movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Though the film's title character is never mentioned in the lyrics, Universal Pictures, which had released E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and was the parent company of the Uni Records label, by then called MCA Records, for which Diamond had recorded for years, briefly threatened legal action against both Diamond and Columbia Records.
Diamond's record sales slumped somewhat in the 1980s and 1990s, his last single to make the Billboard's Pop Singles chart coming in 1986, but his concert tours continued to be big draws. Billboard magazine ranked Diamond as the most profitable solo performer of 1986. He released his 17th studio album in 1986, Headed for the Future, which reached number 20 on the Billboard 200. Three weeks later he starred in Hello Again, his first television special in nine years, performing comedy sketches and a duo medley with Carol Burnett.
In January 1987, Diamond sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. His "America" became the theme song for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign. That same year, UB40's reggae interpretation of Diamond's ballad "Red Red Wine" topped the Billboard Pop Singles chart and, like the Monkees' version of "I'm a Believer", became better known than Diamond's original version.
1990s
During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classic songs from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus.
The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. It is played at every home game of the Sydney Swans of the Australian Football League. It became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox.
The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the third period of their games. The Pitt Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it in the second half of every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game.
2000s
A more severely stripped-down-to-basics album, 12 Songs, produced by Rick Rubin, was released on November 8, 2005, in two editions: a standard 12-song release, and a special edition with two bonus tracks, including one featuring backing vocals by Brian Wilson. The album debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard chart, and received generally positive reviews; Earliwine describes the album as "inarguably Neil Diamond's best set of songs in a long, long time." 12 Songs also became noteworthy as one of the last albums to be pressed and released by Sony BMG with the Extended Copy Protection software embedded in the disc. (See the 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal.)
In 2007, Diamond was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
On March 19, 2008, it was announced on the television show American Idol that Diamond would be a guest mentor to the remaining Idol contestants, who would sing Diamond songs for the broadcasts of April 29 and 30, 2008. On the April 30 broadcast, Diamond premiered a new song, "Pretty Amazing Grace", from his then recently released album Home Before Dark. On May 2, 2008, Sirius Satellite Radio started Neil Diamond Radio. On April 8, 2008, Diamond made a surprise announcement in a big-screen broadcast at Fenway Park that he would be appearing there "live in concert" on August 23, 2008, as part of his world tour. The announcement, which marked the first official confirmation of any 2008 concert dates in the US, came during the traditional eighth-inning singalong of "Sweet Caroline", which had by that time become an anthem for Boston fans.
On April 28, 2008, Diamond appeared on the roof of the Jimmy Kimmel building to sing "Sweet Caroline" after Kimmel was jokingly arrested for singing the song dressed as a Diamond impersonator.
Home Before Dark was released May 6, 2008, and topped the album charts in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
On June 29, 2008, Diamond played to an estimated 108,000 fans at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England on the Concert of a Lifetime Tour; technical problems marred the concert.
In August, Diamond allowed cameras to record his entire four-night run at New York's Madison Square Garden; he released the resulting DVD in the U.S. in 2009, one year to the day of the first concert. Hot August Night/NYC debuted at No. 2 on the charts. On the same day the DVD was released, CBS aired an edited version, which won the ratings hour with 13 million viewers. The next day, the sales of the DVD surged, prompting Sony to order more copies to meet the high demand.
On August 25, 2008, Diamond performed at The Ohio State University while suffering from laryngitis. The result disappointed him as well as his fans, and on August 26, he offered refunds to anyone who applied by September 5.
Diamond was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year on February 6, 2009, two nights before the 51st Annual Grammy Awards.
Long loved in Boston, Diamond was invited to sing at the July 4, 2009, Independence Day celebration.
On October 13, 2009, he released A Cherry Cherry Christmas, his third album of holiday music.
2010s
On November 2, 2010, Diamond released the album Dreams, a collection of 14 interpretations of his favorite songs by artists from the rock era. The album also included a new slow-tempo arrangement of his "I'm a Believer". In December, he performed a track from the album, "Ain't No Sunshine", on NBC's The Sing-Off with Committed and Street Corner Symphony, two a cappella groups featured on the show. The Very Best of Neil Diamond, a compilation CD of Diamond's 23 studio recordings from the Bang, UNI/MCA, & Columbia catalogs, was released on December 6, 2011, on the Sony Legacy label.
The years 2011 and 2012 were marked by several milestones in Diamond's career. On March 14, 2011, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. In December, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. On August 10, 2012, Diamond received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In November 2012, he topped the bill at the centenary edition of the Royal Variety Performance in the UK, which was transmitted on December 3. He also appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
On April 20, 2013, Diamond made an unannounced appearance at Fenway Park to sing "Sweet Caroline" during the 8th inning. It was the first game at Fenway since the Boston Marathon bombing. On July 2, he released the single "Freedom Song (They'll Never Take Us Down)", with 100% of the purchase price benefiting One Fund Boston and the Wounded Warrior Project.
Sporting a beard, Diamond performed live on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol as part of A Capitol Fourth, which was broadcast nationally by PBS on July 4, 2013.
In January 2014, it was confirmed that Diamond had signed with the Capitol Music Group unit of Universal Music Group, which also owned Diamond's Uni/MCA catalog. UMG also took over Diamond's Columbia and Bang catalogues, which meant that all of his recorded output would be consolidated for the first time.
On July 8, 2014, Capitol Records announced, via a flyer included with Diamond's latest greatest hits compilations, All-Time Greatest Hits, which charted at 15 in the Billboard 200, that his next album, Melody Road, which was to be produced by Don Was and Jacknife Lee, would be released on September 30, 2014. In August, the release date was moved to October 21.
In September 2014, Diamond performed a surprise concert at his alma mater, Erasmus High School in Brooklyn. The show was announced via Twitter that afternoon. On the same day, he announced a 2015 "Melody Road" World Tour. The North American leg of the World Tour 2015 launched with a concert in Allentown, PA at the PPL Center on February 27 and ended at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado on May 31, 2015. Diamond used new media platforms and social media extensively throughout the tour, streaming several shows live on Periscope and showing tweets from fans who used the hashtag #tweetcaroline on two large screens. The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote: "This, my friends, wasn’t your grandfather's Neil Diamond concert. It was a multimedia extravaganza. Twitter. Periscope...It was a social media blitzkrieg that, by all accounts, proved to be an innovative way to widen his fan base."
In October 2016, Diamond released Acoustic Christmas, a folk-inspired Christmas album of original songs as well as acoustic versions of holiday classics. Produced by Was and Lee, who had produced Melody Road, the idea for the album began to take shape as the Melody Road sessions ended. To "channel the intimate atmosphere of '60s folk, Diamond recorded Acoustic Christmas with a handful of musicians, sitting around a circle of microphones, wires and, of course, Christmas lights."
In March 2017, the career-spanning anthology Neil Diamond 50 – 50th Anniversary Collection was released. He began his final concert tour, the 50 Year Anniversary World Tour in Fresno, California, in April.
In 2019, his 1969 signature song "Sweet Caroline" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
2020s
On March 7, 2020, despite his retirement due to Parkinson's disease, Diamond gave a rare performance at the Keep Memory Alive Power of Love Gala at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, where he was being honored.
On March 22, 2020, Diamond posted a video to YouTube playing "Sweet Caroline" with slightly modified lyrics ("...washing hands, don't touch me, I won't touch you...") in response to the widespread social distancing measures implemented due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
In April 2021, The New York Times reported that A Beautiful Noise, a musical based on Diamond's life and featuring his songs, would open at the Emerson Colonial Theater in Boston in the summer of 2022. The musical was scheduled to open on Broadway following the monthlong run in Boston.
Universal Music Group acquired Diamond's songwriting catalog and the rights to his recordings in February 2022. The acquisition also included 110 unreleased tracks, an unreleased album and archival videos.
Retirement
In January 2018, Diamond announced that he would immediately retire from touring due to having been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Tour dates on the final leg of Diamond's "50 Year Anniversary World Tour" in Australia and New Zealand were cancelled. An announcement on his official website said he was not retiring from music and that the cancellation of the live performances would allow him to "continue his writing, recording and development of new projects."
On July 28, 2018, Diamond and his wife Katie McNeil made a surprise visit to the Incident Command post in Basalt, Colorado—near where Diamond lives—to thank the firefighters and families with a solo acoustic guitar concert for efforts in containing the Lake Christine Fire, which began on July 3 and had scorched of land.
In pop culture
In 1967, Diamond was featured on the fourth episode of the detective drama Mannix as the 'featured' artist in a small underground club called 'The BAD SCENE' and was interrupted during his singing by one of many fights that took place weekly on the show.
In 2000, Neil Diamond appeared onstage with Diamond tribute band, Super Diamond, surprising them before their show at House of Blues in Los Angeles.
In the 2001 comedy film Saving Silverman, the main characters play in a Diamond cover band, and Diamond made an extended cameo appearance as himself. Diamond even wrote and composed a new song, "I Believe in Happy Endings", for the film. He sat in with the tribute band Super Diamond at the film's premiere party.
In 2008, Diamond gave film-maker Greg Kohs permission to use his songs in a documentary. Kohs, a director from Philadelphia, had met a popular Milwaukee, Wisconsin, duo, Lightning & Thunder, composed of Mike Sardina, who did a Diamond impersonation, and his wife Claire. Kohs followed them for eight years and produced the film Song Sung Blue. Though Sardina had died in 2006, Diamond invited his widow and her family to be his front-row guests at his show in Milwaukee, where he told them he was moved by the film.
In the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory, main characters Howard Wolowitz and Amy Farrah-Fowler are fans of Diamond's work.
Personal life
Diamond has been married three times. In 1963, he married his high-school sweetheart, Jaye Posner, who had become a schoolteacher. They had two daughters, Marjorie and Elyn. They separated in 1967 and divorced in 1969.
On December 5, 1969, Diamond married production assistant Marcia Murphey. They had two sons, Jesse and Micah. The marriage lasted 25 years, ending in 1994 or 1995.
In 1996, Diamond began a lengthy, live-in relationship with Australian Rae Farley after the two met in Brisbane, Australia. The songs on Home Before Dark were written and composed during her struggle with chronic back pain.
On September 7, 2011, in a message on Twitter, the 70-year-old Diamond announced his engagement to the 41-year-old Katie McNeil. Diamond said that his 2014 album Melody Road was fueled by their relationship, explaining:
There's no better inspiration or motivation for work than being in love. It's what you dream of as a creative person. I was able to complete this album—start it, write it and complete it—under the spell of love, and I think it shows somehow.
The couple married in front of family and close friends in Los Angeles in 2012. In addition to serving as Diamond's manager, McNeil produced the documentary Neil Diamond: Hot August Nights NYC.
Discography
Filmography
Diamond had a television appearance and roles in some movies, notably:
Mannix, "The Many Deaths of Saint Christopher" (1967) as himself
The Jazz Singer, starring role as Jess Robin
Saving Silverman appearing as himself
Notes
References
External links
Neil Diamond's Band's Official Site
1941 births
Living people
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American singers
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
Abraham Lincoln High School (Brooklyn) alumni
American acoustic guitarists
American baritones
American folk guitarists
American male guitarists
American male pianists
American male singer-songwriters
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American soft rock musicians
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Jewish American musicians
Jewish American songwriters
Jewish singers
Jewish folk singers
Jewish rock musicians
Erasmus Hall High School alumni
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
MCA Records artists
NYU Violets fencers
Uni Records artists
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Kennedy Center honorees
Rhythm guitarists
Musicians from Brooklyn
Guitarists from New York City
Singers from New York City
People with Parkinson's disease
Singer-songwriters from New York (state) | true | [
"The Premier Mine is an underground diamond mine owned by Petra Diamonds in the town of Cullinan, east of Pretoria, Gauteng Province, South Africa. Established in 1902, it was renamed the Cullinan Diamond Mine in November 2003 in celebration of its centenary. The mine rose to prominence in 1905, when the Cullinan Diamond – the largest rough diamond of gem quality ever found – was discovered there. The mine has produced over 750 stones that are greater than and more than a quarter of all the world's diamonds that are greater than . It is also the only significant source of blue diamonds in the world.\n\nNotable discoveries \nThe Cullinan Diamond is the largest rough gem-quality diamond ever found, at . It was found by Frederick Wells, surface manager of the Premier Diamond Mining Company in Cullinan, Gauteng, South Africa, on 25 January 1905. The stone was named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, the owner of the diamond mine.\n\nThere have been various other notable diamonds that have been recovered from Premier Mine. These include:\n The Premier Rose – rough\n The Niarchos – rough\n The De Beers Centenary – rough\n Golden Jubilee Diamond – rough\n Taylor-Burton Diamond – polished\n\nIn May 2008, a sparkling shield-shaped diamond (about the size of a ping pong ball) mined from the Premier Mine sold for more than US$6.2 million at Christie's in Hong Kong. Cut from a rough, the shield-shaped gem boasts 92 brilliant facets. While internally flawless, the stone has a slight imperfection on the surface that is imperceptible to the human eye, the auction house said. It is the largest colourless diamond to appear on the auction market in the last 18 years, Christie's said. Only three diamonds of more than have appeared at auction. All were sold in Geneva. Naming rights were granted to the new owner.\n\nIn September 2009, a diamond was found, and is ranked as one of the 20 biggest high quality diamonds ever discovered. Petra Diamonds sold it for $35.3 million on 26 February 2010, breaking a record as the highest price ever paid for a rough diamond.\n\nOn 18 April 2013 a blue rough diamond was recovered by Petra Diamonds at its Cullinan mine. According to experts it could be worth more than $10m. The find gave a boost to Petra's share price. The mine has produced hundreds of large stones and is famed for its production of blue diamonds. A similar blue rough diamond recovered by Petra in May 2009 was cut into a near perfect stone and fetched just under $10m at Sotheby's. Another deep-blue diamond from Cullinan was auctioned for $10.8m last year and set a world record for the value per carat.\n\nOn 21 January 2014, Petra Diamonds announced recovery of a blue diamond. According to the current CEO, Johan Dippenaar, it is the \"most significant blue diamond\" to be recovered by Petra Diamonds. According to Analyst Cailey Barker at broker Numis it \"could fetch between $15m and $20m at auction\". Decision on what is to be done with the stone will come next week.\n\nOn 13 June 2014, Petra Diamonds announced that a blue diamond of was found at the Cullinan mine. The diamond, though not yet appraised, is expected to fetch more than 35 million dollars, which was the approximate value of the Heritage Diamond, also found in that mine. Petra Diamonds says that the diamond will not be put up for auction before their fiscal year ends this month.\n\nPurchase by Petra Diamonds \nCullinan Diamond Mine is a carrot shaped volcanic pipe and has a surface area of .\n\nOn 22 November 2007, De Beers, the world's largest diamond producer, announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell the Cullinan mine for R1 billion (US$125 million) to Petra Diamonds Cullinan Consortium (PDCC), a consortium of:\n Petra Diamonds 37% stake, with an option to increase to 60%\n Al Rajhi Holdings W.L.L. 37% stake\n A Black Economic Empowerment foundation 26% stake, comprising a 12% stake held by an employee share trust and a 14% stake held by Thembinkosi Mining Investments (Pty) Ltd\nOn 16 July 2008, Petra announced the completion of the acquisition.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading \n Diamond Mines of South Africa, Premier Diamond mine overview + images by A.R.Williams former general manager of De Beers (900-page overview).\n De Beers sells South African Cullinan Diamond Mine (dead link 30 March 2019)\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\nDiamond mines in South Africa\nUnderground mines in South Africa\nEconomy of Gauteng\nGeography of Gauteng\nCity of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality",
"The Winston Blue is the name given to what was the largest flawless vivid blue diamond bought by Harry Winston, Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of The Swatch Group from January 2013) on May 15, 2014, from an anonymous person for $23.8 million at Christie's Geneva Magnificent Jewels sale. The approximately $1.8003 million per carat price paid for the 13.22-carat diamond is a world record for a blue diamond. Harry Winston, Inc. had also bought a 101.73-carat colorless diamond named Winston Legacy at Christie's Geneva jewelry auction in 2013. The American luxury jeweler had then paid $26.7 million for the colorless diamond ($254,400 per carat), which is a world record for the highest price paid per carat for a colorless diamond.\n\nFor the auction the diamond was dubbed 'The Blue'. The name Winston Blue was given to it by Nayla Hayek, who is the CEO of Harry Winston Inc., after it was bought at the auction. After buying the diamond, Hayek said:\n\nIn January 2013 we purchased Harry Winston and since then my ambition has been to acquire the most desirable and unique gems. When Christie's announced they were offering the largest flawless fancy-vivid blue the GIA had ever graded, I had to buy it. Today, I am proud to own the most beautiful blue diamond in the world: The Winston Blue.\n\nThe London based auction house Christie's International regained the record for top jewelry auction after its Geneva Magnificent Jewels sale. The record was held Sotheby's until May 13, 2014. Christie's Geneva auction realized a total of $154.19 million, which is a world record for the highest total ever for a jewelry auction.\n\nThe diamond is flanked on either side by a pear-shaped diamond, which weigh approximately 1.00 and 0.96 carat respectively. The Gemological Institute of America certified on March 25, 2014 that the diamond was fancy vivid blue in color, had flawless clarity and was a type IIb diamond.\n\nSee also\nList of diamonds\n\nReferences\n\nIndividual rings\nDiamonds originating in South Africa\nIndividual diamonds\nBlue diamonds"
]
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[
"Neil Diamond",
"The 1990s",
"What was his first album of the 1990s?",
"During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums.",
"Can you name one of them?",
"I don't know.",
"What was significant about the 90s for DIamond?",
"He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart."
]
| C_6f0606366650496dab9bd961c9715fe5_0 | Did he do any touring or live performances? | 4 | Did Neil Diamond do any touring or live performances in the 1990s? | Neil Diamond | During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classics from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus. The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. Most notably, it became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox. The song also came to be played during the 8th inning of every New York Mets home game. The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own, and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the 3rd period of their games. The Pitt Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it at every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game, in the second half. CANNOTANSWER | In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. | Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and occasional actor. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: "Cracklin' Rosie", "Song Sung Blue", "Longfellow Serenade", "I've Been This Way Before", "If You Know What I Mean", "Desirée", "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", "America", "Yesterday's Songs", and "Heartlight". Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have been featured in the Top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts. He also played in movies such as The Jazz Singer, a musical drama film.
Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Early life and education
Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. All four of his grandparents were immigrants, from Poland on his father's side and Russia on his mother's. His parents were Rose (née Rapoport) and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond, a dry-goods merchant. He grew up in several homes in Brooklyn, having also spent four years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was stationed in the army. In Brooklyn he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a member of the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club, along with classmate Barbra Streisand; Diamond recalled they were not close friends at the time: "We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes." After his family moved to Brighton Beach, he attended Abraham Lincoln High School and was a member of the fencing team. Also on the team was his best friend, future Olympic fencer Herb Cohen.
For his 16th birthday, he received his first guitar. When he was 16 and still in high school, Diamond spent a number of weeks at Surprise Lake Camp, a camp for Jewish children in upstate New York, when folk singer Pete Seeger performed a small concert. Seeing the widely recognized singer perform, and watching other children singing songs for Seeger that they wrote themselves, had an immediate effect on Diamond, who then became aware of the possibility of writing his own songs. "And the next thing, I got a guitar when we got back to Brooklyn, started to take lessons and almost immediately began to write songs," he said. He added that his attraction to songwriting was the "first real interest" he had growing up, while also helping him release his youthful "frustrations".
Diamond also used his newly developing skill to write poetry. By writing poems for girls he was attracted to in school, he soon learned it often won their hearts. His male classmates took note and began asking him to write poems for them, which they would sing and use with equal success. He spent the summer following his graduation as a waiter in the Catskills resort area. There he first met Jaye Posner, who would years later become his wife.
Diamond next attended New York University as a pre-med major on a fencing scholarship, again on the fencing team with Herb Cohen. He was a member of the 1960 NCAA men's championship fencing team. Often bored in class, he found writing song lyrics more to his liking. He began cutting classes and taking the train up to Tin Pan Alley, where he tried to get some of his songs heard by local music publishers. In his senior year, when he was just 10 units short of graduation, Sunbeam Music Publishing offered him a 16-week job writing songs for $50 a week (equivalent to about US$ per week, in dollars), and he dropped out of college to accept it.
Career
1960s
Diamond was not rehired after his 16 weeks with Sunbeam, and he began writing and singing his own songs for demos. "I never really chose songwriting," he says. "It just absorbed me and became more and more important in my life." His first recording contract was billed as "Neil and Jack", an Everly Brothers-type duet with high school friend Jack Packer. They recorded the unsuccessful singles "You Are My Love at Last" with "What Will I Do", and "I'm Afraid" with "Till You've Tried Love", both records released in 1962. Cashbox and Billboard magazines gave all four sides excellent reviews, and Diamond signed with Columbia Records as a solo performer later in 1962. In July 1963, Columbia released the single "At Night" with "Clown Town"; Billboard gave an excellent review to Clown Town, and Cashbox gave both sides excellent reviews, but it still failed to make the charts. Columbia dropped him from their label and he went back to writing songs in and out of publishing houses for the next seven years.
He wrote wherever he could, including on buses, and used an upright piano above the Birdland Club in New York City. One of the causes of this early nomadic life as a songwriter was his songs' wordiness: "I'd spent a lot of time on lyrics, and they were looking for hooks, and I didn't really understand the nature of that," he says. He was able to sell only about one song a week during those years, barely enough to survive on. He found himself only earning enough to spend 35 cents a day on food (US$ in dollars). But the privacy that he had above the Birdland Club allowed him to focus on writing without distractions. "Something new began to happen. I wasn't under the gun, and suddenly interesting songs began to happen, songs that had things none of the others did." Among them were "Cherry, Cherry" and "Solitary Man". "Solitary Man" was the first record that Diamond recorded under his own name which made the charts. It remains one of his personal all-time favorites, as it was about his early years as a songwriter, even though he failed to realize it at the time. He describes the song as "an outgrowth of my despair".
Diamond spent his early career in the Brill Building. His first success as a songwriter came in November 1965 with "Sunday and Me", a Top 20 hit for Jay and the Americans. Greater success followed with "I'm a Believer", "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You", "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)", and "Love to Love", all performed by the Monkees. He wrote and recorded the songs for himself, but the cover versions were released before his own. The unintended consequence was that Diamond began to gain fame as a songwriter. "I'm a Believer" became a gold record within two days of its release and stayed at the top of the charts for seven weeks, making it the Popular Music Song of the Year in 1966.
"And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind" brought covers from Elvis Presley (who also interpreted "Sweet Caroline") and Mark Lindsay, former lead singer for Paul Revere & the Raiders. Other notable artists who recorded his early songs were the English hard-rock band Deep Purple, Lulu, and Cliff Richard.
In 1966, Diamond signed a deal with Bert Berns's Bang Records, then a subsidiary of Atlantic. His first release on that label was "Solitary Man", which was his first true hit as a solo artist. Diamond followed with "Cherry, Cherry" and "Kentucky Woman". His early concerts featured him opening for bands such as Herman's Hermits and the Who. As a guest performer with The Who, he was shocked to see Pete Townshend swinging his guitar like a club and then throwing it against walls and off the stage until the instrument's neck broke.
Diamond began to feel restricted by Bang Records because he wanted to record more ambitious, introspective music, such as "Brooklyn Roads" from 1968. Berns wanted to release "Kentucky Woman" as a single, but Diamond was no longer satisfied writing simple pop songs, so he proposed "Shilo", which was not about the Civil War but rather an imaginary childhood friend. Bang believed that the song was not commercial enough, so it was relegated to being an LP track on "Just for You". Diamond was also dissatisfied with his royalties and tried to sign with another record label after discovering a loophole in his contract that did not bind him exclusively to either WEB IV or Tallyrand, but the result was a series of lawsuits that coincided with a slump in his record sales and professional success. A magistrate refused WEB IV's request for a temporary injunction to prevent Diamond from joining another record company while his contract dispute continued in court, but the lawsuits persisted until February 18, 1977, when he triumphed in court and purchased the rights to his Bang-era master tapes.
On March 18, 1968, Diamond signed a deal with Uni Records; the label was named after Universal Pictures, the owner of which, MCA Inc., later consolidated its labels into MCA Records (now called Universal Music after merging with PolyGram in 1999). His debut album for Uni/MCA was Velvet Gloves and Spit, produced by Tom Catalano, which did not chart, and he recorded the follow-up Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show at American Sound Studios in Memphis with Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman producing.
1970s
In late 1969, he moved to Los Angeles. His sound mellowed with such songs as "Sweet Caroline" (1969), "Holly Holy" (1969), "Cracklin' Rosie" (1970) and "Song Sung Blue" (1972), the last two reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100. "Sweet Caroline" was Diamond's first major hit after his slump. In 2007 Diamond said he had written "Sweet Caroline" for Caroline Kennedy after seeing her on the cover of Life in an equestrian riding outfit, but in 2014 he said in an interview on the Today Show that it was written for his then wife, Marcia. He could not find a good rhyme with the name "Marcia" and so used the name Caroline. It took him just one hour, in a Memphis hotel, to write and compose it. The 1971 release "I Am...I Said" was a Top 5 hit in both the US and UK and was his most intensely personal effort to date, taking over four months to complete.
In 1971, Diamond played 7 sold-out concerts at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The outdoor theater, which was noted for showcasing the best of current entertainers, added a stereo sound system for the first time. Diamond was also backed by a 35-piece string orchestra and six backing singers. After the first night, one leading newspaper called it "the finest concert in Greek Theater history."
In August 1972, he played again at the Greek, this time doing 10 shows. When the show was first announced, tickets at the 5000-seat theater sold out rapidly. He added a quadraphonic sound system for his performance to create full surround-sound. The performance of August 24, 1972, was recorded and released as the live double album Hot August Night. Hot August Night demonstrates Diamond's skills as a performer and showman, as he reinvigorated his back catalogue of hits with new energy. Diamond recalled: "Hot August Night captures a very special show for me. We went all out to really knock 'em dead in L.A." Many consider it his best work; critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Hot August Night "the ultimate Neil Diamond record... [which] shows Diamond the icon in full glory." The album became a classic, and was remastered in 2000 with additional selections. In Australia, which at the time had the most Neil Diamond fans per capita of any country, the album ranked No. 1 for 29 weeks and stayed in their top 20 bestsellers for two years.
In the fall of 1972, Diamond performed for 20 consecutive nights at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City. That theater had not staged a one-man show since Al Jolson in the 1930s. The approximately 1,600-seat Broadway venue provided an intimate concert setting not common at the time, with every performance reportedly sold out. It also made Diamond the first rock-era star to headline on Broadway. The review in the New York Times stated:
After the Winter Garden shows, Diamond announced that he needed a break, and he engaged in no more live performances till 1976. He used those four years to work on the score for Hall Bartlett's film version of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and to record two albums, Serenade and Beautiful Noise. He said years later, "I knew I'd come back, but I wasn't sure when. I spent one year on each of those albums...I'd been on the road six years. I had a son 2½ and I felt he needed me more than the audience did. So for four years I devoted myself to my son Jesse." He also said he needed to get back to having a private life, one where he could be anonymous.
In 1973, Diamond switched labels again, returning to Columbia Records for a million-dollar-advance-per-album contract (about US$ million per album in dollars). His first project, released as a solo album, was the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The film received hostile reviews and did poorly at the box office, and the album grossed more than the film did. Richard D. Bach, author of the best-selling source story, disowned the film, and he and Diamond sued Bartlett, though for differing reasons; in Bach's case, it was because he felt the film omitted too much from the original novella, whereas in Diamond's case, it was because he felt the film had butchered his score. "After 'Jonathan,'" Diamond declared, "I vowed never to get involved in a movie again unless I had complete control." Bartlett angrily responded to Diamond's lawsuit by criticizing his music as having become "too slick...and it's not as much from his heart as it used to be." Bartlett also added, "Neil is extraordinarily talented. Often his arrogance is just a cover for the lonely and insecure person underneath."
Despite the controversy surrounding the film, the soundtrack was a success, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart. Diamond also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture. Thereafter, Diamond often included a Jonathan Livingston Seagull suite in his live performances, as he did in his 1976 "Love at the Greek" concert and for his show in Las Vegas that same year.
Diamond returned to live shows in 1976 with an Australian tour, "The 'Thank You Australia' Concert", which was broadcast to 36 television outlets nationwide. He also again appeared at the Greek Theater in a 1976 concert, Love at the Greek. An album and accompanying video/DVD of the show includes a version of "Song Sung Blue" with duets with Helen Reddy and Henry Winkler, a.k.a. Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli of Happy Days.
He began wearing colorful beaded shirts in concert, originally so that everyone in the audience could see him without binoculars. Bill Whitten designed and made the shirts for Diamond from the 1970s till approximately 2007.
In 1974, Diamond released the album Serenade, from which "Longfellow Serenade" and "I've Been This Way Before" were issued as singles. The latter had been intended for the Jonathan Livingston Seagull score, but Diamond had completed it too late for inclusion. That same year he appeared on a TV special for Shirley Bassey and sang a duet with her.
In 1976, he released Beautiful Noise, produced by Robbie Robertson of The Band. On Thanksgiving 1976, Diamond made an appearance at The Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz, performing "Dry Your Eyes", which he wrote jointly with Robertson, and which had appeared on Beautiful Noise. He also joined the rest of the performers onstage at the end in a rendition of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released".
Diamond was paid $650,000 (about US$ million in dollars) from the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, to open its new $10 million Theater For the Performing Arts on July 2, 1976. The show played through July 5 and drew sold-out crowds at the 7,500-seat theater. A "who's who" of Hollywood attended opening night, ranging from Elizabeth Taylor to Chevy Chase, and Diamond walked out on stage to a standing ovation. He opened the show with a story about an ex-girlfriend who dumped him before he became successful. His lead-in line to the first song of the evening was, "You may have dumped me a bit too soon, baby, because look who's standing here tonight."
He performed at Woburn Abbey on July 2, 1977, to an audience of 55,000 British fans. The concert and interviews were taped by film director William Friedkin, who used six cameras to capture the performance.
In 1977, Diamond released I'm Glad You're Here With Me Tonight, including "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", for which he composed the music and on the writing of whose lyrics he collaborated with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman. Barbra Streisand covered the song on her album Songbird, and later, a Diamond-Streisand duet was recorded, spurred by the success of radio mash-ups. That version hit No. 1 in 1978, his third song to top the Hot 100. They appeared unannounced at the 1980 Grammy awards ceremony, where they performed the song to a surprised and rapturous audience.
His last 1970s album was September Morn, which included a new version of "I'm a Believer". It and "Red Red Wine" are his best-known original songs made more famous by other artists. In February 1979, the uptempo "Forever in Blue Jeans", co-written and jointly composed with his guitarist, Richard Bennett, was released as a single from You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Diamond's album from the previous year.
In 1979, Diamond collapsed on stage in San Francisco and was taken to the hospital, where he endured a 12-hour operation to remove what turned out to be a tumor on his spine. He said he had been losing feeling in his right leg "for a number of years but ignored it." When he collapsed, he had no strength in either leg. He underwent a long rehabilitation process just before starting principal photography on his film The Jazz Singer (1980). He was so convinced he was going to die that he wrote farewell letters to his friends.
1980s
A planned film version of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" to star Diamond and Streisand fell through when Diamond instead starred in a 1980 remake of the Al Jolson classic The Jazz Singer alongside Laurence Olivier and Lucie Arnaz. Though the movie received poor reviews, the soundtrack spawned three Top 10 singles, "Love on the Rocks", "Hello Again", and "America", the last of which had emotional significance for Diamond. "'America' was the story of my grandparents," he told an interviewer. "It's my gift to them, and it's very real for me ... In a way, it speaks to the immigrant in all of us." The song was performed in full by Diamond during the film's finale. An abbreviated version played over the film's opening titles.
The song was also the one he was most proud of, partly because of when it was later used: national news shows played it when the hostages were shown returning home after the Iran hostage crisis ended; it was played on the air during the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty; and at a tribute to slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the Vietnam Vets Welcome Home concert, he was asked to perform it live. At the time, a national poll found the song to be the number-one most recognized song about America, more than "God Bless America". It also became the anthem of his world tour two weeks after the attacks on America on September 11, 2001, when he changed the lyric at the end from; "They're coming to America", to "Stand up for America!" Earlier that year he performed it after a request from former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali.
The film's failure was due in part to Diamond never having acted professionally before. "I didn't think I could handle it," he said later, seeing himself as "a fish out of water." For his performance, Diamond became the first-ever winner of a Worst Actor Razzie Award, even though he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the same role. Critic David Wild noted that the film showed that Diamond was open about his religion: "Who else but this Jewish Elvis could go multi-platinum with an album that featured a version of 'the Kol Nidre?'" Diamond later told the Los Angeles Times, "For me, this was the ultimate bar mitzvah."
Another Top 10 selection, "Heartlight", was inspired by the blockbuster 1982 movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Though the film's title character is never mentioned in the lyrics, Universal Pictures, which had released E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and was the parent company of the Uni Records label, by then called MCA Records, for which Diamond had recorded for years, briefly threatened legal action against both Diamond and Columbia Records.
Diamond's record sales slumped somewhat in the 1980s and 1990s, his last single to make the Billboard's Pop Singles chart coming in 1986, but his concert tours continued to be big draws. Billboard magazine ranked Diamond as the most profitable solo performer of 1986. He released his 17th studio album in 1986, Headed for the Future, which reached number 20 on the Billboard 200. Three weeks later he starred in Hello Again, his first television special in nine years, performing comedy sketches and a duo medley with Carol Burnett.
In January 1987, Diamond sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. His "America" became the theme song for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign. That same year, UB40's reggae interpretation of Diamond's ballad "Red Red Wine" topped the Billboard Pop Singles chart and, like the Monkees' version of "I'm a Believer", became better known than Diamond's original version.
1990s
During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classic songs from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus.
The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. It is played at every home game of the Sydney Swans of the Australian Football League. It became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox.
The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the third period of their games. The Pitt Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it in the second half of every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game.
2000s
A more severely stripped-down-to-basics album, 12 Songs, produced by Rick Rubin, was released on November 8, 2005, in two editions: a standard 12-song release, and a special edition with two bonus tracks, including one featuring backing vocals by Brian Wilson. The album debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard chart, and received generally positive reviews; Earliwine describes the album as "inarguably Neil Diamond's best set of songs in a long, long time." 12 Songs also became noteworthy as one of the last albums to be pressed and released by Sony BMG with the Extended Copy Protection software embedded in the disc. (See the 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal.)
In 2007, Diamond was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
On March 19, 2008, it was announced on the television show American Idol that Diamond would be a guest mentor to the remaining Idol contestants, who would sing Diamond songs for the broadcasts of April 29 and 30, 2008. On the April 30 broadcast, Diamond premiered a new song, "Pretty Amazing Grace", from his then recently released album Home Before Dark. On May 2, 2008, Sirius Satellite Radio started Neil Diamond Radio. On April 8, 2008, Diamond made a surprise announcement in a big-screen broadcast at Fenway Park that he would be appearing there "live in concert" on August 23, 2008, as part of his world tour. The announcement, which marked the first official confirmation of any 2008 concert dates in the US, came during the traditional eighth-inning singalong of "Sweet Caroline", which had by that time become an anthem for Boston fans.
On April 28, 2008, Diamond appeared on the roof of the Jimmy Kimmel building to sing "Sweet Caroline" after Kimmel was jokingly arrested for singing the song dressed as a Diamond impersonator.
Home Before Dark was released May 6, 2008, and topped the album charts in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
On June 29, 2008, Diamond played to an estimated 108,000 fans at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England on the Concert of a Lifetime Tour; technical problems marred the concert.
In August, Diamond allowed cameras to record his entire four-night run at New York's Madison Square Garden; he released the resulting DVD in the U.S. in 2009, one year to the day of the first concert. Hot August Night/NYC debuted at No. 2 on the charts. On the same day the DVD was released, CBS aired an edited version, which won the ratings hour with 13 million viewers. The next day, the sales of the DVD surged, prompting Sony to order more copies to meet the high demand.
On August 25, 2008, Diamond performed at The Ohio State University while suffering from laryngitis. The result disappointed him as well as his fans, and on August 26, he offered refunds to anyone who applied by September 5.
Diamond was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year on February 6, 2009, two nights before the 51st Annual Grammy Awards.
Long loved in Boston, Diamond was invited to sing at the July 4, 2009, Independence Day celebration.
On October 13, 2009, he released A Cherry Cherry Christmas, his third album of holiday music.
2010s
On November 2, 2010, Diamond released the album Dreams, a collection of 14 interpretations of his favorite songs by artists from the rock era. The album also included a new slow-tempo arrangement of his "I'm a Believer". In December, he performed a track from the album, "Ain't No Sunshine", on NBC's The Sing-Off with Committed and Street Corner Symphony, two a cappella groups featured on the show. The Very Best of Neil Diamond, a compilation CD of Diamond's 23 studio recordings from the Bang, UNI/MCA, & Columbia catalogs, was released on December 6, 2011, on the Sony Legacy label.
The years 2011 and 2012 were marked by several milestones in Diamond's career. On March 14, 2011, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. In December, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. On August 10, 2012, Diamond received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In November 2012, he topped the bill at the centenary edition of the Royal Variety Performance in the UK, which was transmitted on December 3. He also appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
On April 20, 2013, Diamond made an unannounced appearance at Fenway Park to sing "Sweet Caroline" during the 8th inning. It was the first game at Fenway since the Boston Marathon bombing. On July 2, he released the single "Freedom Song (They'll Never Take Us Down)", with 100% of the purchase price benefiting One Fund Boston and the Wounded Warrior Project.
Sporting a beard, Diamond performed live on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol as part of A Capitol Fourth, which was broadcast nationally by PBS on July 4, 2013.
In January 2014, it was confirmed that Diamond had signed with the Capitol Music Group unit of Universal Music Group, which also owned Diamond's Uni/MCA catalog. UMG also took over Diamond's Columbia and Bang catalogues, which meant that all of his recorded output would be consolidated for the first time.
On July 8, 2014, Capitol Records announced, via a flyer included with Diamond's latest greatest hits compilations, All-Time Greatest Hits, which charted at 15 in the Billboard 200, that his next album, Melody Road, which was to be produced by Don Was and Jacknife Lee, would be released on September 30, 2014. In August, the release date was moved to October 21.
In September 2014, Diamond performed a surprise concert at his alma mater, Erasmus High School in Brooklyn. The show was announced via Twitter that afternoon. On the same day, he announced a 2015 "Melody Road" World Tour. The North American leg of the World Tour 2015 launched with a concert in Allentown, PA at the PPL Center on February 27 and ended at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado on May 31, 2015. Diamond used new media platforms and social media extensively throughout the tour, streaming several shows live on Periscope and showing tweets from fans who used the hashtag #tweetcaroline on two large screens. The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote: "This, my friends, wasn’t your grandfather's Neil Diamond concert. It was a multimedia extravaganza. Twitter. Periscope...It was a social media blitzkrieg that, by all accounts, proved to be an innovative way to widen his fan base."
In October 2016, Diamond released Acoustic Christmas, a folk-inspired Christmas album of original songs as well as acoustic versions of holiday classics. Produced by Was and Lee, who had produced Melody Road, the idea for the album began to take shape as the Melody Road sessions ended. To "channel the intimate atmosphere of '60s folk, Diamond recorded Acoustic Christmas with a handful of musicians, sitting around a circle of microphones, wires and, of course, Christmas lights."
In March 2017, the career-spanning anthology Neil Diamond 50 – 50th Anniversary Collection was released. He began his final concert tour, the 50 Year Anniversary World Tour in Fresno, California, in April.
In 2019, his 1969 signature song "Sweet Caroline" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
2020s
On March 7, 2020, despite his retirement due to Parkinson's disease, Diamond gave a rare performance at the Keep Memory Alive Power of Love Gala at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, where he was being honored.
On March 22, 2020, Diamond posted a video to YouTube playing "Sweet Caroline" with slightly modified lyrics ("...washing hands, don't touch me, I won't touch you...") in response to the widespread social distancing measures implemented due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
In April 2021, The New York Times reported that A Beautiful Noise, a musical based on Diamond's life and featuring his songs, would open at the Emerson Colonial Theater in Boston in the summer of 2022. The musical was scheduled to open on Broadway following the monthlong run in Boston.
Universal Music Group acquired Diamond's songwriting catalog and the rights to his recordings in February 2022. The acquisition also included 110 unreleased tracks, an unreleased album and archival videos.
Retirement
In January 2018, Diamond announced that he would immediately retire from touring due to having been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Tour dates on the final leg of Diamond's "50 Year Anniversary World Tour" in Australia and New Zealand were cancelled. An announcement on his official website said he was not retiring from music and that the cancellation of the live performances would allow him to "continue his writing, recording and development of new projects."
On July 28, 2018, Diamond and his wife Katie McNeil made a surprise visit to the Incident Command post in Basalt, Colorado—near where Diamond lives—to thank the firefighters and families with a solo acoustic guitar concert for efforts in containing the Lake Christine Fire, which began on July 3 and had scorched of land.
In pop culture
In 1967, Diamond was featured on the fourth episode of the detective drama Mannix as the 'featured' artist in a small underground club called 'The BAD SCENE' and was interrupted during his singing by one of many fights that took place weekly on the show.
In 2000, Neil Diamond appeared onstage with Diamond tribute band, Super Diamond, surprising them before their show at House of Blues in Los Angeles.
In the 2001 comedy film Saving Silverman, the main characters play in a Diamond cover band, and Diamond made an extended cameo appearance as himself. Diamond even wrote and composed a new song, "I Believe in Happy Endings", for the film. He sat in with the tribute band Super Diamond at the film's premiere party.
In 2008, Diamond gave film-maker Greg Kohs permission to use his songs in a documentary. Kohs, a director from Philadelphia, had met a popular Milwaukee, Wisconsin, duo, Lightning & Thunder, composed of Mike Sardina, who did a Diamond impersonation, and his wife Claire. Kohs followed them for eight years and produced the film Song Sung Blue. Though Sardina had died in 2006, Diamond invited his widow and her family to be his front-row guests at his show in Milwaukee, where he told them he was moved by the film.
In the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory, main characters Howard Wolowitz and Amy Farrah-Fowler are fans of Diamond's work.
Personal life
Diamond has been married three times. In 1963, he married his high-school sweetheart, Jaye Posner, who had become a schoolteacher. They had two daughters, Marjorie and Elyn. They separated in 1967 and divorced in 1969.
On December 5, 1969, Diamond married production assistant Marcia Murphey. They had two sons, Jesse and Micah. The marriage lasted 25 years, ending in 1994 or 1995.
In 1996, Diamond began a lengthy, live-in relationship with Australian Rae Farley after the two met in Brisbane, Australia. The songs on Home Before Dark were written and composed during her struggle with chronic back pain.
On September 7, 2011, in a message on Twitter, the 70-year-old Diamond announced his engagement to the 41-year-old Katie McNeil. Diamond said that his 2014 album Melody Road was fueled by their relationship, explaining:
There's no better inspiration or motivation for work than being in love. It's what you dream of as a creative person. I was able to complete this album—start it, write it and complete it—under the spell of love, and I think it shows somehow.
The couple married in front of family and close friends in Los Angeles in 2012. In addition to serving as Diamond's manager, McNeil produced the documentary Neil Diamond: Hot August Nights NYC.
Discography
Filmography
Diamond had a television appearance and roles in some movies, notably:
Mannix, "The Many Deaths of Saint Christopher" (1967) as himself
The Jazz Singer, starring role as Jess Robin
Saving Silverman appearing as himself
Notes
References
External links
Neil Diamond's Band's Official Site
1941 births
Living people
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American singers
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
Abraham Lincoln High School (Brooklyn) alumni
American acoustic guitarists
American baritones
American folk guitarists
American male guitarists
American male pianists
American male singer-songwriters
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American soft rock musicians
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Jewish American musicians
Jewish American songwriters
Jewish singers
Jewish folk singers
Jewish rock musicians
Erasmus Hall High School alumni
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
MCA Records artists
NYU Violets fencers
Uni Records artists
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Kennedy Center honorees
Rhythm guitarists
Musicians from Brooklyn
Guitarists from New York City
Singers from New York City
People with Parkinson's disease
Singer-songwriters from New York (state) | true | [
"Homogenic Live is a live album by Icelandic singer Björk, collecting her favorite performances from her 1997-99 Homogenic Tour. It was Björk’s first tour to have soundboard recordings and thus the first of her live CDs to feature a wide variety of performances taken from different dates and venues throughout a single tour. Originally released in the 5 disc Live Box set in 2003, Homogenic Live was later released separately on 1 June 2004 by One Little Indian records.\n\nBackground\n\nBjörk did not have soundboard recordings for her first two concert tours. When compiling material for those tours’ corresponding live albums, she had to use audio taken from pre-mixed videotaped performances.\n\nBeginning with the Homogenic Tour, she began collecting soundboard recordings with each section of her touring band mixed separately. During the Homogenic Tour, several microphones captured the Icelandic String Octet (as evidenced on the concert film, Live in Cambridge) while Mark Bell’s electronic equipment was fed directly into the mixer. This recording technique allows for a greater clarity of sound and a certain deal of control in the mixing process, allowing the audio technician to raise or lower the different elements, be they the performer’s vocals, the different sections of the touring band or even the crowd. Homogenic Live is Björk’s first live album to be mixed in such a way.\n\nReception\n\nCritics praised Homogenic Live. Comparing it to Björk’s previous live albums, Scott Plagenhoef for Pitchfork complimented the stripped down strings and electronics setting, saying it “could have left (Björk) potentially vulnerable, but she fills the empty space with the full force of her voice… In the end, the renditions seem more assured and well-conceived…” than on both Debut and Post Live. AllMusic wrote that “the relatively spare instrumentation allows Björk to take her songs down slightly different paths while retaining the heart of the studio recordings” and that “Björk’s voice shines throughout.” PopMatters criticized the slew of releases Björk was putting out at the time but agreed that the live album was a historical record \"of the beauty and majesty of Björk’s voice and her compositions,\" while ultimately concluding that as a companion project to its \"landmark\" parent album Homogenic, it \"failed to offer any new insights into the inner workings of Björk and her live experience.\"\n\nTrack list\n\nReferences\n\n2004 live albums\nBjörk albums\nOne Little Independent Records albums\nAlbums produced by Björk",
"Good To Me is a live album by American soul singer-songwriter Otis Redding, recorded at the Whisky a Go Go on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, California in April 1966. The recording was made before Otis Redding attained crossover fame at the Monterey Pop Festival, and with his regular touring band. His other available live performances, the 1967 European Stax/Volt revue and 1967 Monterey Pop Festival are recorded with Booker T. & the M.G.'s and The Mar-Keys horns.\n\nEight of the tracks on this album (3–6, 9–12) were originally released on Recorded Live: Previously Unreleased Performances (Atlantic SD 19346). However, the rights to the recordings had reverted to Stax from Atlantic in 1972 and erroneously submitted back to Atlantic for that release. This album corrects the mistake by reissuing the album on the Stax label while including additional bonus material.\n\nGood To Me (1993) track listing\n\nRecorded Live (1982) track listing\n\nNote: The individual song timings do not include either applause or spoken introductions between selections\n\nPersonnel\n Otis Redding – vocals\n James Young – guitar\n Robert Holloway – tenor saxophone\n Robert Pittman – tenor saxophone\n Donald Henry – tenor saxophone\n Sammy Coleman – trumpet\n John Farris – trumpet\n Clarence Johnson – trombone\n Ralph Stewart – bass guitar\n Elbert Woodson – drums\n\nReferences\n\nOtis Redding albums\nLive albums published posthumously\n1993 live albums\n1982 live albums\nAlbums produced by Al Jackson Jr.\nStax Records live albums\nAlbums recorded at the Whisky a Go Go"
]
|
[
"Neil Diamond",
"The 1990s",
"What was his first album of the 1990s?",
"During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums.",
"Can you name one of them?",
"I don't know.",
"What was significant about the 90s for DIamond?",
"He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart.",
"Did he do any touring or live performances?",
"In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special."
]
| C_6f0606366650496dab9bd961c9715fe5_0 | What did he sing at the Bush special? | 5 | What did Neil Diamond sing at the 1992 Bush special? | Neil Diamond | During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classics from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus. The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. Most notably, it became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox. The song also came to be played during the 8th inning of every New York Mets home game. The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own, and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the 3rd period of their games. The Pitt Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it at every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game, in the second half. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and occasional actor. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: "Cracklin' Rosie", "Song Sung Blue", "Longfellow Serenade", "I've Been This Way Before", "If You Know What I Mean", "Desirée", "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", "America", "Yesterday's Songs", and "Heartlight". Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have been featured in the Top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts. He also played in movies such as The Jazz Singer, a musical drama film.
Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Early life and education
Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. All four of his grandparents were immigrants, from Poland on his father's side and Russia on his mother's. His parents were Rose (née Rapoport) and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond, a dry-goods merchant. He grew up in several homes in Brooklyn, having also spent four years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was stationed in the army. In Brooklyn he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a member of the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club, along with classmate Barbra Streisand; Diamond recalled they were not close friends at the time: "We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes." After his family moved to Brighton Beach, he attended Abraham Lincoln High School and was a member of the fencing team. Also on the team was his best friend, future Olympic fencer Herb Cohen.
For his 16th birthday, he received his first guitar. When he was 16 and still in high school, Diamond spent a number of weeks at Surprise Lake Camp, a camp for Jewish children in upstate New York, when folk singer Pete Seeger performed a small concert. Seeing the widely recognized singer perform, and watching other children singing songs for Seeger that they wrote themselves, had an immediate effect on Diamond, who then became aware of the possibility of writing his own songs. "And the next thing, I got a guitar when we got back to Brooklyn, started to take lessons and almost immediately began to write songs," he said. He added that his attraction to songwriting was the "first real interest" he had growing up, while also helping him release his youthful "frustrations".
Diamond also used his newly developing skill to write poetry. By writing poems for girls he was attracted to in school, he soon learned it often won their hearts. His male classmates took note and began asking him to write poems for them, which they would sing and use with equal success. He spent the summer following his graduation as a waiter in the Catskills resort area. There he first met Jaye Posner, who would years later become his wife.
Diamond next attended New York University as a pre-med major on a fencing scholarship, again on the fencing team with Herb Cohen. He was a member of the 1960 NCAA men's championship fencing team. Often bored in class, he found writing song lyrics more to his liking. He began cutting classes and taking the train up to Tin Pan Alley, where he tried to get some of his songs heard by local music publishers. In his senior year, when he was just 10 units short of graduation, Sunbeam Music Publishing offered him a 16-week job writing songs for $50 a week (equivalent to about US$ per week, in dollars), and he dropped out of college to accept it.
Career
1960s
Diamond was not rehired after his 16 weeks with Sunbeam, and he began writing and singing his own songs for demos. "I never really chose songwriting," he says. "It just absorbed me and became more and more important in my life." His first recording contract was billed as "Neil and Jack", an Everly Brothers-type duet with high school friend Jack Packer. They recorded the unsuccessful singles "You Are My Love at Last" with "What Will I Do", and "I'm Afraid" with "Till You've Tried Love", both records released in 1962. Cashbox and Billboard magazines gave all four sides excellent reviews, and Diamond signed with Columbia Records as a solo performer later in 1962. In July 1963, Columbia released the single "At Night" with "Clown Town"; Billboard gave an excellent review to Clown Town, and Cashbox gave both sides excellent reviews, but it still failed to make the charts. Columbia dropped him from their label and he went back to writing songs in and out of publishing houses for the next seven years.
He wrote wherever he could, including on buses, and used an upright piano above the Birdland Club in New York City. One of the causes of this early nomadic life as a songwriter was his songs' wordiness: "I'd spent a lot of time on lyrics, and they were looking for hooks, and I didn't really understand the nature of that," he says. He was able to sell only about one song a week during those years, barely enough to survive on. He found himself only earning enough to spend 35 cents a day on food (US$ in dollars). But the privacy that he had above the Birdland Club allowed him to focus on writing without distractions. "Something new began to happen. I wasn't under the gun, and suddenly interesting songs began to happen, songs that had things none of the others did." Among them were "Cherry, Cherry" and "Solitary Man". "Solitary Man" was the first record that Diamond recorded under his own name which made the charts. It remains one of his personal all-time favorites, as it was about his early years as a songwriter, even though he failed to realize it at the time. He describes the song as "an outgrowth of my despair".
Diamond spent his early career in the Brill Building. His first success as a songwriter came in November 1965 with "Sunday and Me", a Top 20 hit for Jay and the Americans. Greater success followed with "I'm a Believer", "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You", "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)", and "Love to Love", all performed by the Monkees. He wrote and recorded the songs for himself, but the cover versions were released before his own. The unintended consequence was that Diamond began to gain fame as a songwriter. "I'm a Believer" became a gold record within two days of its release and stayed at the top of the charts for seven weeks, making it the Popular Music Song of the Year in 1966.
"And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind" brought covers from Elvis Presley (who also interpreted "Sweet Caroline") and Mark Lindsay, former lead singer for Paul Revere & the Raiders. Other notable artists who recorded his early songs were the English hard-rock band Deep Purple, Lulu, and Cliff Richard.
In 1966, Diamond signed a deal with Bert Berns's Bang Records, then a subsidiary of Atlantic. His first release on that label was "Solitary Man", which was his first true hit as a solo artist. Diamond followed with "Cherry, Cherry" and "Kentucky Woman". His early concerts featured him opening for bands such as Herman's Hermits and the Who. As a guest performer with The Who, he was shocked to see Pete Townshend swinging his guitar like a club and then throwing it against walls and off the stage until the instrument's neck broke.
Diamond began to feel restricted by Bang Records because he wanted to record more ambitious, introspective music, such as "Brooklyn Roads" from 1968. Berns wanted to release "Kentucky Woman" as a single, but Diamond was no longer satisfied writing simple pop songs, so he proposed "Shilo", which was not about the Civil War but rather an imaginary childhood friend. Bang believed that the song was not commercial enough, so it was relegated to being an LP track on "Just for You". Diamond was also dissatisfied with his royalties and tried to sign with another record label after discovering a loophole in his contract that did not bind him exclusively to either WEB IV or Tallyrand, but the result was a series of lawsuits that coincided with a slump in his record sales and professional success. A magistrate refused WEB IV's request for a temporary injunction to prevent Diamond from joining another record company while his contract dispute continued in court, but the lawsuits persisted until February 18, 1977, when he triumphed in court and purchased the rights to his Bang-era master tapes.
On March 18, 1968, Diamond signed a deal with Uni Records; the label was named after Universal Pictures, the owner of which, MCA Inc., later consolidated its labels into MCA Records (now called Universal Music after merging with PolyGram in 1999). His debut album for Uni/MCA was Velvet Gloves and Spit, produced by Tom Catalano, which did not chart, and he recorded the follow-up Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show at American Sound Studios in Memphis with Tommy Cogbill and Chips Moman producing.
1970s
In late 1969, he moved to Los Angeles. His sound mellowed with such songs as "Sweet Caroline" (1969), "Holly Holy" (1969), "Cracklin' Rosie" (1970) and "Song Sung Blue" (1972), the last two reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100. "Sweet Caroline" was Diamond's first major hit after his slump. In 2007 Diamond said he had written "Sweet Caroline" for Caroline Kennedy after seeing her on the cover of Life in an equestrian riding outfit, but in 2014 he said in an interview on the Today Show that it was written for his then wife, Marcia. He could not find a good rhyme with the name "Marcia" and so used the name Caroline. It took him just one hour, in a Memphis hotel, to write and compose it. The 1971 release "I Am...I Said" was a Top 5 hit in both the US and UK and was his most intensely personal effort to date, taking over four months to complete.
In 1971, Diamond played 7 sold-out concerts at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The outdoor theater, which was noted for showcasing the best of current entertainers, added a stereo sound system for the first time. Diamond was also backed by a 35-piece string orchestra and six backing singers. After the first night, one leading newspaper called it "the finest concert in Greek Theater history."
In August 1972, he played again at the Greek, this time doing 10 shows. When the show was first announced, tickets at the 5000-seat theater sold out rapidly. He added a quadraphonic sound system for his performance to create full surround-sound. The performance of August 24, 1972, was recorded and released as the live double album Hot August Night. Hot August Night demonstrates Diamond's skills as a performer and showman, as he reinvigorated his back catalogue of hits with new energy. Diamond recalled: "Hot August Night captures a very special show for me. We went all out to really knock 'em dead in L.A." Many consider it his best work; critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Hot August Night "the ultimate Neil Diamond record... [which] shows Diamond the icon in full glory." The album became a classic, and was remastered in 2000 with additional selections. In Australia, which at the time had the most Neil Diamond fans per capita of any country, the album ranked No. 1 for 29 weeks and stayed in their top 20 bestsellers for two years.
In the fall of 1972, Diamond performed for 20 consecutive nights at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City. That theater had not staged a one-man show since Al Jolson in the 1930s. The approximately 1,600-seat Broadway venue provided an intimate concert setting not common at the time, with every performance reportedly sold out. It also made Diamond the first rock-era star to headline on Broadway. The review in the New York Times stated:
After the Winter Garden shows, Diamond announced that he needed a break, and he engaged in no more live performances till 1976. He used those four years to work on the score for Hall Bartlett's film version of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and to record two albums, Serenade and Beautiful Noise. He said years later, "I knew I'd come back, but I wasn't sure when. I spent one year on each of those albums...I'd been on the road six years. I had a son 2½ and I felt he needed me more than the audience did. So for four years I devoted myself to my son Jesse." He also said he needed to get back to having a private life, one where he could be anonymous.
In 1973, Diamond switched labels again, returning to Columbia Records for a million-dollar-advance-per-album contract (about US$ million per album in dollars). His first project, released as a solo album, was the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The film received hostile reviews and did poorly at the box office, and the album grossed more than the film did. Richard D. Bach, author of the best-selling source story, disowned the film, and he and Diamond sued Bartlett, though for differing reasons; in Bach's case, it was because he felt the film omitted too much from the original novella, whereas in Diamond's case, it was because he felt the film had butchered his score. "After 'Jonathan,'" Diamond declared, "I vowed never to get involved in a movie again unless I had complete control." Bartlett angrily responded to Diamond's lawsuit by criticizing his music as having become "too slick...and it's not as much from his heart as it used to be." Bartlett also added, "Neil is extraordinarily talented. Often his arrogance is just a cover for the lonely and insecure person underneath."
Despite the controversy surrounding the film, the soundtrack was a success, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart. Diamond also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture. Thereafter, Diamond often included a Jonathan Livingston Seagull suite in his live performances, as he did in his 1976 "Love at the Greek" concert and for his show in Las Vegas that same year.
Diamond returned to live shows in 1976 with an Australian tour, "The 'Thank You Australia' Concert", which was broadcast to 36 television outlets nationwide. He also again appeared at the Greek Theater in a 1976 concert, Love at the Greek. An album and accompanying video/DVD of the show includes a version of "Song Sung Blue" with duets with Helen Reddy and Henry Winkler, a.k.a. Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli of Happy Days.
He began wearing colorful beaded shirts in concert, originally so that everyone in the audience could see him without binoculars. Bill Whitten designed and made the shirts for Diamond from the 1970s till approximately 2007.
In 1974, Diamond released the album Serenade, from which "Longfellow Serenade" and "I've Been This Way Before" were issued as singles. The latter had been intended for the Jonathan Livingston Seagull score, but Diamond had completed it too late for inclusion. That same year he appeared on a TV special for Shirley Bassey and sang a duet with her.
In 1976, he released Beautiful Noise, produced by Robbie Robertson of The Band. On Thanksgiving 1976, Diamond made an appearance at The Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz, performing "Dry Your Eyes", which he wrote jointly with Robertson, and which had appeared on Beautiful Noise. He also joined the rest of the performers onstage at the end in a rendition of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released".
Diamond was paid $650,000 (about US$ million in dollars) from the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, to open its new $10 million Theater For the Performing Arts on July 2, 1976. The show played through July 5 and drew sold-out crowds at the 7,500-seat theater. A "who's who" of Hollywood attended opening night, ranging from Elizabeth Taylor to Chevy Chase, and Diamond walked out on stage to a standing ovation. He opened the show with a story about an ex-girlfriend who dumped him before he became successful. His lead-in line to the first song of the evening was, "You may have dumped me a bit too soon, baby, because look who's standing here tonight."
He performed at Woburn Abbey on July 2, 1977, to an audience of 55,000 British fans. The concert and interviews were taped by film director William Friedkin, who used six cameras to capture the performance.
In 1977, Diamond released I'm Glad You're Here With Me Tonight, including "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", for which he composed the music and on the writing of whose lyrics he collaborated with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman. Barbra Streisand covered the song on her album Songbird, and later, a Diamond-Streisand duet was recorded, spurred by the success of radio mash-ups. That version hit No. 1 in 1978, his third song to top the Hot 100. They appeared unannounced at the 1980 Grammy awards ceremony, where they performed the song to a surprised and rapturous audience.
His last 1970s album was September Morn, which included a new version of "I'm a Believer". It and "Red Red Wine" are his best-known original songs made more famous by other artists. In February 1979, the uptempo "Forever in Blue Jeans", co-written and jointly composed with his guitarist, Richard Bennett, was released as a single from You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Diamond's album from the previous year.
In 1979, Diamond collapsed on stage in San Francisco and was taken to the hospital, where he endured a 12-hour operation to remove what turned out to be a tumor on his spine. He said he had been losing feeling in his right leg "for a number of years but ignored it." When he collapsed, he had no strength in either leg. He underwent a long rehabilitation process just before starting principal photography on his film The Jazz Singer (1980). He was so convinced he was going to die that he wrote farewell letters to his friends.
1980s
A planned film version of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" to star Diamond and Streisand fell through when Diamond instead starred in a 1980 remake of the Al Jolson classic The Jazz Singer alongside Laurence Olivier and Lucie Arnaz. Though the movie received poor reviews, the soundtrack spawned three Top 10 singles, "Love on the Rocks", "Hello Again", and "America", the last of which had emotional significance for Diamond. "'America' was the story of my grandparents," he told an interviewer. "It's my gift to them, and it's very real for me ... In a way, it speaks to the immigrant in all of us." The song was performed in full by Diamond during the film's finale. An abbreviated version played over the film's opening titles.
The song was also the one he was most proud of, partly because of when it was later used: national news shows played it when the hostages were shown returning home after the Iran hostage crisis ended; it was played on the air during the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty; and at a tribute to slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the Vietnam Vets Welcome Home concert, he was asked to perform it live. At the time, a national poll found the song to be the number-one most recognized song about America, more than "God Bless America". It also became the anthem of his world tour two weeks after the attacks on America on September 11, 2001, when he changed the lyric at the end from; "They're coming to America", to "Stand up for America!" Earlier that year he performed it after a request from former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali.
The film's failure was due in part to Diamond never having acted professionally before. "I didn't think I could handle it," he said later, seeing himself as "a fish out of water." For his performance, Diamond became the first-ever winner of a Worst Actor Razzie Award, even though he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the same role. Critic David Wild noted that the film showed that Diamond was open about his religion: "Who else but this Jewish Elvis could go multi-platinum with an album that featured a version of 'the Kol Nidre?'" Diamond later told the Los Angeles Times, "For me, this was the ultimate bar mitzvah."
Another Top 10 selection, "Heartlight", was inspired by the blockbuster 1982 movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Though the film's title character is never mentioned in the lyrics, Universal Pictures, which had released E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and was the parent company of the Uni Records label, by then called MCA Records, for which Diamond had recorded for years, briefly threatened legal action against both Diamond and Columbia Records.
Diamond's record sales slumped somewhat in the 1980s and 1990s, his last single to make the Billboard's Pop Singles chart coming in 1986, but his concert tours continued to be big draws. Billboard magazine ranked Diamond as the most profitable solo performer of 1986. He released his 17th studio album in 1986, Headed for the Future, which reached number 20 on the Billboard 200. Three weeks later he starred in Hello Again, his first television special in nine years, performing comedy sketches and a duo medley with Carol Burnett.
In January 1987, Diamond sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. His "America" became the theme song for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign. That same year, UB40's reggae interpretation of Diamond's ballad "Red Red Wine" topped the Billboard Pop Singles chart and, like the Monkees' version of "I'm a Believer", became better known than Diamond's original version.
1990s
During the 1990s, Diamond produced six studio albums. He covered many classic songs from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters. He also released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's Album chart. Diamond also recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period. In 1992, he performed for President George H.W. Bush's final Christmas in Washington NBC special. In 1993, Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the iWireless Center) with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus.
The 1990s saw a resurgence in Diamond's popularity. "Sweet Caroline" became a popular sing-along at sporting events. It was used at Boston College football and basketball games. College sporting events in other states also played it, and it was even played at sports events in other countries, such as a Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament or a soccer match in Northern Ireland. It is played at every home game of the Sydney Swans of the Australian Football League. It became the theme song of Red Sox Nation, the fans of the Boston Red Sox.
The New York Rangers also adapted it as their own and played it whenever they were winning at the end of the third period of their games. The Pitt Panthers football team also played it after the third quarter of all home games, with the crowd cheering, "Let's go Pitt". The Carolina Panthers played it at the end of every home game they won. The Davidson College pep band likewise played it in the second half of every Davidson Wildcats men's basketball home game.
2000s
A more severely stripped-down-to-basics album, 12 Songs, produced by Rick Rubin, was released on November 8, 2005, in two editions: a standard 12-song release, and a special edition with two bonus tracks, including one featuring backing vocals by Brian Wilson. The album debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard chart, and received generally positive reviews; Earliwine describes the album as "inarguably Neil Diamond's best set of songs in a long, long time." 12 Songs also became noteworthy as one of the last albums to be pressed and released by Sony BMG with the Extended Copy Protection software embedded in the disc. (See the 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal.)
In 2007, Diamond was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
On March 19, 2008, it was announced on the television show American Idol that Diamond would be a guest mentor to the remaining Idol contestants, who would sing Diamond songs for the broadcasts of April 29 and 30, 2008. On the April 30 broadcast, Diamond premiered a new song, "Pretty Amazing Grace", from his then recently released album Home Before Dark. On May 2, 2008, Sirius Satellite Radio started Neil Diamond Radio. On April 8, 2008, Diamond made a surprise announcement in a big-screen broadcast at Fenway Park that he would be appearing there "live in concert" on August 23, 2008, as part of his world tour. The announcement, which marked the first official confirmation of any 2008 concert dates in the US, came during the traditional eighth-inning singalong of "Sweet Caroline", which had by that time become an anthem for Boston fans.
On April 28, 2008, Diamond appeared on the roof of the Jimmy Kimmel building to sing "Sweet Caroline" after Kimmel was jokingly arrested for singing the song dressed as a Diamond impersonator.
Home Before Dark was released May 6, 2008, and topped the album charts in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
On June 29, 2008, Diamond played to an estimated 108,000 fans at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England on the Concert of a Lifetime Tour; technical problems marred the concert.
In August, Diamond allowed cameras to record his entire four-night run at New York's Madison Square Garden; he released the resulting DVD in the U.S. in 2009, one year to the day of the first concert. Hot August Night/NYC debuted at No. 2 on the charts. On the same day the DVD was released, CBS aired an edited version, which won the ratings hour with 13 million viewers. The next day, the sales of the DVD surged, prompting Sony to order more copies to meet the high demand.
On August 25, 2008, Diamond performed at The Ohio State University while suffering from laryngitis. The result disappointed him as well as his fans, and on August 26, he offered refunds to anyone who applied by September 5.
Diamond was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year on February 6, 2009, two nights before the 51st Annual Grammy Awards.
Long loved in Boston, Diamond was invited to sing at the July 4, 2009, Independence Day celebration.
On October 13, 2009, he released A Cherry Cherry Christmas, his third album of holiday music.
2010s
On November 2, 2010, Diamond released the album Dreams, a collection of 14 interpretations of his favorite songs by artists from the rock era. The album also included a new slow-tempo arrangement of his "I'm a Believer". In December, he performed a track from the album, "Ain't No Sunshine", on NBC's The Sing-Off with Committed and Street Corner Symphony, two a cappella groups featured on the show. The Very Best of Neil Diamond, a compilation CD of Diamond's 23 studio recordings from the Bang, UNI/MCA, & Columbia catalogs, was released on December 6, 2011, on the Sony Legacy label.
The years 2011 and 2012 were marked by several milestones in Diamond's career. On March 14, 2011, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. In December, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. On August 10, 2012, Diamond received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In November 2012, he topped the bill at the centenary edition of the Royal Variety Performance in the UK, which was transmitted on December 3. He also appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
On April 20, 2013, Diamond made an unannounced appearance at Fenway Park to sing "Sweet Caroline" during the 8th inning. It was the first game at Fenway since the Boston Marathon bombing. On July 2, he released the single "Freedom Song (They'll Never Take Us Down)", with 100% of the purchase price benefiting One Fund Boston and the Wounded Warrior Project.
Sporting a beard, Diamond performed live on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol as part of A Capitol Fourth, which was broadcast nationally by PBS on July 4, 2013.
In January 2014, it was confirmed that Diamond had signed with the Capitol Music Group unit of Universal Music Group, which also owned Diamond's Uni/MCA catalog. UMG also took over Diamond's Columbia and Bang catalogues, which meant that all of his recorded output would be consolidated for the first time.
On July 8, 2014, Capitol Records announced, via a flyer included with Diamond's latest greatest hits compilations, All-Time Greatest Hits, which charted at 15 in the Billboard 200, that his next album, Melody Road, which was to be produced by Don Was and Jacknife Lee, would be released on September 30, 2014. In August, the release date was moved to October 21.
In September 2014, Diamond performed a surprise concert at his alma mater, Erasmus High School in Brooklyn. The show was announced via Twitter that afternoon. On the same day, he announced a 2015 "Melody Road" World Tour. The North American leg of the World Tour 2015 launched with a concert in Allentown, PA at the PPL Center on February 27 and ended at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado on May 31, 2015. Diamond used new media platforms and social media extensively throughout the tour, streaming several shows live on Periscope and showing tweets from fans who used the hashtag #tweetcaroline on two large screens. The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote: "This, my friends, wasn’t your grandfather's Neil Diamond concert. It was a multimedia extravaganza. Twitter. Periscope...It was a social media blitzkrieg that, by all accounts, proved to be an innovative way to widen his fan base."
In October 2016, Diamond released Acoustic Christmas, a folk-inspired Christmas album of original songs as well as acoustic versions of holiday classics. Produced by Was and Lee, who had produced Melody Road, the idea for the album began to take shape as the Melody Road sessions ended. To "channel the intimate atmosphere of '60s folk, Diamond recorded Acoustic Christmas with a handful of musicians, sitting around a circle of microphones, wires and, of course, Christmas lights."
In March 2017, the career-spanning anthology Neil Diamond 50 – 50th Anniversary Collection was released. He began his final concert tour, the 50 Year Anniversary World Tour in Fresno, California, in April.
In 2019, his 1969 signature song "Sweet Caroline" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
2020s
On March 7, 2020, despite his retirement due to Parkinson's disease, Diamond gave a rare performance at the Keep Memory Alive Power of Love Gala at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, where he was being honored.
On March 22, 2020, Diamond posted a video to YouTube playing "Sweet Caroline" with slightly modified lyrics ("...washing hands, don't touch me, I won't touch you...") in response to the widespread social distancing measures implemented due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
In April 2021, The New York Times reported that A Beautiful Noise, a musical based on Diamond's life and featuring his songs, would open at the Emerson Colonial Theater in Boston in the summer of 2022. The musical was scheduled to open on Broadway following the monthlong run in Boston.
Universal Music Group acquired Diamond's songwriting catalog and the rights to his recordings in February 2022. The acquisition also included 110 unreleased tracks, an unreleased album and archival videos.
Retirement
In January 2018, Diamond announced that he would immediately retire from touring due to having been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Tour dates on the final leg of Diamond's "50 Year Anniversary World Tour" in Australia and New Zealand were cancelled. An announcement on his official website said he was not retiring from music and that the cancellation of the live performances would allow him to "continue his writing, recording and development of new projects."
On July 28, 2018, Diamond and his wife Katie McNeil made a surprise visit to the Incident Command post in Basalt, Colorado—near where Diamond lives—to thank the firefighters and families with a solo acoustic guitar concert for efforts in containing the Lake Christine Fire, which began on July 3 and had scorched of land.
In pop culture
In 1967, Diamond was featured on the fourth episode of the detective drama Mannix as the 'featured' artist in a small underground club called 'The BAD SCENE' and was interrupted during his singing by one of many fights that took place weekly on the show.
In 2000, Neil Diamond appeared onstage with Diamond tribute band, Super Diamond, surprising them before their show at House of Blues in Los Angeles.
In the 2001 comedy film Saving Silverman, the main characters play in a Diamond cover band, and Diamond made an extended cameo appearance as himself. Diamond even wrote and composed a new song, "I Believe in Happy Endings", for the film. He sat in with the tribute band Super Diamond at the film's premiere party.
In 2008, Diamond gave film-maker Greg Kohs permission to use his songs in a documentary. Kohs, a director from Philadelphia, had met a popular Milwaukee, Wisconsin, duo, Lightning & Thunder, composed of Mike Sardina, who did a Diamond impersonation, and his wife Claire. Kohs followed them for eight years and produced the film Song Sung Blue. Though Sardina had died in 2006, Diamond invited his widow and her family to be his front-row guests at his show in Milwaukee, where he told them he was moved by the film.
In the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory, main characters Howard Wolowitz and Amy Farrah-Fowler are fans of Diamond's work.
Personal life
Diamond has been married three times. In 1963, he married his high-school sweetheart, Jaye Posner, who had become a schoolteacher. They had two daughters, Marjorie and Elyn. They separated in 1967 and divorced in 1969.
On December 5, 1969, Diamond married production assistant Marcia Murphey. They had two sons, Jesse and Micah. The marriage lasted 25 years, ending in 1994 or 1995.
In 1996, Diamond began a lengthy, live-in relationship with Australian Rae Farley after the two met in Brisbane, Australia. The songs on Home Before Dark were written and composed during her struggle with chronic back pain.
On September 7, 2011, in a message on Twitter, the 70-year-old Diamond announced his engagement to the 41-year-old Katie McNeil. Diamond said that his 2014 album Melody Road was fueled by their relationship, explaining:
There's no better inspiration or motivation for work than being in love. It's what you dream of as a creative person. I was able to complete this album—start it, write it and complete it—under the spell of love, and I think it shows somehow.
The couple married in front of family and close friends in Los Angeles in 2012. In addition to serving as Diamond's manager, McNeil produced the documentary Neil Diamond: Hot August Nights NYC.
Discography
Filmography
Diamond had a television appearance and roles in some movies, notably:
Mannix, "The Many Deaths of Saint Christopher" (1967) as himself
The Jazz Singer, starring role as Jess Robin
Saving Silverman appearing as himself
Notes
References
External links
Neil Diamond's Band's Official Site
1941 births
Living people
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American singers
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American singers
Abraham Lincoln High School (Brooklyn) alumni
American acoustic guitarists
American baritones
American folk guitarists
American male guitarists
American male pianists
American male singer-songwriters
American pop guitarists
American pop rock singers
American rock guitarists
American rock songwriters
American soft rock musicians
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Jewish American musicians
Jewish American songwriters
Jewish singers
Jewish folk singers
Jewish rock musicians
Erasmus Hall High School alumni
Capitol Records artists
Columbia Records artists
MCA Records artists
NYU Violets fencers
Uni Records artists
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Kennedy Center honorees
Rhythm guitarists
Musicians from Brooklyn
Guitarists from New York City
Singers from New York City
People with Parkinson's disease
Singer-songwriters from New York (state) | false | [
"David Valdez (born June 1, 1949) is an American photographer, best known for being the Chief Official White House Photographer from 1989 to 1993, during the presidency of George H. W. Bush.\n\nEarly life\nValdez was born on June 1, 1949, to Israel Valdez Sr. (formerly of the Army Air Corps), and Alicia Saldaña Valdez in Alice, Texas. His family had emigrated from Mexico when the King Ranch started transporting cattle north of the border.\n\nFollowing his graduation from high school in 1967, Valdez was drafted into the Air Force, where he was told he was going be a field photographer. He was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. He worked for the base newspaper and often photographed generals during the Vietnam War at Strike Command headquarters. He was also put in charge of other servicemen, which he put on his resume as 'supervisor', hoping that it would help him in the long run.\n\nValdez left the service in 1971, and went on to attend the University of Maryland, where he majored in journalism and radio and television production.\n\nCareer\n\nAfter his graduation from the University of Maryland, he worked as a photographer for the United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as chief photographer for Nation’s Business, the in-house magazine at the United States Chamber of Commerce. However, soon after taking the job at Nation’s Business, Valdez saw an opening in the Vice President's office. He sent a cold letter to Vice President Bush's press secretary, and was then interviewed by Daniel J. Murphy, Bush's chief of staff, before being interviewed by Bush himself. Bush told Valdez about the relationship between Vice President and photographer, and the trust between them. When Valdez inquired about a salary, Bush did not know, and so called out Murphy who was working in a nearby room. Murphy replied, \"What's he asking you about a salary!\" Ultimately, Valdez was hired as Bush's photographer.\n\nValdez's most famous photograph of Bush came in the summer of 1987. He had been requested by Life to shoot a candid picture of the Vice President on vacation. Initially, Bush was against the idea, but relented when he realised Valdez's involvement. By now, Valdez was exceptionally close with the Bush family, and was invited by Barbara Bush to Walker's Point in Kennebunkport, Maine. The photograph, taken at 6 a.m., shows the Bushes in bed, with six of their grandchildren, alongside Marvin Bush's wife Margaret. It was an instant hit, as Life put the image across its pages and later reprinted it in special editions of the magazine. It is also by far, Valdez's most republished image of his career, and in an interview with NBC News, he felt the way it resonated with the general public was that it was in line with what Bush always said were the most important things in life – family, faith and friends.\n\nIn 1989, after Bush's inauguration as President, Valdez was appointed as the President's photographer and director of the White House Photo Office. Valdez later commented that under the Reagan administration, the White House Photo Office released two or three photo releases per day, compared to the G. H. W. Bush administration, which did away with the controlling nature of the previous regime, allowing photographers from news organizations to record their own photos of White House events alongside the White House Photo Office staff. Valdez reportedly took 65,000 rolls of film of the President during his time at the White House.\n\nFrom 1993 to 2001, Valdez headed the photography department for Disney in Florida, ushering in the transition from film to digital. He also published a picture book, George Herbert Walker Bush: A Photographic Profile, which was released in 1997. In 2002, he was made Vice President of Business Development at Blue Pixel Digital Experts. He later returned to Washington in two roles: the first, as the Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, during the presidency of George W. Bush, and the second, to work for HUD again.\n\nValdez officially retired in 2010, but freelances for the LBJ Presidential Library and the National Park Service at the LBJ Ranch, in addition to his active speaking and consulting career. In 2014, Valdez was called upon by the Bush family to photograph George P. Bush in his successful campaign for Texas Land Commissioner. Having photographed three generations of the Bush family, Valdez told the Georgetown View that this was \"kind of neat\".\n\nValdez's work is archived at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, and at the U.S. National Archives at College Park, Maryland, with his personal collection kept at the Briscoe Center in Austin, Texas.\n\nGeorge Herbert Walker Bush: A Photographic Profile\nGeorge Herbert Walker Bush: A Photographic Profile is a 1997 book of photographs published by the Texas A&M University Press. Andrew Delbanco of The New York Times described it as \"a feel-good album ranging from boyhood photos to snapshots of the grandkids.\"\n\nThe Public News of Houston praised Valdez's \"fine eye for composition and the historical moment\" and also \"beauty and humor\", but it criticized the lack of captions of the photographs, stating that this means no information or context is provided about them, and therefore criticizing the editing.\n\nPersonal life\nValdez is married to Sarah Jane; the couple have no children. They reside in Georgetown, Texas.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Official website\n Flickr page\n\n1949 births\nLiving people\nUnited States Air Force airmen\nPhotographers from Texas\nPeople from Alice, Texas\nAmerican people of Mexican descent\nWhite House photographers\nPeople from Georgetown, Texas",
"The One America Appeal is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded on 7 September 2017, by all five then living former U.S. Presidents: Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. This joint appeal originally aimed to encourage support for recovery efforts for Hurricane Harvey, but was then extended to include areas most affected by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The appeal was launched when the five former Presidents aired a joint PSA on the NFL's regular season opening broadcast.\n\nAll funds collected through this fund will go into a special account established through the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation and then all proceeds will be distributed to assist hurricane victims.\n\nAccording to an update issued on 21 October 2017, the effort has raised $31 million in funds from more than 80,000 donors. The appeal concluded fundraising on 31 December 2017 and raised $41.3 million in total from around 110,500 donors.\n\nBenefit concert\nA benefit concert, \"Deep from the Heart: The One America Appeal\", was held on 21 October 2017 at the Reed Arena at Texas A&M University in College Station and headlined by all five living former U.S. Presidents (Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter). Ticket sales and other proceeds went to the special hurricane recovery effort. The concert was hosted by Lee Greenwood, with Martin Guigui as Music Director, and featured the country music band Alabama, Sam Moore, Yolanda Adams, Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen. Lady Gaga made a surprise appearance, performing \"Million Reasons\", \"You and I\" and \"The Edge of Glory\" at the concert. The Texas A&M University Singing Cadets also made an appearance to sing \"The Star-Spangled Banner\", \"God Bless the USA\" (alongside Greenwood), and \"Lean on Me\" at the end of the concert. A pre-taped video message from sitting US President Donald Trump was shown during the concert, in which he described the effort as \"tremendous\".\n\nDonations\nDonations to the fund will be distributed to these organisations:\n Houston Harvey Relief Fund\n Rebuild Texas Fund\n Florida Disaster Fund\n Juntos y unidos por Puerto Rico\n The Fund for the Virgin Islands\n\nFounders\nFive living former U.S. Presidents were co-founders of the One America Appeal in 2017. (George H.W. Bush died on 30 November 2018.)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n YouTube channel\n\nJimmy Carter\nGeorge H. W. Bush\nBill Clinton\nGeorge W. Bush\nBarack Obama\nHurricane Harvey\nHurricane Irma\nCharities based in Texas\nNon-profit organizations based in Texas\nOrganizations established in 2017\n2017 establishments in Texas\nBenefit concerts in the United States"
]
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